Fiction

All Alice ever wanted was to hear them sing. That's what I told her father, when they brought me to him, after what happened in Guam. At first, he just stared at me, like I was some bug he was tempted to pull the legs off, one at a time. Then he started talking.

"When we are done here you will be killed," said Director Emmet Peterson of Best Possible Life, Inc. Hearing this, Asher leaned back in his chair, casually rested his hands in his lap and began to swivel ever so slightly from side to side, the tension in his shoulders melting with each subtle twist. Still, he made sure to knot his brows for the Director's benefit.

Jaime was born on the same day a ladder descended from the sky off the coast of Atlantic City and dipped, like a toe, into the ocean.

A timebolt. I don’t know what else to call it. I imagine it sped from the void with random trajectory, arcing through systems unhindered before Earth and my family in that car, ignoring my once Newtonian mind, and finding me quite by chance. An impossible accident from the heavens.

“Do you know any songs, Fisher?” There seemed to be more weeds than water holding up the boat. Each time the oar came out, it had a new wrapping of shimmering green hair.

The thing on Susan's doorstep was a grim parody of human form. It stood seven foot tall—its skin pale, ill-fitting, and criss-crossed with scars. Hard, deep-set little eyes were framed by scant black hair that hung loosely around its asymmetrical face. “Don't be alarmed,” it said.

Every facet of his existence was meant to be some form of punishment, overt or subtle, straightforward or ironic. It was the only way he'd been allowed to live.

Allport, F. W., Edwards, C. K., & Ghallegar, S. M. (2003). Origins and evolution of avian humanoid worship: A meta-analysis. Journal of Cultural Psychology, 51, 439-468.

I try to turn my head -- the only part of my body that is merely restrained rather than actually strapped down tight -- to look my neighbor in the eye, but the juddering of the transporter in the outer atmosphere stops me. "How did they get you?" he repeats, shouting over the hollow thud of the craft surfing the mesosphere.