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Weekly Contest #362
Sentenced to hang for the murder of his wife, Frank Stemmer had not for one moment stopped proclaiming his innocence. The trial was fairly straightforward. Circumstantial evidence all pointed in his direction. Three eyewitnesses saw a man who fit Frank’s description running from the murder scene, and all three identified him in a police lineup. A smudged fingerprint on the murder weapon was a partial match. Prosecuting attorneys detailed the crime in exquisite detail, and laid out the motive quite eloquently. According to the prosecution, ...
Weekly Contest #354
Maribel Diaphanousky did not merely enjoy food. She orchestrated it. Her kitchen functioned less like a room and more like a bustling airport, with snacks taking off and landing at all hours. The toaster worked overtime. The fridge lightbulb had been replaced at least twice during the past year, although the new LED bulb was expected to have a longer lifespan. Mara believed in balanced meals. For example, if she had a cheeseburger in one hand, she made sure to hold a milkshake in the other. Symmetry mattered. Breakfast was a philosophical ex...
Weekly Contest #353
Dr. Irina Polavina did not set out to change the world. Her target was much more mundane. She simply wanted to rid the world of grey hair. Studies by her laboratory at the Virology Center of the University of California confirmed that a modified flu virus, directed toward the DNA in melanin stem cells, could turn off their regulatory genes, preventing the inevitable appearance of grey hair as people aged. Dr. Polavina saw the development of this gene therapy as a major step forward in medical knowledge, but also recognized the absolutely i...
Weekly Contest #351
“My upcoming recital at Carnegie,” he would say, stirring his coffee with the solemnity of a conductor lifting a baton. “I’m thinking late spring. The acoustics favor Chopin.” Elliot Veresi lived in a small apartment where the Steinway piano took up most of the space and nearly all the oxygen. The neighbors had grown accustomed to the daily weather pattern: a storm of scales that never quite aligned, arpeggios that stumbled like loose stairs, and pieces that began with ambition and ended in quiet collapse. Yet Elliot spoke of his future care...
Weekly Contest #350
Steven Snapradish had never envisioned himself a matinee idol. To be fair, most babies are not “lookers” when first born. Many tend to resemble lightbulbs, grapefruits or bowling balls. But Steven Snapradish had them all beat. During his childhood, even his grandparents found ways of avoiding the traditional hyperbole over their little grandson’s looks. Rather than gloat about how adorable he was, his grandparents would tend to reference his health. “He’s a very healthy child,” his grandmother would extol. And the neighbors would all agree...
Weekly Contest #348
John Stenheimer wanted to kill someone. And not just anyone. He wanted to kill a Black man or a Jew. Either one would do; it didn’t really matter. As the leader of a local neo-Nazi group in a Southern state, he had to set an example for his followers. He had just earlier given a powerful, riveting speech to his acolytes, leading them in the chant, “Blood and soil! Blood and soil! Jews and Negros will not replace us!” John Stenheimer had all the visible requisites of a neo-Nazi. His blond hair was styled in a crewcut. He had the tattoo of a ...
Weekly Contest #346
On the telemetry console aboard Orbital Station Asteria, a valve indicator flickered for just a second. On Earth, a monitoring computer in Houston logged a transient pressure irregularity in the maneuvering system of the attached exploration craft Aurora. The computer flagged it as a curiosity. No alarm sounded. Up on the station, Commander Elena Markovic floated beside the hatch, checking the tethers on a supply pod. “Ready to detach?” asked Flight Engineer Daniel Cho. Elena glanced out the viewport. Earth hung below them like a luminous ma...
Weekly Contest #343
From: Arthur Bellweather To: Lionel CraneSubject: Delivery Schedule Dear Mr. Crane, I note with some confusion that the shipment promised for Monday has failed to materialize. While delays do occur, I had not anticipated that your firm would redefine Monday as an abstract philosophical concept. Please advise. Regards, Arthur Bellweather •••••• From: Lionel CraneTo: Arthur BellweatherSubject: Re: Delivery Schedule Dear Mr. Bellweather, Your impatience is noted. The shipment was delayed due to unforeseen logistical complications, a phenomenon...
Weekly Contest #340
When Comet C-103 Atlas/Rahi passed within one hundred thousand miles of Earth, it granted stargazers a rare, special treat. The Comet’s path took it between the Earth and the Moon, and had a strange, iridescent glow. Its tail shone with a peculiar greenish blue hue, and was close enough to our planet to interact with our atmosphere. People and partiers gathered on rooftops with binoculars, telescopes and hot cocoa. Influencers live-streamed. Amateur astronomers expounded with self-proclaimed authority. News anchors used words like spectacula...
Weekly Contest #338
“Honey, could you do me a favor and run down to the basement and get me a bottle of pickles from the pantry?” A sudden surge of anxiety rose in Carl’s innards. “Why,” he thought, “after so many years, could this still be a problem for me? After all, I’m 35 years old, married, successful, athletic, and in the prime of my life.” Carl allowed his mind to float back into the distant swirling darkness of the past, ruminating quietly about a sad moment in his childhood. He took out his diary, a journal he had kept since early adulthood. He opened...
Weekly Contest #337
Behind her, the planetary lander crouched on its five sturdy legs, its hull reflecting Saturn’s distant glow like a dull eye. Above them, huge Saturn covered a third of the sky, its rings laid out like the most spectacular diamond necklace one could imagine. Commander Lia Ivers stepped onto the dry ground, which felt pale and granular, like powdered bone, crunching under her feet. Everything was quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat. “Tripod’s stable,” said Lieutenant Malik Chen through comms. His voice, always calm, had the faintest trem...
Weekly Contest #335
The Silence Between Seconds Dr. Helena Arendt had always believed that time was less a river and more a lattice. She envisioned threads stretching in every direction, waiting for the right resonance to pry them open. After thirty years of theoretical physics, collaboration with the most brilliant minds, many sleepless nights, and one miraculous breakthrough involving quantum-entangled chronons, she finally had a machine that could do it. The device was quite large but its appearance was misleadingly simple. It consisted of a dark, vault-like...
Weekly Contest #334
It was the most successful and watched television program of all time. Every Friday evening at 8 o’clock, half the country and viewers from around the world came to a standstill, as millions tuned in to root for the contestants. But, in a rather sick and disturbing way, the viewers were not necessarily rooting for them to win. The rules were quite simple. It was gambling taken to the ultimate level. The potential reward was spectacular: $50 million was the top prize. However, the potential downside was equally spectacular. Each hopeful playe...
Weekly Contest #333
Bucky McKeever was sick and tired of not having it all. Everywhere he looked, he saw men living large; high on the hog, if you will. As a low-level manager at a large investment firm, he was surrounded by the high-voltage energy of day-trading and financial wheelings and dealings. His boss, Mr. Jonathan Stevens, a man of only 35, was already a multi-millionaire; a graduate of Wharton Business School and a mergers and acquisitions expert, he could earn more in one deal than Bucky made in a year. Bucky McKeever developed a plan to remedy this...
Weekly Contest #330
Evan Sanderval was not accustom to keeping secrets, especially from his closest friend, Robert. Together they survived engineering school - the caffeine shots, the failed prototypes, the long nights arguing about whether consciousness could ever be simulated or reproduced. Their camaraderie was as strong as between two Army buddies. So when Robert detected an unusual tone in Evan’s voice on the phone, he immediately arranged a meeting for a talk over coffee. They sat by the café window, where the late afternoon sun spilled like honey across ...
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