Contributor: R. F. Abercrombie

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“I don’t know what to do exactly,” she said. “I know what I want to do but I don’t...”
“It’s your choice,” he said. “No one can stop you.”
“You’re not helping.” She turned her coffee cup with long, tanned fingers. “We could wait another year.”
“You could wait a hundred years,” he said. “You’re only delaying your decision.”
“Again, not helpful.” She chewed on her lower lip. “What would he want?”
“He doesn’t want anything. He doesn’t care.”
She pulled her hands from the table and let them fall into her lap. “I’d like to think he cares a little.”
The man laughed. “He’s only following his programming. He’s not sentient. He doesn’t have feelings.”
“He does care about us.” She stared at her hands. “We’ve taught him so much.”
“He’s a learner bot and a house bot, that’s all. He doesn’t have emotions and he doesn’t understand them.”
She looked at him across the table, eyes bright and fierce.
“You never wanted him.”
“I warned you this would happen. They’re like pets. You can’t help but become attached to them.”
“You don’t care about him. You’d put him down like a dog.”
“If he was a dog and he was suffering and near death, yes, I’d have him euthanized. That’s not what we’re dealing with.”
“That’s what it feels like –- to me.”
The man rubbed his cheek. His unshaven face stung his hand. “What do you want to do?”
“It’s so silly. I want him to stay this age, I want him to stay my little helper.”
“So do it. He’ll be smarter than the average ten-year-old but, otherwise, he’ll be the same.”
“It’s not fair to him.”
“He’s not going to grow up, go to college, get married and have a family. He’s going to age out as a house bot. Our house bot, if that’s what you want.”
She began turning the cup again.
“Do you think he can hear us?”
“Probably. He’s knows us well. This is not a surprise to him.”
“He asked me about mod time the other day, as if he looked forward to it.”
“He was only seeking verification. He does it all the time.”
She stirred her coffee, then let the spoon clatter onto the tabletop.
“I keep thinking that I could teach him to care; to laugh, to cry, to have his own desires.”
“Please don’t go there.” He went to her and knelt by her chair and leaned his head on her arm. “You let him choose his name.”
“King Kwame Mumbambo Stevenson the Third.”
“You let him choose his hair style.”
“Blond dreadlocks definitely make a statement.”
They waited quietly, breathing together.
“He needs to be taller,” she said. “He likes to cook.”
“They can make him taller.”
“I know. They can do almost anything.”


- - -
R. F. Abercrombie is a free-lance copywriter making his first excursions into the world of short fiction.

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Author: R. F. Abercrombie

Contributor: Victoria Elizabeth

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The kite tugged, held captive between chubby fingers coated in sugary loam. Silk paper fluttering, it dove beneath the wind, turning cartwheels across an azure sky.

The eastern breeze blew, whipping the delicate crepe basilisk into a frenzy of color. Even the most tenacious of sticky fingers could not contain the power of a wayward wind, and so released the truculent string.

The dragon rejoiced. The child cried. The east wind blew on.


- - -
Victoria Elizabeth Ann is a lifetime student of the arts, literature, and life as a whole. She is currently studying Creative Writing at Full Sail University and aspires to publish a novel in the near future.

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Author: Victoria Elizabeth

Contributor: J. M. Tompkins

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I waited for her next to her black Honda Accord at two in the morning in the damp parking lot. Still, even after my stomach curled watching her strip on stage, I had a thing for her. Tall, lean and confident, she was everything I wanted to be. And everything I hated. With a clanging, the door of the windowless building swung open as Mandy appeared, walking over to me like a runway model.

Passing me without a word, she flung open the driver’s side door and slid in like liquid. I hurried to the passenger side, not wanting her to wait for me. As I clicked my seatbelt, she lit a cigarette and put the car in reverse.

“It was a shitty night making shit for money.” She blew smoke into the windshield and I watched curl in the street light.

“It’s just temporary, like you say.” I looked straight, directly out the window.

“Yeah, it’s just temporary.” She quickly glanced over at me. “I guess I’ll have to put the rent on the card this month.”

My mouth fell open as I turned to look at her, “What about the money your father just gave you? Didn’t he give you five hundred dollars? My last couple of shifts I was able to pull in four hundred, that’s rent.” I tried to drill holes into her skull with my eyes.

“Then groceries. We’ll have to put groceries on the card. Whatever, what does it matter?” She looked disgusted with me. “Money gets spent, cards get used.” Leaning back in her seat, she sped up the car.

“We’ll sit down tomorrow and take a look at the finances. I know we can skim back, save money and quit stripping. We can do this.”

She said nothing. She never said anything when I brought up cutting down expenses.

Ahead was our rental, three bedrooms and two baths. I never imagined in college I would live in a house. In front of it was a black viper, her boyfriend. He leaned against the back of the car, watching us. He looked like a wanna-be rocker, and he was too old to pull it off. What she saw in him, I’d never understand. I turned my head to the right so I could roll my eyes without either of them noticing.

As soon as I unlocked the front door, he picked her up and carried her honeymoon style up the stairs. I already knew I didn’t want to go to my room, they were always loud. The clock blinked two thirty and I yawned. I needed to keep busy, to keep from sleeping on the couch again. I cleaned the dishes in the kitchen and started picking up the soda cans in the living room. As I reached for one on the entertainment center, I noticed there was a new Blu-ray player. Seething with anger, I threw down the trash can and stormed out of the living room straight to my room. I tried to kill myself by holding a pillow against my face and fell sleep.

The next morning I washed our clothes while she slept in. I made her blueberry pancakes, her favorite, and carried them up the stairs on a tray. I knocked softly on her bedroom door.

“Yeah?”

I balanced the tray on one knee and turned the knob to swing open the door. “I made you pancakes.”

“Oh thanks, put them on the bed.” She was slipping on a robe and didn’t even look at me. I exited the room as quickly as I entered. In the hall, I remembered the blu-ray player and I needed to say something. Retreating, I found her door still slightly cracked.

I saw her back and, in the reflection of the mirror, her front. She danced, pointing her finger at herself and sending a seductive look into the reflection. She wore one of her stage outfits and slowly took it off, piece by piece. She looked happy, happier than I had ever seen her.

But she said she wanted to quit. I shut my eyes, holding back my tears and turning away. “We can make it, she can change.”


- - -
J. M. Tompkins is a southern woman, wife and a lover of the craft of the written word. She writes poetry as well as dystopian fiction that searches for utopia within it's walls. We may not be able to deny the darkness, but we can always find the light.

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Author: J. M. Tompkins

Contributor: Benjamin Goodwin

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This was going to be the start of a whole knew life for Roger. He had put in the time and seemingly endless hours at HyperTech International and now he was on his way to interview for his dream job. That morning, Roger had gotten up two hours earlier than he usually did. This was odd for Roger who had always been a man of very strict routine. He coordinated his days almost to the minute, leaving only a little time for scheduled daydreaming and free play. Roger believed that every wasted minute was one more minute he could be working toward his future. It had all been leading up to this. This was the moment he had been working for.

Their lobby was charming and ornate. They had a neat little koi pond with small fish swimming around. Roger approached the elevators and saw a lot of people had gathered and were getting into a recently arrived elevator. Roger decided he would take the next one. He didn’t want to be late and his interview was on the 37th floor. He could not afford to wait for all those people to get out one by one.

He instead got in the next one and quickly pushed the close door button as to not let anyone else slip in. He watched the numbers on the screen go higher and higher as he slowly ascended the building. He decided now would be a good time for some routine daydreaming. He hoped it would relax him before his interview. Roger closed his eyes and thought back to a day long ago.

It was April of last year and Roger was seeing a nice enough young lady from the human resources department of HyperTech. Her name was Leah and she had suggested they go to the cinema to see a newly released film. Roger did not remember the name of it. He had not expected for Leah to want to see a movie after dinner and had only scheduled two hours of date time in his mind. He was planning on using the rest of his evening to get a head start on his taxes and do a lesson with his German Rosetta stone tapes. He had bid Leah farewell and gave her a sincere apology that he would not be able to accompany her to the movie. She had ended things with him the next day.

When asked of her motivation for doing so, she simply said that he was not spontaneous enough. Roger then scheduled two ten-minute blocks of crying time for that day and the next.

Roger thought back to this day and remembered every detail. He was thinking of it so clearly, that he had not noticed that the elevator had stopped. Roger looked at his watch. He had fifteen minutes before he was supposed to be at the interview, so as long as it was fixed by then he would be fine. But it was not fixed by then. Hours started to go by and Roger eventually got tired of standing. He scheduled twenty minutes of sitting. He then scheduled a urination break in the corner of the elevator. Then he had fifteen minutes of jogging in place, ten more minutes of sitting, two hours of screaming for help, another urination break, half an hour of jumping jacks, twenty minutes of rocking back in forth while humming to himself, and two more hours of screaming for help. It was while he was beating his fists on the elevator door that his watch broke.

He immediately scheduled time to fix it, but then realized he couldn’t keep track of his schedule without a watch. This thought terrified every fiber of Roger’s being. He didn’t know what to do. He began having a panic attack and he fell to the floor trying to catch his breath. Eventually, he calmed down enough to turn his mind off. He put himself into an almost comatose state where he could slowly cope with this tragic turn of events. He slowly stood up after a while. He wished more than anything he could know how long that tantrum lasted so he could log it. Roger shook it off and started thinking rationally.

He looked to the ceiling and saw the one of the panels was lose. After many failed attempts, he was able to climb on top of the elevator. He saw the doors for the floor above and opened them up without much hassle.

He had missed his meeting by exactly eleven hours and nineteen minutes. Roger didn’t care at that point. He was just happy to be free. The security guard told him that they were aware of the broken elevator but they assumed no one was inside. Roger had not noticed the emergency call button. It really should have been the first thing he looked for.

On the drive home Roger daydreamed about that night with Leah. He wished he could remember the name of the movie she wanted to see. He would have loved to rent it.


- - -
My name is Benjamin Goodwin. I'm very good looking and I play by my own rules.

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Author: Benjamin Goodwin

Contributor: Brian Coyle

- -
Victoria arrives at the train station late one evening as she always does: her hair tied tightly back into a bun as to stretch back any unsightly features that may hang from her face and dressed in sleek, thoroughly-Ironed business attire. She takes her phone out from her purse and begins a text, all the while reading aloud what she is typing. “Just got to train station. Be there in thirty.” Normally she would make this trip alone: no one in their right mind wants to take a train this late, but for Victoria it was her only means to get to her downtown job on time. However, this time was different. She could smell him before she had seen him: an elderly man dressed in rags sitting quietly in the corner. Her perfectly painted eyes meet his sad and tired eyes for an instant before she looks away in disgust. “Please don’t make him come over here.” Victoria repeatedly whispers to herself. Her pleas for solitude fall on deaf ears as the vagabond limps forward and slouches down into the seat beside her own.

The old man tries his hardest to make himself look presentable: combing back his greasy gray hair before stating, “Well hello, miss. What’s yours that’s mine is Jasper?”

Victoria gives Jasper a look in disgust. “Charmed.”

“Charmed? My that’s an odd sort of name. But city folk ‘round here been namin’ their kin all sorts a peculiar things as I always say. You know I met this one fella in this station the other day, goes by the name Patron. Now what respectable person would name their son after a bottle of…” Victoria cuts Jasper off.

“Sir, would you kindly stop talking. Patron is a common name and mine is not ‘Charmed’. It’s Victoria. Now will you please leave me alone?”

Jasper sits back in his chair deep in thought and Victoria changes seats in a different section of the station. Moments later Jasper follows and sits beside her once more. “I like you, Victoria. You have a prettier name than all the others that come by to visit ol’ Jasper.”

“I did not come here to visit you, old man, and I don’t think anyone ever has. I just want to sit here and wait for my train to get here.” Victoria rummages through her purse and retrieves a small cellphone. The phone turns on with a beep and states that Victoria has neither new calls nor new messages.

“Well isn’t this just a fine how do you do. All ol’ Jasper trying to do is strike up a conversation with someone who looks as lonely as he and you cast him out. Do you like being alone, miss?”

“I am not alone, Jasper. I have plenty of colleagues at work.” She states as she places the phone back into her purse.

“Aye, but are they here now? Why do you not go with them instead of sitting alone at a train station?”

“There is a good reason for that. It is because…” Victoria’s voice trails off at the sudden realization that she has no real explanation to his question.

“Figured as much. I think I hear your train coming. Since you are too good for ol’ Jasper, I will leave you to your business. Good day to you, ma’am.” Jasper limps back to his corner of the station as the train rolls into a halt.

As the metal doors of the train slide open, Victoria rises from her chair and starts towards the awaiting vehicle, hesitating momentarily to gaze upon the lonely vagabond. Once more she checks her phone to find that she has still not received any messages. “Hey Jasper.” Jasper raises his head from a pile of newspaper. “Would you like to ride with me? There are plenty of open seats.”

Jasper jumps up with excitement. “You know in all my years I’ve been sitting in this station, no one has ever offered me a ride. Sure I’ll go with you.”

Victoria and her newfound friend step into the brightly lit train car and take their seats as the train drives off into the night.


- - -
I am from Buffalo, N.Y. and am currently living and attending Full Sail in Orlando. Mostly I write for action but I am branching out into more dramatic pieces.

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Author: Brian Coyle

Contributor: Jake Johnson

- -
So much time. So much time, so much time.

David sat in his study and pondered the universe. At some point it would go on forever, without him. He wanted to live forever, like so many men before him, but he couldn’t even fill a day with anything meaningful.

Eternity was the most frightening thing he could imagine.

Outside moved the ordinary people- farmers and workers. None of them would have to bear the cross of the philosopher, of the thinking man. This deep solitude, demonstrating hope, comfort and assurance as a trio of traitors against the mind. Those people out there were lucky: their deaths could sneak up on them, and take them quietly.

David thought of centuries beyond his own: a twentieth, a twenty-first, and a twenty-second. If technology improved, and the common man worked less and less, would the world enter a fugue of contemplation? Or would it divert itself, by any means necessary, trying to keep its sanity?

He pondered this question for a long time, and eventually noticed a group of men carrying timber for some project. Without hesitation, and in the hopes of losing himself, he put on a coat and went outside to help them.


- - -
Jake Johnson is a teenaged writer and editor with a promising future as a world-traveling starving artist. For the time being, he's doing his best to get a head start in the world of writing.

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Author: Jake Johnson

Contributor: Ray Daley

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Another lonely day in space. Just me and the crocodiles so far. Oh, and Buddy. Where ever the hell he is today.
Probably hiding because he knows it's his turn on waste disposal today.

It's not a hard job, cleaning out the crocs. They can still get a bit feisty but they've gotten used to the very low gravity on board and the water changes. We flush out the ponds, shovel the shit (almost certainly his least favourite part and definitely the reason he's avoiding the job yet again), hose everything off then recycle the water back for them—all nice and clean.

It's one of the very few jobs that Lucy can't handle.

We lovingly call "her" Lucy, our station computer system.
L.U.C.E. - Living Under Created Environments.

That's our little home, formerly known as Her Majesty’s Space Station Ark Royal. There have been many Ark Royals before us but we are a proper Ark, here to preserve the last two of each rare species. Just like the crocs that we jokingly rechristened Adam and Eve.

I personally like to think of myself as Zoo Keeper and Head Tour Guide. I always show the inspection tours around, they come up every few months to check on our progress, ask us questions and see if we need anything. Are we caring for the Habitats? Are we nurturing the precious seeds entrusted into our care?

Are we breeding yet?

And just like that I am shot back to reality, that I too am also a feature aboard this Ark, the very last of my kind.
Our conquerors were kind, the station is enormous, big enough to be visible from Earth in fact. And it has everything you could possibly ask for.

Except freedom.

Not for us, the last two remaining upstart Colonists. The Brits had always been sore about losing us so when The Fall came they swooped in and took us right back, wiping most of the remaining population out. No more USA. Well the land is still there at least, the Brits farm most of it by telepresence. Buddy and I are all that remains of the country, the last two American citizens. Quite literally, we, the people.

***

It's been a busy day. A delivery of Pandas, Giraffes, Dolphins and Scorpions. Buddy actually bothered to show up and helped me to get our ever growing menagerie into their appropriate Habitats. Afterwards, as always, came the question. "So Meg, Systems Test today?" asked Buddy.

"No Buddy, I'm not ready. Not quite." I replied. He was so cold and clinical about the whole thing.

Systems Test.

He just wants to see if he can screw me yet.
He's a virgin with no idea if his balls work or not, some throwback to a religious upbringing where he never masturbated.

I'm trying to hold off for at least another year. He'll be nineteen by then but hopefully working and living up here will have mentally matured him a lot more. He still acts like a little kid, goofing off and shucking his responsibilities as often as he thinks he can get away with it.

Lucy helps a lot there, cutting his rations until he does work. If she weren't actually pulling the strings on this giant puppet show I'd probably have spaced him by now, last American Male or not.

Last American Male he may be, last American Man—well he might become that, one day.


- - -
Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986.

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Author: Ray Daley

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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The priest had been there earlier and the rosary was said and relatives and friends in single file were offering condolences. "Sorry for your troubles," one by one they said, bending over Maggie Murphy, the widow silent in her rocker, a foot or so from Paddy, resplendent in his casket, the two of them much closer now than they had ever been.

A silent guest of honor, Paddy now had nothing more to say, waked in aspic, if you will, in front of his gothic fireplace.

The moon was full this starless night and the hour was getting late and still the widow hadn't wept. Her eyes were swept Saharas and the mourners wanted tears. They had fields to plow come morning and they needed sleep, but the custom in County Kerry was that no one leaves a wake until the widow weeps.

Fair Maggie could have married any man in Kerry, according to her mother, who almost every day reminded her of that.

"Maggie," she would say, "you should have married Mickey. His limp was not that bad," but Maggie wouldn't listen. Instead, she married Paddy, "that pestilence out walking," as her mother often called him even on a Sunday but only after Mass.

Maggie married Paddy the day he scored the only goal the year that Kerry took the trophy back from Galway. That goal was no small thing for Ireland, Paddy would remind us all in pubs, night after night, year after year, until one of us would gag and buy him another drink.

That goal, he'd shout, was something historians in Ireland would one day note, even if they hadn't yet, and every time he'd mention it, which was almost daily, Maggie's mother would remind her daughter once again that she should have married Mickey and had a better life.

The final time her mother praised poor Mickey, a screaming match ensued, so loud it woke the rooster the very day her mother, feverish in bed, gurgled like a frog and died.

This evening, though, as the wake wore on, the mourners grew more weary waiting for the tears the widow hadn't shed. Restless in his folding chair, Mickey put his bottle down and rose to give the eulogy he had needed days to memorize.

"Folks," he said, "if all of us would holler down to Paddy now, I'm sure he'd holler back. Despite the flames and all that smoke, he'd tell us all once more that Kerry winning over Galway is all that ever mattered. We'll always have cold Paddy over there to thank for that. Ireland never had a better man. St. Patrick himself, I know, would vouch for that."

The Widow Murphy hadn't moved all evening, but after hearing Mickey speak, she began to rock with fury as she raised a purple fist, shook it to the heavens and then began to hum her favorite dirge. The mourners all joined in and hummed along until midnight struck on the mantel clock and then, as if released by God Himself, the mourners rose, one by one, from folding chairs and paraded out beneath the moon, freed by a hurricane of the Widow Murphy's tears.


- - -
Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had work published in a variety of print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

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Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: Lindsey Barlow

- -
He was following her now; he had seen the gold in her pocket.
It was two o'clock in the morning, and the child was six, and the gold was shimmering like honey on a tongue that whispered, "You've never seen anything like this before."
And for a homeless man, that was sublime.
So he stumbled, following her ribbons and bows while they fluttered over the shimmering streets, and then the gravel, and dirt, and grass, like birds and butterflies and bees and bats in the night. Fear, for once, never occurred to him.
He knew she saw him. He had caught her emerald eye, and she giggled, this girl with gold in her pocket.
Just after an hour of walking, they had reached the woods, and he set his rum down - the bottle had grown so heavy as he walked. And when he stood again, the forest was transformed. The rocks were pearls, the apples were rubies, the moss was opal that climbed up bark of bronze and gold, and all about him was a twilight of misshapen gems and fortunes that glowed. All, that is, but where his rum sat.
In that little spot, the dirt was dirt, the grass was grass, and there was no sweetness etched into their being. This image stirred him.
"Sir," the girl with gold chimed, "are you sad?"
He felt his eyes well with warm tears, and when these tears fell, they cooled. Diamonds tumbled down his cheek. He caught two of them just as they plummeted from his chin, but one bounded askance, and this one he missed. It dropped onto the ground beside the bottle without a sound. In the grass, the diamond trickled back into a tear.
"No, I'm not sad. You are too young," he replied to her, "and this place is too beautiful to understand me." He looked round himself at the natural palace. "But I understand. Now, I do." He glanced back at his tears and marveled that the smallest drops of him could be so priceless. "It has taken me so long to see that worth was not where I placed it.
"My debts... they aren't so heavy now. My thirst is nearly gone. I suppose it does not matter, after all, how late one travels that path in the dark night. The end of the right road overflows all."


- - -
Lindsey Barlow is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington, and she is currently an Adjunct Professor of Writing and Grammar at Cedar Valley Community College. Her short story "The Trade" was previously published in Oak Bend Review, and her non-fiction article titled "Driven by the Spirit: The Alcoholism of Man in Boardwalk Empire" was published in Popular Culture Review. She currently lives in Dallas, Texas.

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Author: Lindsey Barlow

Contributor: Michael Plesset

- -
On a train, looking out the window. Wheat and people go by. Time to think,
and remember, what we wish the past was. Time to think, and wonder what to have for lunch, and what our great grandchildren will be like, and their great grandchildren. They’ll understand the universe, they’ll know what happens when we die. They’ll wonder how we got along knowing so little, and why we spent our time the way we did, sitting on trains with so much time to think.

It was a visit he wasn’t looking forward to, relatives with no common bond, postponed many times, until excuses have run out.

Two more hours, to get to where he doesn’t want to go.

Why haven’t you called?
We missed you at the holidays.
What have you been doing?

A wedding of one of their children, one he really doesn’t know. They’ll be happy, their big day, and he must pretend to care.

Suddenly the train slowed to a stop, what’s wrong. It hit something that shouldn’t be there, emergency. So there they sit, for what might be hours, on that train with still more time to think.

A woman across the aisle said ”I hope no one’s hurt.”
“Yes” was all he could think of to say.
“I’m going to a wedding” she said, “it doesn’t look like I’ll make it.”
“I am too, but to be honest I don’t care, I don’t really know them.”
“I’m going to my husband’s daughter’s wedding, she hates me” she said.
“Maybe we’re better off here, on the train” he said, “and we have a perfect excuse for not showing up.”
She laughed. “You’re right, this is the best thing that could have happened today.” And after a pause, “But I do hope no one’s hurt.”

He thought “No one was hurt? Oh yes, we were. We’ve lost this day forever, and that can’t be healed. Life carries us along, consuming us in tiny bites each day. If only time could be like this, instead of taking us in meaningless little steps to the end, it could stop, like the train, and let us rest.”

The woman said “We’re trapped here, what if we just got off and had a picnic, out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m in,” he said “we could buy some food at a little store I saw a short way back.”

They got off the train, walked back to the store, got some food, and sat eating in the shade of a large tree, then just watched the clouds slowly drift across the sky, losing track of time. After a while, she said “This is the nicest day I can remember, I guess I haven’t felt very happy, but didn’t realize it.”

They heard the train start up again. Since the trains didn’t have a stop near there, they had no idea how they would get to either where they were going, or back to where they came from, but they didn’t mind, it was a strange relief to hear it going away.

“I guess we’re sort of like school kids skipping school,” he said.

She said “I never did anything like that.”

He thought about it seriously for a long while, then said softly, “Neither have I.”


- - -
Michael Plesset has published poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, and wrote material for a stand-up comedian. He did graduate work in mathematics and philosophy, worked in high technology and teaches English to Chinese students.

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Author: Michael Plesset