Featured Image: “I Will Make These Chains My Own”
THE BATHROOM MUSE
“What a story idea!” I gasp on the toilet. “If only I had something to jot it down with!”
And there she is: Flushona, the bathroom muse, handing me my forgotten phone. “Here you go, Honey.”
“A goddess of defecation inspiration?”
“Never let a good idea go to crap!”
RED FRAGMENT STORY
A shard of advanced alien technology. Illegal. Fell into my yard.
I’ve heard red fragment stories: Just one touch. Like magic. Restored youth and perfect health.
And random reassignment of body, race and sex.
I shouldn’t.
But the chemo isn’t working…
LITTLE CHIMERAS
Tom sipped coffee looking at the backyard. “We’ve got, little chimeras?”
Allie thumbed through her Learner’s Guide to North American Paranormal Animals. “No, little griffons! Part squirrel, part blue jay.”
“Squirrel-Jays?”
“Exactly.”
“Huh. Neat,” he sips.
FLOTSAM FROM THE DOWNFALL OF MAN
The robots ventured into a polluted world to heal it.
Some returned, bearing mechanical flotsam from the downfall of man. The Engineer and his daughters built more Caretakers.
Then they brought the woman and her sons.
The tribe of the wise, began.
ALIEN EDEN
My husband follows me, all stilt limbs under a bloated body. I’m no different, grown giant and inhuman after myriad changes.
We look to the stars. Toward the terraforming drones remaking Earth into an alien Eden.
Did they know mankind was here?
Do they care?
FIND YOUR KEY
He stands amid a web of chains and ten-thousand keys. His bonds chime a susurrus symphony in the wind.
“Find your key,” he says in a rusted mask. “Unlock your destiny.”
I pluck my choice and unlock his shackles. “I shall be she who frees the Priest of Locks.”
THE POLYMORPH BAR
Making your way in the world today,
Takes everything you’ve got.
But a drink at the Polymorph Bar,
Makes you what you’re not!
Would you like to get real strange?
Sometimes you want to go,
Where everybody barks and bays!
And they’re always glad you came…
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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