A Mere Shell

In the end I ran away, fleeing what I am guilty of. As a young man I committed those crimes, telling myself orders were orders, that we were the justified, dealing out punishments fit for imagined crimes.

Now, older, reflecting on how my past moulded me, I return to the scene of my crimes. German and Jew, I embraced one me and snuffed out the other. Is this survivor guilt? Or am I finally realizing and admitting my evil past?

I wander the compound, begging spectres for a forgiveness that will never come. Are they the ghost, or am I?From Guest Contributor Tim Law

The Road To Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass

George's wait--a few moments or a million years, it's difficult to tell the difference--comes to an end as his number is called. The angel at his window looks over his paperwork perfunctorily before giving his folder the rubber stamp.

"You'll need to wait in Limbo. We'll alert you when a final decision has been made."

"How long's that going to take?"

His angel just shrugged. "You do know this is the most exclusive club in the entire universe. Only the best people get in."

"But I was really good."

"Being good isn't enough. Like I said, we're exclusive."

Pilgrimage

Sage pushed up her visor and glared into the distance. Through the haze and the light, she could just make out the temple nestled into the gulch at the end of the valley. She registered no sign of life between here and her destination.

After such a long journey, she was too exhausted, both mentally and physically, to truly take in her surroundings or reflect on the implications of her pilgrimage nearing its end.

Sage had traveled one hundred light years to get to this planet. Until this moment, she had not given any thought to what would come next.

The Pyramids

The new neighbors were installing an elevator in the three-story home on the corner. As soon as it was finished, they handed out tickets like we were going for a ride. When the doors opened, we stepped out into a blistering afternoon, where men were struggling with giant blocks of stone. Were they busy creating one of the ancient wonders of the world? It looked like we might be witnessing a miracle, but the air was stifling, thousands of years old. Wasn’t it time to go home and relax? Kick off our shoes, call an end to this crazy day?

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Wrecking Ball

It's a metaphor for wanton destruction, indiscriminate, total. It levels everything in sight, out with the old, room for the new, the outset of a revolution.

But a wrecking ball is just a machine. A big one to be sure, yet still a tool, a vehicle, a spare part--the last one that needs replacing. It's not the ball doing the annihilation, but the driver. It's not the driver, but the foreman, or the one percent, or the unbearable weight of social change.

It's just a giant piece of forged steel. It's just the end of everything you've ever known.

Desert Tide

Millions of years ago, this desert lay at the bottom of an ocean. The sand I'm walking on is the crushed bones of our ancestors, lost to time except for the polynucleotide chains twisted inside of us. Their collective memories have been encoded inside me. Had they not lived and died, I would not exist.

The desert stretches out of sight in all directions. It might never end for all I know. Even if I could arrive at the other side, how would I know I was there. You never know when you've reached the end. You can only guess.

Oh Baby

He's seeking to please, down on his knees, when everything freezes.

He's holding his breath, scared half to death, then everything stops.

She's the love of his life, one day his wife, when everything freezes, his heart starts and drops.

There's not enough time, it's all a true crime. Some kind of conspiracy, no true north polarity.

His thoughts have a meter, his words want to rhyme. His raison d'etre stutters sublime.

Now it's all over, she's lost in the past. A mysterious end that happened too fast.

It just goes to show: nothing truly matters, when nothing ever lasts.

A Closed Time Curved Loop Time Traveler

As a closed time curved loop time traveler watched in horror at the death of mankind. He wondered. Was it always thus? A learning simulator bent on self-destruction? From one reality bounce to another, pray for peace. In the end, God wins all games. Why? In a Dyson Sphere or Solomon’s statement, there is nothing new under the sun. And that which the author of life has given, so he shall take. Multiple dimensions exist. And every twist and turn of the story of life is taken. What about the dreamers? Even their dreams come true somewhere within a simulator.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

Twisting Time

Twisting time. Watching all the quantum news, I ponder the latest statement about quantum religion. An attempt by corporations to combine the ideology of Hindoos into the quantum realm and do away with individual religions for a planet-wide religion.

Freaks me out three religions talk about this very topic. And the outcome is not good for humanity. The end result is a system of things or what people reference from movies as the matrix. Kind of wild to see the ending of humanity. The beginning of the terminator reality is just happening. Age becoming a battery. An end of humanity?

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

Journey's End

My duty to the Dispossessed is finally done.

I carried and cared for the few thousand survivors in their cryotubes, as we fled the 200 light years from Earth. Their life signs, my only companions, became dear to me. Now, after T-centuries of terraforming, K2-72e is habitable. I call it Hope.

But responsibility remains. If Hope falls to hubris, or misjudgement, or pollution, then the work will have been for nothing; my friends and their children will die.

The risk is too great. I will let them sleep safely on, watching over them, and keeping this garden in their memory.

From Guest Contributor Alastair Millar

Alastair is an archaeologist by training, a translator by trade, and a nerd by nature. His published flash and micro fiction can be found at https://linktr.ee//alastairmillar and he lurks on Twitter @skriptorium.