“I heard the land is cursed,” the blond says to the young boy. They work on planting tomato seeds. We made the ever-so-silent-acknowledgement-eye-contact when I walked into the gardens. But nothing more. “If you listen in the middle of the night, you can hear the wails of those who died…

The thick, starless night enveloped the lonely figure with the smell of autumn, the season of mists. He didn’t know how long he’d been waiting in the abandoned bus shelter, he wasn’t even quite sure why he was there. He felt like a forgotten, unfinished rhyme. The world was stirring…

She has always hated the cake.  She says it to her brother the moment he presents her with the favor.   “I despise it, Robert.” He is six years old and she is eight and she has only just learned the word.  Despise. He had help making it, but the credit is his, the…

His coat was a mix of yellow and brown, and he had eyes of two different colors, one blue, and one darkish yellow. He had been Mr. Edwards’ only roommate and companion for the past seven years, attending to him in the mornings during walks, which people around were never…

(translated by Toshiya Kamei) I put colorful daisies in a vase, made up my bed with white sheets, and savored the fragrance of basil in pouches I kept under the pillows. After lighting blue candles, I opened my windows to hear the wind sing. Determined to wait, I read a…

The young woman walked away from Jarvis, in the general direction of the editorial offices of Astonishing Stories magazine, which in this year of 1940 had already established itself as a leading publisher of what would become known as science fiction. The offices were in a fairly new building that…

I wait on the cliff edge, a willing sacrifice; a high priestess, pure but not innocent, my conscience shattered in the howling winds. My blood thrums with the roar of the ocean, the future awaits me in a mouthful of blood and I am hungry for the teeth; desperate for…

Climbing the stairs within a minute, Jacinta wonders if it really was a minute, exactly what is a minute, sixty seconds of space. What is a second, the clicking of a finger or some unforeseen force, seconds turn into minutes which turn into hours as they become days, the continuum…

I align the crystal mirrors: laser precision. The bearings are set: four dimensions.  A century reverses in a swirl. I stand on a storm-swept hillside. A croft crouches under ragged skies. My footsteps pad on cracked, moss-covered flagstones. I lift the latch: bob under damp eaves.  Warm peat embers glow…