I liked ants when I was a kid. I remember I did a project on them in the fourth grade and for a year or so after I was full of ant facts that I would share with any adult willing to listen. They seemed like neat, industrious little insects. These days I’m more terrified […]

“Behold Akrathaz!” It was the voices that first roused me, but it was the stench that kept me from just rolling over and going back to sleep. “Behold Akrathaz!” I coughed and gagged. After a moment I used a pillow to cover my mouth and nose, then reluctantly stood and stumbled to my window. The […]

“Which is worse, do you think? To be dead, or to be forgotten and absorbed into the memory of someone else?” “I keep telling you, Chris, you’re already dead. I don’t care about being forgotten. Let me sleep!” In what should have been pitch darkness, Devin cursed every bit of streetlight that leaked into the […]

This one time, two alien spaceships met each other in the void of space between star systems. Neither species had ever encountered a different species before, so it was a momentous event. The scientifically-minded crews of the two ships stopped and tried to communicate. Eventually, they worked out a coded system of light flashes through […]

Dr. Wendell was a scientist who had a lot of leeway in his work. He could spend as much time as he wanted working on whatever happened to catch his fancy. He had invented all sorts of high-tech machines this way. It was Dr. Wendell who had invented the portable comb organization matrix, the glow-in-the-dark […]