fiction
Everyone knows that humans are not intelligent. However, my colleagues and I believe that there is more to these little furry creatures than meets the eye. It should, of course, be noted that even the most intelligent human is undoubtedly less intelligent than even the least educated Proxima Centauri, but there is certainly evidence that suggests humans may exhibit intelligence on levels similar to the inhabitants of Castor and Polaris. To test our (admittedly fringe) theory, we took one of the apes and tried to “Centaurize” it – in other words, to teach it to become one of us.
Of course, the experiment was doomed to fail. We began by explaining to the human how quantum mechanics and relativity are reconciled, how we effortlessly created the universe and everything in it (including homo sapiens), and how something came from nothing in the process – incredibly simple concepts, really. Of course, the human parroted everything we told it, but there was some debate concerning whether the human actually understood what we were saying or whether it was a mere case of rote operant conditioning.
My colleagues and I ultimately decided on the latter. We had been naively optimistic. Our brains are light-years long, theirs are only the size of a football, and we should have known better.
We sent the human back to its home planet. We watched as the creature made a successful landing, and then we fixed our sights elsewhere.
The author has sold dozens of works to numerous publications. He resides in Saratoga Springs, NY.
On the third week of the search,
a magician came forward to help find the body.
Not one of your psychic mediums --
an actual magician with a top hat and wand.
He asked the lead detective to ‘pick any card,’
and strode with the team into the woods.
They found the body after only half an hour,
lying with a playing card on its chest.
‘Is that your card?’ asked the magician,
when they had cordoned off the area.
The detective turned it over.
The three of clubs. Uncanny.
‘I wonder how that was done,’ he said
to his other detective friends.
Probably a trick of the trade, he thought.
The magician winked at him as he went past.
Graeme Dixon writes when there’s no alternative to staring out of the window.
I hold my breath and brush away some sediment. Years of searching and dwindling expedition funds, I finally found one. With a slow, steady exhale, I blow the last dust of eons long passed into the wind.
But a marvel remains.
Before man and mammals, other creatures lumbered under the first towering conifers; animals whose bones fell into stagnant swamps and mineralized over millennia.
I can envision, as I hold the Maiasaura’s footprint, its duck-like bill reaching to graze. Perhaps this was the final muddy step before its last breath.
But now, an eternity after, I know it lived.
Alethea pretends to be profound with purple prose, puns, and alliteration.
I keep dreaming about the house we’re buying. I’m in the kitchen, fretting over ugly cabinets. A familiar voice calls to me from upstairs. I follow it, my shoes silent on carpeted steps. The voice grows louder as I reach the bedroom door. I grasp the doorknob.
I wake up.
It’s a probate sale. Elderly woman, distant family. Terracotta tiles in the kitchen. Patterned carpets up the stairs. Sacred Hearts and Pope John Paul on the walls. Chilly bathroom, a fold-out stool in the shower. A hospital-style bed in the bedroom. Mould around the windows.
I call the estate agent. They promise to clear the place out before handover.
Every night, I’m back there. Carpet patterns twist underfoot. John Paul side-eyes me on the stairs. I hear her voice. I feel something like understanding.
While awake, I work. Research insurance, new kitchens. Email the solicitor. Probate is slow, they say.
I sleep. I hear the voice, pleading.
I’ve started hearing echoes of it when I’m awake, when I’m wishing that we loved the house.
A message from the solicitor. Keys next week.
I climb the stairs, reach for the doorknob. It twists under my hand. She’s there, sitting up in bed, her hair frost-white, her eyes sunken and despairing, her upper arms skeletal and withering.
My hair. My eyes. My arms. I’m her, she’s me.
My voice, her throat: “Don’t…”
I wake—first to terror, then clarity. At least the house is affordable.
Cathy de Buitleir is an Irish writer, published in The Interpreter's House, Martello, and FlashFlood.
I beckon towards the oak flask’s ornate aperture. “Fernando, please get in. The truck’s waiting outside.”
I knew moving out would be stressful, but never imagined it would be this bad. Then again, I never imagined I’d be best friends with the ghost of a 16th-century Spanish pirate.
Fernando whooshes past me towards the foldout table in the middle of what used to be our living room. The ashtray resting on top begins sliding towards the edge.
“Don’t you dare—”
Glass and ash litter the floor.
“For fuck’s sake, Fernando, that was antique! Ok, fine, I’ll leave you here for the next occupant to deal with.”
A trail of dust flies up as Fernando slinks to the corner.
“Sorry I lost my temper, buddy.” I kneel beside him. “This job in Seattle’s a big deal. You want me to be happy, right?”
The ash on the ground swirls until it forms the word SÍ.
“You don’t want to go?”
The ash dances again. NO.
“Or stay here alone?”
NO.
“You’re…scared?”
SÍ.
I pat the air tenderly. “You’ve battled armadas and sea beasts. This move’s nothing by comparison. You’ll have new neighbors to scare the shit out of, new cats to terrorize, plus your favorite telenovelas will still be on TV.”
Fernando musses up my hair before sweeping the glass and ash into a neat pile. The flask wobbles as he flies inside.
“Alright Capitán, time to…set sail!”
Even from inside the flask, I can feel him rolling his good eye.
Ben Daggers is a close-up magician, escape room creator and light sleeper based in Osaka, Japan.
“Mom, is ‘war’ good?”
Nova nearly choked—did the question have to come this early in the morning?
“Depends on which war.”
The answer clearly wasn’t accepted within Celeste’s whirring thought-processor.
“Why?”
“I have to write an essay about our war against Earth. Is it still going?”
Nova opened a portal—the gateway led to the frontal window of the spaceship. Celeste observed her mother set up the telescope.
“See that? That’s Earth.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Because it’s without Humans.”
Celeste’s magnified sight made her jump backwards.
“But I just saw one!”
“Really? Well, let’s hope they do better this time.”
Megan Diedericks is a very normal writer (probably not a vampire) whose latest book, The Coffin Chronicles, is about vampires.
Boothby hoped Slyvak Prime would offer what he was longing for.
He landed his ancient starcraft and fired up its antiquated sensors. The scans reported an alphabet soup of harmful gases in the atmosphere. Boothby smiled. At last! Months of searching were finally over.
He opened the ship’s hatch and shuffled down its exit ramp to the planet’s boggy surface. He left the starcraft behind as a gift to whoever found it.
The atmosphere’s gases quickly entered his lungs. Boothby swooned and collapsed. In mere minutes, they had taken his life—and his agonizing cancer—away, just as he wanted.
Mike has had over 150 audio plays dramatized, won many awards, and had two short film scripts produced.
On the surface of the lake, the moon was a silver coin paying the boatman. The women dove beneath, caressed by weed and embraced by water. They sank with purpose, eyes open. They sank through time, though the water remained the same, and the moon, too. They sank to the depths. They saw the foundation of things, where the weeds rooted and the water settled and the moon touched only lightly, scattered and shaded. They scooped handfuls of mud and let the silt run through their fingers, cling under their nails. They burrowed. The moon watched them go.
Jay Castello is a writer, editor, and creative found by the river or at @jaymcastello.bsky.social.