I meet my little sister at the gazebo in the garden habitat after school. It isn’t babysitting if I like hanging out with her. “You’re Queen Guinevere. I’m Maid Marion.” Jazmin giggles, oblivious she’s mixed two archaic legends together. She hands me a crown braided out of Dad’s prized Black-eyed Susans. They’re extinct in the…
Despite dragging my generously-called-a-prosthetic pogo stick of a leg through this dungeon, I’m practically dancing like it’s the aisle on The Price is Right. I might not be the only one to make it through, but I’m the first. I just need to get past security, on the stage, and claim my prize. “Welcome, Prudence,…
Samson had a way with metal, just like his father before him. For two generations, Samson’s family auto shop had kept cars purring. Like every other small town repair shop, the place hit the nose with a wave of sweat and oil. Tools hung on the wall in all the proper places, collecting coats of…
In my first death I died alone, pierced through the belly with a velociraptor talon. I bled out before I felt much of anything, floating into a black void. It was quiet and and peaceful and still, and then I pecked my way out of an egg, slimy and cold. By my third death, stomach…
You are big and I am small and it’s time for my first dose. It’s a time before memory, on the babbling cusp of speech, or before, even, and I can only guess later at whether it went down bitter or syrup sweet. Did I struggle? Did I cry? Did I scream at the scorching…
In this universe, time runs in reverse. Though, I suppose that’s all relative. From my point of view, time is moving backwards, at least for the moment. And not a moment too soon. The spots fade from my vision, but my EMU’s oxygen depletion alarm is still going off. We’re not quite there yet. I’m…
By the time dusk drapes over the banyan boughs, she can see her own heart. It peers from between the fabric of her chest that has unraveled over the day, a scarlet blossom caught behind criss-crossed threads, and flutters against the thrice re-embroidered fingers she presses against it. Though she has lost the flesh and…
The Shadow-Sticks The troubles of the world ooze into their sleep. Their dreams of comfort darken with despair, draining them raw, leaving them brittle. It is time to rejuvenate, so the world can hope again. At the blackest of night they rise, stick-like figures with pen-scratched heads stutter-step down from their homes in the mountains….
The moment I return from the future, all I want is to talk to you, but so much gets in the way. First the debrief, with endless hours about what I saw, the analysis of the recordings, and the tedious review of my field notes. When the success of my mission leaks, it gets worse….
When a dream dies, it burns into ashes that then scatter through the atmosphere. Particles might settle alongside river shores, brush across waving treetops, alight on a deer’s fur. Maybe some will land in a human’s eye, drawing a tear that becomes a salty elegy for a future that will never be. Then even those…
