In the event it became necessary to start the new origin of life, we observed the machine. To disguise the machine, we filled the aboveground area (the machine was of course built underground), an otherwise abandoned field, with three hundred sky-blue dumpsters. The dumpsters were not dumpsters of refuse, butContinue Reading

The Earth The explorer climbs a dune. And at the bottom sees a hole.  The hole calls up to the dune, Hello? The explorer shifts his feet. Sand seeps from under his feet and chokes the hole.  Eyeless, tongueless, I want you to kill me, says the hole.  The sunContinue Reading

She felt tired after walking so long, so she knelt down to rest by a pond. Then through the limpid water, she saw the reflection of her face and body. When she smiled, the reflection smiled back, and when she scowled, the reflection scowled back. Enlightened by the reflections, sheContinue Reading

Under crystal neon lights, in a darkened club on the shoals of some distant world, she dances. Her hips move like the tide and her neck extends and cranes about as if she were reaching upwards to drink from some tall hanging bloom. Her feet, though delicately burdened with sandals,Continue Reading

God put His hand into the earth and pulled out the sea. God put His birds in the trees and his cows in the fields. God put Lacy into a small blue house and a tall green tree, and across from it all He put THE KNIFE.  THE KNIFE crouchedContinue Reading

Tanning season begins in late January. The first days of midterm break are dedicated to studying forecasts. Risks are analyzed. Gas money is produced. Stories are straightened. Lies are told. The locals have not yet shed their winter suits. The sand is warm at mid-day. We bury our feet andContinue Reading

A. This is the suicide note of Cinderella of Phantásien. Imprisoned within this note, like the unopenable rebenok in a matryoshka doll, is a true story—with a true title: Therapeutic Fantasy Epic. I toyed with different titles, such as Visions of Hyperborea—and throwaways: Too Bitter and Impatient to Write, AnotherContinue Reading

Long ago, the Universe expanded. A vast swirling chaos. The Star was pure light and heat, radiating into the nothingness around it. It gathered bits of all the elements into itself. It consumed and burned and illuminated. The light of other stars blinked at it from far away. The StarContinue Reading

All creatures make calculations to survive. Ants calculate the amount of food that needs to be stored for the colony to survive the winter. Squirrels calculate advanced trajectory as they leap from tree to tree. They don’t teach their young to make advanced calculations, they just do it. Humans needContinue Reading