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When she decided to wander through the woods in search of poppy fields and prowling houses, the stepmothers and grandmothers scoffed.
“You’ll be looking for love potions and beauty serums, then. Shallow. I always knew you were an insecure girl.”
“She wants slimmer thighs.”
“She craves wider hips.”
“She knows the boys don’t look twice at her, that she’ll never marry. Sad.”
“Once upon a time,” outputted the algorithm, “there was an AI.
“It generated recipes and ingredient descriptions for an online grocery store. The website said that this recipe was not just a squash soup recipe, but it also was a good diet recipe / keto recipe / recipe for autumn nights / five ingredient recipe / easy beginner recipe / recipe to impress your date.
You’ve gotten a C-minus, and it isn’t your fault. It is also not your fault that your parents are anal, Pakistani immigrants who came to this country with nothing and think a C-minus in tenth grade spells life-long doom. It doesn’t help that your Auntie (your mother’s cousin three times removed) is staying over and caught you watching inappropriate content on your laptop.
High above the Amazon Rainforest, Hynd circled, her massive wingspan only visible by the shadow she cast on the battlefield below. She felt the wind pass across her wings, whispering of torrential rain coming; not her concern, so far above the clouds, but she packaged the data and shot it down to the comms base at ground level so the grunts would know what was coming.
Rat was sure the silent, four-eyed skull of a dead god was staring at him. He followed the crowd off the train toward a rickety stand with the word Orientation painted on the front. But he couldn’t stop looking into the giant god’s eyes. Every dead person Rat had seen had eyes like that. Unseeing. […]
Xylina
The first date had that delicious awkwardness that makes you self-conscious in the moment, but in retrospect seems endearing and makes you nostalgic for a more innocent and hopeful time. Adis suggested we meet in the Eloan sector of Gemini Station so I wouldn’t need an environment suit.
Hayley stands by the exit to the bookstore, eyeing the torrent coming down in sheets over the parking lot. Behind her, Matt hides the tiniest of fist pumps and says, “You don’t want to go out in that. Come on, let me buy us a couple of drinks at the café.” She takes a long look at the tempest outside, checks the time on her phone, and says, “I guess I have time for a cup of tea. I’ll get my own.”
It is with great delight that I welcome you to Hexagon, the great hub of Ile-Ife. I know a majority of you traveled from distant planets inhabited in one of the Milky Way spiral arms. Let me inform you that your yacht, carrier, molue, shuttle-hiace, and other transport machines are safely parked in our garage.
A tithe convoy of the Fivefold Church, in Ander Carmora’s sad experience, left three kinds of wakes. Armored wagons and oxen ripped lasting ruts in gravel roads, scarred them down to the mud. Tithe collectors gleaned their due from all and sundry, and left long swathes of land poorer than they’d found it. And the third wake: the bodies of any bandit crew daft enough to try its luck.
In this universe, we fight because we can’t fuck. Call it Universe A, or One, the Golden Age where it all began. Though “began” is relative when your timeline is constantly rewritten, rebooted, shattered to bits. Call it the universe where we aren’t even supposed to show emotion, unless it’s anger, let alone kiss. Your fist skates over my jaw, bone against bone, skin brushing skin. I tie you up. Your muscles strain.
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