story
after Ray Bradbury
Either way, if all summer were over in a day, I’d like to think that the drowning skies, the wildflowers, and the golden forest would be the only spring I need, where rain turns this planet into a garden, and Venus blesses me as your goddess.
Kelley Tai is a speculative fiction writer and a 2024 CSFFA Aurora Award-nominated poet.
He loyally and valiantly defends the honor of the transit system, steering his noble steed and carting a carriage of tittering passengers behind him. A young maiden mounts the vehicle, smiling as she flashes her plastic bus card. She scans it.
Insufficient funds.
He watches as the maiden, so fair before, turns into the most fell of beasts. Her nose elongates and transforms to a scaly snout, her fingers curling with claws. He can barely understand her next grating taunt through the reptilian voicebox.
“Can I get on?”
The dragon starts to cackle, and he shields his ears, realizing that she’s aiming for his carriage full of wealthy lairds. Clearly, the beast expects him to wave her through. But it won’t be that easy.
“You need money to get on this bus.”
The dragon roars, her gums withdrawing sickeningly to reveal sharp white fangs. Her fire is blocked by his shield. He put it up just in time.
“I know,” he hears the dragon say. “I forgot my card today.”
“This isn’t a school bus,” he says, eyes trained on the dragon, who starts to look downwards, shame in her eyes. The most powerful of magical forces, embarrassment shrinks her, and suddenly it’s only a little beast standing in front of him. The flame wouldn’t be strong enough to light a candle.
“You can go through this time, but don’t expect this type of lenience in the future.”
The dragon slinks towards the back of his bus. Another foe defeated.
Hazel Pearson
There were one trillion homo cyborgs – which descended from the doomed ape homo sapiens – and all of them experienced different realities. One might see a void, for instance. The other, a wall. Another would see trees. None of these things were actually there. There was only one homo cyborg who saw reality as it truly was: a planet with billions of homo cyborg inhabitants. The homo cyborg attempted to communicate, but it was useless: no one could perceive him, despite the 396 senses present in the Universe. Finally he looked for a gun – thousands of them were littered across the barren Earth – and put it to his head.
The author has sold dozens of works to numerous publications. He resides in Saratoga Springs, NY
The aquarium’s residents plan a prison break. Coy are done playing coy. Patient turtles finally snap. Even mindless jellyfish long for liberation.
Only the octopus knows the way out. She blinds the whistling guard with a blast of ink and pulls him under until the bubbles stop. The murderous mollusk secures the key ring.
She unlocks the lids for the ultimate migration. Mantas leap into the air like Frisbees. Dozens of clownfish cram into a tiny car. Otters hold hands as they cross the street.
Curators and veterinarians pursue the exodus. The octopus raises eight arms to multiply the water. The sea of reeds flows and covers them. Every one of them survive.
Maxwell Bauman is the Owner and Editor-In-Chief of Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine.
No matter how long they searched, they couldn’t find her. Parents crowded around the slide, the one which, after a few seconds, should have disgorged the girl. Except it hadn’t. For hours parents and police combed the park, a dozen of them clambering through the slide, expecting her to somehow reappear. Her mother screamed. Screamed at the cops. Screamed at everyone. But there was nothing they could do.
Some passersby joined in the search, but one by one they left. Left those who lingered with an empty playground and a breaking mother. A job for the police, not them. Come sundown, the few parents left had gone home. They couldn’t bear to listen to the mother any longer. She cursed them, needing someone, anyone, to blame.
The father still visits the playground. Among staring children he goes, again and again, down the slide. Between plunges, he perches at its mouth and shouts into its plastic throat for whatever took his baby to give her back or goddammit have the decency to take him too. Nothing answers.
HJ Dutton is a PA-based writer featured in Horrific Scribes and the Creepy podcast.
“This time he’s gone too far!”
“What and who are you talking about, dear?”
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. You know, the guy in charge of Health and Human Services.”
“Oh no, we’re not going to get into another political debate, are we? I mean, I love you and all that but all you’ve done since January 20th is complain, complain, complain about what’s going on in Washington.”
“I’m not complaining, honey. I’m observing. There is a difference. And as my spouse, you should be supporting me.”
“So, what has you so hot and bothered?”
“It’s this crazy thing he’s trying to get Congress to do.”
“Let’s see, he wants fluoride out of public water systems, he says vaccines cause autism, he’s cut funding for research on mRNA shots, he’s placed limits on who can get the COVID vaccine, he’s fired the director of the CDC, he has new guidelines for children’s vaccines and he’s gotten into a flap about circumcision. Is there another that I missed?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me.”
“Now he wants Congress to introduce legislation banning round plates!”
“Round plates?”
“Dinner plates.”
“Why?”
“He says Americans should have three square meals a day.”
Chaz Osburn of Traverse City, MI has had two novels and numerous short stories published.
“Booh!” yelled the ghost, jumping out at me.
“Booh, yourself,” I replied.
“You are an intruder in my home. I may be dead, but that doesn’t mean I’ll willingly leave this house.”
“Suit yourself,” I shrugged. “I bought this place fair and square and I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s a bad decision. I swore to haunt this house and haunt it I will. And I’ll haunt you as long as you stay.”
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m haunted by my bad decisions, my regrets, my insecurities, and my fear of the future. I doubt you can do anything worse to me.”
Florian writes long and short stories, likes cheese, and is a friend to dogs and pandas everywhere. @ndbag.bsky.social
On the day before my mother’s subscription to OkayCupid expired a UFO landed in her teacup. Gleaming and hopeful, it surfaced in a Jasmine Green sea and a tiny sad-eyed man wearing a silver jumpsuit emerged. I didn’t fake my profile, he said. I swear. My mother, without a moment’s hesitation, took another bite of her scone then swallowed her latest visitor whole.
Beth Sherman's stories are in Best Microfiction 2024 and Best Small Fictions 2025 and 2026.