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Edition 9: Blockbuster by Rik Hoskin
I’m sure all of us, at one time or another, have considered the permeating influence of the film industry on our world, beyond entertainment. We usually conclude that it is profound, and as far back as the great propaganda machines of the ‘inter-war’ years in the last century. Rik Hoskin provides us with a fresh insight. GH
The sky was a rainbow mosaic above the two combatants. It shimmered with the haze of oily pollutants as thick, black smoke belched from the numerous, anthill-like structures that dotted the barren landscape. They faced each other across the chasm between two of the pollution-spewing towers, their energy lances engaged, their force shields powered up. The fate of the very galaxy depended, Matt knew, on the outcome of this, their final battle. The greatest warriors of the two most powerful religions would clash for one last, decisive time, and finally Matt would learn which philosophy would govern forevermore: the White Path of morality, or the sinister Black Path, with its evil ways of destruction and oppression.
With a swelling of sound and fury, the skies broke with flashes of light, the deep rumbling of thunder shaking the witnesses to the depths of their stomachs. The two combatants leapt, inhumanly high, lances raised. And, in mid-air, ball lightning electrifying the atmosphere around them, they met.
And the screen went black and the spell was broken as the lights slowly came back up in the screening room of the Howard Studios ranch. Several members of the press who had been invited to this conference broke into a smattering of applause. At the front of the room, director Benjamin Howard offered an embarrassed smile.
Edition 9: Better Than Everything by Malon Edwards
The technology of the future can realize the dreams of today, but we have to be careful that we don’t mistake them for nightmares. In this story Malon Edwards paints a vivid future where a form of immortality has been achieved, but it comes at a terrible price in the face of one of humanity’s most fundamental emotions, love. GH
“So, I’ve been thinking,” I start, and then stop because this is the conversation we’ve been avoiding most of her life.
But Jae Lyn doesn’t miss a beat. “You keep doing that, and you’re going to break something.”
She smiles and that dimple at the left corner of her mouth on her chin peeks out at me. More than anything, I’ll miss kissing it.
No. I can’t think like that.
I take a carton of apple-cranberry juice out of the refrigerator, pour us both a glass, and proceed to wipe that smile right off her face.
“You can’t die.”
“Don’t.”
Edition 10: Mr. Strawn and the Book by Morgen Knight
Mr. Strawn seeks out an imaginery friend, trapped in a brothel by a trick of an old friend. A sweet dieselpunk story with a lot of heart. SY
Mr. Strawn stepped off the sleek magnetic train and walked down the wooden boardwalk of the depot, boots clunking. He carried a canvas bag shaped around the thick book inside of it. It made him think of a snake that had misjudged its meal every time he picked it up. He tipped his large-brimmed hat at the ladies he passed, with a metal finger. His entire left hand was a replacement. The shine had worn off, but he didn’t mind. Shiny metal drew attention in the outposts. Attention invited questions. They weren’t questions he couldn’t answer, but he found that it was best to keep your own counsel.
He didn’t know if you called this place a town, but it was called Shiremire. Shiremire was the only place he could get to by train. All of the others were a costly two-day journey by airship. They would be more polished than Shiremire, but in Mr. Strawn’s experience, it was better to see the rough edges. And a place like this was bound to have a few. Only the most needy came this close to the factories.
Mr. Strawn entered the dim saloon from the main street. Horses were hitched to a post over a dirty, brown water trough out front. This small tank town wasn’t much more than the main street. The saloon was full of assembly-men and smelters of various position from the factories, an occasional sophisticate moving between cities that wants a glimpse of the raw life, and the special kind of people that places like this drew. Mr. Strawn carried a large pistol on his thigh. It was a tool of his job at the factories but he never took it off. The outposts could be even more dangerous than the factories or the camps. They were filled with hard men with money, anger, and boredom.
Edition 10: Drunks by Michael C Schutz-Ryan
Neil is the most beautiful man in the room, but his past pursues him. Rob ought to watch out for himself. A creepy tale about your past coming back to haunt you. SY
When I first met Neil, he was drinking Heineken at Jim’s party. Well dressed and very drunk gay men stood around a veritable garden of potted plants; they watched each other watching each other and tried to appear disinterested.
A small crowd of three or four gathered around Neil. I didn’t know him then, but wanted to, so I drifted over.
Neil’s eyes were glassy and bright and returned my (light-hearted) stare far more often than he peered into any others’ eyes. He had black hair twisted and tangled like one of those lucky trolls that were popular years before. Beer in hand, he leaned his lithe body forward, one knee on the cushions. He was ten years younger than anyone there.
He was telling a story; his voice surprised me—it was too gravelly to come out of that face. I’d come in late, and caught only the punchline: “So I took down the sign!” His laughter made the room smile.
Edition 10: That Blasts the Roots of Trees Is My Destroyer by David Halpert
Charlie is determined to breathe easy. He wants to create a new life for himself, away from the daily struggles. Information is always the key to power and everything has its price. A great piece of dystopian science fiction. SY
Charlie Glassman has $3.82 left in his tank. As a result he walks the streets with the same precision as a laser cutting a diamond. On quiet nights you can hear the distant echoes of large-scale industrial pumps all the way from Port Credit extracting oxygen from Lake Ontario, churning, grinding, set along the waterfront like the overgrown placentae of some botched laboratory experiment.
Tenement apartments hugging the Green Zone show their true colors in the sober light of day. Moss and climbing ferns hide the cracked foundations and graffiti courtesy of resident syndicates. Charlie’s disposable Sanyo reads yellow for this district, advising citizens to express caution when venturing out in broad daylight. Still he carries a small arsenal: his taser, his collapsible baton. He finds guns crude even in these disparate times and never ventures past curfew.
The sky is its own membrane, a hazy orange, veined with smoke. Charlie wipes a thin layer of grime off a pane of bulletproof Lucite. In the windowed glare of a William Sonoma he checks his mask is firmly clamped over his face for the third time since leaving his apartment, halting momentarily, but not before being threatened by the turbaned shop-owner, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands followed by a string of Hindi obscenities. The bastard even has the gall to step out his storefront before pressure equalizes. Charlie is suddenly blasted with a wall of cool air—try explaining that one to the Federal Reserve come tax time.
Edition 10: Shoe Shine by Robert Datson
Sam keeps meaning to clean himself up and make a new start, but somewhere between the buff and the polish it all goes awry. There’s a wonderful subtlety in this supernatural short. SY
“Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.”
—Elvis Presley, 1935 – 1977
The early sun glints off a silvered building. A cooling breeze soothes the streets, and Sam’s eyes flicker open. His body is warm and relaxed, oscillating between asleep and awake, and his mind is at peace with the day.
He turns his head to one side and sees his sleeping buddy tucked under thin grey blankets against the wall of the open verandah they had selected the night before.
Concrete lies under Sam’s thin sleeping bag and he keeps still, knowing the moment he moves, bones will push through the thin material and his comfort will disappear, bringing him firmly into contact with his current situation.
Edition 10: The Visiphorical Art by Michelle Ann King
There is much that is not plain to the naked eye and Marcy is someone who can see past the every day into the shadows of the past. A clever and emotive short addressing the gritty underside of life we all suspect is there. SY
There are remnants of lives all over the house, drying out and growing mould like abandoned plates of half-consumed meals. They lie in wait under the surface of reality like landmines, like unexploded bombs. Waiting for the unwary, the ones who don’t watch their step, to explode them back into the world.
But Marcy isn’t one of the unwary, the clueless. She’s careful, she’s a bomb-disposal expert. She picks her way through the booby-traps of memories and the tripping hazards of lost opportunities with skill and delicate flair. She’s intangible, untouchable, an interloper in the territory of the dead. A ghost among ghosts.
The image pleases her. Ghosts have power, after all, even if they don’t know it.
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Edition 11: Finders Keepers by John W. Dennehy
A simple snowshoeing trip leads Jack and his daughter Keelin to a payload of money. How has it lain so long undisturbed in the wilderness? Best leave mysterious money caches. Unfortunately, human greed is such a grasping need. SY
The woods were quiet as Jack and his ten-year-old daughter trudged down the trail. A blanket of fresh snow draped over the forest, cleaving to bare branches and evergreens. Lost in contemplation of the woodland, their peaceful sojourn seemingly left behind adversity from the outside world.
While unloading their snowshoes from his aging Volvo wagon, little Keelin had hesitated about heading off into the shaded woods. Jack encouraged her to forge ahead. And as they busied themselves fastening the snowshoes to their boots, she appeared content about the venture.
Jack could only hear the sound of their snowshoes crimping the trail and an occasional swishing of Keelin’s snow pants as they plodded forward. Keelin quietly plugged along beside him, up and down steep hills, and around bends flanked by bubbling brooks and old stone walls.
Edition 11: Flagman by Jim Lee
It is a hard task to live up to all that is asked of us, our names and our parents’ expectations. Casimir is worn down with world-weariness because of it. He’s hearing a voice, calling on him to be more. As the flagman signals, will Casimir continue to obey? SY
Casimir Pulaski Williams felt no particular relief as his dusty compact shuddered its way along the four-lane. Another day was finished. It had been no worse than most. Meaning only that he had felt useless, trapped and bored.
Tomorrow?
More of the same.
Another thread in the small gray fabric of his life.
Once, Casimir told himself, he had been proud.
Proud of his mother. Of her steady, uncomplaining nature. Of her perseverance. And of her determination to make their lives secure. Even, at some point, proud of the name she’d given him.
Edition 11: Requiem in Diamond by D. A. D’Amico
Too much carbon in the atmosphere and humans, in all their arrogance, thought they could fix it. Their solution now threatens all life on earth. A human look at impending apocalypse and the frailty of humanity. SY
Even the custom optics didn’t show Clarisse the subtle spectral difference between the Crust and the uncoated surfaces along the fynbos. She thought she could detect a slight glistening in the leaves of distant myrtle trees, or a liquid shimmer in the low yellowbush and bredasdorp along the border of the Olifants River, but there’d be no way to tell until it was too late.
“It’s ungodly quiet.” Peter Marsh squinted into the distance, shielding his eyes with a slender brown hand. Clarisse had always thought him a bit effeminate, but she’d seen him with at least seven women in the last few days, whooping it up in town as the world slowly ended.
She wouldn’t have pictured Peter as one of the ones who’d celebrate the catastrophe. With his pinched features, dark brooding complexion, and fussy habits, she’d always imagined him going out with a whimper, not a bang. He seemed more the bookish type, not a pre-apocalyptic Don Juan.
SQ Mag 
