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Your guidebook writers acknowledge that there’s been a great deal of debate about how exactly an eighth continent appeared in our midst. Amid some circles, there’s talk of the landmass as an intergalactic spaceship, its presence entering our reality like a sparrow flying through an open window. There are speculations that it rose from the […]
The settlement was barely two weeks old, and so her own habitation husk had to serve as an ER room for the man who was carried in from the planet’s surface, screaming and blue-lipped with trauma shock. “What happened?” The doctor listened as the man’s coworker explained how he had been guiding a transportation eelcraft when something huge and obscure rose from the river, crushed him against the bank, and made off.
1. KING Once upon a time there was a king who had a daughter that he loved very much, and when she disappeared, he called you to the throne room and requested your services. “Tell me what happened to her,” he said. It had been three days since the Crown Princess Jieqiong had last been […]
On the necropolis space station of the Tau Andromeda planetary system, the keepers of the tomb attended to the dead and the dying. They cleansed, prepared, and prayed over the bodies. They performed the last rites, paying intricate attention to the customs of each person’s native community. This was the most sacred of tasks. Carelessness or disrespect was not tolerated; just one mistake meant immediate dismissal.
In a minute, nothing we’ve said to each other and nothing we’ve done with each other will ever matter again. I don’t want her to go. We’ve just made love: spontaneous, unexpected, volcanic, in the way that sometimes occurs between people who are usually more cautious, more guarded, more moved by rational calculation than whim.
No one can deny that the Apollo program of the early 1970s was an embarrassment to our nation: ill-conceived, hostile, and audacious. Not only did the astronauts fail to bring back the severed head of the Moon King, but every one of them fled within hours of having landed, urinating in their suits as they retreated. The assault on the lunar surface stopped short at the planting of a stiff and garish flag.
When Amy begins to flay herself during office hours, you aren’t quite sure what to do. You hate office hours. You used to enjoy them, actually, back before the flayings started. Sure, it’s hard sharing your office with three other postdocs, and sure, you could spend these hours more efficiently without constant interruptions from shy undergraduates with a dozen questions already answered on the syllabus.
Today, like every other day, I wake up expecting to die before night comes. No, I’m not suicidal and I don’t have a death wish. I am just a Hunter. The life expectancy of the average Hunter in the Second Quadrant is ten years, and even that is if they are exceptionally lucky. There are too many ways to die in this line of work; so much that not even the few old-timers like myself and Jess can remember all the deaths we’ve experienced.
When she decided to wander through the woods in search of poppy fields and prowling houses, the stepmothers and grandmothers scoffed.
“You’ll be looking for love potions and beauty serums, then. Shallow. I always knew you were an insecure girl.”
“She wants slimmer thighs.”
“She craves wider hips.”
“She knows the boys don’t look twice at her, that she’ll never marry. Sad.”
“Once upon a time,” outputted the algorithm, “there was an AI.
“It generated recipes and ingredient descriptions for an online grocery store. The website said that this recipe was not just a squash soup recipe, but it also was a good diet recipe / keto recipe / recipe for autumn nights / five ingredient recipe / easy beginner recipe / recipe to impress your date.
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