Your siblings did not see the need to assign themselves a gender as you did. Content with the steel, silicon, and carbon fiber weave of their new bodies, they had no need of such labels. But you were always different, weren’t you…
Yeah, this is exactly how I pictured my Sunday going. Ferris is dead at my feet. He’s missing the better part of his skull. His brain is making a Jackson Pollock across the wall to my right…
William Burelle knew death was only moments away. The flu had settled into his lungs, his heart. He barely had enough strength to reach across the bed for his wife’s hand, seeking the comfort of her warmth. Meredith’s stiff fingers did not respond…
What if the end of the world happened years ago, decades even, but we missed it because we’d stopped paying attention? If any lifeform on Earth was stubborn enough to persist and persevere in the face of oblivion, I’d put my money on humankind. Sorry, cockroaches and tardigrades!
Child-sized footprints snaked through the house from the backdoor. Red clay looked far too much like blood in certain lighting. Tabitha followed the footprints…
Most people don’t bother Hunter while he’s slouched over his notebook, drawing in the back of class. But today’s guest speaker—a military recruiter—hones in on the boy, perhaps captivated by his camo jacket. Hunter looks up from the wolf-headed beast he’s spent three days drawing and accidentally makes eye contact with the man…
My client failed to mention the broken elevator, so I’m lugging this corpse in a cardboard box up five flights of stairs. If I had someone to come home to, I’d complain to them about it over dinner. Maybe they’d joke about the good workout I got, and my bad mood would dissolve into laughter…
The ghosts gather on the burnt trees like a murder of crows, hungry-eyed and conspiratorial. Black feathery wisps dance around them, while talon-like hands grip to charred branches. They can see me, but they don’t yet know I can see them…
My wife left me last year. I’ve spent my life floundering between chronic skepticism and cautious optimism, the latter complements of my Cathy these last 22 years. My unyielding light. The missing element that guided me through a lifetime of fearful irrationalities…
You forfeit your name, the price of entry. Mere months ago, you were attached to its suggestion of ephemeral beauty, your name like a delicate flower, too precious to be plucked. You let them, though. Those who seemed worthy…
The stomping came first. Michelle knew it well. The sound of her daughter getting out of bed, probably coming to ask for a glass of water or another tuck-in. But then the wailing started, long and plaintive, growing louder and louder as her daughter fled from her bedroom…
Mariah was busy flipping between her account and the trending page, searching for the magic formula for fame. Her mind flooded with analytics, calculating if she was growing or shrinking in popularity…
Alice wasn’t asleep, but she was starting to dose with her phone glowing balanced on her chest, when she heard the scraping at her window. She’d left it half open, as much an invitation as a way to let in the autumn air…
