Nova-44 artist, basic bitch science nerd, chronic pain enjoyer. Speculative fiction is the bomb.
What lonesome work, this. People all around, never speaking, acknowledging, noticing, moving. Animals trapped in an instant, the world’s spin ceasing for as long as the mind held. It hadn’t felt like this in the beginning. In the beginning it was party tricks and pranks. You remember the first time you did it on purpose … More Saves Nine
“So, Lanique…” Dr. G kept as calm and friendly a face as possible. Easier to do than for most people; working with kids diagnosed with conduct disorder with callous and unemotional traits, as the current moniker was, had lent the good doctor a near-impenetrable facade of good will. “Tell me about this friend you’ve drawn.” … More Even the Callous and Unemotional Need Friends
Checkout line 8. The cashier, Dahlia, had been on the register allfuckingday. Picked up one from lazy Sarah, what an asshole, she didn’t even need the job, because her parents paid for everything she needed. At least it was more money. Dahlia needed that shit. Rent had taken an unexpected leap upwards after D’Angelo left. … More Cracked Eggs
Dr. Chukwukpee Obioma sat with the Nigerian delegation, across from a soft-bodied slug-like alien with muscular manipulators protruding from where Dr. Obioma was almost certain the central organs were housed. Small nubs scattered across the body would extend and contract; these, he knew, were the external sensory organs (CT scans provided by the aliens had … More Evolution Revealed- Xenobiologists Shocked!
The stairs, in all technicality, go on for infinity. It was the cat who discovered it, after we had climbed to the 35th floor, when the windows appeared. The light was a shock to my eyes, and I had to stop and blink for almost a full minute. What I could see was beautiful. The … More Infinite Stairs Won’t Stop Me
It had been my dream since the age of 8, when my parents had bought a big case full of ancient National Geographic magazines from Ms. McKinley’s semiannual yard sale. In them were pictures of civilizations I had never known, astounding views of the night sky, and glorious depictions of an entire world, all at … More The Pinnacle
Grass grew thick and tall and unevenly. An old, rusted push mower existed on the property, tucked away in the shed, which was itself molding slowly, but even if there had been somebody to use it there would be no point. No push mower could make it through that. There had been a tidy vegetable … More World without
The Rabbi, the guru, and the Baptist minister all looked down at Ole. The room had mostly emptied out; his wife, Lena, sobbed intermittently, but mostly sat quietly beside him, occasionally nodding off. Three Scotsmen, all brothers, had been in to see him earlier; his regular bartender, of course. His mother had thought his barfly … More My Life Is a Joke, so What’s the Punchline?
The bodies danced through the air, silver and blood flying too fast for the human eye to follow. The viewers at home would be fed several simultaneous replays, with each frame held just long enough for them to appreciate the beauty of such wild and boundless death. Commentators and their crews, fitted with fast-capture augments, … More Vanquisher
I write my tale as true as God has given me the skill to. I have been gone from my home these many years, to strange wildernesses, and I have met primitive people, people of strange coloration and custom. The journal I kept on my journeys, the journal that contains scraps and fragments of my … More An Accounting of Northern Witchery
Reading Cactus 