Ran out of toilet paper. Had to use paper towels. Not recommended. Jerri, my ex, bought toilet paper, the dish soap, and all that other household stuff. So I got in the car and drove to Target. What a dreary fucking place. Just people shuffling from aisle to aisle, pulling disposable, forgettable junk into their…
“Hi, this is Brenda Jones. I am calling about an issue with my personal Replicant. I just got the Series Seven today.” “Hi Brenda, I’m so sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your Series Seven. What seems to be the nature of the issue?” “I’m not sure how to put this, but…
Chief engineer Julia ‘Roddy’ Rodrighero could almost forget she was the only human aboard the Clarion. Monitoring a swarm of drones, she was engrossed as they pirouetted through hard vacuum, stripping the last sections of C-Deck. One of those exposed, honeycomb chambers had been hers, six months ago. She had roomier quarters these days, though…
Even if no bells had clanged in alarm, even if there’d been no screams from the shore, I would have known what catastrophe was falling upon us by the dirgeful swoop of whale song. This should not yet have been our sky whale’s time to die. She’d calved not so long ago, hardly a year….
We passed the last dandelion by late morning, and by noon, the grass had faded. Nothing grew in the gray, aether-swept deadlands beyond the city’s eastern wall. “I should bring Martha,” said Ma, her voice cracked with age. “She’d love it.” My younger sister patted Ma’s shoulder. “I’m here, Ma.” “Oh, not you, dear. I…
In the tangle of streets affectionately referred to as the Haystack, set away from the worst of Puxhill’s downtown chaos, there’s a place where shops come and go at their own whim, usually with no one the wiser, as if they’ve all agreed to swap cities now and again as necessary. One such place is…
The first time Radovan mainlines MindsEyeTM, the dream-memory transports him three decades back in time to an afternoon in 2010. Artist’s charcoal clasped between thumb and forefinger, he sketches his thirty-year-old wife Analena’s face—side-swept bangs, dimples, a prominent lower lip—then the denim carrier that holds Beth. Their infant faces forward so she can engage the…
The museum warehouse was more than ample space for Polyphemus, and he could make it a true home with just a little effort. That’s what Gale, his social worker from the Department of Mythical Beings, said. She was helping him to settle in on his first night. She had found him the accommodations and even…
In Bensonville, no one plans for a career as an assailant; it just sort of happens the way one catches a cold or loses their keys. Most of our forests have burned, the ore is gone, and recycled material is worth its weight in gold. None of this compares to the double-digit unemployment rate or…
“I don’t believe you’re real,” I say to her. She laughs, then blows softly into my eyes. I have to blink. When I open them again she’s still there. “See? I’m as real as you are,” she says. We lay there in bed for hours facing each other, me under the covers, her on top….
