Author: Timothy Goss Where to begin? Start at the dance. It’s a very good place to start. But the dance was slow. Everything was on its best behaviour, including the Humans’. They were representing Kircher and his crazy ideas. The Galactic community wanted assurances – simian lineage had caused problems in the past. “They are […]

An Anklet Broken by Chaitanya Murali   There is a man I am meant to love. He is the son of a sea-merchant, wealthy and well-connected. A friend of Karikalan, the Chola King. And this man is my husband and a wastrel. A sin it is for me to say these words, think these thoughts, […]

r/freefiction: free short stories published on the web by professional and semi-professional authors and magazines

The Greenhouse Bargain by Tanya Aydelott He sent my mother’s ghost to deliver the terms of the bargain. I accepted; there was no choice. When I asked what to expect, she said, Ten good years. The Whipstitch Man had visited me twice, once to take my sister and once to collect my mother. The second time, […]

Scales By M. Stevenson The boy stands at the edge of the forest, bare toes digging into the cold loam. Mist curls between the trees like the breath of a living thing. As if the woods are alive. Monsters live in this forest, so it’s said. Demons of scales and teeth and fur, creatures that […]

Biographical Notes to “A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes” by Benjamin Rosenbaum by Benjamin Rosenbaum It is true that I had not accepted Prem Ramasson’s offer of employment — indeed, that he had not seemed to find it necessary to actually ask. It is true also that I am a man of […]