fiction

The blood is never mine, but I wear the crimson stains dripping from my skin, smothering the handles of each tool as I saw bone and sew skin. Remove one limb and give to another. The body must be perfect where humanity is not. Skin enclosing the superior botanical system thriving within.

A final puzzle piece, the heart thrums in my grip, lifeless and yet life-giving. I place it within the ribs and allow the vines snaking through the chest to grab hold. They wrap the organ and squeeze once, twice, red saturating green as the body quakes into being.

A.J. McCrae

Hunting ideas can be hit-and-miss. Either you have so many ideas you are frantic at the thought you will never be able to use them all, or you are visited by too few. Patience in those lean times is required. Don’t be too hard on yourself⁠—hunting ideas is no easy task.

Ideas travel quietly, and cannot be detected by the normal five senses, although sometimes, if you latch onto a really good one, you can hear it reverberate through your soul like a temple gong’s solemn tones.

Ideas love to shelter in the dense thickets of your subconscious, and must be coaxed out with care. If you startle them, they will vanish, never to be seen again.

Ideas are the children of trickster gods. They love to flit into our conscious minds when we are preoccupied with other matters. Beware: the quality of an idea will often be inversely proportional to the convenience of writing it down. Ideas may drop into your head while you’re dog-walking, showering, or mowing the lawn. In such circumstances, it’s best to engrave the idea in your mind (not literally, that would be messy) until you can get your hands on a notepad.

On the bright side, unlike game hunting, idea hunting is always in season, and there no limits on how many you catch.

Which reminds me, I could use a few new ideas. Maybe I should go out and shovel the snow . . .

Lisa Timpf’s speculative writing has appeared in Lorelei Signal, NewMyths.com, Polar Borealis, and other venues.

The gunslinger put his revolver in a sack and rented a rowboat.

The lake was flat. It was like a blank piece of paper. He rowed with a seriousness reserved for funerals and card games, every splash sounding like an apology.

The gunslinger admitted to himself that he always wanted to be a seahorse but lacked the correct breathing apparatus. He drifted off into the sunset that holstered the day.

The boat never fired.

It had an alibi.

R.J. Butler

At night, when the aquarium is empty, the Giant Pacific Octopus is lonely. There are no people to look for her, no faces to marvel at her. In her loneliness, she makes a wish; to be human, so that she can be among them, even just once.

Something listens; one night, her wish comes true.

Bony limbs unspool, naked eyes squeeze shut against salt’s sting. Jointed fingers fumble at the lock that pliable tentacles would solve easily, until she emerges into the oxygen atmosphere, new lungs heaving. She stands on two wobbling legs, adjusting to this new gravity.

She greets the world in clothes swiped from the gift shop; clashing, bright, oversized. Into the city lights she wanders, where humans gather, where she is nothing to marvel at. It is a joyous experience, this new camouflage.

Outside of a nightclub, lights spill onto the pavement. Music pounds in her singular heart. She moves, compelled, as the music wraps itself around her brain. She dances, gangly limbs flailing wildly. Other humans, drawn by infectious exhilaration, join her. Strangers dance together, laughing, drunk on the joy of living.

Hours later she returns to the aquarium, with warm-blood-flushed cheeks and sweat staining her clothes. The morning sun paints the sky pink, and so paints her back into an octopus. Tentacles open her tank with ease, and she slips contently into her water.

When the people gather to watch her this morning, she dances for them, music thumping in all three of her hearts.

Andrew Loria is an author who dabbles in everything, but prefers the extraterrestrial, the romantic, the horrific, and the absurd.

Wanted

One Eastern cottontail
Last seen destroying plants
In neighborhood yards

Also wanted: one stewpot

E.J. LeRoy is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer with a forthcoming mpreg novella. Curious? Visit http://ejleroy.weebly.com.

Dear [passenger],

We apologize for any inconvenience this incident may have caused. Your shoes will be returned from Yokohama, feet to follow separately. Digital fingerprint scans taken from your hands in Manila are enclosed (bio-materials were retained for analysis). Tracking indicates that your ears arrived in Taipei, however Taiwan quarantine regulations require destruction of all unaccompanied body parts.

Since the seismic event was outside our control, we are not required to provide compensation. However, as a goodwill gesture, we are adding 10000 points to your MyPortal account. We look forward to seeing you on a future trip.

NPTransmat Customer Service

Pauline Barmby writes speculative fiction, appreciates galaxies, and has her own asteroid (281067).

Motel room, 3am, every channel clocked off. Just static, the polychrome hiss of the universe ignoring itself.

Then the snow clears. A face⁠—his own face, but older, liver-spotted, eyes like something left out too long. The mouth moves. One sentence, said twice, three times. He leans in, but the sound is gone, hiss replaced by a hum, neither bearing words.

Snow again.

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror, the one missing spots where the silver’s worn through. He watches his mouth. He tries shapes.

By dawn, he’s still there, lips moving, asking the glass what he said.

J.M.C. Kane is a writer and environmental attorney in New Orleans who specializes in very short works because it gives him fewer opportunities to wander off-topic.