But the ferns have turned Papa's thoughts to slow, ponderous things, moving the way a fighter does just before they hit the ground. Fresh fiddleheads unfurl from his skin each night, bobbing merrily with his breath each morning.

We’ve travelled for weeks to find something like this—not the planet, but its ring, swirling iridescent with icy blues and silver. A bounty of water.

The ocean is a woman and it is dreaming, dreaming, Ekaterina thinks as she holds the hardsuit’s arm open, ready to clip a sample.

4,000 Words Author Introduction THE MAGICAL NEGRO—It’s easy to believe that this trope came from a good place or at least rose out of benign neglect. After all, a white writer is “writing what they…

8,000 Words :1: Jonie stole one of Daniel’s books. ‘Borrowed’, we might say; but she knew what stealing was, and she knew what she was doing. On the other hand, her mother was always pressing her t…

5,300 Words Every winter, Halla rents the Villa Couloir on the banks of the Ruisseau de Rieu Ferré for its quiet, its darkness. Near the arch of the old stone bridge, it has a view of little else —…

800 words “I have been expecting you,” the man says. He watches the fluid form solidify — teeth first, then hair, wide jigida-clad hips and soft-soft skin gleaming reddish-brown from uli — inside h…

1700 words Where this story begins is not where it ends. The ending is neither a natural conclusion to the events leading up to it, nor a product of necessity. If you see things in the beginning th…

I met a man with no shadow today. He crossed into the village limits near dusk, furtive in movements but resolute in expression. He wanted to find the Mamman. He did not understand my descri…

Listen. This message is being transmitted to every member of your species, and to the individuals of the several other intelligent species, observed and unobserved, that share your world with you. …

4,600 Words He slowed for a feathered corpse in the middle of the road. Up above, the local troop of macaques shrieked at a flock of gene-crafted micro-raptors. He rounded the blind curve and jerke…

7,200 Words Terasadh arrived in the world with a force so abrupt that the resin womb holding her split in two, cracking as she took her first breath and cried out from the shock of being alive. Her…

1,235 Words The old man stared out the window at the sky streaked with burnt oranges and sizzling yellows. A few white stars winked. Magentas hung suspended in the mist. Sherbet, he thought. I bet …

7,000 Words The blue pills came first. Robin’s egg blue and smelling faintly chemical when Madeline opened the bottle. Then yellow, and a green the color of scum that grew on the pond her landlord …

5,200 Words The Night Watch was scheduled for 10 that evening, but Jay started his patrol at sundown. With a newly sharpened gulok resting on his shoulder, he ambled down the scabrous road that wou…

4,300 Words There is a lot of blood in this world. A lot of blood. Even if you don’t include insects. Which you should. Why not? Their blood might be paler, bluer, insignificant. But it is still th…

Andrius Kavalauskas, the last magician of Lithuania, closed the door and rested his head against the wood as the nurse’s footsteps faded away. He smelled cabbage and pork cooking from the apartment…

7,000 Words She scrabbled in the dirt, sifting through dust piles, raising turrets and smashing castles. Her hands were coated with grime, the mud dark in the lines of her palms. Pushing her skirt …

1,341 Words You want to fall. You want to fall up, sideways, diagonal — towards the sun, or the moons, or the asteroid field. Out here in the vast pin-pricked black, it all feels like falling down.…

900 Words I am running. I am running and it is good, I am running in the dawn–dappled forest and the new air of the day is sharp and good in my lungs. Listen; the hounds are baying. But not all of …

7,500 Words The first thing the Old Man told me was this: “Sometimes folks just don’t die right.” So I’m gonna tell you a story about what that that means, and I want you to listen real carefully. …

5,900 Words For now, you can still watch Marty’s creation online. It begins with this disclaimer: WARNING: IF YOU VOTED FOR GOVERNOR YVETTE POLSON, DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO. IT CONTAINS POWERFUL SUB…

For Bea LaMonica and Gillian Hastings 16,100 Words Beatrice did not wake up in Heaven. She lay flat on her back. The surface beneath her was hard as concrete, maybe bouncier, like those playgrounds…

4,100 Words People call him the Gentleman of Chaos, but he is not gentle. By popular count, he’s assassinated thirteen kings, seventy-two princes, one thousand nobles, and five queens. By popular l…

10,200 Words 1. Colt was playing cards when trouble crawled in through the door, in the shape of a dead man who didn’t yet know he was dead. This was on old Venus, ancient and most decadent of plan…

5,200 Words Corporal Carlisle Beckett had known from the beginning that teasing the truth out of forty-six (at last count) verses about the Ardua County Sniper would permanently engrave the lyrics …

5,900 Words “You never wait to see if it’s really dead,” says Samantha, leaning over the small arsenal configured in pristine rows on the linoleum. “Because, you know, it isn’t. You just put it dow…

9,100 words Cam finds Pham Thi Thanh Ha in her house, as she expected. By now, she doesn’t question the aunts’ knowledge or how they came by it. She does what she’s told to, an obedient daughter be…

14,400 words One: Bird Aptrick’s Word Bird Aptrick said an awful word. There are big curse words and little curse words in anybody’s language. A little cursing isn’t hardly cursing at all. A child …