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Barbareek’s head perches on the hilltop, watching the battle for the throne of Hastinapur unfold before him. His hands—several miles away—itch to pick up his bow and join the fray. Elephants trumpet, horses snort, swords clash against shields, and arrows whiz through the air. The biggest battle of all their lives, and he—the strongest warrior […]
LEAD WHITE I will always remember the view of Paris from his window. Snow, pure and untouched, softens the outline of the buildings and covers the grime of the streets. White, the color of beginnings. His canvas is primed and ready to be painted, and stark winter sunlight glows bright on his undead skin. The […]
We found ourselves once again at the Organ Zoo. While we gazed at the giant livers of extraterrestrial water worms, Arc asked me to tell him about the nineteen nineties. There was nothing I could describe that I hadn’t described before. I had already told him a thousand times about my highlights, my gelled ponytail […]
Content Note: Child Death and Violence Against Women There’s a woman outside of a town called Sheridan, where the sky comes so near to earth it has to use the crosswalk just like everybody else. There’s a woman outside of Sheridan, sitting in the sun-yellow booth in the far back corner of the Blue […]
Shan Tiree is trying to listen to music as the car finds its way through Nuevas Colinas. Unfortunately, someone, and that someone is Shan, has left the car’s settings at levels appropriate for the Sunset Cooperative. The car, therefore, keeps reporting possible pedestrians, and then a moment later correcting those pings to indicate that what […]
I was 19 when I met Tommy. A day and a bit into a two-day Greyhound trip from bumfuck, Nevada to Saint Paul, Minnesota. Going to meet some trick from the internet. Thought it was true love. Funky and itching for a smoke when we pulled into a truck stop in a one-road Nebraska town […]
Karin Ljusmåne had a dollhouse, but it was an afterthought, not the nursery centerpiece of my previous charges. What she really had was a doll forest. The acres of tiny wooden trees dominated her nursery, filling the space where ordinary children rode rocking horses and played blind-man’s-buff. It was remarkably like the forest where I […]
All the students at Queen Mary Catholic High School knew about Principal Vargas’ death before the first bell. To Rayven James, it was welcome news. The entire student body swarmed through the hallways like a many-headed ocean, with straight brown, blond and black hair coloring the seas. An occasional pop of red floated past like […]
Content note: child endangerment and death 1. When the children are ready, they go in the simulator. There are only ten children left by now, so there’s plenty of scheduling time to go around. They all jump the low bar of the necessary diagnostics: medical, psychological, emotional, physical. If they break in there, the […]
Do you remember the war? No, of course not. You were too small, a solemn-eyed toddler in Má’s arms. You were born in the year of the rat, a lucky, ambitious year. I was two years older, year of the dog, loyal to the end. You were little souris, little Em, and I was your […]
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