Jeff’s Bucket List “Hi Mom! There you are. Jeff! I got Mom on Facetime. We’re at that monkey hot spring in Japan, Mom. The one on Jeff’s bucket list. Okay, there he goes. You see him? The monkeys look nervous. Okay, a few are coming over. They’re climbing on him. Oops, they’re holding him under…
Tag: Friday Fictioneers
Freedom of Movement
Freedom of Movement Jax stared at the ancient watercolor. “The cars had wheels? Why?” “They stayed on the ground.” “But what if there were trees? Or water?” “Well, you couldn’t drive on that part, just on the road.” “That’s so narrow! They must have felt suffocated.” “No, it was normal then. You don’t miss what…
Doommates
Doommates I came home to see my bike bent out of shape. And blood covering the front porch. Not again. Jorgan the Doomhammer was on the couch, watching an infomercial. It was the same old story: you meet a barbarian in another dimension, he saves your life, follows you home. “You broke my bike.” I…
The Shell Forger
The Shell Forger I didn’t plan to be a seashell forger. I saw one once: rounded mottled back, with a narrow ridged opening underneath. Easy enough to carve from a piece of antler. My neighbors snickered as I kept carving my shells. My village was far from the sea, that mythical place where all rivers…
Dark Sustenance
Dark Sustenance He ate the Pop-Tarts first. They were easy to identify by the feel of the foil wrapped squares. After some time (a day? a week?) they were gone and he was hungry again. He tried eating uncooked rice, but it hurt his stomach, and he lay in agonized blackness and strained to hear…
Authentic
Authentic “So, no cruise then?” “Ugh, they’re just so artificial. Now, this medieval experience. That’s authentic.” “Like, how authentic?” “Oh, the whole deal. Straw mattresses, pigs and chickens staying in the same room, even real fleas and lice!” “Real? Not robots?” “Nope. They breed them specially. Plus, there are daily excursions out to the fields…
The Horror of Knowing
The Horror of Knowing We found the object sticking out of the beach after the hurricane, exposed by the storm. It looked like obsidian. * * * “We did tests. It’s bone.” “Bone? But it’s black. And 6 feet tall.” “At least.” “So it’s from a whale?” “No. Based on the DNA, it’s human-ish.” “Ish?”…
Ad Astra…bucks
Ad Astra…bucks Sara hadn’t had a customer in two months, which was a-okay. Her cafe on the Harmonie asteroid was the only one within a million miles, so she could afford to charge $1000 for a coffee and pastry if anyone came. If not, she had time to read. * * * Sara watched the…
The Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion I had just moved in. My books were finally unpacked. The next morning, they were back in boxes. Ghosts, I assumed. That night, I sat in darkness to see what would happen. The window creaked, then opened. I flipped the lights. A boy stood there, frozen. “Hey,” I said. Nothing. “Did you…?”…
Eldritch Cutie
Eldritch Cutie Why did people automatically associate a writhing mass of tentacles with the word “horror”? Jesse thought. It was cute. She pushed a scrap of sausage towards a questing pseudopod. It disappeared with a slurp. She wasn’t sure if it would grow legs, but she wanted to bring it to school. She’d been having…
The Green-Walled Treehouse 