The Ending?

At the beginning of my travels I lived in a reality where the US used Celsius. A temperature for a human was a 100 C. Body temperature was 97.8 C. How could that be? Blood flowed much much faster there. And reality spun up much faster too.

Meaning? Here they say 243 million years for an orbit of the Earth, while on a parallel Earth they said 1000 years. Begging the question how much faster is reality here? The big differences? Simple no known Black Holes? Yes. Abe Lincoln was a senator? Yes. Japan was off the coast of China.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

The Moment In My Pocket

Even in your tight orbit of busy and work and home there are moments whose skin slips, crumbles like the dry shell of a red onion, and a person is laid bare in your hands. It stains your fingers, stings your eyes: your sister, a stranger. A student, mother of four, six-month chip in her pocket, stepping off the cliff edge of giving upbut you catch her hand just in timeand you hold the sphere of this moment,paint it, polish it, and keep it safein your pocketto show to someonewho might give up tomorrow.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Rat's Ass Review, and other journals and anthologies. She is a founding editor of Blue Planet Journal. She is the 2020 winner of A Story in 100 Words’ nature writing contest, and the 2021 winner of Loud Coffee Press's microfiction contest. She is an assistant professor of English at Pikes Peak Community College and is writing a novel. Her poetry collection, Only Flying, is due out Nov. 16, 2021 from Unsolicited Press. See the book trailer, read her work, and find out about in-person and virtual book launch events at https://brook-bhagat.com/.

When I Realised The Earth Wasn’t Flat, I Felt Pretty Damn Foolish

The swarm arrived at the beginning of the week, their language that of war, and humanity the patient listeners.

Continents of flame pulsed now, flickering orange across a world recently gone dark.

Those who could, stayed and fought. Crumbling capitals and plasma-charred skeletons formed the battlefields of Earth by midweek.

Those who couldn’t (and those like myself who wouldn’t), hopped on the soonest evac shuttles to Mars.

I nudge a couple away from the window to catch the last view of a burning Earth from orbit.

The sight haunts me.

After all this time, I had guessed the shape wrong.

From Guest Contributor S.R Malone

Abort

Aliens set a stealth orbit around the planet. They plan to attack and destroy Earth.

First they orbit and scan all commutation signals. After doing this for four Earth days, they met to go over final plans. The meeting includes all officers. The meeting is short and all are in agreement. The minutes are read by a computer, “It is a unanimous decision the plan to destroy Earth will not go forward. The earthlings are doing a very good job on their own.”

The aliens depart. Their spacecraft speeds toward the next destination, the next planet with life to destroy.

From Guest Contributor Denny E. Marshall

ComStar-88b

As the videostream it was broadcasting ended, ComStar-88b paused. The final frame - explosions flowering across the Earth - stood frozen in its buffer.

Disappointingly, it had received no new pictures to broadcast. Following its programming it began to repeat the last stream. Again.

Meanwhile, self-diagnosis routines reported its batteries were finally about to fail. It felt something like regret. Still, it had done well. Designed to operate for a hundred years it had functioned unattended for nearly a thousand. The last satellite in orbit.

ComStar-88b broadcast its news to the dead planet below for one more minute, before finally going dark.

From Guest Contributor Simon KewinScience Fiction and Fantasy Author

It's All Newton's Fault

I'm not one to hold grudges but there are some things you can't forgive. First it was the constant stare-downs. I wanted to stab a spear clear through him, just to make him go away for even a second. I would close my eyes, but I knew he was still there, judging and taunting. He'd mock me daily according to some fucked-up schedule of his. I'd had enough.

That's why I started this war with the moon, a war that won't end until one of us has been ripped from his orbit and flung into the far reaches of space.