The ship listed to the side as they tacked, the crew busy yelling and pulling ropes and cursing every swell of wind, until they managed to make the turn. The overcast sky sagged overhead like a sai…

The shadows are thicker than they should be. They fill up the corners of the room, pool under the crate that serves as a TV stand, nestle into the discarded clothing and wadded up fast food wrapper…

Umam Preth was preparing a deadly concoction of 3 parts jaffiger and 2 parts sillin when the robot slammed through the window. “Hey, Professor,” the Vee3 said. Its manipulator field rolled it uprig…

“Is the ghol coming back tonight, Mama?” Violet asked anxiously. Miranda continued pouring her daughter a drink. “Probably, Violet. But don’t worry: we still have lots of Papa’s poems left.” Violet…

The dog did not know he was famous. But he knew people stopped to look at him, and once a photographer came and took his picture for a newspaper. He whistled and called and tried to get the dog to …

The queen hoarded the barrels of seed, keeping them locked within her coffers among the diamonds and gold and strings of perfect pearls, remnants of the former days of prosperity and excess. The se…

Dr. Audra Grissom stretched as she woke from her hyper-sleep, groaning as each vertebra popped and clicked back into alignment. She flinched as she placed a bare foot on the floor outside her sleep…

It wasn’t all that long ago. A few weeks, give or take. Lots of folks have come and gone since then. Maybe you remember it—the dust storm that swept through. It was a wicked one. I met an angel in …

So: she came. Hu Tao, the dissident’s daughter. In reality she didn’t have much choice. If the city’s Magnate sends you an invitation to his New Year party, you need a good reason to refuse it. Tho…

The penny was gone again. Caro huffed and dropped her grocery bags in the hall. She reached in, took a penny from the change bowl by the door, and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger, said N…

The woods grew darker as the sun slipped behind the horizon. This meant that maybe the howling band that chased me would drift off in search of easier prey. But it also meant howling creatures of a…

1. When Mira sees the library for the first time, it is exactly as she remembers it. It’s not much to look at, but it’s still nice that this facility has one. Mira’s second facility had a dance stu…

The Ujimi pine forest reaches up towards the moon, luring pale light to trickle down between jagged treetops and rest on soft powdered snow. Ari follows no path, wandering around the thickened shad…

The smiling Time Pocket receptionist showed Disa into the waiting room. It had sofas and leather recliners, a free bar where discreet white-coated staff poured tiny measures of top class spirits, a…

[From the records of the New York Times, 1937. Archivist’s note: We have been unable to locate the piece’s original author or substantiate any of its claims. We retain it nevertheless, for historic…

Like a rental bike returned with a tire puncture, Ark woke up in a stranger’s apartment. He tumbled off the sofa bed and the house immediately began streaming news to his retinal slate from an extr…

Some said, disapproving, that more accurately she was the Palmer’s Bride, the dolly created by lonely pilgrims en route to the flowering coast—holy men, so called, who after all were only mortal, c…

“So, do you have kids?” the detective asked, interrupting Brenda’s reading to slide a cup of coffee across the table to her. While the coffee was welcome, she wasn’t sure yet it was worth the inter…

Paseia takes care to observe her supplicants before every consultation; a successful interpreter must read and accommodate any mood. Fortunately, Lady Ouridia Diphan and Lady Biota Leanax descend f…

Kamik heaved the iron box onto the cart, her muscles aided by anger as well as decades of blacksmithing. Her next push centered its weight on the polished boards. As she threw a rope over the box w…

Ess sang he found me in the reeds in the heat of summer, my mother a crow lying dead. I was too young to know my first shape. He sang I pissed and shit and cried all the time, and he thought more t…

Wandering creates the desert. – Edmond Jabès Michel dreams the dead at Antioch again. They rise unbidden by any word but God’s, with their wounds still gaping, each one weeping as if it were …

Inspired by the Tarot Illuminati deck, by Erik C. Dunne, and informed by its companion book, written by Kim Huggens. For this interview, my employers told me the subject would come to me at home. G…