Featured Image: “Sunflower Days”
THE LONGING FOR HIRAETH AND HOMELAND
Displaced to another Earth in its Pliocene Age, I’d given up hope to see another human again. To sate my longing for hiraeth and homeland.
Yet here this Welshwoman is, on my boat. Brandishing a flintlock pistol with a handle grip of carved megalodon tooth.
RESET, REFORMAT, RELAUNCH
I am but a screaming mouth and flailing arm, surreally attached to nothing.
I’d hoped to meet the coder of reality. Instead, my malfunctioning lines meet his debugger.
“Reset, reformat, relaunch,” says the seraphim.
It all slips away to the warmth of a womb.
THE DRAGON’S TREASURE
She admired the labyrinth of books around the ancient dragon.
“When your king took my gold, he robbed me not of my treasure,” he said. “But when his blade took my sight, he did steal my happiness.”
The girl opened a tome. “Then I shall read happiness back to you.”
AS BEAUTIFUL AS THEY ARE TERRIBLE
He leaps, scale and wing the color of dark emerald.
Cresting above swaying lupins, he chases butterflies loping through imperfect hues of pink and azure.
A puff of smoke.
A playful screech.
A hatching under mother’s eyes.
Eyes as beautiful as they are terrible.
THE EMBRACE
Her lithe arm embraces him from behind. The other unbinds her hair.
“Do you remember the child whose father you murdered?” she whispers in his ear.
His eyes open to danger. “Which one?”
A hairpin stiletto enters his other ear. “The one that has avenged him.”
CANTRIP
The ogre charged.
“Can ham roll?” the wizard said. “Roll ham can!”
A can of ham rolled under the ogre’s next step. A trip and tremendous crash into a wall knocked him out cold.
The wizard addressed the shocked tavern. “What? It’s a simple cantrip spell.”
MY ONLY CONSTANT
“Please stay.”
“I don’t control my Rolling Worlds Syndrome. When it transports me, or what alternate timeline I go to.”
“But—”
He kisses her. “I just try to do good, where I go.”
“I love you.”
He fades. “Our love is my only constant between worlds.”
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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