Since his crash landing on Calliope 4, which the native called Aurerallear, Thomas Alistair had seen many amazing thing. The flora upon the planet was wild and mobile, roaming the wide plains in slow movements like a stop-motion movie filmed day by day. In the sky were light shows unlike…
As a lesser noble of the House Elganar, Allen could absent himself from the pageantry of the Annual Ball with little notice. He had danced with a few pretty young women, but their polite smiles and flickering eyes proved his low position. He wasn’t worth the attention. He stood in…
His wife found him staring at the computer. “Um, Mark? What are you doing?” He looked up, startled. “I’m waiting for him.” “Yeah, I don’t think so. He doesn’t use Facebook.” She clicked his other tabs. “Or Twitter. Or Pinterest. Or email. Or idle games. Oh, and definitely not Google…
The mayor of Utopia City was a well-built handsome man, the sort of man you’d see in a Men’s Warehouse advertisement, with perfect hair, perfect teeth, and a perfectly tailored sense of style. Like most politicians, the mayor wasn’t as popular as he thought he was, but his approval ratings…
Delia woke to the gentle clicking of a clock somewhere in the distance. She lay there, eyes closed, for a long time, the steady tick-tick-tick leading her consciousness slowly out of the depths, giving her a sense of space and calm. Delia was only eight, and she was not brave….
You feel it too, don’t you, that uneasiness when you wake in the middle of the night, that exhaustion when you open your eyes in the morning and think, “Not again”? You keep moving, keep checking your phone, keep on keeping on, because if you pause, if you hesitate, if…
Paul pulled up to the window and opened his wallet. The cashier leaned out. “Sir, the car in front of you paid for you.” He gripped the cash in his hand. “We had $30 worth of food.” The cashier smiled. “They said, pay it forward. Here are your drinks.” Paul…
Her father sat enveloped in the La-Z-Boy recliner, staring sadly at the blank TV. Sometimes Sarah could forget how old he was, but it struck her all at once now. She saw him clearly for a moment–sunken cheeks, wisping hair, worn, perpetually smudge clothes, an old man who could hardly…
I knew it was her because she had just Instagrammed me a selfie of herself at the table next to mine. I stood and took my seat across from her. Her mask was anime-inspired, with large eyes and a cute expression. Her clothes were tight-fitting and revealing. My mask was…
I am Avani. I was born of the sun’s flame and a child’s innocence, of the dew upon the flower and the first fall of snow. My hand has guided the rivers and the seas, tilled the soil and smelted ores. I am the mother of a noble race, the…
The woman knew her husband was in a mood by the way he avoided her. It hadn’t been like that in the beginning. He had never prowled around in that sullen silence either. No, he had been effusively talkative, grabbing her hand and showing her a snail upon the melon…
Linda pressed the door carefully closed, listening for and hearing the soft metallic click of the latch sliding into its place. The sound was a comforting one, far more satisfying than the dull pneumatic sigh of a glass door swinging back into place or the slight bang of a sliding…