Old Wounds
It was raining when he found him. He'd been out looking for the skunk for what felt like far too long, considering how little time he knew he had. Possibly also considering how long it had been, depending on just what he meant by that. But the longer...
Off Limits
_"Time for bed, sweetie."_ _ Fran looked crestfallen. "Can't I just stay up until the next commercial?"_ _ Her mother grinned, endeared yet still reproachful. "You always say that." The days always seemed so short. Whenever they were at an end, all...
Let Them Eat Cake
Fran had made it a habit to always make sure that her pets' treats would be kept in a place where her pets couldn't reach them. It'd been a safety precaution, for their own good. One day, somehow, though, she'd made a mistake and left them somewhere...
Only In Dreams
Eli rolled off Mano, lying back in bed to grab and light a cigarette from the nightstand. "That was good," she said simply, drawing in and blowing out smoke as she spoke. The poet had always had a minimalistic streak to her. "I hope you liked that."...
Saved
'Who survived, anyone new, anyone else but you?' (Porter Robinson, Sad Machine) It was on their way back to Rakim's place on that night that they first heard the alarm. "Oh shit!" As their brisk walk turned into a frantic run, they got near...
Spare Parts
"Waste not, want not." [FLICK!] "[-'told me to be careful so the people who take the recycling out of the bags don't cut their hands on them,' the actress on the talk show had said, 'and it just hit me right then - how many of us even think of the...
And I Must Scream
"You go to hell for the company, and to heaven for the peace and quiet." "Sometimes it's more gradual than people talk about," Fran's roommate had tried to explain. "Like, on TV you'll see oh, this person's reacting to this specific crisis, she's...
Autopilot
'If work is so good for you, why don't the rich do more of it?' "Who said that?" "Some famous wolf writer I think," Fran's best friend had replied. "The same one who wrote AWOO." "I think that's AROO in fact," the jackal's roommate had chimed...
Gaslight
Her breathing grew heavy. They had chased the rat into a corner. Mnemos had just fallen down a hole that RNG had opened up under her like a trapdoor. Bringing out her great big pigeon wings to slow her fall, she retracted them after having reached...
The Hand You're Dealt
"Forgetting someone is killing them twice." Fran had kept having a harder and harder time dealing with her best friend's coma alone, while her roommate had kept having a harder and harder time dealing with living in a graveyard full of dead...
The Hand That Feeds You
"Darling when the morning comes And I see the morning sun I wanna be the one with you..." (Grover Washington Jr, Just The Two Of Us) "Do you think..." It'd been hard for them to talk about, but they hadn't had anyone else to talk to. "Do you...
The Spirit of the Law
"We are spirits in a material world." (The Police, Ghost In The Machine) "She was hooked up to one of those machines, you know?" Fran had nodded. "Hardest thing I ever had to do," her best friend had shaken her head. "Well, they're battle...