Beautifully written SFF
By the third time Patricia lost a finger, everyone knew better than to raise a fuss. Her family hadn’t always been this calm. When the first finger, a knuckle’s-worth of her left pinky, had fallen plumply into her dinner salad, there had been an enormous commotion. Her young daughters screamed and bolted into the back yard, and hours later had to be coaxed back inside. Jack fumbled with the phone in the kitchen, trying to …
It’s about impressions. First impressions, last impressions, the creased and corrugated impressions that life leaves on our skin as it wears us down to our essentials, and eventually to nothing. I know about impressions; I’m in sales now. Back then I was a lonely xenoarchaeologist, chasing down one more faded rumour, one more mystery worn flat by repetition and examination. Study, publish, repeat, as postgrads say, until there’s nothing left to say, no iota of …
-1- Carla sat on the edge of the metal railing that lined the motel’s third-floor landing, gripping its paint-chipped bars with long, slender legs. Black lace stockings disappeared into a tattered bathrobe and a lipstick-stained cigarette rested between her fingers. She liked the feel of the breeze on her legs, the thrill of the twenty-foot drop below. She wasn’t a danger junkie, far from it, although she could have probably found a safer way to …
I remember everyone being lit up in colors when I was a little kid. They wore vivid blues and pinks and greens and yellows. Everyone dripped in thoughts and feelings. They were painted with sky blue happy or scarlet red mad, thunderhead gray sad and bright orange excited. I loved looking at everyone wearing their hearts out like that, and mostly everyone had real nice shines. Then I met a man with no color at …
by Addison Black, JAN. 3rd, 3075 Over the past year, we at MAELSTROM have covered stories which have often bordered on the sensational, such as the famous rivalry between siblings Amaterasu and Susanoo, the Japanese gods of the Sun and the Storms respectively. We have also notably touched upon the scandalous account of the giant Paul Bunyan’s alleged affair with the Titan Selene. All of these have served a similar aim: to bring awareness of …
To walk upon the fallen leaves of the Ginkgo tree is very nearly to walk upon a river of gold. It is a sight of such pure beauty that the Speakers whisper sweet blessings to the earth, spinning a preservation upon the leaves where they lie, so the golden carpet won’t fade to black as we tread upon the ground. I was reminding myself of how lucky I was to have enough Speaking to join …
