The Traveler’s name was Renapath, it was Wastool… once Schloopy. He had answered to all these names. Quick jumps among a legion of hosts clouded the memory, and few Travelers could recall clearly their origins, hampered as they were by… Continue Reading
I loved Christmas lights till I knew better. Loved to look out my kitchen window, down the hill, and see the lights twinkling, sparkling, lines going off and on, leading the eye in complicated cuneiform, punctuated with glowing candles and… Continue Reading
Early Christmas morning aboard the Masters’ starship, and once again there was no Santa Claus. I stared at the stars streaming past on the display window. There was a quiet knock on our apartment’s door, a little rap-a-tap-tap given with… Continue Reading
I’m twisting together the brass wires separating the intermaxillary and the upper mandible on the skull of the northern saw-whet owl I’m disarticulating when Arly bangs into the cabin, the door practically careening off its hinges. I jump at the… Continue Reading
Dr. Alfred Dudley tapped the translator on his lapel again. “You, dreadful dirge day, tomorrow,” it said for the second time with a crackle of static. Well, he’d configured it to run an adaptive linguistics algorithm. Maybe that wasn’t even… Continue Reading
It was the spring of my sophomore year that the craft was discovered, half buried at the bottom of an ocean trench. Out of black waters they dragged it up, and brought it to the harbor, shining in the sun… Continue Reading
We sit at the picnic tables behind the Dairy Queen eating soft vanilla ice cream. Charlie’s cone has rainbow sprinkles. Mine has chocolate. Only mine isn’t in a cone. It’s in a cup. Cones come with an inevitable stickiness that… Continue Reading
I take the body out of the freezer – the middle part, stalk-like and twisted, is very brittle, so careful, there, Mike – and put the amazing body on the steel autopsy desk. The protective suit is heavy and ultra-uncomfortable.… Continue Reading
I am Pirli. You are Oona. Do not let the rippling of my parasol disturb you. It is large, but I am very old. I’ve been to many worlds and classified many beings, but few comprehend Pirli. Oona, I do… Continue Reading
The phone meowed twice. It had never made that noise before. Why would anyone call at three a.m.? Eric picked it up, but there was nobody there. Mr. Ruffles stopped licking his fur and stood on his two hind paws.… Continue Reading