Month: February 2022
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Four Thousand Kilometers Above Jupiter
I named the spider Billy. I was supposed to kill him—sacrifice is the term in the experimental protocol—after the experiment was complete, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t even finish the experiment. Why bother? Whatever electromagnetic event wiped out comms with the transport ship took out my exterior cams too, so I’ve been flying blind […]
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Teddy the Tortoise
Teddy the tortoise had been roaming the ward longer than anybody else. Not even Audrey the elderly orderly knew who named him—or why he wandered the garden paths at night. Ann never admitted, not even years later, that she was behind it, but someone—let’s just say it was Ann—started sticking candles on Teddy’s back on […]
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The Underside of the Fern
It wasn’t seeing the fern that had Liz worried. She knew the fern well. She knew every plant, every fallen log, every crossing of the creek that wound through the birch forest near the old farmhouse she shared with her grandmother. Had been watching it grow for years. But she wondered why she was looking […]
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Special Delivery
The mailboxes were Cliff’s brainwave. He called ‘em antioxidants because he read in some newsletter that clutter was a cancer that killed co-living spaces deader than doornails, so after downing his morning kombucha he zipped down to the free store and scooped up four used ones. Used mailboxes purchased for zero dollars are liable to […]