Stories and Poems
Summer 2009
FLASH FICTION: X Factory, by Gareth D Jones In the future, hope will still be important. But so will efficiency.STORY: Damer Trusted in Stones, by Patricia Russo When three children find themselves inexplicably trapped inside their house, "Try the door" seems to be a likely escape plan. But two other strategies may be even more effective.
And then Robin went off. She’d throw back her head and suck in a huge breath and start talking very loud and very fast, with her arms going up and down, as if she were physically pumping the words out. She’d tell the stranger our names, our ages, our favorite colors, our least favorite vegetables, and our address. This only took a few seconds, and then she’d start over from the top. Usually she got through her recitation four or five times before the person backed away. Nobody could understand what she said, but Damer and I couldn’t get that fact into Robin’s head.
I trusted in the voices on the other side of the wall. At least those were real.
STORY: Minds Burned White, by Robert E. Keller Every time Hatch awakens for another double shift as a highly trained diode in a pan-galactic Centipede arcade cabinet, he feels a bit more of his individual identity slipping away. His only consolation is that he was a fairly nasty person to begin with.
Fasban seized my cloak. “Why didn’t you stuff the bottle in your pocket, Hatch? Or at least some of the food? Do you have any idea how hungry I am?”
“It would have cost us time,” I said. “You know the machine doesn’t like it when we pocket food. And we need to hurry.”
Fasban shook me. “You dirty lout! I love wine.”
I knocked his hand away. Years before, he might have bashed me in the face for this. But like Gariana and I, he had been worn down, and now Fasban simply shook his head, sighed, and walked away. I felt a twinge of pity for him—and for the reflection of myself that I saw in him.
Issue #6, Spring 2009
STORY: Angel Dust, by Jaine Fenn In Isha's neighborhood water is scarce, gangs are everywhere, and the ground is a luxury no one can afford.I wasn’t scared so much as angry now. My plans for yesterday had included a trip to Dirla’s. We were going to try on some prime topsider cast-offs she’d acquired and altered fit. Her brother had said he’d drop in. He was a flesher, Kera’s old trade, more used to sewing people than clothes; I reckoned it was me, not his sister’s needlework, he was interested in. Only I’d blown them out for a pleasant day of cleaning water-traps, boiling piss and haggling with strangers. And now someone was raiding my home. City’s sake, I deserved a break.
STORY: Micronations; or, How We Became the Mole People, by Timothy Mudie Levi and Ruslan liked their vacuum-sealed totalitarian nation-state so much, they decided to build another one!
Levi knew it was coming, inevitable really, but hearing Ruslan lay out the plan still shocked him. Generations had lived in the Habitats peacefully, raising crops and herds, maintaining the technology they understood less every day, trying to remember what things used to be like. What Ruslan was proposing—what they had already agreed to—could only be called one of two things: mutiny or revolution.
STORY: Norma and the Fiddler of Gurg, by T. M. Crone Sure, any 1960s burnout would love to get timewarped into an intergalactic zoo exhibit with a beautiful woman. But how does the beautiful woman feel about it?
Harvey had made an understatement when he said the Gurgians weren’t pretty. When Norma neared the house, there they were, their bulbous, gray bodies pressed against the clear divider, peering at her with huge, ghostly eyes. They had three arms jutting from their centers, each with numerous tentacle-like fingers that slithered across the window like spider legs. Rope-like hair, in the most bizarre shades of the rainbow, extended from the top of their head, down their back, to the floor—one heck of a mohawk.POEM: The Last Stranger, by Kristine Ong Muslim After a world tour of genre fiction publications, this pantheon of foreboding juggernauts returns to Labyrinth Inhabitant.
She screamed.
“I-i-i-i-it’s show time!” said Harvey, doing a floppy-legged jig past her.
Issue #5, Winter 2009
STORY: Occupied, by Chris Hayes-Kossmann When Charlie ordered his fourth beer, he never imagined it would lead him into the least dignified predicament in Labyrinth Inhabitant history.“Ah! England again!” The man coughed. “I shall begin. Hello. I found your letter. Only old people call it a lav. Why do you hide your letters in toilets? I am eight years old. Who do you think will win the football? Signed, John.” The man coughed again. His voice trembled, as if he was terribly tired. “God, football. Sorry John, don’t follow it. Not many tellies in bathrooms these days. You coming in?”STORY: Blue Electron Moon, by Robert E. Keller Politically, it would have been safer to cut off the defeated king's head rather than keeping him prisoner. But his captor still needed him alive. Needed him for something quite specific, at it turned out.
The force that tugged at my skeleton weakened, and I stood. “I’m weary, and too old now to provide sport for you. There will be no game.”
The giant figure stood in silence, perhaps contemplating my words. “This is your last chance,” he said. “When the blue moon rises to its peak, your cell door will open--granting you a path to freedom and wealth.”
“A path to madness,” I said. “And if I couldn’t find my way out of Valca Tower in my youth, what hope do I have now?”
“The hope of wisdom.”
STORY: The Experiment, by Heather Parker If the first phase of the experiment has begun and you still haven't spotted the control group, it's probably you...
The Director shrugged. “I would query that, David. Aren’t our problems—wars, terrorism, all caused by our territorial nature? And by our need to ensure our families aren't threatened by others—trying to take our resources from us? Maybe we're not so very different from the animals after all. We just prefer to think we are.”
Issue #4, Fall 2008
STORY: The Wall, by Therese Arkenberg The architects of Raishya’s hometown didn’t realize they were holding the blueprints inside-out. Now the city is at war against its own walls, and the more defenses the townsfolk build, the more the enemy advances…While Center was cloaked with an air of mystery, Outside held more concrete dangers. Outside was where the men came from every month with the supplies that weren’t available on the Wall: grain and feed and cloth and meat that didn’t come from birds caught on the rooftops. People could raise goats and gardens on the Ground between walls, but they had no space for fields to grow wheat or cotton. And the iron they used to build and repair and defend the Wall came from Outside, too, but also what they defended against: foreign men who would not be turned away at the Gate House.STORY: Simon Says, by Terence Kuch Our wry tour guide welcomes us into his home as he does some time. Technically, I suppose he does some space as well. But not very much of it.
Please do not expatiate upon the shit-bucket; instead, O do mention our grand patriotic festival.
Oh, yes: National Day. Once a year -- as far as I can tell -- my food comes festooned with banners and devices, shredded colored plastic glued to toothpick ends. It seems the nation is celebrating, and so my food is celebrating, too.
STORY: Ten Cities Down, by Lindsey Duncan It was only after death that Timur took an interest in upward mobility. In life, he wanted just the opposite.
Timur suppressed a shiver, part unease and part relief to which he could not yet give voice. The guards paid no mind to anyone who wanted to ascend; they checked credentials only on the way down, but the Travelers would ride soon, hunting for the most recent escapee from the afterlife. It would be a race to the surface, and he was on foot.
Issue #3, Summer 2008
POEM: Somnambulis, by Megan Arkenberg A young woman seeks to discover whether there is such a thing as a world outside of her native land of Somnambulis. Based on the knowledge and experience that I bring to this poem as a reader, I would answer, "probably yes."STORY: Arrows, Co-Arrows, by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro In the future, a woman has cancer. A man has ants.
Closing his eyes, ignoring the sting of his armpits, he could just discern the sound of the ants, those still alive, tiny legs scampering against the foul cardboard. He reached forward and took three of the cards from the disheveled collection. He gazed at them intently for a long time. Trander followed the indications on the cards like a somnambulist under the siren-song of sleep. Halfway through re-filling the artificial food pockets he noticed there weren’t enough bags left. Very well. Tonight would be different.STORY: Roadside Attraction, by Walt Jarvis Just follow the billboards for a journey into mind-crushing old-school terror.
As he stepped inside, the afternoon seemed to grow darker, as if an approaching thunderstorm had suddenly obscured the face of the sun. Instinctively he looked up, but the blindingly blue sky was cloudless. It must be the height of the corn, he thought; indeed, the stalks towered over him. The fat man who had gone ahead of them had stopped in the middle of the path to vigorously wipe his brow. "It's plenty warm in here, isn't it?" he asked plaintively.STORY: The Cold, by Jon Baldridge Jeff's plan to move his family into an abandoned mansion for 24-hour video surveillance and psychological experimentation has absolutely awful consequences.
"Hotter'n hell."
Jeff glanced at the spines of a few books. The titles seemed to have been chosen for aesthetics rather than reading enjoyment. The bindings all matched, filled with Olde English-style titles, some of which were incomprehensible. Back in the other living area, Jeff swung open the doors of a wall-to-wall armoire that revealed a television. Good. So Joey wouldn't completely go crazy, and neither would Jeff. In the cabinet below was a DVD player and a selection of recent, popular titles. Lisa was at Jeff's side, though he hadn't heard her approach across the thick rug that dominated the room.
"Have you seen a phone?" she asked.
Issue #2, Spring 2008
STORY: The History Eaters, by Neil James Hudson The curator of the archive of Earth's history follows a cross-reference...to danger!“They warned me about you,” the Professor said. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use this. It’s a warrant for access to the index, from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge You’ll see it’s been countersigned by the Home Secretary.”STORY: The Sentinel Gate, by Subodhana Wijeyeratne "It's finished!" the author said. "The tale of a boy on the verge of manhood, who goes on a quest to understand the labyrinth that his civilization inhabits. But where shall I ever submit this story?"
Librarians argued that the end of a wall could also be considered a beginning, and also that a wall that begins need not necessarily have an end but could continue on forever from that point. This gave rise to the legend of the Eternal Wall, one that neither began nor ended but went on forever. Some Librarians believed that if one were to follow this Wall from any one point along it, for as far as one could go, the journey would become metaphysical and one would attain transcendence along the way.STORY: The Canyon of Babel, by Daniel Ausema This tale is a despondent cry for salvation, howled into a cruelly incoherent void!
Fael felt a strong need to shout, to let his voice echo also between those walls. He brought his hands up and yelled, "Ish al limagui." The words were an old greeting used by Fael and his blood family to greet each other in the streets. But it was not these words that came back in the echo. Instead the answer sounded like, "Hilo-een."
Issue #1, Winter 2007-2008
POEM: The Fifth Stranger, by Kristine Ong Muslim The author of more than 500 poems and stories channels Rabelais in this imaginative visit to a grim ribcage colony.
STORY: The Kingdom Defaced, by Louise Norlie Four members of a royal family make their unhappy home in a labyrinthine palace none of them has ever left. The ending is not that they turn out to be two-dimensional and living in a pack of cards. I swear.
The king snipped the strings that held him together, toppled to the floor and dragged his helpless fragments toward the blazing fireplace where the last remaining echo of his mind finally could be silenced. His fingers tore off of his hands. His jaw came unspooled and dragged on the floor behind him. Before he could reach the flames he was a shell of a corpse, little more than an eye and a bit of a brain, powerless to execute his suicidal plan.
The ministers caught him in time to repair the damage
STORY: Phobia, by R. E. Hartman Embark on a journey through a bleak cityscape of epistemic and existential uncertainty! What's that ominous tower that dominates the skyline far off in the distance? Could it be the beacon of hope and meaning we yearn for? (Nope.)
I feel a drop of sweat upon my neck, and must fight the urge to wipe it away. I can never be sure that I have moved my hand in just such a way before. If I haven't, then that simple act may be my destruction. Or I feel a need to cough, and I panic as it rises, my mind racing through possibilities: have I covered my mouth when I've coughed before, and if so how? Or did I suppress it and let my chest heave, or did I simply let it out? Such constant considerations make it difficult to meditate on trying to find some way out of the City.
POEM: Tangled Legs, by Greg Beatty The Rhysling Award-winning poet contributes a sonnet that poses the question: Where does the Minotaur get his drawings mounted?