Would you believe me if I told you that they all live together in a house by the sea? It would only be fair, if they did. They can’t live in the City, of course. Can you imagine? You’d be walking somewhere, maybe proceeding past the parks and public buildings, perhaps accompanied by a clamor […]
Under cover of night, our village moves across the steppe. Aliya leads the way. Her whistle is high and in harmony with the wind, so an untrained ear would ignore the sound. But we, the hushed and listening herd, heed the falconer’s call for what it is. Aliya trained golden eagles long before the invaders […]
The talk. The sex. Somebody to trust… Before the Grigsby Process my life was like a series of ads being skipped. I blacked out a lot. Had lots of seizures. So many that sometimes my learning software obsolesced before I could complete a semester. At home I avoided clothes—they’d just get peed in or tangle […]
I got sick. This will not happen to you. They have an antifungal now. They know how to kill all the little spores when they start to creep into your tissues, your lungs, your eyeballs, your liver. I didn’t know quite what was happening to me. This will not happen to you. All the signs […]
Mika only visited Aino Korhonen ahead of time because he was in an upward swing. He had awoken with a longing to see people, talk to them, to be surrounded by life. All the interesting markets and people were up the spokes, so that’s where he went. Aino’s workshop lay in an artisan quarter on […]
Even in her dreams, Izze always felt pulled in too many directions. “That’s part of your problem,” Severin said when she called him while drinking the morning’s first cup of coffee. “You sleep wrong.” His voice sounded far away, pinned beneath a screen. “That’s not the problem. All the tests have said it’s electromagnetic, or […]
Everything is broken. The screen that takes up one entire wall of the play area is broken, cracked from corner to corner. There’s nothing usable in the games and toys cupboard, which is piled high with neatly stacked boxes full of mismatched parts and flat batteries. The few handhelds that work at all are agonizingly […]
Bella arrived late at the party, carrying a doll in a box in pink wrapping paper. She’d owned the doll when she was young, and she’d hoped Natalie would like that. Now, she wished she’d bought something. Her sister’s husband answered the door while holding a bunch of balloons. He looked surprised. Sorry I’m late, […]
2336.10.19 Dear Mom, Dad, and the rest of the family, By the time you get this missive, the deed will be done. I think it is best this way—an old-fashioned letter and a fait accompli (that’s “an accomplished fact” for you, Raymond 🙂 ). I know it may come as a shock to some of […]
Castle Jordan stands in a place that makes sense according to the logic of castles. It has a good view of a remote area, the better to spot siege-minded armies on the march. But castles do not fit the logic of the moon. Exposure and isolation aren’t very useful survival traits here. A new line […]