By Gerri Brightwell

From up here in the observation tower, the plains fall away into the murk of endless twilight. This side of Anhur is shadowland, all violets and purples except for a

By Denise Diehl

I stood in shock, immobilised, my friend’s head in my hand. His date was still screaming, and the other restaurateurs were gobbing wordlessly at the scene I had

By Kevin J. Phyland

Billy Glickmann’s Reincarnation Index was a paltry 421, based on the recorded karmic remnants of past lives he had hosted, measured back as far as the Mongolian

By Phillip Barcio

Eddie walked to the edge of town, where the brabbles grow, before the others were awake. He brought a cup of hot coffee from home (single origin, direct trade,

By Steve Davis

On the first ship to have left the solar system, now coming back from Tan, the first life-identified exoplanet. Now first explored. Less than three years out from it,

By Chris Gee

Between The Pilot and The Dancer, who is the real prisoner?

MUSIC CUE: "Orion" by (Metallica)

The Spacecraft exits Messier 42.

By J. S. O'Keefe

In early 2003, President Bush and Toni Blair announced Saddam Hussein had amassed enough weapons of mass destruction to kill all life forms hundred times

By Mehreen Ahmed

Unlike my planet earth, this is a harsh new land with lush sunlight burns a skin cancer, bleak trees, dark, and thorny, beautiful like piano-fingers, breezy summers,

By Olivia Hibbitt

The soup is already cold. The comforting wisps of steam stopped rising a while ago. All that is left are opaque globs of fat that wobble among clumps of overcooked

By William Kitcher

At one o’clock on Thursday, the door to my office slammed to the ground, and in the doorway stood my next patient.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I don’t know my

By Bart Meehan

I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes I feel her in the room. I can hear her whispering, though I cannot make out the words. They are a hiss — like a last breath

By David Dumouriez

“Good afternoon, Zak,” the voice said.

“Alright?” Zak replied.

“Had a good day?”

“Ah, you know. The usual. Bor-ing!”

There was a

By Gary Griffith

Ethel has just returned from somewhere — oh yes, a farewell party — that’s it, put on by the Altar Society. She is moving from Page back to North Carolina. She can no

By Stefan Vucak

In Cairo, anything and everything is obtainable, provided one is prepared to pay the price.

I happened to be in Cairo because it is one of the best places to

By Ramprasath Rensamy

“Did you know you’re dead?” a man in his late fifties asked as I waited in the bank’s lounge giving the teller time to do the paperwork.

“Excuse

By David Gianatasio

I froze atop Reed’s Ridge, my feet fused into the cracked earth.

About a quarter mile below, two men in overalls approached along the unpaved path that wound

By Robert Lewis Thornton

CE 1927

The blind musician waited in the heat and listened to the automatic fan turn gently in the brand-new Houston hotel room. His penknife was held

By Rick Kennett

Angie suddenly awakes, suddenly aware, staring into the fragile night, listening.

Was that a creak on the stairs? A step in the hall? Is that a shadow at the

By Simone Z Leao (aka Outer)

It was promised to be a blistering day, and the man with the clean shave had chosen his lightest suit for the interview that might change his life. Not

By Joseph Sullivan

The Tomb of the Lonely King was a sight to behold. Absent from maps and stricken from stories of the land that surrounded it, it was as forgotten as the name of the