When Orla was nine, her teacher took her class to the Museum of Environmental History to see a real tree. It was an elm. The museum's atrium was built around it, with the roots and soil just inches below visitors' feet under double paned glass. When Orla saw the tree she was overcome by an… Continue reading Orla and the Elm
Category: Creative Writing
Rookie Move
It wasn't the blood that disturbed him. It was the footprints. Red imprints of the bottoms of shoes circling around and on top of each other. Red circles, and red wavy lines, and red swooshes. Blood was natural, organic, the stuff of life, but the footprints along the surgical room floor were the most unnatural… Continue reading Rookie Move
The Lifters
I'll keep this brief. In cosmic terms, our species was here but for a short time, and as individuals our time was shorter still; too short to measure from such a perspective. This is the way it was meant to be. As the last of us, I can say that with certainty. The Lifters, as… Continue reading The Lifters
Happy Surrender Day
They weren't much to look at—like big slugs with a dozen spindly legs—and they usually elicited a gag reflex if they were looked at at all. But the Krell had chemistry on their side. They, too, came from an ocean world, but theirs was of a thicker, more gel-like quality; this, due to its concentrations… Continue reading Happy Surrender Day
Too Little Willpower
I stood gawking like a tourist at the inverted skyscrapers that hung down from the sky of stone and ice and iron. But I wasn't a tourist. This was my home now. The hollowed out asteroid was thick with the stench of people who all showered in the same few gallons of precious recycled water.… Continue reading Too Little Willpower
Allegiance to the Bedlam
Baroness Vilaya emerged from the night like a horrible memory, her cape rising like the cursed wings of a moth in the electric rain. A butterfly mad with bloodlust. Front lit by the Fire Moon as she was, she looked aflame, as if she'd wrapped herself in a cloak of embers. I was drawn to… Continue reading Allegiance to the Bedlam
Darkly Comes the Terminus
He was still out there—the Waiting Man—with his heavy stare; as heavy as a burden; as heavy as the hole where his soul should be, and all the quiet pretty things he's tried to fill it with. He's waiting, as he does so well. Waiting for me. But I won't open the door. Between the… Continue reading Darkly Comes the Terminus
Under Red Sand
For a while, all they could do was stare at it from the crest of the dune. Jutting up from the rust-colored sand was a fully jointed hand—like a human's—made of metallic plating and electrical cables. It was the size of a three-story house. It was Elliot who finally broke the silence with a long… Continue reading Under Red Sand
The Last Laugh
He saw stars. He was pleasantly surprised. Seeing stars; it's not an uncommon metaphor, but he only now understood how accurate it was. Points of light, pink and blue and gold, and all very far away. They swirled around like glitter being stirred into a cauldron of ink. He'd never been punched before. He felt… Continue reading The Last Laugh
Moon Trucker
Halter Sprock had no sense of adventure. It had been ground down to a fine powder, just like everything else around here. He made up country western lyrics and sang away the hours as he drove the trawler, a Sanya series, model P2. He was leaving Listening Outpost Chiral. He would have known it even… Continue reading Moon Trucker
Warmup Pages 