28 works
This is a place of wondrous illusion, a vacuum unconscious of its own non-being. That is ridiculous. This existential dread thing is overdone, but there it is. A cliché that writes millions of benzodiazepine prescriptions every year. Bad benzos, but...
Read More →Dear reader,
Before I begin this story, I should mention that the events described here took place roughly a year ago—in 2094, accord
The decades leading up to these events witnessed an extraordinary surge in information technology. Humanity had explored
I am the tongue that falls from the open mouth. I am the devil at the dinner table. Peel back her skin and you will find me. – I didn’t think I’d end up here. Thirty-two. Overworked. Unmarried. A constant...
Read More →Felix Horace remembered the first time he received the offer letter. The Agency had insisted every recruit memorize five categories of anomalous phenomena: supernatural, biological, philosophical, theological, and phantasmagoric entities. But as long as it paid, he hadn’t cared. His...
Read More →The locals used to say that when you float down the north river, the sea spirits would judge your soul. That if you were a good lad, built a solid foundation, a life of marble and jewels, you’d get to...
Read More →She sat at the corner table in a bar called The Last Honest Place, which was neither honest nor last. It was the kind of establishment where the lighting forgave everything and the drinks were priced for people who needed...
Read More →It started as a Wednesday like any other, hanging like a new moon between weekends. I stood patiently at the bus stop waiting for the number forty-three. The shelter was made of sandstone with a wooden roof so that the...
Read More →May. Carnations on table. Mother brings soup. Looks. Fingers trace bowl rim twice. Dusk. Boy sleep. Night. Foot hurts. No wound. Grips sheet. Teeth shut. Morning. Hurts. Still. Walks to door. Step. Stops. Steps again. PE. Teacher says run. Runs....
Read More →16.03 22.08 ‘He’s just a harmless hobbyist…’ Amber turned away from her screen, a grainy security-cam image of an elderly man in a red anorak carrying a dented computer tower down a muddy garden path; and paused him in mid-stride...
Read More →First published in Nocturne Magazine, 2022 Mrs. Moon looked forward to watching church service on TV every Sunday morning. Not only because she was a faithful follower, but because the priest reminded her of her late husband. That, and the...
Read More →A slight haze blurred the skyline, and the expanse of lights faintly reflected in the wall-sized ceiling and bay windows that wrapped midtown Manhattan around the rooftop club. The buildings were dotted with lights like the chessboard’s light and dark...
Read More →“You’re here because you’re dead.” The clerk at the hotel desk, dressed in a red uniform with white-trimmed lapels, spoke in an abrasive, upper Midwest dialect, and said this like he was explaining something painfully obvious. He looked familiar, not...
Read More →The same sun scorched downtown Los Angeles that had seared the Iraq desert. Army Private First Class Samantha Cummings stood at attention holding a stack of boxes, her unwashed black hair slicked back in a ponytail and knotted military style....
Read More →The line of cars outside the entrance to the Mukoshima Outlet Park and Gardens complex, a short drive from downtown Osaka, stretched back a good 300 meters, and was steadily building in length. Only two hours after opening, the car...
Read More →“All rise!” the bailiff announced after he entered the rustic courtroom even though he was the only one there. Briefly he cleared his throat then repeated the command but not quite as loudly. Better, he thought to himself, much better....
Read More →My wife doesn’t laugh at my jokes anymore, and I’m not sure if that’s because they’re no longer funny or if they never were. Either way, she used to laugh at my jokes. She still laughs at Horace’s. I stopped...
Read More →United Transcontinental Flight 117 raced from a dawning sun. Descending, the aircraft surged, then throttled back. In first class, Matthew Thomas cracked a window shade to peer down at Chicago’s yellow-lit expressways. Matthew sighed. He was less than halfway to...
Read More →It was the talk of the town, and there were no two ways about that. A body found floating in Wabbins Creek? The body of a Negro? When you have a town like Kenton, population eight thousand, every one of...
Read More →Oomph! 1 Aloft a sky-rise ascribed to a sunrise, a head lay on a dweller’s pillow. Aground below his waking window, early dawn found its first accomplices. Afoot and all around the city the early sun made the street lights...
Read More →The house was new then, and newness itself was a kind of promise nobody had yet learned to distrust. Homewood, they called it, a new neighborhood on the far end of South Lorain, which was itself an old neighborhood. The...
Read More →