Rebecca set her fork down. “Be honest with me. How is work going? I mean, really.” He sighed, shoulders rolling forward. “It’s bad. Real bad.” Damn, she hated to see that look in his eyes. She reached across the table and snaked her fingers through …

How to tell your boyfriend you are in love with a robot: Tell him, “I may possibly be in love with a robot,” because absolutes are difficult for biological brains to process. He won’t be jealous. via Pocket

The worst day of Wells the Magician’s life begins pleasantly enough, with a shot of whiskey at the Lost Kingdom bar. via Pocket

The box sat upon the table. It was inanimate, but strange waves of light moved across its surface and Roman felt a tingle in the back of his head like the beginning of a headache. via Pocket

I rested my eyes upon the tessellated sphere. It was such a beautiful dream. It was such a spectacular failure. If the world is a golf ball, then I’m the one who drove it straight into the bottom of the lake. My club? A thing so simple, so deadly, s…

Perhaps it would have been better, somehow, if this had been sample #142 or #96 or #305, something innocuous and meaningless but no, it was sample number one, the first, and he already wanted to taste it. via Pocket

My daughter fell from the top of the world. She tripped, she gripped, she slipped, and she fell. Into three kilometers of open air. I have a desk. Everyone on the atmospheric entry project thinks it’s the quaintest thing. They can’t understand it. v…

The path to enlightenment is through obedience to wisdom, and who is wiser than the Everlasting Emperor? via Pocket

[CC] Welcome online, Cybernetic Elbow Model CI953-L. This is your introductory Initial Boot orientation. You are currently in a locked and muted configuration while external medical systems run diagnostics to see that your replacement procedure has …

It was the end of all chaos. The room was clouded with murky smog. Ling Xi had coughed herself awake. via Pocket

When we set out to weave a new world from the old, broken one, we knew we pledged the lives of our clutches and our clutches’ clutches to wandering the wastes. via Pocket

It was midsummer when I arrived in Corcaigh from Sadbhsfort, and the famine parties were in full swing. I don’t know if you remember the posters for them—in a vibrant shawl, a red-headed woman stands, holding a twin in each arm. via Pocket

My grandmother is five hundred and ninety-two years old. Left to her own devices and the pitiless march of time this wonderful woman, who is actually my many times great grandmother, would have slipped away and into the finality of whatever the fuck…

“I give this gift to the people of tomorrow. On the precipice of this great twilight I take comfort in knowing that as our ports run dry and our rails rust the people of the world will always have access to the materials needed to shape the world ar…

The thing I just saw dead on the road is huge. It’s not human. I’m glad of that. via Pocket

On a far balcony, people are starting to panic. A crystal goblet flashes rainbow reflections as it tumbles, the hand that held it snatched backwards so quickly the goblet falls straight down. The holder was my target: now more a thing of art and geo…

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer “Will there be zombies?”, she asks and I shake my head no and we weave around the discarded limbs and the stalled cars and sodden newspapers with pages that no longer flick and away from this city of rot. via Pocket

Clarke peered mesmerised through the tiny pod’s porthole at the forested planet, verdant, moist and fertile stretching to the horizon. He smiled, doubting it could save his soul, but it was certainly rescuing his mood. via Pocket

It was a clear Tuesday in May at the Eden Garden Center when a new universe commenced between the petunias and marigolds, just left of the snapdragons. Initially the size of a speck, it was easily mistaken for atmospheric sparkle. via Pocket

Author: Joseph S. Pete via Pocket

The bridge is quiet. After the last escapade, everyone’s resting in some way or other. I do my down time relaxation up here, working through the after-battle reports to assess where we can improve. “Captain Dulles. via Pocket

The rooftop is quiet except for the hum of a plane passing overhead, heading to a faraway elsewhere. The sharp stench of ammonia rises from the bucket hanging from your window-cleaning belt. via Pocket

She makes love to him in the long grass that encircles the base of the old stone lighthouse in a moat of shivering green. His untrained skin too it quivers. Though her hands they grip and caress as her passion it distills and smooths him and the sun…

Me gills hurting me now. Dem spots just below me ears what does plump up wid pressure and let me know dey been working too hard for too long. Let me know is time to rise. I must soon break de surface of de water and fill up me lungs wid air. via Poc…

Daniel and Stanley go into the kitchen, and the two sit at the table. Stanley begins scribbling in a notepad. Daniel sighs. “Now what?” via Pocket

Down south, just over the threshold of the tropics, winter is marked by raising of tasteful stringlights. They spiral up the neutered Coconut palms and light the Spanish Revival shopping malls, where tidy women with manicures buy whatever they want …

PodCastle 544: Waters of Versailles — Part 3

Funny how it’s always the teeth. On the news, I mean. Or CSI, one of the two. After all the hopeful posters and the tearful parents and the trawls of woods and the charred remains. After all is said and done, I suppose. After all of that, there’s st…

It is not a good day. They wheel me to the Alzheimer’s unit, the scaly anteater rolled up in a basket next to me. For a while I don’t even look at it, I’m so incensed. via Pocket

I pushed the little girl on the rope swing, guessing she couldn’t be more than seven, knowing she was my mother. The swing groaned as it arced forward, then back, the rope twisting against the bough of the mulberry tree. via Pocket