There is a monster inside you. Created by fear, desperation, and spite, it has saved your life more than once. It is validated by the economic system that owns your material well-being. It has been made a virtue by liberators and oppressors. Monsters can be heroes or villains. They save lives and take them. But […]
The Phoenix Corporation complex perches atop a volcanic ridge overlooking the Pacific. Its vari-copper cladding catches the rising sun, turning the buildings to flame. I used to love watching the building burn like its namesake, but today can think of nothing but Kokua, plummeting through the atmosphere, his wingsuit disintegrating in a ball of fire. […]
Soon as Sobek walks into the laundromat he sees Bastet, flipping magazine pages beneath a “Nile Cruises” poster in the back with that creep, Apep. Motherfucker, Sobek thinks, scales starting to sweat at the sight of her. Really? Bastet doesn’t even look up from her glossy, like she got no idea Sobek just walked in—except […]
“Hannah, we’re going to be late,” her mother is saying, but not in the real pissed-off way she would have said it before the accident. Instead she’s tentative, careful, like she’s constantly disarming a bomb and isn’t sure what wires are safe to cut. “Sure,” Hannah says, and guides her dead arm through the sleeve […]
Because they will never see it again, they always ask, cook me something from home. Today it’s a human woman condemned for killing a policeman after he beat her Klanthi spouse to death. They had the nerve to kiss in public. “A Klanthi mossfry,” she whispers with her swollen, rebel mouth. “Please.” “I’ll try,” I […]
Welcome to July! Here in the northern hemisphere, it’s the hottest month of the year, the coldest for our friends in the south. In six short months, those tables will be turned, time will march eternally forward, the circle of the seasons will repeat, over and over and over again. Our mortal lives are a […]
