via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io There’s a bench I like to sit on, with my legs tucked up, pretending I’m just another student on break from university. via Pocket Gathering Dust – Meryl Stenhouse – Metaphorosis Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2HGYRer

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Go to sleep, both of you. Do you want a sad story, or a happy story? via Pocket Murder on the Adriana – James Ross – Metaphorosis Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2HnPH70

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Deiderick raced down the cobblestone street, the hollow sound of his footsteps barely audible over the singing around him. It wouldn’t take long for his mother and father to notice him missing. He was supposed to be arranging tulips now, in full vie… Pleasing the Giants – Carolyn Lenz – Metaphorosis Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2VOskqC

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io The wheat died three days after Elin’s skin began to itch. The itching started as a rash on the backs of her hands, little round bumps standing out from her skin. She ignored it at first, went to work at the diner as always. But by the third day it … Seeders – Jamie Killen – Metaphorosis Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TEGf5D

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io I let Cameron take me to him, but I already knew where he was. I smelled him as clearly as I smelled old Barty’s woodsmoke. He had a bad scent. Sweet and sick, like rotting flowers. “Did you touch him?” I asked. It was a frigid afternoon, the sun cl… The Doctor’s Mask – Taylor Hornig – Metaphorosis Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TJZ0nO

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io The winds whispered promises of winter as they plucked with cold fingers at Silven’s shawl. She held it tighter around her shoulders and tucked her hair behind her ear. via Pocket Tides of Reflection – Mark Rookyard – Metaphorosis Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2HnOSuW

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io I’m getting a note from my doctor that will keep me out of the pool for gym. It’s not that I can’t swim. Last year I came in third place for breast stroke. This is different. via Pocket Absurd of a Feather – Amman Sabet – Metaphorosis Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2CaCU3L

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

Diwali, the Festival of Lights is a magical time of the year, even on the Indian Battle Station. via Pocket Escape Pod 703 Light and Death on the Indian Battle Station | Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TFpTbn

I’m all stims and grins as I kick open the door to West Precinct, strung-out bounty dangling from my headlock like a slab of vat beef with a fauxhawk. via Pocket

He is lying on the splintered, faded-gray wood of the dock, the fingers of one hand dangling in the slough and glitter frogs in his hair. His breath catches and he cups the back of Christian’s head. An airplane is flying far, far overhead. It sounds…

You can hear it, in the basement, behind the metal boxes that your human puts her outer-coverings in just when they start to smell good—when the boxes are done, she brings out her things stinking of flowers or fruit. via Pocket

via Pocket

When I met her, I was twelve. There was no one else to take care of me. Before she showed up, she was preceded by this man in a pinstriped suit. A harbinger. He sat me down in his sterile office and he said, “Time Law is not a joking matter. via Poc…

Peifan had come and gone before Nevaeh reached the lab office the next morning. Nevaeh had hoped to say goodbye, but she supposed that if an algorithm had guillotined her graduate school career like a French royalist’s head, she’d have snuck away, t…

Of course, if someone were systematically scrubbing the Internet of all references to the glitter frogs, then how do you explain the Tumblr gif sets? The audio recordings? The videos that don’t involve illegal firecrackers and animal cruelty? via Po…

I’ll keep this one, I thought, that day at the fair, as the sunset cut a sharp line across the sky. Gina’s laughter rose in a crescendo of delighted giggles, and life seemed absolutely perfect: a sparkling gift of wonder and joy. I’m not going to se…

The Tale of the Golden Eagle by David D. Levine This is a story about a bird. A bird, a ship, a machine, a woman—she was all these things, and none, but first and fundamentally a bird. It is also a story about a man—a gambler, a liar, and a cheat, b… EP402 The Tale of the Golden Eagle – Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2RdbtOM

Mother never wanted me to take the meteorology job. “Those high fences and secret regulations,” she said. “There’s something shady about Rubens’ Medicines” —dear Mother’s tone was sarcastic when she wished it— “mark my words, Genevieve. via Pocket

Every night I come home and I drink. I trade away the hope, the guilt, the fear, even the love–I think it’s love, crazy as it seems. I trade them for oblivion, because otherwise I won’t sleep at all. via Pocket via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Escape Pod 695 This Is As I Wish To Be Restored (Flashback Friday) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Zx80Lx

Raya eases power into the singularity engine and all her senses sharpen with the glorious, brutal reality of the moment: dead ahead there’s the blacklight-purple disk of Wolf-Rayet 104, twenty-eight subjective minutes before it goes core-collapse su… via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Escape Pod 697 The Last Stellar Death Metal Opera - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/307B7Wc

At exactly nine in the morning, Karen tapped the green box on her tablet screen and said, “Hello, my name is Karen. I’m listening.” “Okay,” said the young woman. “I uh…my landlord’s raising my rent again. via Pocket

Tagedouchet teased her father as she leaped over the long stick he swung at her ankles, raising a puff of sand with her sandals, the gritty substance drifting between her toes, and landed, folding her knees, narrowly dodging the swing of her father’…

If you are reading this, your Loved One has died. We are sorry for your loss. via Pocket via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Escape Pod 696 The Homunculi's Guide to Resurrecting Your Loved One From Their Electronic Ghosts - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/32ugG7t

Points of Origin Most people who have reached their eighties without raising children have every right to believe that they will go on not raising them, and Judith and I were no different until the day they turned up with the social worker, neatly s… via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

Martian Chronicles They say you can’t smell anything through a launch-hood, but I still smelled the pove in the next seat as the space-attendants strapped us into our acceleration couches and shone lights in our eyes and triple-checked the medical r… via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io I didn’t go back to the Junior Colonists’ Lounge for a whole week. Instead, I spent the time with my dad, who seemed pleasantly surprised that his son wanted to hang out with him. It made me feel bad, like I’d been neglecting him. via Pocket