Monica Lyrehart
Cybernetic Corpses. Cellular Cars. Compost Capsules. Your old things coalesce in the magma-warmed substrate, feeding me. I bulb into the abyss—waiting to rise, as all bubbles rise.
But the water is heavy and stagnant, cradled by volcanic reefs. I’ve wanted to get to you for centuries.
Titanium cruisers sink towards me, hulls crashing into the reef. Currents flow.
I am free!
I burst from the depths in a gasladen geyser, pushing oxygen up and away. Birds flop, dead beneath me, but where are you?
Billowing towards spent propellant tanks, I spy you! So few of you remain. Were you trying to escape me?
Monica is a speculative fiction author, poet, writing contest goblin, and “the best mommy ever.”
Sap crawled out of mother's blackest water—the ichor gluing leaves to his palms as he clawed at summer's sheddings like a babe seeking breast.
Screeching saws had beckoned him. With each step he swelled, 'til mountainous.
Collapsing, he smothered the sparking blades.
He sucked bones, steel, screams—sucked all into soil.
Monica is a speculative fiction author, poet, writing contest goblin, and “the best mommy ever.”
Cynthia affixes her head on the mantle, beside her others. Really, which to wear for those who'll come knocking?
Perhaps… Indiana State Fair, 1963? Her grandmother's burnt and blistered lips grimace down at her. It's a face for keeping neighbors off the lawn.
Home, 2009? She tries on her old head. Cracked jaw. Bruised eye.
No. Something softer for the kids. They deserve soft. She hesitates over the last head. Caresses it. Yes. It’ll be like a friend.
She answers the first bingbong of the night.
“TRICK OR—”
Their devilish smiles invert. Tears well.
Strange.
“You don't like Preschool 2020?”
Monica is a speculative fiction author, poet, writing contest goblin, and “the best mommy ever.”
Radiation Imminent, T minus eight minutes.
Liz shoved another water jug into the shelter, hands shaking. There was room left for one adult, but it would be weeks before rescue.
She scraped everything from the pantry into a box.
Six minutes.
Sirens blared, briefly stunning her.
Deep breaths.
She secured oxygen canisters to masks and ran back.
Four minutes.
She wedged the box into the shelter, rapidly checking:
Water. Food. Waste container. Oxygen. Favorite Blanket.
Two minutes.
“Mommy?”
She grabbed Toby. Kissed his sweet hair. Shoved him in.
“Drink. Eat. Potty there. Breathers here. Like we practiced… I love you.”
Monica is a speculative fiction author, poet, writing contest goblin, and “the best mommy ever.”