Recent Stories
You ask me to tell you a story.
So I sit on the floor next to your bed, and I tell you the same story I told you last night and the night before.
Our attack on the Earth city was quick, efficient and effective, but I should have made it more beautiful.
When my fleet unfolded at the edge of space and I saw the world for the first time through my own eye, I realized Earthings also appreciated the higher aesthetics. The webs of blue-white light gripping the world resembled the glowing streaks of hopeful lovers darting during a mating swarm. The electromagnetic fountains bursting from countless points around the planet recalled puffs of infrared pheromones. The Earthings used darkness in surprising ways, too. Vast stretches of land, cold as oceans, gave the surrounding lights a flirtatious whimsy not unlike the way my latest lover gave its wings an ultraviolet flicker, coaxing me to chase it into the depths of night above the swarm.
Today was her seventh birthday, and today she would receive her first emotion. She held as tightly onto that fact as she held onto the aluminum box. In fact, she gripped it so fiercely her hands shook. Her mother had told her not to lose it; it was a hand-me-down, which she goddamn deserved. She wondered if everyone in the crowded street was thinking that, too.
Her gaze shifted to the ground, watching feet as they averted her, like water diverting from rocks in a river. But she wasn't afraid as she was swallowed by the sea of shoes. Ringing throughout the street, blaring advertisements cut between conversations in automated tones. "Sick of being envious? Donate! Tired of being depressed? Donate!" These blurbs didn't faze the girl. She ran her thumb in stiff circles around the edge of the receiver, the metal nearly cutting her. But if it had, she wouldn't have felt it. Pain was not something she knew. She was seven years old and she knew nothing of contentment or rage, thankfulness or jealousy.
The Andersons' Subaru was doing their best to drop Suz off at soccer practice, but the little girl was, yet again, having none of it. She was slouched in the back middle seat, staring out the window.
"Suz, it's 3:32 on Sunday afternoon!" the Andersons' Subaru announced. "Soccer is your favorite sport! Your third-best friend Madison plays on the same team as you!"
I'm glad you can't see me, I lie to the girl in the window seat, with the rainbow hair. It's OK. I'm not much to look at. I'm not beautiful like you.
She's my age, but I'm not made of rainbows and a Propagandhi t-shirt. At the moment, I'm a girl made of a rough polyblend weave in brown and blue, with a drop of baby puke, a splash of diet Coke and a lot of sweat. My arms are indistinguishable from the molded beige plastic of the arms of the chair.
by J.R. Dawson
Published on Sep 17, 2019
by Stephen S. Power
Published on Sep 16, 2019
by Pearl Widmann
Published on Sep 13, 2019
by Rich Larson
Published on Sep 12, 2019
by Sydney Paige Guerrero
***Editor's Note: Adult Story, Mature Themes***
Published on Sep 11, 2019
by Kate Heartfield
Published on Sep 10, 2019
