Story Excerpts
by Kevin J. Anderson & Rick Wilber
Home sweet home.
The ever-present pall of volcanic ash lingered in the air, adding an orange undertone to the dreary gray skies. Gando wore the usual outdoor mask, so that the sour ash smell wouldn’t make his lungs burn.
He looked toward the first in a row of greenhouses and shook his head in worry. An odd, undocumented blight had afflicted some of the strawberry plants.
Bending down under the greenhouse’s polymer covering, he rubbed the gray stain on the leaves with his calloused fingers. He frowned, then uprooted the entire plant. This wasn’t good. He hoped he’d gotten it in time.
Emerging from under the polymer tarp, he flung the tainted strawberry plant far from the greenhouses. “Ella!” he called, “we need to keep watch on number three.” READ MORE
by Octavia Cade
I have a fascination for polar bears. They have always struck me as a particularly terrible way to die.
If you’re eaten by a polar bear, there’s a good chance that you’ll be eaten alive, because the human body just doesn’t constitute enough of a threat to permanently disable before the consumption begins.
I could say the same about bull sharks or a pack of wild dogs, but it’s the bears that hold my attention.
I think it’s because there’s so much room in them for metaphor. READ MORE