There’s a distinct scent to the air right before a Firestorm breaks: acrid and sulfuric, with a touch of sweet smoke. It manifests moments before the pale lavender sky floods […]
Read more
Tag: science fiction
Three Microfictions by Conor Barnes
The Dongle You thought you were arriving at the train an hour early, but you got the times wrong and happened to get there just in time to leave, so […]
Read more
“Close to the Fire” by Bill Kitcher
Jerry backed the ’68 Ford Fairlane into a driveway, then jammed it into Drive, and stomped on the accelerator. The tires squealed and he crossed the road, went up a […]
Read more
Nominations and Internships
Hello folks! It’s Matthew. It’s been a while since I’ve made an announcement, I know. You may have noticed that we put Searching for The Cottingley Fairies on our banner. […]
Read more
“Indistinguishable” by Kenton K. Yee
When I was in eighth grade, Dad started feeling “neither here nor there.” The harder he tried to relax, the more violently he’d jitter. The only way he could stop […]
Read more
“One Learns Ruthlessly” by Lydia Storm
“And I learned, gentlemen. Alas, one learns when one has to. One learns when one wants a way out. One learns ruthlessly.” —Franz Kafka, “A Report for an Academy” Dear […]
Read more
The Metaworker Podcast – Meditations on Water by Stella Meadows
Episode Description: Editors Matthew, Elena, and Melissa talk to Stella Meadows about her brilliant nonfiction (as well as what makes brilliant nonfiction in general), identity, introspection, LGBT+ representation in art, […]
Read more
“Diadem for the End of the World” by Randi Sanders
Seven billion was the end predicted by that movie where the population was fed on a questionable combination of soy, lentils, and plankton that wasn’t really plankton because we needed […]
Read more
“The Donkey Saint” by Carl Fuerst
When Emil was in Youth Brigade, his labor unit was relocated to a region called “Janesville Wisconsin.” The territory had already been processed by a dozen salvage teams and Emil’s […]
Read more
“A Wounded Sky” by Andrew Johnston
The sky’s been running down my walls for the last week, just these weird regal purple trickles of oily space that squirm their way down any surface that can hold […]
Read more
“Nigh” by Scott Mitchel May
Harvey Olsen never had any interest in surviving any kind of apocalypse — not zombie, not viral, and certainly not nuclear. He honestly did not understand those who did. All […]
Read more
“These fragments I have shored against my ruins” by Jie Wang
We are all doomed to lose everything. I’ve lost three fingers, one arm, one eye. I’ve lost my family, my childhood home, my native tongue. I’m getting better and better […]
Read more
Excerpt From “We Three Kings” by D.M. Rice
D.M. Rice is a non-binary writer from Dallas, TX whose work has been featured in the Aletheia Journal, Sybil, The Bandit Zine, and the anthologies Rec*og*nize, Nameless Woman, Kill Line, and […]
Read more
“The Confession of the Watcher at the Bell” by K.A. Liedel
The peace inside the giant glass bell is almost always short-lived. Soon the translucent, riblike curves will spark with electric-blue orbs, followed by clouds of glittering cosmic dust, followed again […]
Read more
“The Death of Paul Shephard” by Kristoffer Newsom
They rode together in silence for some time, the old man and the young one. Paul looked out the window, his blue eyes cloudy with cateracts, his vision clouded with […]
Read more