The B.U.G. (Big Unfriendly Giant)

The B.U.G. (Big Unfriendly Giant) Bus ticket to Mount Crius Park: $15.60 Snacks for six-hour hike where I found the BUG: $6.35. Search and rescue efforts after he took me to his cave: $38,500. Collect call to my parents at rest stop after escaping: $2.36. Cost of his following me home:           Rest stop shelter:…

To Serve Man (and Woman)

To Serve Man (and Woman) The book was called To Serve Man. It was a cookbook. We told our Yrganian hosts that humans was preferable, but even aliens like obscure cultural references. The Yrganians were hospitable, but since most of their food would kill us instantly, they meticulously compiled a list of non-lethal foods and…

Shell Game

Shell Game The stall was just a door-on-sawhorses table spread with a selection of fantastical shells you could never find in a marine biology textbook. Most ships avoided the rift that had recently opened offshore, but this girl and her brother were clearly more enterprising. “How much?” I pointed at a coconut-sized blood-red shell. “10?”…

Reunion of the Titans

Reunion of the Titans They arrived together, monstrous ships blotting out the sun as they landed. Trash dervished in the still air. Security forces poured out, forming concentric perimeters around the Meeting Location, scanning for threats in three dimensions. The two Titans descended, walking towards each other like a Wild West re-enactment. Either of their…

The Greens Shall Inherit the Earth

I swear that I didn’t intend to write on a similar theme as my last post: The Birth of Dandelions, written by Kazakhstani writer Anel Fuller. But when you sit down to write and a story pops out, that’s what you get. The Greens Shall Inherit the Earth We were assigned four plots, so we…

Letter Hats

Letter Hats Culture is unusual. People in other countries might look the same, but they do things you wouldn’t expect. Like a stop sign I saw with ARRET on it, but with a little hat on the “e”. I asked Camden, the neighborhood Google. “History,” he said. “They started dropping the “s” from words and…

Phere

Phere Phere. It was the intersection of fashion and horror. Fifth Avenue meets Fear Factor. I gingerly put on my lacquered wasp earrings. The millipede bracelet came next. Then my masterpiece, a necklace made of a live de-legged scorpion I put on with bomb-disposal meticulousness. I had more than the normal blind-date nervousness. What if…