Monthly Archives: April 2016

Drabble: Manna – by Jonathon Dean

by specklit

“I don’t get it, Tim. Top-level clearance, two years’ training, intensive psych profiles and an eight year journey from Earth, and you’re doing what? Catering?”

Tim scratched his stubbled chin and flipped the burger on the grill. “What’s to get? Folk gotta eat. Don’t matter the planet.”

“I guess,” Darly muttered. “But wouldn’t you rather be doing something else? Spacewalks? Cartography? Robotics?”

Tim shrugged, and placed the burger on her plate. He watched her as she took a bite, as her eyes lit up and she gasped with pleasure.

His hand brushed the bio-sample jar in his pocket. “You’re welcome.”

Author’s Note: We always seem to focus on the space adventurers – but someone’s got to do the cooking and take out the bins, right?


Drabble: Mermaid’s Curse – by Colleen Anderson

by specklit

Sirena sawed her tail, silvery scales like sequins coating her hand. The Novocaine dulled the pain. Still she cried, tears mixing with the bloodied water.

Marcus paced, hand over his mouth. “I don’t understand why you would do this? I thought you could have feet if you wanted.”

“I had feet. I was human.” She felt faint. Midnight was fast approaching.

But it was too late. No matter how fast she worked, the tail grew back. “Never piss off a mermaid.”

Sleek silver fishskin overtook her and Sirena changed, flipping into the water, a large tuna swimming out of sight.

Author’s Note: Mermaids always want to come onto land, but what if a human wished for mermaid fins?


Drabble: Cold Freedoms – by Richard Mark Ankers

by specklit

And they flew. I thought they almost touched the moon, cupped eternity with those misshapen digits. To be free, how I envied them their freedom if not their appearance.

Momma said they were once like us, human, but not now. They chittered and chattered like the creaking ice on my window pane, an incessant smothering. Did they mock, or mourn?

I kissed momma goodbye. She slept, but it seemed right. The meadow was cold, freezing even, but open. They came, and they took me, swooped me off into the midnight sky. I chittered then, too. Who wouldn’t? It was cold.

Author’s Note: Like everyone, I wish I could fly, but would we if the choice meant losing our humanity? Flying aliens made this dilemma possible to answer.


Drabble: Time and Again – by Dionne Obeso

by specklit

Leonora came stumbling out of the time machine, cursing her failure even as she hurried to the control panel to input her fresh data. She’d missed Alex by moments, catching sight only of the back of his head as he vanished around the corner and into the busy street. She’d run after him, of course, but he’d vanished in the immensity of the crowd.

Now she a new date. A new time. And she would find a way to reunite with him no matter what the Time Council said.

Ten minutes later, Leonora came stumbling out of the time machine…

Author’s Note: Even if you were fated to fail, would you give up on trying to pull a doomed loved one out of time? Especially if each attempt seemed to come this… close…


Drabble: Superhero Origin Stories: Elemental Ella – by JB Starre

by specklit

I am solid and liquid and everything in between. I am the air and the flame, I slip in through the cracks and evaporate before anyone can see me. I am everything at once, weightless as a feather but solid as an anvil. I can be inside of you and all over you, I can whisper or I can roar. I have saved you from drowning, I have deflected a bullet for you; I can even save you from yourself, when you’ve lost your way.

But I can’t get you to notice me. You remain impenetrable to me, unmoving, unaware.

Author’s Note: Even superheroes have to deal with the heartache of unrequited love.


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