QB
Staff of QB
Report
E. FLORIAN GLUDOVACZ
Dear High Commander,
The journey to the Dark Lord’s lands is long and arduous and our quest is far from over. We have been sneaking along back roads, battling goblins and orcs at every turn while being chased by the Lord’s minions and dark spirits. We are cold, hungry, and oh so weary. Our mode of travel seemed like a good idea at the time, but it has taken a toll on our health and morale.
As far as we are concerned, our mission has failed. We recommend that our backup teams take the train instead.
Best regards,
The Fellowship
Florian writes long and short stories, likes cheese, and is a friend to dogs and pandas everywhere. @ndbag.bsky.social
The Finest Horologist This Side of Tycho Crater
CHRIS DOTY-DUNN
Dear Malcolm,
Please find enclosed your antique pocket watch—your grandfather's, as I recall?—returned in working order and no longer silent.
As I suspected, moon dust had caked the inside, gumming up the mechanism like plaque around a heart. An interminable problem when using a watch like this up here, where dust is so ubiquitous.
As a watchmaker, I suggest keeping your heirloom sealed in the hermetic case provided. But as a grandfather...
Perhaps with both clocks and hearts, there's no reason to have them if you don't intend to use them.
Yours in ticks and beats,
Jonathan Montgomery
Armstrong Horology
—Chris Doty-Dunn
Again
MONICA WENZEL
“Wait!” Someone shouted at Noah. Someone who sounded like him.
Someone who looked like him, too, except for his bandaged wrist and dirty clothes.
“Don’t do that.”
Noah stopped with his hand on the time machine door. “Are you me?”
“From the future. I came back to stop you.”
“Wait, it worked!”
“Not exactly.”
“But it worked. I gotta warn them.”
“They won’t listen. Save us the trouble. Don’t go.”
“I have to try.”
Noah entered the machine before he could stop himself. Another dirtier Noah ran up to the time machine. They looked at themselves.
“We didn’t listen?”
“Again.”
Monica lives in Minnesota with her family and cats. She teaches high school Spanish.
The Clockmaker’s Last Minute
ETTA WYNN
The village clock refused to strike thirteen. Every night, Ezra wound it, hoping for a crack in time, a whisper from tomorrow.
Neighbors complained. “It’s just a clock,” they said. But Ezra knew better. He had seen the shadows of moments yet to come, stretching like fingers across his walls.
One evening, a woman in violet shoes appeared at his door. She held a watch that ticked backward. “I’m late,” she said. “Or maybe too early.”
Ezra took it, felt the tick slip under his skin. He wound his clock, listened, and the walls of the room softened into something liquid.
The thirteenth chime arrived—silent, soft as a sigh. Outside, the villagers moved like marionettes, repeating yesterday in reverse. Ezra stepped out.
He felt the wind rearrange his hair, his thoughts, even the order of his memories.
When the woman left, the backward watch vanished. But the village still hummed to the thirteenth chime, and Ezra smiled. Time, after all, had grown curious.
—Etta Wynn
Whose Sword Once Served
GABRIELLE BLEU
I was a horologist before I was a diver. Once I maintained the guardian automaton; now I search for her pieces.
With her great golden gladius, the towering automaton protected our coastal city. Her internal gears whirred above murmuring waves.
Until the day those traitorous waves bore forth a conquering armada and their war kraken. Tentacles wrenched the guardian apart, her fragments falling into the ocean.
Always the caretaker, I dive. Again and again, until I find the central gear, that whirring heart.
Tenderly, I hook it with tackle and pull it to the surface. My guardian will live again.
Gabrielle Bleu writes luminous science fiction and fantasy. Find more of Bleu's work at gabriellebleu.com.
The Ancest—ahhh!
RIO LOMBANA
In the parking lot, next to a Subaru bearing a faded “I Believe” sticker, he sank a large footprint deep into soft dirt. A gift, for a longtime fan.
He bent low to peer through the retreat center’s bead-curtain door. Candles flickered over drums, teacups, and suspicious plants. Sunburnt humans, their pupils blown wide, lounged on cushions and dilapidated couches.
His core ached with an appetite long unfulfilled.
“We’re grateful for, uh, Salish land,” intoned a person-sized pile of shawls. “Wait. I mean we acknowledge it. Sorry. We are on stolen land. And we’re grateful for...”
He leaned in. Oh, yes. They would do.
“...the Universe, the Grandmother.” This from a young woman with dirty-blond braids, strumming a sitar. “And the Ancest—ahhh!” Bracelets clacked as she flung out her arm, one accusing finger pointing at him.
Startled, he stumbled through the bead curtain into their midst and smacked his shaggy head on the eight-foot ceilings.
Silence fell. “I knew it,” whispered one.
Sasquatch settled on a cushion, his lonely heart hoping for acceptance. He reached for a drum and tapped out a faltering rhythm with a clawed hand, trying to smile without showing his teeth.
“...and we give thanks for our new spirit guide!” The sitar player joined in, and somebody passed the plants.
Rio Lombana resides on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Coast Salish people. Find Rio @ https://riolombana.com/ and https://bsky.app/profile/riolombana.bsky.social
A World Big Enough to Hold Me
MEREDITH KINRYS
A small village, and me with big ideas. I don’t belong, but expectations trap me.
Fate intervenes; a beloved father lost, an enchanted castle found. A giant, snarling beast. Illusions hide beauty within, but I only use my eyes to see. I flee, and wolves come—giant and snarling.
I am rescued by the beast, unexpectedly. I soften and bend, unexpectedly.
So does he.
But a gentle beast doesn’t belong, doesn’t fit expectations. Small men come, beautiful outsides hiding snarling monsters within.
They kill the beast.
I fall with him. Expectations flee with our last breath, and the world finally opens up.
Death sets us free.
Meredith Kinrys is a multidisciplinary artist/writer exploring society, empowerment, and the occasional fairy tale.
thanks
KEN KAKAREKA
the poem
has been
good
to me
in times
of need.
my little
fix.
in between
novels
or
short stories
when
i don’t
know
what
the hell
to write
about.
the poem
lands
on me
like
bird shit—
good luck
they say
it is
and i
believe
that every
unannounced
poem
that’s ever
graced
my
door step
time
& time
again
like women
on bukowski’s
stoop
has saved
my life.
Ken Kakareka is an American writer nominated twice for Best of the Net.