Fiction – Page 3 – The Colored Lens

Fiction TCL #48 - Summer 2023

You Wouldn’t Steal A Baby

By Alec Lownes on Monday, August 19, 2024

Rachel and Dorian Burkes, all that remained of their broken family, waited outside the seedy little door, eyes scanning the street and fingers twitching in fear. This wasn’t the part of town they were used to, although where they lived didn’t look much better. The gutters overflowing with trash, the flickering streetlights above; it wasn’t their hovel, which made it alien and dangerous. At least where they lived, they knew which gangs to prostrate themselves before. Here, on the lower-East-side, they had no idea.

They heard movement behind the small door, sluggish stumbling, and Dorian hammered the cracked, plastic buzzer a couple more times for good measure. It wouldn’t be a great end to the day to get mugged while they were waiting to be let in.

“Keep ‘yer pants on, I’m comin’,” a voice from the other side of the door shouted, and the accent was so unlike what either one of them expected that they shared a fearful look. What if they’d chosen wrong. What if he couldn’t do it? What if they’d wasted all of their money on a hope and a dream?

A yelp and a crash, then the door slid to the side. It stuck halfway open, just for a moment, before a motor whined and the door shunted the rest of the way into the wall. The man on the other side was in a dirty wifebeater with dark sweatstains down the chest and below the arms, and a pair of sweatpants that Dorian wasn’t sure had been that shade of brown when they were new.

“Yah? What d’ya want?”

Rachel was the one who noticed the 10mm pistol held half-concealed in his hand against the doorframe. Her confidence flagged for an instant, but she pictured light brown curly hair and steeled herself.

“Mr… Fiberhopper?”

“You with the Dogz? ‘Cause their money ain’t due yet.”

“No, I’m… we’re…”

“We’re the Burkes,” Dorian cut in. “We paid you… to…”

“Ah yah, I ‘member. Little kid. Come on in.”

Fiberhopper stepped back over a bag of trash that was leaking something foul and brown onto the bag just underneath it. The inside of the apartment smelled like stim pods and tobacco, and Dorian’s heart sank with regret. They’d made a huge mistake, but there was no getting their money back now.

Past the entryway was a small room with marginally fewer trash bags littering the floor. Here was the stim popper in question and a pile of used cartridges, right next to a deck and headset combo. It looked like Fiberhopper sat either on the floor, or on a particularly lumpy cardboard box when he used the deck, because there was no proper chair that they could see.

“Make yerselves comfortable. Or don’t, I suppose ye won’t be here for long. To be honest, I weren’t expectin’ ye for a while yet.”

“We got your message,” Rachel pleaded. “You said it was time.”

“Aye, I did. Thirty minutes ago. What’d ye do, run over?” In fact, they’d chartered the first cab they could grab as soon as Dorian’s deck pinged with the message.

“Something like that,” he said. “So… how’s this supposed to work? Are you going to do the hack here? Do we… watch?”

“What? No, this ain’t a movie. I messaged ye when I was done, and I’m done. Here it is.”

Fiberhopper picked up a storage card from a pile on the counter. How the man knew it was theirs, Dorian had no idea. In fact, he had more than a little suspicion that it was just a random storage card the man happened to lay his fingers on. But if he was cheating them, there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Especially with him hauling that 10mm around.

Rachel started forward, but when Fiberhopper pulled back, her hands went to her mouth and she gasped. Was he toying with them?

“I jus’ wanna make sure. You know wha’ this means, yah? He’ll never be able to grow up. He needs a real body t’do that. Brains, hormones, all that jazz.”

A real body that would cost more than a hundred thousand dollars to have printed. A hundred thousand dollars that they’d never make in their lifetimes. Most people would move on, would let their plans expire and the digital snapshots be deleted and just have another kid. But not them. Not for Benny.

For twenty thousand—their entire savings and half of their furniture—they’d bought a powerful deck, a pair of headsets, and a single job from a low-tier hacker; Fiberhopper. He’d said he could break into the backup systems, that he could get a copy of Benny’s brain scan, and if he was to be believed, he was currently rubbing his grubby fingers all over it.

“We know,” Dorian said, and ground his teeth. “We know.”

Fiberhopper shrugged and held the card out again. Rachel stepped forward and took the thin piece of plastic and circuitry that might or might not have held the suspended consciousness of their baby boy. She stepped quickly back and Dorian put a hand on her shoulder.

“Job’s done, far as I’m concerned.”

“That’s it?” Dorian asked.

“That’s it. Now shoo, I’ve got work t’do.”

Fiction TCL #48 - Summer 2023

Beneath The Crimson Sky

By Michael Barron on Monday, August 12, 2024

“Some kids from my Behavioral Economics class are coming over Saturday.” Christof lounges on my bed, eating a slice of sausage and garlic pizza for breakfast.

“That’s nice,” I say with a mouth full of toothpaste. According to my watch, I have six and a half minutes before I need to be out the door.

“You should hang out with us.”

I step into the bathroom that connects our bedrooms, spit, and turn to pull on my freshly polished shoes. They’re gone. I know for a fact I left them by the shower, but all I see are dust balls and tumbleweeds of body hair.

“We’re going to Mulligan’s,” my brother says. “They’ve got live music on Saturdays.”

“Have you seen my shoes?” Five minutes to go. The fringes of panic creep in as I rip back the shower curtain and search behind the toilet, picturing myself blowing the interview over a pair of lost shoes.

As Christof searches my bedroom, he asks, “Do you think you could get me a job there after I graduate? I figure an insurance company must have a ton of openings with all the weird shit going on. I hear it’s getting worse.”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll see what I can do.”

At last, I check behind the bathroom door and find my shoes waiting for me on the scale.

Three and a half minutes.

Sitting on the toilet, I pull them on. There’s no reason I shouldn’t knock this interview out of the park. My boss, who’s been insisting I want this promotion, says I’m the strongest candidate.

I step back into my bedroom and find that Christof, who is still looking for my shoes, has pulled a clear plastic tub out from beneath my bed.

“Don’t touch that!”

He looks up, wilted slice of pizza in hand.

I shove the tub back where it belongs. “I found them. Thanks for helping me look.”

He’s clearly about to ask about the tub when Dad starts shouting again.

“He must’ve lost another client,” Christof says.

Two minutes.

“Probably.” I rush back into the bathroom and wrap my tie around my neck. Put on my jacket… get in the car… take Lockwood to avoid traffic… park … use the bathroom… answer their questions… get promoted…. finally afford to—

The lights blink off.

“Did we lose electricity?” I step back into my room. “Christof?” My brother is gone.

One minute.

As I walk down the hall the various ways a power outage could interfere with the interview race through my head. “Christof?” He’s probably just checking the circuit breaker.

I turn into the kitchen and glance out the window.

The sky is crimson.

The sun, clouds and blue expanse are all gone, replaced by a solid, fiery red ceiling. There are stars, though. There are more stars than I’ve seen in my life. Every single one glistens oily black, like bottomless holes threatening to suck me in.

I stumble back, hitting the pantry door. “I can’t be here.”

I’ve seen this sky before, in illustrations drawn by people half the world believes are either delusional or lying.

“I can’t be here.”

With tremendous effort, I pull my eyes from the sky and take in what is waiting for me on the ground. The porch, lawn, and trees are all gone, swept away to make room for a sixty-foot golden-brown wall. There are gaps in the wall, corridors leading God-knows-where.

I slide to the floor, shutting my eyes. “I can’t be here.”

Fiction TCL #48 - Summer 2023

The Gift

By Michael Kellichner on Monday, August 5, 2024

After a month of indecision, Kamuil decided that a bracelet would be right. Something thin and slender, woven woodland sage around a base of wisteria. He imagined showing it to her, holding it gently so she could see the delicate flowers and how they still blossomed—would bloom for seasons more. He imagined slipping it onto her wrist, and when he whispered one last thread of magic into the vines, he would hold her hand, upturned, her skin against his while the bracelet tightened to fit her perfectly. The flowers vibrant against her pale skin.

The problem was he would need his father’s help. Kamuil had been practicing for a few years and knew he could collect the sage and wisteria, treat it, and braid it successfully. He could even easily infuse the magic to make it fit perfectly, but the leap from a woven bracelet to a living one required magic too advanced. It required too deep an understanding of the essence of life, and one mistake would leave him with nothing more than a shriveled, desiccated circle.

He spent another few days trying to think of something else, something he could accomplish on his own, but every other idea paled in comparison. He went to the academy, sat for his lessons, stared at the back of her head during the lectures on magical scripts, and again on the history of magic through the ages. How the sunlight cast her hair golden but the shadows turned it to autumn wheat. He imagined giving her the gift, and tried to think of something else. Flowers picked from the garden, but giving a girl flowers was so unoriginal he knew he could have no hope of impressing her. When he watched how she tucked her hair behind her elongated elvish ear, he imagined giving her a bracelet or necklace made from silver, but he knew that he couldn’t afford anything elegant enough to match her. And in his mind the moment when he handed it over felt wrong. The silver would be set in a velvet case. She would take the case and that would be the end of it. It was too cold, both the metal and the gesture.

And, after all, it was the elves long ago who had taught humans the magic for living crafts. Nothing else held the same weight in such a light gift.

Finally, he knew he didn’t have much more time. Summer was at its height, and the wisteria would not be in bloom for much longer. If he dallied, he would be left with only the sage without the subtler hints of wisteria. The day he decided to share his plan with his father, he stopped in the fields between the academy and his home and waded through tall grass and sage. He caressed the flowers, searching for clusters that were perfectly shaped, dense, and soft to the touch. When he found the perfect flowers, he whispered tender magic into his harvest knife. With the old chant, he could feel the life essence of the surrounding plants breathe into the air, rise up from the ground, and gather on the edge of his knife. When he sliced through the stems, he whispered the prayers his mother had taught him, both to apologize to the earth for taking his harvest and to comfort the plant in its moment of agony. So imbued with borrowed life from the others, they would survive the journey home and the time until he could weave them together.

By the time he made it back, the sky was streaked with fire and the clouds were heavy with deep shadows. He let himself in the through the gate and went around the house, through the garden bursting with flowers, bees, and vegetables, through the stone path between the fruit trees to his father’s workshop. It was a small, squat building with four young trees for the corners, walls woven from shrubs while the roof was a tangle of flowering vines and curved branches. The air was cooler and the shade was full of the rich scent of tree exhalations. Inside, his father was hunched over his work table made from several old logs held together by living vines. His long hair merged into his beard, and his massive fingers seemed too large for the delicate work he was doing to a small, wilted sapling’s roots.

His father looked up when Kamuil came in and cast a shadow over his work. “You’re home,” he said. When Kamuil stepped farther in, his father lifted his hand to block the setting sun. “Is it so late already? Where have you been?”

A nervous tremble vibrated his heart and stretched all the way to his hands as he stepped forward and laid the sage on the edge of the table. “Will you help me make something?”

His father’s smile emerged from his thick beard like an animal from its den after a long winter hibernation. Since his mother had died, Kamuil knew he did not speak to his father the same way, and often the silences between them could stretch for days. Not out of malice, but simply out of a weight between them that neither seemed to fully understand. In his father’s grin, he saw some of that time before, when his father carried himself with a greater lightness through the days. Kamuil’s stomach twisted, as he knew he was opening a door with his request, giving a chance for them to feel as they had before, and it seemed both impossible and offensive to do. But he also knew that this tiny opening of a door would be nothing compared to how exposed he would be when he offered his gift. If he couldn’t do this one thing, he knew he had no chance of following through on his decision.

“Of course, my boy,” he said. He gingerly set the sapling into a clay pot and smoothed soil around its base. He looked at the sage, picked up a stalk, and nodded in approval at the cut.

“I want to make a living bracelet,” Kamuil said.

Father’s eyebrows went up. He eyed Kamuil for a moment before returning his attention to the sage. “You’ve picked good accents for that. What will you use for the base?”

“Wisteria.”

Father nodded. “Good. Seasonal. Slender but not brittle.” He kept his eyes on the sage and busied his hands moving it about as he asked, “And why do you want to make a living bracelet?”

“For a gift.”

“A fine gift.” He smoothed his beard, but Kamuil could see his small smile before he hid it. Making a great show of paying attention to the sage, he asked, “And who is this gift for?”

Kamuil took a wavering breath and said, “Malikara.”

His father nodded slowly. “Malikara. A very pretty name. Elvish, yes?”

“Yes.”

Fiction Publications TCL #48 - Summer 2023

Dry Season

By Damir Salkovic on Monday, July 22, 2024

Liwei was halfway across the big central panes of the crop module when a soft beep sounded in his ear and a warning light flashed across his helmet display, crimson dawn blurring out the endless backdrop of stars.

Flat against the impregnable glass with his guide lines radiating from his suit, an outlandish and fragile spider traversing a bubble suspended in nothingness, he let training take over, freezing all movement. Blinked his suit gauges into the hud. His oxygen supply was low, and falling fast. Too fast to complete the walk as planned.

Somehow he must have sustained a puncture that his suit’s SmartSkin sensors had failed to pick up. A minor incident, easily stitched up with a sealant gun or a tube of hardcaulk, if only he’d detected it inside. Out here, with nothing but the thin scrim of atmosphere the suit contained, it could spell serious trouble. A death sentence, if he allowed his mind to drift that way and panic to take over. So he didn’t.

Instead, his free arm sought the tension of the tether holding him clipped to the agrifuge struts. Found nothing but slack. Liwei turned to the side, saw the other end of the line drifting away from the clip, unsecured. Tiny as the leak had to be, it was spinning him head over heels, propelling him into a slow, irretrievable tumble away from the glass, into the vacuum.

Letting himself roll into the spin always felt like suicide in training, but Liwei was an experienced spacewalker, had learned to override planetside-evolved instincts to preserve himself in space, where different rules applied. Death beckoned from the void, cold stars scintillating across an unimaginable gulf. Below him, then above him, the lights of the agrifuge shimmered, the artificial fields underlit by ultraviolet tubes, a swaying, rolling sea of green.

Liwei’s fingers found the safer controls, thumbed off the catches. He adjusted for the jet from the ruptured tank, which was pushing him sideways as well as away from the glass. One chance was all he would get. He waited for the spokes to roll into his viewfinder, for the hub to align between them, and fired the thrusters.

The airlock seemed tiny at this distance, his positioning graphics skewing wildly like they always did before the guiding program locked in. Liwei kept his breathing steady, his eyes on the vector: inside his gloves, his palms were steady and dry. If he missed the airlock, or overshot the station’s central module, he might have enough fuel to decelerate and make another pass. Xiao, the chief engineer, might have just enough time to pull on a suit and attempt to retrieve him. A trapeze act, like the ones he’d watched in the circus as a child, no less lethal for the absence of gravity. The station’s emergency manuals laid out the steps for a rescue protocol, but to Liwei’s knowledge one had never been attempted before.

All this passed through his head as the central module of Jùb?opén V surged in his visor, fist-sized at first, then growing to immense proportions, its pitted exterior lined with observation ports and extensions and maintenance walkways. He had time to register his angle of approach, the panicked voice jabbering in the suit’s audio feed, before his brain dredged up a warning: he was coming in too fast, the airlock yawning open like a great mouth, intent on swallowing him.

Galvanized beyond fear, Liwei shot his palm thrusters into reverse, sending a silent prayer into the eternal night. It went against his ideological conditioning, would go on his record if he’d spoken it loud enough for the suit to pick up, but he was well past caring. He felt the jolt of deceleration, felt his hands clench on the controls, fingers aching with effort. The horizon tilted, the vast edifice falling toward him slowed down. But the correction had thrown him off vector – a slight miscalculation, yet enough for the airlock door to dip under his feet.

Liwei whipped round and made a grab for a handrail, missed. Slammed into the wall and bounced, sending a burst of unintelligible alerts across his hud. Flailed around for a loose cable, a projection, anything to slow his agonizing slide over the edge of the station.

This was how you died in space, the lessons warned. There were hundreds of ways, but in most cases it started off as a small thing, innocuous at first, leading to another, and then the primate brain kicked in, reflexes acquired in an environment where up and down mattered, and you were truly lost. Blowouts and system failures were anticipated by the designers, with failsafes and multiple redundancies built in to mitigate the risk. A snapped line, or a moment’s inattention, killed with remorseless certainty.

Somehow he arrested his momentum, worked the thrusters with gentle taps, tiny jets nudging him backward, until his gloved fist closed around the airlock rail, pulled him inside.

Liwei lay on the floor, fighting the urge to throw up, as air pressure thrummed into the lock. He tore off his helmet, but could not get his shaking legs to hold him up, even in microgravity. The numbers on his suit gauges danced wildly in his vision. His oxygen gauge had maybe five minutes left. It was just his imagination, but he thought he could feel the sucking of the vacuum just outside the door, seeking a way in. Determined to get him next time.

Fiction Publications TCL #48 - Summer 2023

All Hail the Worm God, Master of Souls

By Ryan Cole on Monday, July 15, 2024

The walls had been whispering for nearly two hours. Not whole words. At least, not yet.

It was a low-pitched wail, a cry for help, that beat against the paper-thin plaster of the townhouse and trickled through the air vents, the windows, the floorboards, the crawlspace that Diego used to hide in as a child, when his mother and father were still unhappily married. The more that he listened, the more that the voice gained substance in the quiet. Out. It wanted out. It begged for an escape. The walls were no place for the soul of a god.

“Mom!” yelled Diego. “Come up here, quick!”

Clothes hangers falling, the wham of a suitcase slamming on the floor. Then his mother’s voice as she crawled into the attic. “What is it?” she said.

Diego put a caramel finger to his lips. He tapped on the wall that they shared with their neighbors, and they knelt. Listened.

“Shit,” she whispered. “Another one, already? No wonder the Garcia’s left so quickly.

Just ignore it, Diego.”

“But it’s dying,” he said.

“And you think you can stop that? How about the Alvarez’s, could you have helped them? People separate from their god all the time, and we don’t want the DRP thinking it’s us.”

Diego reluctantly peeled from the wall. He let the god’s voice fade into the darkness, and he followed his mother down the ladder from the attic.

She fixed him with an eye that was as dark as his own. “Have you finished packing yet?”

He fumbled with a button that dangled from his shirt, that his mother had re-sewn a hundred times, rather than wasting any money on a tailor. Since his father had left, their budget had been tight. “I don’t want to go.”

“And I don’t want to send you.” His mother crossed her arms. “You think I want to fight in a war we didn’t start? I was done with the army. Ten years is enough.”

Diego shuffled back to the base of the ladder, his ear tilted up to the mutterings above. If they could hear Mrakau, or this piece of Mrakau, could the god hear them?

He lowered his eyes. “Can’t I come with you?”

“Mijo,” she said, cupping his chin. “I wish that you could, but the barracks aren’t a place for twelve-year-old boys.”

He already knew this. She had told him before. But the thought of leaving her—his heart, his home, the life that they had built from the ashes of the past—if only temporarily, felt decidedly wrong.

Diego’s face hardened. “Do I have to stay with him?”

She knew who he meant: the corruptor, the defiler, the twice god-killer. Diego had never had a chance to meet his step-father. And that was intentional. “They’ll take good care of you.”

Her bottom lip trembled as if it didn’t believe her. “Maybe I’ve kept you apart for too long.”

Diego tried to laugh, but it died in his throat. Five years was five too few, in his book.

His mother checked her watch. “Now, that’s enough moping. Your plane leaves tomorrow, and you haven’t even packed.” She shooed him into his bedroom.

The soul in the attic seemed to fester in her absence. It spoke to the soul that lived in his chest, the piece of Mrakau that he had been given at birth. What kind of a person would rip out their god-soul, stash it in the wall, and leave it there to die?

He thought he knew of one. And he would see him soon.

They went to the airport early the next morning. Norfolk International was already awake; the terminal was swarming with military personnel who had answered the call to defend their faith.

He and his mother said goodbye at the gate. She cupped his chin, and she whispered a prayer to her son and to Mrakau. She even made the sign of the cross on her chest, as if that could have made any difference anymore. Old habits died hard. “I love you, mijo.”

“I love you too, mom.”

And then, right before she watched him walk away, she grabbed his hand and squeezed three times. Once for strength. Once for luck. And once just in case she never came back.

Fiction Publications TCL $47 - Spring 2023

We Are Men

By Kidd Wadsworth on Monday, July 8, 2024

Grandfather rubbed his chin with his hand, a stern frown fixed in his bushy brows. “You are off to see the circus.”

Zhiqiang nodded, the serious look on his face mirroring the old man’s. They sat on the terrace. The morning light, filtered through the softly fluttering leaves of a tallow tree, was without order or pattern, wildly chaotic, organic and gorgeous. The boy had struggled to wake wanting to be with the old man before Nainai’s alarm clock chimed. This was their time, when the city was quiet, and they could listen to the birds and talk as men talked.

They sat at a small round “news” table, the surface of which was a flatscreen. Grandfather had found the table discarded beside the road. “We won’t plug it in,” he’d said. So, the screen never projected the esteemed leader’s face, and the boy and his grandfather never listened to the government sanctioned news.

“And what have I taught you?” Grandfather asked.

“My duty is first to my elders, to you and Nainai, and then to Aalee.”

“I am stuck in this chair.” He hit the arm of it with the heel of his palm, “But we are men, are we not?”

In response, the boy rose and went into the house returning with a beer and a large glass of orange juice. Solemnly, he placed Grandfather’s beer on the blank flatscreen, and taking his seat raised his glass of juice. The old man responded with a twitch of a grin and poured a splash of the beer into Zhiqiang’s juice. Then he clinked his bottle against Zhiqiang’s glass. When the man drank, the boy drank.

“You will be going into the old city, no factories, no military targets, still you must be careful.” He looked into his beer as if the reason for men’s need to murder each other was contained in the golden liquid. Across from him, Zhiqiang studied the pulp in his orange juice. “This circus is important to Nainai. She remembers her sister when she sees people walking on stilts.” Grandfather’s eyes momentarily looked confused. “Your great aunt was a crazy woman.”

Zhiqiang nodded.

The alarm clock pinged out a melody. Creaking bed sounds and padding feet sounds drifted out to the where the two sat. Soon Nainai, in her way, which was always to be darting about like a firefly, hustled onto the terrace. “Only seven in the morning and you are drinking beer?”

Grandfather, glancing sideways, winked at Zhiqiang.

Zhiqiang winked back.

Simultaneously, they drank.

As if some unseen balloon had sprung a leak, a long sigh meandered out of Nainai’s mouth. She raised her eyes to the sky never happy with her ancestors. “You could have warned me.”

Aalee rushed out twirling in a circle Nainai’s bright red lipstick on her lips. Zhigiang put his hand over his mouth to stifle his giggle.

“Come, come we will be late,” Nainai was busy picking up things: wrist phone, hearing aid, “where is my earring?” Finding her purse and the earring, she rummaged through her bag mumbling, “Where is the other tag?” then “oh, they were stuck together.”

With her right hand Nainai took one of Zhiqiang’s hands, with her left, Aalee’s.

“No,” said Zhiqiang in a firm voice, a frown in his brow.

“What?” asked Nainai.

Zhiqiang rearranged their hands so that he was in the middle, instead of Nainai, keeping a firm hold on them both.

Silently, Grandfather raised his bottle to the boy.

As the transport tube slid to a stop, Zhiqiang whispered to Aalee, “There will be animals.”

“Really?” Aalee’s eyes were wide. “Maybe marmosets?”

“Maybe tigers.”

“No, you’re only trying to fool me,” but her feet dangling above the floor, swung back and forth faster, and her grin widened.

“Hurry, hurry,” Nainai said, standing. “You don’t want to miss the parade.” She picked up Aalee. Though they were twins, Aalee was much smaller. Zhiqiang smiled up at his sister and took Nainai’s hand to help her exit the tube and climb the steep steps to the street.

They wove through the marketplace filled with people and vendors. In a booth skewered chickens roasted over a small fire; the boy’s stomach gurgled with longing. Next door, a young woman in a white apron topped hot rice cakes with dollops of gooey mango jam, while under a wide awning dumplings floated in a salty broth. Snuggled beneath the branches of an old bent tree sat a drink vender’s table. On top, obedient paper cups stood in neat rows each filled to the brim with sweetened goji berry juice and cold crushed ice, the cups never moving, not an inch, until whisked away by some thirsty customer to be consumed, and the cup crushed and discarded.

“Can we stop? Please.”

“Later, little one,” Nainai said, pulling on his hand.

“But I’m thirsty.”

“Come along, quickly.” Nainai was a tornado blowing through the crowd. Zhiqiang held tight to her hand and ran to keep up with her scurrying feet.

They hustled past a man with a painted face and two laughing girls with tall feathers on their heads, then pushed through the stiff turnstile and into the arena stairwell—so many steps— the noise of the people echoing like they were in a tall concrete cave.

They sat high above the stage where there were still a few empty seats, and the air was blissfully cool. At first, Nainai sat between them. But Zhiqiang wiggled between Nainai and Aalee. Aalee rewarded her protector with a kiss on his cheek.

First came the parade—and tigers. “I didn’t believe you,” Aalee gasped. Once again, her dangling feet swung.

“Whoa…” Zhiqiang pointed as elephants appeared. Behind them men walked on stilts, and others danced throwing their partners into the air. Magicians made people disappear and brought them back in a puff of purple smoke. Next, right in the middle of the show, interrupting everything, a government man in a dull green jumpsuit and brown boots, came on stage.

Boos rumbled through the stadium.

“As a precaution,” the government man raised his hands, “we would like to remind every citizen that you must go to your designated underground location if the sirens sound. I will review these locations now.”

A collective moan filled the arena.

“Red badges should enter the underground tube tunnels at 6th street…”

When the government official finally said, “that concludes my remarks for the evening, enjoy the festival,” the arena reverberated with cheers.

Dancers flitted across the stage on feet that barely touched the ground. Zhiqiang stared, transfixed, his attention unwavering. All was sound and sight, and the feel of Aalee’s hand in his. Six women, clad in tangerine silk, waved like chrysanthemums in the wind, gracefully throwing ribbons of yellow cloth into the air as if these were unfurling stamens or butterflies taking flight. Other dancers appeared, fiery red dragons, stomping their feet and tossing their horned dragon heads to the beat of drums.

The loud piercing cry of a siren shattered the illusion.

Aalee and Zhiqiang covered their ears.

Nainai picked up Aalee, rushing for the stairwell. Zhiqiang, running on the long stadium bench seat, was inches behind her.

BOOM!

The first shell hit the stage. In the stairwell, squeezed against the wall, twice Zhiqiang was almost crushed. Grandfather’s frown appeared in his brow. Below him on the wall of the landing over the heads of the people the number “4” was painted in bright fluorescent orange.

Three more flights.

Another shell, the stairs shook; the lights went out; people stampeded. As Nainai stumbled, Zhiqiang grabbed her arm, pulling her hard toward the corner of the landing where there was room for her to gain her feet. The hands that clutched Aalee, trembled.

“Three more flights. Now!” he shouted, dragging Nainai into a break in the crowd.

In the street their feet trampled dumplings and splashed through spilled soup.

Men with microphones shouted, “Blue tags enter at 4th street! Green tags enter at 12th!”

As they passed the cups of goji juice, the table, pushed by a maddened crowd, skidded toward them. “Watch out!” Zhiqiang ducked. The table hit Nainai’s thighs knocking her down. She scrambled to her feet, picking up a screaming Aalee.

“Zhiqiang!”

“Nainai!” he shouted from under the table.

The crowd divided them. Like the current of a river at flood it carried Nainai along.

“Zhi Zhi,” Aalee called. “Zhi Zhi!” Twice he tried to go after them, and twice he was knocked to the ground. He crawled back under the table to escape the hysterical feet.

A green tag hung from a safety pin pinned to his shirt.

Green tags enter at 12th street.

He reached up and took a cup of juice, miraculously still upright, off the table. So sweet, so cool, so wet.

The crowd thinned . . . quickly he downed the last drop.

There, an opening, behind the man carrying a boy in a leg cast.

Rat . . . tat . . . tat . . .

The deafening sound of thousands of screams filled the air. People fell. A woman on the ground, clutching her leg, looked at him. With a barely perceptible movement, she shook her head, ‘no.’ More shots. She fell backwards, her eyes staring unseeing into his as the line of black boots marched forward. Under the table, the empty cup slipped from Zhiqiang’s hand.

Fiction Publications TCL #47 - Spring 2023

Fiona and the Fairy Queen

By A.P. Golub on Monday, July 1, 2024

Fiona was out in the dawn-lit, dew-decked meadow, calling her cow for the morning milking, when the fairy queen stepped from the forest. She wore spring waters and budding leaves, with her hair tightly curled upon her head and dotted through with delicate, pale flowers. She strode across the meadow towards Fiona, wings folded, a breeze blowing around her. The flowers and grasses bent and swayed to let her pass. The morning sun rose higher with each step she took, wreathing her in gold.

Fiona’s blood ran cold.

A thousand tales told by the elders around the winter fires sparked in her mind: the fairies lured maidens to their deaths, they kept them as servants, they turned them into stone. Fiona knew she should run.

But she couldn’t move.

She lifted a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the piercing sun, wanting to see the fairy queen better. The fae’s beauty bewitched Fiona more than any spell could. Her heartbeat quickened in her chest and her blood thawed, running hot and right to her cheeks.

The fairy drew up in front of her, tall as a sapling with a year’s growth. Stunning. She didn’t look much older than Fiona, who was almost twenty.

“Have you seen a cat?” Her voice was deep and honeyed, with magic layered below the surface. And annoyance just below that.

“A… Cat?”

“Yes.” She crossed her arms and her dragonfly wings flicked in and out. Fiona’s gaze caught on her eyes, the deep brown of late autumn leaves damp from rain.

“What kind of cat?” Fiona finally managed to ask. There were lots of cats in the village, but she couldn’t imagine the fairy looking for any of those.

“A bad cat.”

“Any proper cat is a bad cat.”

The fairy laughed. “What’s your name?”

Fiona narrowed her eyes. “Tell me your name first.”

“Do you really think—” The fairy cocked her head to the side. “—that if I wanted to steal you away from here, I couldn’t come up with a better line than ‘have you seen a cat’? You can call me Zaubi, though.”

“I’m Fiona.” Fiona did a small curtsy, hoping Zaubi didn’t notice the flush on her cheeks. “Perhaps I could help look for your cat?”

“It’s not my cat. It’s one of Freyja’s damned ferals—Bee, she’s calling herself today. I was supposed to be watching Bee while Freyja’s looking for her husband.” Zaubi’s wings flicked.

“So you’re responsible for the cat?”

Her wings folded. “Yes.”

“And you’ve lost the cat?”

A heavy breath. “Yes.”

“Let me help you.” The words slipped out of Fiona, and she immediately wished she could swallow them back. No one offered to help fairies. They took whatever—

Zaubi smiled, warm as the rising summer day. “I’d really appreciate that.”

Before Fiona could convince herself that this was a terrible idea and that she was definitely getting kidnapped and taken away to fairyland, she found herself nodding and mentally running through all the places in the village that a cat might hide. “We have a number of cats hanging around, they keep the rats down. Maybe Bee fell in with them? I’ll go check behind the butcher’s, then down by the river. If all else fails, I’ll check the midden.”

Zaubi lifted her chin. “I’ll come, too.”

The fairy’s body blurred and her form changed. The sparkling dew dress shortened, turning into a linen shift. Her stature diminished and she became human. The flowers tucked into her hair no longer shone with enchanted starlight. She was still absolutely gorgeous, though. Fiona balled her hands into fists, fighting off the sudden image of putting her arm around Zaubi’s waist and brushing the red diamond patterned belt now wrapped there.

“And now for the finishing touch.” Zaubi plucked a strand of hair from Fiona’s head.

“Ouch!”

The fairy touched Fiona’s arm. A feeling like cold stream water rippled through Fiona’s blood, dulling the sharp pain. “I’m sorry.”

“What was that for?” Fiona asked.

Zaubi wrapped the strand of hair around her finger. “A charm. Now everyone in the village will think they know me.”

Fiona nodded. A small voice in her mind mentioning that if everyone thought Zaubi lived there, then Zaubi didn’t need to leave the moment they found her cat. She could stay for the midsummer’s dance coming up—Fiona shook the thoughts away, reminding herself that fairies were tricksters, at best. Even when they weren’t at their worst, they weren’t date material.

Off they went, cat hunting.

The cat wasn’t behind the butcher’s, but he told them to check down at the riverbank since the village cats sometimes clustered there, hoping for scraps from the daily fishers. Zaubi smiled and thanked him graciously.

Fiona licked her lips, toying with the thought of asking Zaubi if she wanted to take a break. They could sit and talk and discuss… Cats. Maybe something else if Fiona could turn the subject…

“To the river?” Zaubi asked.

“The river,” Fiona found herself saying, before she could say anything else.

It was for the best. Fairies were dangerous. No one with a lick of self-preservation would spend their morning trying to figure out how to flirt with one. Fiona motioned Zaubi to the path leading out of the village and towards the river.

“So what’s the party for?”

“Huh?”

“I noticed the pigs hanging in the butcher’s. Seems like a lot for day-to-day life in a small village like this.”

Fiona nodded. “Our midsummer festival starts in two days.”

Zaubi ran her hand along the yellow flowers bobbing along the river path. “That sounds like fun.”

Fiction Publications TCL #47 - Spring 2023

Spinning The Dream

By David Whitmarsh on Monday, June 24, 2024

I looked up from my green tea and she was there, standing in the doorway of Marek’s Café with long fair hair plastered to her head by the rain. A puddle formed beneath the hem of her dripping coat as she folded her futile umbrella. Her eyes flickered around the dim light of the café searching, searching.

You might say I was surprised. It isn’t often the woman of your dreams walks into your life.

I mean that literally, I’d never seen her before but I’d been dreaming about her for two weeks. I knew that face, knew how the corners of her mouth creased when she smiled, how she pulled her fingers through her hair and tucked it behind her ears when it fell before her eyes.

She took two paces into the café, pulled the fingers of her left hand through her dripping hair and tucked it behind her ear. Her face turned towards me in the shadowy alcove at the back. Two seconds, then she marched up and stood facing down at me over the table.

“You’re Erica Fallon.”

I nodded. She pulled out the chair and sat. Marek appeared at her shoulder. “Espresso,” she said without looking up. “They say you’re good at finding people.” Her gaze held me with an intensity that might have been intimidating, from anyone else.

I steadied my breathing. “Who have you lost?”

“My brother.”

“When did you last see him.”

“Fifty-seven, but I don’t remember it.”

“Twenty-three years ago.” The sea was where it was supposed to be, the bio-war was at its height. “You must have been very young.”

“They thought six when they found me.”

Marek ghosted silently to the table and placed the small cup before her.

“CM-2057-phi-kappa?” I tapped my phone to pay.

She grimaced and nodded. That was one of the nastier of the weapons deployed in the war, went straight to the brain. Ninety-eight percent of infected adults died. Survivors, mostly kids, suffered total amnesia.

“They found me on a street corner. No idea where I came from, so they gave me a name and put me in an orphanage.”

“So what is it?”

“What?”

“Your name.”

The briefest of smiles flashed across her face, creasing the corners of her mouth. “Rosemary Baker.”

That jarred. It didn’t sound right. “And your brother was with you?”

“No.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

Her fingers stroked the handle of her cup. “Not much. He’s about six years older than me.”

“Does he have a name?”

She sipped her espresso. “Everything else I know is… unreliable, more likely to mislead you, like it has me.”

A brother she couldn’t remember, no evidence he ever existed. Her story was like something from a spin dream.

“I know that look,” she said. “You have a healthy scepticism, Erica. But put aside your preconceptions.” She took out her phone and flipped me five hundred picos. A generous fee. “That’s for trying. Double if you succeed.” She downed the remainder of her coffee.

Fiction Publications TCL #47 - Spring 2023

Family Traditions

By Lynne Inouye on Monday, June 17, 2024

Dad takes you to the Tree when you turn twelve years old.

“We’re leaving,” he says as he wakes you, a shadow of a man standing tall over your bed. The world is gray outside your window; the air is frigid, unpleasant. He does not speak as you untangle yourself from your blankets, eyes heavy with sleep. He does not say happy birthday.

“It’s cold,” you try. You are barefoot, dressed only in plaid pajama pants and an off-yellow shirt, but he does not let you change. He only stares—dark eyes, dark, graying hair—before he turns and walks away.

There’s nothing to do but follow.

Down the stairs, past family photos of that all-American dream. A mother with laugh lines, a father with a strong, angular face. Two little boys, glowing and laughing with youth, next to a dog with floppy ears. Turn the corner. You drift through the kitchen, past threadbare, empty sofas and a fireplace, unlit.

The front door is open when you get there, and the wind bites your skin. Dad does not shiver. He is already grabbing the keys to the truck, breezing out the door. The swing hung from the tree in your yard sways piteously back and forth. Wood creaks. Leaves ripple.

You spare a glance back at your home–dim and foreign and weary. Your teeth chatter, and there is something coiled and heavy in your gut. Something that yells at you to turn back, to run, to burrow under blankets and away from the chill. But you are twelve years old, now, you remind yourself. You’re not a little boy anymore.

Dad starts the engine; it sputters before roaring to life. You hurry toward him. The darkness prickles at the back of your neck, and the pavement digs harshly into your bare feet. You shake, as you pull on the handle and haul yourself in.

The truck’s moving before you even shut the door.

Dad does not turn on the radio. Dad does not say anything–still does not say happy birthday–as he peels out down the road. Words are stuck in your throat. The silence weighs down on your shoulders, makes you curl in on yourself, sinking into the musty leather of the seat. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear your mother’s laugh in the rattle of the exhaust system. You can almost see your younger brother’s gap-toothed grin, feel his sticky fingers on your face.

The truck jerks to a stop, and Dad grabs your arm. “Come on,” he says, and you follow.

You always follow, and so you step out, blink your eyes open, and–

There’s the Tree.

It is a goliath of wood, a monster of sickly, brittle leaves. The smell of decay is heavy in the air, and flies buzz gleefully around its trunk. One tries to get in your mouth. Gagging, you stumble back, and something squishes underfoot.

You look down. There is a heart on the ground.

There is a heart on the ground, with twine hooked in its muscle–with red staining the grass. You are frozen, wordless, and as you tear your eyes away, the Tree greets you again. Only this time, you can see the shapes hanging from its boughs, swaying gently with the wind. Dozens, hundreds of hearts.

“Family tradition,” Dad finally says. “My father took me here when I turned twelve. His father took him. On and on–all the men in our family, far back as anyone can remember.”

Your breathing is coming out too fast, too harsh. Blood is soaking into your sock.

“You’re scared,” Dad notes. “But you won’t be. You’re not a little boy anymore.”

Dad unzips his jacket, pulls the collar of his shirt down. And right over his chest, is a jagged, ugly scar–puckered and red. A missing piece, as he pulls out a piece of twine from his pocket.

He clamps a hand on your shoulder and smiles. “It’s time to become a man.”

Lynne Inouye is a young, queer fiction writer who lives in Minnesota. Her work has been previously published in Blue Marble Review and Pyre Magazine, and you can find her on Twitter @liinouye.

Fiction Publications TCL #47 - Spring 2023

The Castaway

By George S. Walker on Monday, June 10, 2024

The naked man, washed up from the sea, watched Misaki from a crouch on the snow-covered shore. In the gray light of early evening, she thought he looked like Michelangelo’s David, carved from obsidian.

Misaki’s breath steamed from her hike down the rocky shore to the harbor. Beside her, her dog growled.

The man’s breath didn’t frost in the air. His naked black limbs didn’t tremble in the cold wind off the sea. Misaki’s hope of companionship withered.

And Man created android in his own image.

Behind him in the harbor, seawater surged over drowned piers. The derelict remains of the island’s defense platform were no more than a breakwater now. Waves crashed against the slagged framework, revealing no hint of its iceberg-like bulk in the depths.

“Calm, Akira,” whispered Misaki, her gloved hand trembling on the dog’s back. She felt the rumble of Akira’s growl, but wind and surf snatched away the sound.

The android’s eyes held hers. She bowed, a useless gesture. How had he gotten here? The only boats were her yellow kayak, dragged up on the harbor shore, and storm-smashed boats on the rocks behind her. She couldn’t outrun him.

Her dog slipped free, advancing toward him, fangs bared.

“Akira!”

She caught up, pulled off her glove, and grabbed a handful of dark fur. She forced Akira to sit, kneeling beside him in the snow.

The android was only a few arms lengths away. His head tilted slightly, studying the dog, not Misaki. Above high cheekbones, the android’s eyes had internal facets like liquid origami. Snowflakes danced over his dark skin without melting. The skin had no cuts, no bruises, no abrasions of any kind. Misaki’s long hair was going prematurely gray, and she had more scars than she could count. Most were from the past two years, since the Singularity had left her alone on the island.

“Sorry for my dog,” she said. Even as she said it, she realized how futile that was. He had as much in common with her as a submarine had with a shrimp. And was just as dangerous.

“Dog,” he repeated, mimicking her voice exactly.

She shuddered, remembering deceptions during the war. “Yes, this island is our home.”

Maybe he came from the west and only knew Russian. No, he must be networked, fluent in every language. And he certainly wasn’t here by accident. She had a good idea why: the island’s lighthouse. That didn’t bode well.

“Why are you here?” She kneaded her hand in the nape of Akira’s neck, trying to calm him and herself.

The android turned his attention back to her.

Instantly she regretted speaking. He was handsome and powerfully built, a foot taller than her. Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry.

She stood, pulling Akira back, fighting the instinct to run.

He stood as well.

“We won’t bother you,” she said, trying to sound calm.

“You,” he echoed.

An accusation or a question?

“Misaki. And my dog, Akira.” She wondered if he’d been damaged by the recent storm. Could he be offline? A disconnected fragment of the AI hive mind?

She retreated up the shore, head turned to watch him. Her pulse raced as she dragged Akira by the scruff of his neck.

The android followed like a wolf stalking stragglers of a herd. Akira’s head was turned like Misaka’s, growling. Misaki breathed shallow and fast. She fervently wished she hadn’t come down to the shore. But it had been over two years since the Singularity. She’d grown complacent. What could she do now? It wasn’t safe to lead him to her cottage, but was anyplace safe? She couldn’t outrun him, couldn’t hide. Her only hope was that he’d think she was like the birds on the shore: harmless wildlife. She tried not to think about the weapon in the lighthouse, afraid her body language would give her away. The weapon was as likely to get her killed as save her. She’d be like a garter snake attacking a mongoose.

She walked up the shore stooped over, afraid to release her grip on Akira to put her glove back on. The wind was cold on the back of her hand, in contrast to her fingers warm in his long fur. She sang to him, voice threatening to crack. She didn’t dare let go, or the fool dog would get himself killed. The path rose toward her cottage overlooking the harbor.

She’d moved in after the last refugee boats had left and the island was abandoned. At the time she’d been too sick to leave. Afterwards she’d been alone until she found two other left-behinds: Akira and a starving cat, Mao.

And now the android.

She glanced behind. He still followed but wasn’t looking at her. His focus was on the houses up the hill. Most were storm-damaged. After two years, hers was the only one in good shape. She’d replaced windows blown out by storms, cannibalizing other houses. It was a good cottage. It was her cottage. She cursed the android, working swear words into the song she sang Akira.

When she reached the door to her cottage, she unlatched it, pushing Akira inside. She considered darting in after him and locking the door. Pointless. The android could rip it off its hinges as easily as she could close it.

She stepped inside. He followed, and she shivered at the danger of this naked man in her refuge.

The cottage was a single level: one main room, two smaller ones and a bathroom. She had running water from a gravity tank and a system of pipes she’d built. There was a fire pit in the center of the main room, with a wide-flanged stove pipe suspended above.

Mao came over, purring against her leg. Unlike Akira, he didn’t recognize the android as a threat.

“Mao,” she explained. “My cat.”

“My cat,” said the android in her voice.

She could lead him out now, leaving Akira and Mao here. Lure the android to the lighthouse where the weapon was. Destroy him. But if he defeated her, what would happen to Akira and Mao? She wasn’t brave enough. Here, she had the comfort of her companions. Perhaps the android would lose interest and leave.

Mao, still rubbing against her, meowed.

“Are we starving, poor thing?” Her voice shook. She rubbed under the cat’s chin.

She glanced at the android. Behind him, the windows looked out on the harbor. The light had faded enough that she could just make out the beam from the lighthouse sweeping out to sea.

Akira settled onto his bed by the fire pit, watching warily.

“I make a fire every night,” Misaki said to the android. She wondered if he understood anything. Was talking to it good or bad? “I found a wood stove in another house but couldn’t loosen the bolts to take it. An open fire isn’t very efficient. You know all about that, don’t you? Efficiency.”

She watched his handsome face and those liquid origami eyes that she couldn’t read, wishing he were human: kind and gentle. Not a killing machine. She turned away, kneeling by the fire pit. Her shoulders tensed, knowing he was behind her. She brushed the old ashes aside and picked up her knife and a stick, whittling a pile of wood shavings.