Burst Fiction
An active e-zine of one shot short stories, around 1000 characters in length, set in near contemporary times preferably, with scifi tendencies.
Curated by Erik Chevalier.
Submit.
Mobile?
An active e-zine of one shot short stories, around 1000 characters in length, set in near contemporary times preferably, with scifi tendencies.
Curated by Erik Chevalier.
Submit.
Mobile?
“Not anymore, Herr Doctor,” she said. “And never again.” Behind her teeth brass cylinders rotated, clicking together to form the right shapes to transform the air from her bellows into words.
“How can you say that?” the Doctor asks. Behind his glasses his eyes are red and swollen.
“I cannot”—the cylinders catch and hiccup—”love, love you.” The Doctor reached out to her with his good hand and brushed her porcelain face. “I cannot—not, not—love you,” she said again.
Mortimer spoke up. “I’m sorry, Doctor.” He pulled a phonographic record, black and grooved, from the front of his apron. “Do you want try number 221?”
The Doctor put his plush-and-fabric hand to his eyes, scrubbed away tears. “I don’t know how many more of these I can handle today,” he said, taking the record and swapping it with the one on the back of her brass skull. He cranked up her insides, like the weights inside a grandfather clock, and fitted the needle against the new record.
“Good morning, my dear,” he said.
“Good morning, my love.”
Madge and Joe finished their drinks while flipping through books that Madge had carried in her purse. Joe was deeply engrossed in a copy of Home Furnishings of the 1970s and Madge was casually skimming through Mojo magazine when the waitress came by with the check.
“So now what?” Madge said pulling the book away from Joe who had been reading a section on wall-to-wall shag pile.
“Well, its Tuesday, and you know I like to watch sci-fi on Tuesday nights…” Joe said.
“Let’s go back to my place and watch Barbarella:Queen of the Galaxy,” Madge suggested with enthusiasm.
Joe groaned to himself. “I want to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey!“
“Again?!” Madge groaned.
“We can just skip to the good parts,” he suggested. Madge lowered her sunglasses on the bridge of her nose and gave him a look of complete annoyance.
“Have I told you that you’re a nerd lately?” She said with a smirk.
“Laugh all you want, Miss Queen of Kitsch, but I thought you found the nerd thing attractive,” Joe defended.
It was the end.
They were trapped inside the spaceship’s engine with no way out. When it powered up, everything inside would be atomized.
“Johnny,” Tricia said, bringing her lips so close to his that he could smell her sweet breath. “Now that we’re going to die, I just have to tell you… I fell in love with you the moment we met. I hope yo-”
John interrupted her with a passionate kiss. Tricia melted into him, pulling him tighter.
“Oh Johnny! I’ve waited so long.” she exclaimed, grinding her body into his.
“We worked together for years. You were always just out of reach. You mean you’ve been hiding it all this time, and now…?”
That’s right, but don’t waste what little time we have left. Take me Johnny!”
A buzzing noise as the wall next to them was cut open by a laser.
“Good thing we found you before we started the engine,” Chester said on the other side.
Tricia stepped away from John, smoothing her uniform.
“This never happened,” she whispered.
She climbed through the opening, and was gone.
by TreeBeard
He itched. Like a thousand tiny creatures burrowing beneath his skin, moving around with no thought to the discomfort they caused their host. Of course this was not far from the truth, although the magnitudes were a little out. As his father had explained to him, inside his body millions of tiny machines were at work preparing him for what lay ahead. That they had chosen this moment was not mere chance; it was time.
It had taken hours for the sensation to breach his conscious mind and he knew that this must have started days ago. He would be ready soon. Too soon perhaps since his father was across the city in the clinch meeting for a multi-billion dollar contract. Soon his father would know that the time had come.
He lay on his bed having made his way home from the school where his lessons had to end abruptly as he could no longer bear to sit. Fortunately his bed was comfortable; yet, as the sensations became more and more intense, he could not stifle a sob as something clicked within and began to warm up.
They marched into the neighbourhood with the pulse-pounding beat of a terrible rhythm. Hundreds of jack-booted soldiers poured in from every street, every alley. Restless eyes rolled in their sockets, searching for the strays that had eluded them.
Three children, filthy from a brief life of scrabbling for scraps huddled behind a dumpster. They whimpered quietly, unsure of where to hide but seeking the comfort of a barrier between them and the soldiers. Vague memories came to them of being tucked safely into their beds by beautiful women who filled them with love and safety. The memories only served to increase the terror now. Love and safety were gone, taken by the very soldiers who hunted them now.
The children felt them first. Waves of hatred infiltrated their natural defenses and permeated their minds. The soldiers had stopped their deadly march and stood still like dispassionate sentinels. As if they were one, they shut their eyes and pushed their energy outward.
The children cowered.
The small cockpit vibrated as the multi-engine drive pushed the shuttle upwards. Through the plumes of grey dust, heavey red beams of light could be traced from the blackness of space, down to the trembling planet. Richard flicked on the auto-pilot and wheeled his chair over to Sarah, who was crying hystericaly on the steel cargo bin. Putting his hand on her trembling shoulder, he juggled his words in his head.
“We, we did what we had to, and-”
“WE? Richard, we are two people, there are at least two billion down there.”
Richard rolled his eyes. They had evacuated just in time. Any longer and the shuttle would have been ruined in the earth quakes.
“Honey, we didn’t have time to save any one.”
“Richard! You know there are people down there who deserve life. What makes them different from you?!”
She wasn’t making sense anymore. Richard precariously gave her a hug and wheeled back to the controls.
“I own a spaceship…”
by Richard Peck
I fell for hours.
This is not hyperbole. I was not in space. Not technically.
Imagine a giant sphere as thick as a planet surrounding a star with a radius that puts its inner surface at a habitable distance. Pour enough air into it to give the inner surface a decent atmosphere, and you have enough habitation space for the population of a whole galaxy. This is a Dyson sphere.
Now imagine an army of robotic construction vehicles launched to build these in advance for settlers from an overpopulated empire of Dyson spheres. Imagine these construction vehicles hunting down black holes and ripping them apart for building materials.
Now imagine this gets out of hand. That shouldn’t be a stretch.
Eventually, the whole damn galaxy is covered in giant metal scaffolding and junk. A contiguous, semirigid structure, most of it filled with air and an infinite variety of life.
In such a place, you’re bound to find doors without warning labels in your language.
“Caution, open transit shaft!” would have been so nice.
by White Hat
“Marcus, get your behind out here this instant!”
No response.
“Marcus, don’t make me come in there! I will shut that thing off!”
“Mama…”
“What’d I tell you about holoplay before your chores were done?”
“I did my chores!”
“You’re telling me you got all that endoshielding clean already?”
“Mostly…”
“Uh huh. Mostly? Boy, you ain’t getting no dessert tonight.”
“Mama, it’s okay, I got Siggie working on it!”
“What? What? …Marcus baby, Siggie is a janitorial bot. You can’t use him on endoshielding. The stupid thing barely keeps the floors clean, you know that!”
“I’m sorry, mama.”
“Marcus, look at me. You gotta understand, you can’t just get lazy like that! Now that… now that daddy’s gone, baby, you’re the man of the house. I need you to take things more seriously now, okay?”
“Okay, mama.”
“That’s a good boy. Do you remember what’s so important about the endoshielding, Marcus?”
“It keeps us safe.”
“From?”
“From the sun. It’s hot outside, mama. Real hot.”
“That’s right. I’m proud of you, son.”
by Parker Smith