Editorial
Transformations: 150 Issues & Counting!
Don’t you wish you could be like water? With all its states of matter…? It would be so convenient to have a liquid, solid, and gas form. We contain flesh, blood, and breath, of course. But, it would be lovely if we could utilize states of matter in a more transformational fashion. Sick of your [...]
Horror
The Sacrificials
When the sacrificials come through, the entire city shuts down, fireworks filling the night sky and music booming out from hastily set-up stages. The atmosphere is ecstatic, the way the tongue glories in the final meal before an execution. It’s Mardi Gras without the religious veneer. And you might as well join the party, because [...]
Science Fiction
Moss Senses
Sense of Touch Bryo is a moss-covered planet. A world of milky softness, cool as water, submerged in green. When Agata steps out of the spaceship, she sinks into moss up to her knees. Moss clings to her legs, full of softness, gifting her a gentle chill. With a fierce push, she rejects this indulgent [...]
Horror
The Piano Made of Fingers
Content Warning With her limited school budget, Ms. Kaplan went to Marl’s Boutique of Magnificent Sounds where the clerk led her to a piano made of fingers. She played some notes across several octaves to test it out. Some of the lower keys stuck a bit, but it would be manageable. It was a well-loved [...]
Fantasy
Float. Sink. Tread. Swim.
CPS is at the door again when Oma begins her change. She’s lying in the tub, curlers pinned to her scalp, and I can hear the faint bossa nova beat of her favorite Rosemary Clooney record playing. “Should I answer it?” I ask through the cracked bathroom door. Scales drop from her skin and clog the [...]
Fantasy
The Oil King
Opal Gulch was just a dusty little dried-up town this side of nowhere, until the horrors came.Ellalee Gather twitched aside her calico curtains one long afternoon, just as the first horror glomped into town. It started as a shadow upon the horizon, under a pearl of distant sun. As it drew closer, the shadow fuzzed [...]
