Featured Image: “Vengeance of the Widowed Stellar Queen”
THREADING PAST BEAUTY
She can smell the thrusters overheating as she dives her space flyer at the gas giant, and towards the hope of a gravity-assisted slingshot away from the six fighters in hot pursuit.
But even under fire, she is awed threading past the beauty of Saturn’s rings.
ANOTHER CALLING
She removed her habit. “I’m a sinner, Mother Superior. I’m with his child.”
The old nun sighed, then whispered. “Do you love him?”
The young woman nodded.
“To love and be loved isn’t a sin, it’s another calling. Come, your knight is waiting at the gate.”
SEE ME IN MY OFFICE
The purple monkey screeched, hooted, and threw his collections ledger against a wall.
Senior collector Matton sighed. “Yes, I can see he transmogrified you.”
The off-color simian huffed, arms crossing.
“But what did the wizard think about the new wand tax?”
HUMAN LIMITS
“I’ve never met a relic human.”
She faced the hulking machine. “Better a relic than just a brain in a robot.”
“We are human,” it said. “Humans no longer bound to the limits of flesh.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes.”
“Without human limits, where is the human?”
KAPTAIN KĪLAUEA
900 Nazi robots charged up the hill.
“Oh boy,” Kaptain Kīlauea sighed.
“Got a volcano power to take care of ‘em?” little Nora Noa asked.
“Yeah, butt…”
“But, what?”
He aimed his rear at the robots. “I can’t sit for a week after using my pyroclastic flow!”
MY FIRST HOUR ON FANTASTICA
Deconstructed to atoms, teleported, and reassembled buffed up like a master of the universe… my first hour on Fantastica isn’t astounding.
My cat turned battle tiger refuses to get off me, vacillating between growling and purring.
“Fine, five more minutes.”
ARCANA
“I’m surprised at what’s changed, and what hasn’t.”
“It was 7th grade and 20 years ago. Every class has archetypes we grow-out of,” he nods, “Outsider Girl.”
“Funny Fat Kid,” she smiles back.
“I’m still The Fool.”
She touches him. “No. The Magician.”
All stories and art Copyright © by Jason H. Abbott, including occasional parody. All Rights Reserved.
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Thanks for reading!
Aethereal Engineer 
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