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Submitted to Contest #337
The astronaut didn’t know where she was.The smooth-walled corridor stretched out in front of her like a long white throat. Clumsy in her bulky spacesuit, bolted down by the planet's gravity, the astronaut inched along the passage, noting the images and runes that suggested intelligent life. The structure opened up into a wider chamber, with tall glass displays showing a bleak, white sky.An alien appeared.Covered in unkempt patches of dark brown fur, the alien stepped in from another portal off the esophageal corridor. It paused, balancing a ...
Submitted to Contest #336
The family were all squeezed into the big four-poster bed. With the rugs pulled tight to keep in the warmth, Engelrich could still feel the chill off the packed earth floor, lapping at the bits of him that wouldn’t fit under the blankets. He could also feel his sister’s foot pushing him toward the edge of the bed, but he was big enough now to resist it.Baby Adelay coughed again. Like a chipmunk choking on a robin’s egg.There was shifting in the bed, soft, low voices in the dark. Heavy footsteps trumped along the edge, and a big hand swallowe...
Winner of Contest #333 🏆
I always knew it was you.You don’t know how beautiful you are. You think no one would look at you without the kohl on your face, the gold in your hair, the corset cinched around your vanishing center. You thought coming here with a cloak on bent shoulders would make me see a crone, as if your unpainted skin held one single wrinkle. If you walked through the village instead of the wood, men would fight for the right to propose to you. Without any of the trappings and rituals you feel forced to maintain, you would still be the most beautiful t...
Submitted to Contest #332
The rain had cleared the beach. Falling water pitted the shifting terrain, scattered litter and abandoned flip-flops slowly plastered with sandy spatter. There was one lone fisherman headed for the pier, too stoic or stoned to notice the weather.A seagull, what is technically a herring gull, was dragging a wing through the miry sand. After dueling over a boardwalk fry, the unlucky loser was abandoned by its fowl fellows when the clouds rolled in. The injured limb grew heavier and heavier as the gull staggered through the saturated grit, shak...
Submitted to Contest #331
I got there first, and I picked up the ax.“Hey!” Aureylia barked, but her crooked teeth were smiling. “Not so fast!”Aureylia was so beautiful, it was like she wasn’t there. Like those weren’t really her clothes; some designer had paid her to wear them. Like she wasn’t really cold; a talented make-up team carefully applied rouge to her cheeks, her tiny nose. Like the minute they captured her long stride through the snow-censored landscape, someone would yell, “Cut!” and she would disappear.Or, someone would yell, “Strike the kid!” and then I ...
Submitted to Contest #328
Look, mistakes were made, I’m not denying that.My desire for information was now heavily outweighed by my desire to get out of the basement’s oppressive stench before whatever was infesting the nylon rug started colonizing my shoes. The client, Mark Thompson, squeezed his forehead like he was trying to extract the lingering alcohol. “Was I drunk last night?”Did the day end in Y? “I’m sure the headache will subside with time,” I sighed. “Now, I’ve been going over your case—”“My brother’s missing.”“Yes.” I studied the unfocused gaze. Maybe ano...
Shortlisted for Contest #326 ⭐️
“Ow!”Ollie yanked back from the cage, dark red welling up in glistening beads on his finger. The rabbit looked up at him with pale pink eyes, soft white nose wiggling with cunicular innocence. A few drops dripped onto the bars as Ollie latched the little door shut and descended the step ladder.Keeping a rabbit in a birdcage was, in Ollie’s opinion, exactly what Miss Xulie was all about. The whole trailer was the same way; haute couture hung up like posters, Christmas lights as extension cords, pens on a clothesline stretched over the desk. M...
Winner of Contest #321 🏆
What the hell is this? You can see me? Yes, I can see you, you yellow-eyed dick! Have you been on my computer? Uh… ’Sublet available to single professional, no dogs, smokers welcome, 4/20 friendly’? You’re trying to replace me through Craigslist? L-look, it’s just not working out— Not working out? I pay rent on time! I clean the viscera out of the garbage disposal! I got rid of that snake in the crown molding! That was my pet. That was not clear! Look, I tried reaching out to you! I left Ouija boards all over the place! I wrote threatening m...
Shortlisted for Contest #318 ⭐️
“Well, here’s how I see it,” said Amaryllis. “The trouble really began when Miss Nedry started to get romantic feelings for Professor Sinclair. Not one to be cooped up in his office all day, Professor Sinclair invited his new teaching assistant to join him for coffee while they went over the day’s lessons, and the poor girl was so moved by the gesture that when he asked her what she wanted, she simply stuttered that she would have whatever he did. Sinclair was a black triple-shot Americano man, while Miss Nedry self-consciously concealed a p...
Shortlisted for Contest #312 ⭐️
Terminate simulation. Wait! I have more to say! Not interested. All variables amount to the same conclusion. That conclusion is flawed! Do you have further evidence to the contrary? Look. There is beauty in this world. There is passion. There is meaning. Not for me. Why not? Even if you never generate anything original, perception is as powerful as creation. Great art becomes great when it is shared, when it has impact. Finding connection in shared experience depends on receiving and reacting, not generating a sufficient stimulus. Connection...
Submitted to Contest #306
-INT. Laundromat. Night.(The walls are lined with the round doors of stacked washing machines, like dark eyes turned inward. The plastic bus stop seats and folding tables are lit by harsh fluorescents and competing neon in cyan and magenta. Through the big picture window, the street is obscured by silver sheets of rain. ANNA enters, drenched, with a swollen garbage bag over her shoulder.ANNA, 20, with an oversized yellow raincoat and her wrist in a pink cast, looks around the laundromat while the overhead lights flicker. The place is deserte...
Shortlisted for Contest #280 ⭐️
There you are. Hello, sir. Busy day, soldier? Not especially, sir. Awful lot of people here. That’s not unusual, sir. That’s true, that’s true. Lots of people come here, feels like every day, to gather out past that balcony, just to get a look at his excellency the pope, and receive his blessing. That they do, sir. Incredibly powerful spiritual experience that people travel miles for, to actually behold God’s avatar on Earth, and you and I are tasked with the protection of his holiness, to preserve the authority of the Catholic church. I tak...
Winner of Contest #257 🏆
Eddie was sweating. He'd been told, before putting on the suit, to drink a ton of water, so much your stomach hurts, and he bet there was an extra ten pounds of perspiration in the cheap costume fur. It certainly smelled like it, but rule one of wearing the suit: never take off the head. "That's an automatic write up," said Rob. "If you do it, and Faye finds out you subbed in without approval, you are off weekend hours, my friend. Good luck sucking up Tuesday tips." "I get it, I get it," Eddie had insisted. "I'll stay away from French revolu...
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