Words and Worlds by Carl Bystrom
Magical Thinking for Androids and Other Future Beings
I waited outside the storage room door.
“Hi.” Maybe nervous or surprised that I actually came. “15 minutes..”
She unlocked and led me inside.
Breath catching as my hands wrapped her waist, her face turned up and back towards mine, hungry, urgent.
We fumbled, kissed, caressed.
“The best break ever,” she whispered.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
“Hello girl,” Chisholm greeted the Arken’s transom. “I missed you.”
“Don’t get too flirty,” Meredith shot sideways, popping the ship’s hatch. “She’s my baby now.”
Chisholm gave her a black glare. “Perhaps a hand of cards later?”
Meredith’s eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Do you have anything left to lose, Chisholm?”
He flashed a disgruntled smile, then sighed, surveying the area. “Looks like Davis took off with more than just my bedroll, but I’ll gladly wager the tug if we can track it down. He can’t have flown far.” Continue reading “World Views #BlogBattle”
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Davis surfaced slowly. The previous day’s trauma had knocked him deep into a dreamless slumber he felt reluctant to exit. His eyelids clung together, sticky with dust from the cave, and he levered himself onto one elbow before prying them open enough to survey the cavern. Light poured from the entrance, casting his shadow across Chisholm’s empty bag.
“Good morning!” Davis shouted, relaxing and reclining again. Silence. “Hey Chiz!” He tried louder. “What’s for breakfast?!” Continue reading “Ricocheted #writephoto”
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Hazel rattled the gate.
“Don’t do that,” her little brother scolded. “The bees’ll come.”
“The Beezle?” She mocked back. “Is that a monster?”
“No,” he replied frowning. “The bees in those boxes. They’ll sting us.”
Hazel peered at the cubes standing in the yard. Maybe they were hives. Maybe someone dressed in white coveralls and a mask collected honey every morning. She’d never seen them. Her whole life the place stood empty.
“You better just hush up or the Beezle’s gonna get you!”
*
In the windowless basement of the abandoned mansion, as if manifested by a magic word, something stirred.
Reading Time: < 1 minute
The pungent sting of the ink twitched his nostrils (black always seemed to go to his head) but Daniel waved the marker under his nose for a moment before recapping.
He flicked the switch and the neon fluttered, the electric buzz looming large then receding quickly into the hum of the morning as he hung the Special.
Her eyes flashed an emerald green and Daniel cocked an eyebrow with his smile but her forehead furrowed as she walked past, transforming his grin to a sneer: “Probably a vegetarian.”
Reading Time: 4 minutes
“Davis?” His voiced dropped to a whisper. Davis wasn’t in the cave. “Where the hell did you go?”
Chisholm turned in a slow circle. The cylinder tucked under his arm illuminated the empty floor around him. His sleeping sack and shoulder bag had vanished along with his companion. Continue reading “This is Not Okay #BlogBattle”
Reading Time: 5 minutes
“I’m stuck,” Davis groaned. “And I can’t see anything….”
“That’s ’cause your big ass is blocking the light.” Chisholm twisted the top of the cylinder he was holding and a glow illuminated the rocky floor in a dim circle around his feet. He let out a sigh. Continue reading “Gravity Well #writephoto”
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Even though everyone had perished, including Bess, the only creature in this universe that he’d ever truly trusted, Davis swore on the dawning star that he would go home again.
As he peered out at wings unfolding, preparing for a descent through clouds of who-knew-what toward a landing who-knew-where, Davis swallowed his embarrassment, choked on his grief, and studied the bitter taste of his fear.
He swirled the tang of panic and terror around his tongue, searching for sweet or earthy or musk, some note he might learn to savor but, plummeting through the mist, he tasted only sour.
Reading Time: 6 minutes
“So much for retirement,” Chisholm grumbled. The hum grew louder on the other side of the bay doors. “This was supposed to be a small town on the dark side of a tiny planet circling a quiet little star…” He heaved a duffel into the open rear hatch of the tug. “But no.” He scanned the bay for other vital possessions, walked to the corner and picked up two photoelectric cylinders and a tank of propane. “First, I lose my damn ship to an evil blonde ex-Marine, then I get caught in a fucking apocalypse.”
Rain began pattering on the metal roof. First just a few drops, then a few more, heavier, then the shower began in earnest. Except he knew it wasn’t rain. Continue reading “Clutch Your Buttocks and Keep Walking”
Reading Time: < 1 minute
The wheel stood since the beginning. Dense, epic, and ancient before time, the world grew up around it. The center of everything, really: the halo of clear white sky, the arc of history, cultivation, and community. The entire enterprise.
Over time, we disremembered. It’s centrality lost and it’s soul objectified, our revere faded first to respect, then acceptance, then finally disregard. It became a relic, then a monument, a sculpture, then a toy. A plaything for children.
Until the day it turned.
Then everything we’d forgotten came crashing back.