Find a Fantasy
“You’re a sorcerer!”
“No, I’m not!”
“You are, here!” the witch yells. “Find a fantasy, something true to your heart, and save your friends!”
I cup my hands. “Ka—”
A ball of fire forms.
“—meha—”
“Good!” she shouts.
“—meha!”
I hurl a blast of blue energy.
Spiders of Mars
The sandstorm howls, and is joined by tapping on the roving vehicle’s exterior.
“Spiders,” the scout says as they see red shadows on the viewscreens. “Martian robots that outlived their creators.”
“I saw them at Barsoom… harmless?”
The scout gets his gun. “No.”
“They have weapons?”
“Tools,” he said, handing the xenobiologist a rifle. “They can strip an MRV like ours down to axles and tires in a few hours. It won’t take ‘em long to kill our power and life support!”
“They’ll attack humans?”
The scout opens the airlock. “They will when we shoot ‘em!”
On the Cusp of the Known
I like to get lost on the edge of the atlas. Where content and oceans end in cliffs and waterfalls.
In the gutters and margins embellished by gods and monsters.
Where warnings are written: “Here be Dragons.”
For there, on the cusp of the known…
Is magic.
The Return Trap
All that had participated in the ritual return to its spot after death, youth renewed.
They did terrible things with serial immortality, but I found their secret.
And poured a concrete cube atop it.
It cracks a little each time another returns and is entombed.
Mobilis in Mobili
The operator adjusted his sonar. “It moves like it’s enchanted!”
“U-X66,” the radio crackled. “This is Nautilus.”
“Nemo’s seventy years dead,” the captain scoffed. “We’re behind it. Dive and give them the sting of our—”
“They’re firing rear torpedoes!”
Copyright © 2020 by Jason H. Abbott, All Rights Reserved.
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