The three-headed snake hissed, the dog-sized frog croaked, and the four-eyed owl hooted. Anne smiled as she entered the pens with the bag of feed slung over her shoulder. It must have weighed nearly as much as she did, yet… Continue Reading
Ever try to shake a bad habit? “Son of a gun,” I said to Donovan the other day, for maybe the millionth time. “No wonder you can’t keep a partner.” He laughed, as he always does, and I laughed too.… Continue Reading
“We’re never going home,” Al said. Juan looked up from the hologram of his wife’s rosebushes. Al was floating in front of a full wall projection of Earth. “We’ve made it this far,” Juan said, jerking his thumb at the… Continue Reading
Nosebleed again. I dab it with a tissue, but this time, the blood looks more black than red. Perhaps it’s just the flickering streetlight playing tricks with my eyes as it wages war between light and dark. “Did you enjoy… Continue Reading
Behold the rose, glowing scarlet in the daylight of a shattered sky. It sits, perched delicately on the edge of a crumbled pit, in defiance of weather and acrid air. Nothing moves the rose but wind, nearly all other life… Continue Reading
Roaring on a mighty flame stack, the rocket ship Conquest descended through the atmosphere to the surface of planet Alpha-1. Bulbous-bodied, tri-finned, and gleaming, the interstellar colony ship was breath-taking — which was part of the Big Idea. Camera drones… Continue Reading
The fuel truck technician gave me hell for cutting him short and demanded that I report the change in my lift-off weight, “or else!” I wasn’t gonna report a damned thing. I had hauling to do, money to make and,… Continue Reading
The cab jockey gives me a look from the screen. “Sorry, pal” he says, but he doesn’t look sorry. Halfway between sod-all interest and vindictive amusement, more like. “Cab’s detected puke,” he goes on, while I gurn pained injustice. It… Continue Reading
The old captain turned the urn in weathered hands. Two witnesses stood by. I was one of them; a friend of the captain, a fellow fisherman in the past, though I did not know the deceased well. He twisted the… Continue Reading
Gil hit the reset button and crossed his fingers. The bumblebee gyrated to the near-frantic music, arcing graceful curves and patterns inside the glass enclosure. Abruptly, the bee braked to a hover, and plummeted to the enclosure floor. After a… Continue Reading