Recent Stories

“St. Thomas Aquinas Administers the Turing Test,” by Mary Berman

On the 25th day of the month of March in this year of our Lord 1265, I was ordered by the Most Holy Father to the Studium Conventuale di Santa Sabina all’Aventino to evaluate the existence, or lack thereof, of a soul housed within a Wooden Likeness of a Man.

“Margery Lung Is Unstoppable,” by Lisa Cai

The first time Margie raised the dead, it was to prove she didn’t eat her dog.

“Song for a Star-Whale’s Ghost,” by Devin Miller

Balentora had been dead for decades. Ruby, in her youth, had found it drifting in a star-whale graveyard and politely sung its ghost the traditional shanty to ask, “Would you fly for me?” The ghost had been lucid enough then to say yes.

“The Lighthouse Keeper,” by Melinda Brasher

I’m not supposed to talk to the locals, but that’s not a problem because there don’t seem to be any. Not as far as the eye can see. Not in the endless blue I can’t look away from. Not along the windswept bluffs high above that crashing, ever-changing vastness that makes me feel smaller than I’ve ever felt. And yet bigger. More alone. And less.

I must keep the light burning at all times.

And I must never, never climb down to the beach.

I’m content with these rules. A woman in my position is grateful for a job. Grateful for the quiet. For no eyes to watch me. Revile me.

I have a milk cow. A clutch of chickens. A garden the last lighthouse keeper planted neatly, then almost let die. And I have the sea. A beautiful fierceness I don’t yet understand.

“The Gaunt Strikes Again,” by Rich Larson

“My friends, I apologize for pulling you away from the festivities,” the Duke said, shutting the heavy oak door behind him, “but I believe our lives to be in danger.” He turned to his guests and drew a deep breath. “It seems the Gaunt has decided to attend our soiree.”

“Then we are doomed.” The Beldam crumpled into the nearest chair, blinking. “Utterly, and entirely.”

“Bone Talker, Bone Eater,” by D.S. Ravenhurst

The hedgewitch watches me from beneath her fur-trimmed hood, her sunken eyes eerily like the beetles in the flickering lantern light. I look towards the silent forest, the trees an army of mourners watching the funeral beneath the velvet sky. The spaces between them could hide countless monsters, but nothing there scares me more than the yawning space at my side where Mama has always stood.

Not even the whispers of the villagers on the other side of the beetle well, or the way they shrink from me in fear.

None of them can hear the bones.

“Letters From Mt. Monroe Elementary, Third Grade,” by Sarah Pauling

Dear Pilgrims, my name is Patricia but people call me Patty. Miss K says you’re going to be flying in outer space for a very long time! You will fly for your whole life and my whole life and my baby brother’s whole life and Toothpick’s whole life (he is my puppy). But maybe my daughter will meet you if she gets VERY old. Please make friends with her when you get to Earth. She will live in Michigan like I do and she’ll cook you onion soup.

— Patty Ward

“Batter and Pearl,” by Steph Kwiatkowski

The air’s thick with marina noise and mosquitoes eating up my shirtless chest. I’m pouring my jug of fresh-caught batter into the shuddering funnel of the change machine, even though I know in my heart there’s not enough to buy Ecker the smallest size of honey-glazed crispies. The line for the chicko joint is starting to wind down the boardwalk. Everyone’s yelling, a bunch of sunburned lake-slick battermags pissed I’m taking too long during the dinner rush. But I can’t let it go, not tonight. Ecker is leaving tomorrow to go back to vocational school, and he’s standing at the order window with his hands in his pockets like he’s embarrassed.

“In Tandem,” by Emilee Prado

Sephina first noticed me when we were partnered for the three-legged race. It was Field Day, the last hurrah of eighth grade. I wasn’t quite as tall as her, wasn’t quite as lithe, but when we set off, it was as if our hips and knees and ankles were pistons that had always fired together. “One, two, one, two, one, two,” we counted, miles ahead of the others. We were surging so full of glee that we stumbled over the finish line and tumbled hard into the grass. But still, we’d won. Sephina’s lips pressed onto my cheek like soft warm sugar cookie dough. Then she laid her scuffed and bloody palm over the scrape on my knee. “We’re bonded forever now,” she said.

“Dreamwright Street,” by Mike Reeves-McMillan

The shop fronts glitter along Dreamwright Street, where all the best people come to buy their dreams. Sunlight winks off polished glass, clear as crystal; off the lovingly applied varnish of the wooden window frames; off fragments of mica embedded in the very cobblestones.

The customers, too, sparkle. Light leaps from the gemstones they wear, from their polished shoes, from the braid on their servants’ livery. Clear eyes reflect the dancing light, and their bright teeth send back radiance as they smile. The customers of Dreamwright Street sleep well in their high mansions, and they sleep deeply, and when they arise, their minds are clear and scintillating as a wellspring.

“Eternal Recurrence,” by Spencer Nitkey

The deepfake is nothing like you. Its smile is all wrong. It’s recorded your dimple as an artifact and smoothed it over. Your smile is too symmetrical. It’s shortened your beaky nose. It winks at me from the computer screen with the wrong eye.

“Phantom Heart,” by Charlie B. Lorch

The widow wants to talk to her husband.

She has been warned: It is not her husband. It is ADRU. (ADRU-93, if you must know, but really the full name does the opposite of what it should: It shows it is one of many.) ADRU stands for Artificial Death Reconstruction Unit, and all it knows is the moment the husband died.

But it doesn’t matter. It never does, not to the living.

“This Week in Clinical Dance: Urgent Care at the Hastings Center,” by Lauren Ring

Brigitte Cole presents with lower abdominal pain, nausea, and a long-sleeved black leotard. She has a well-developed appearance and does not seem to be in acute distress. As the house lights dim and the spotlights focus down on Cole, stoic and poised, one cannot help but notice that a stray lock of hair has fallen out of her sleek bun. Such composure, such strength, and yet—disarray.

“Hold the Sea Inside,” by Erin Keating

Among the crags of the mountains weeps a cascade of salt water. In the pool beneath, stiff-peaked foam drowns careless men and sickens parched animals. The menfolk say it’s devilry to find salt water so far from the shore, but we know better. It’s no devil’s work but woman’s grief.

“Ketchōkuma,” by Mason Yeater

My name is Yasuko Nagamine and I work for the employment bureau. There’s a monster destroying the city. It used to be the mascot for the organ rental service, Sensation. I guess it still is but I don’t think it’s doing much for their bottom line anymore.

“How to Kill the Giant Living Brain You Found in Your Mother’s Basement After She Died: An Interactive Guide,” by Alex Sobel

Welcome to this interactive guide! I understand from your About Me profile that you have an issue with a brain that needs killing. I’m here to help!

“Ten Easy Steps To Destroying Your Enemies This Arbor Day,” by Rachael K. Jones

1. Raid the army surplus warehouse, NASA’s scrapyard, and Aunt Diabolica’s volcano lair for parts. On the way home, swing by CatCo to buy more Fancy Feast for Mr. Wibbles.

“Six-Month Assessment on Miracle Fresh,” by Anne Liberton

The original pitch described a holy club soda blessed with droplets of blood from our devoted Messiah. This idea was abandoned shortly after the company realized a soft drink would appeal to a greater audience

“Level One: Blowtorch,” by Jared Oliver Adams

Usually Friend gives me three food pouches after sportsgames, but today only one.

“Did I do wrong parameters?” I ask.

“Naw, Graciela,” says Friend. “You were grumper to the leez! You sealed your suit with no mistakes, and you dodged all the obstacles on the course. Nineteenth time in a row!”

“If I was grumper to the leez, how come one pouch?” I say. “I’m not a four-year-old anymore.”

“The Offer of Peace Between Two Worlds,” by Renan Bernardo

At age 3, on the planet of Orvalho, Alberto is conjoined with the ship called The Offer of Peace Between Two Worlds. When they leave the tank, dripping dark goo, crying and whirring, they have become one, bound to each other.

Alberto is a child: gaunt, dark-skinned, green-eyed; born to be a captain.

The Offer of Peace Between Two Worlds is a ship: silvery, slender, streamlined; born to be an offer.

“BUDDY RAYMOND’S NO-BULLSHIT GUIDE TO DRONE HUNTING,” by Gillian Secord

Do not distribute, the feds don’t take kindly to these handouts.

“The Geist and/in/as the Boltzmann Brain,” by M. J. Pettit

Lem had existed for all of ten nanoseconds (give or take) when she realized she was a Boltzmann brain pulsing away in the otherwise nothingness of space. She consisted of a conglomeration of particles that had randomly bounced off one another until they spontaneously formed into a structurally-sound and fully functional human brain.

Entities like herself were absurd.

“A Descending Arctic Excavation of Us,” by Sara S. Messenger

The surface of the iceberg has long had its taste of bitter cuisine: shimmering snow, wriggling bacterial filament, microplastic granules from the stolen boat you steered across the choppy Arctic waves. But this is new: the woody whisper of your matrilineal family map. The iceberg leeches the warmth from the paper, like sucking air through teeth, trying to latch on— but you bend, shake the map, and tuck it back into your pocket.

Scraping into the snow: your ice drill, the auger bit modified using forbidden ancestral smithery. Encased around the drill: your gloved hands. Encased within your hands: a flourishing commune of microflora.

And so you begin.

“They Are Dancing,” by John Stadelman

They knew it was time to go when Vicky mumbled that he needed to brush his teeth, and Nash said that she’d had too much to drink last night.

“Stop.”

They took a moment to recollect, looking first at the tent walls, then the travel bags at their feet.

“I guess it’s time to go,” Vicky said.