short stories

Singin’ in the Upper Paleolithic

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 4 Comments

(estimated reading time: 24 minutes)

Singin’ in the Upper Paleolithic

By

Blaine Arcade

Of the sixteen time machines in operation, only one played a video of someone tap-dancing. The machine itself wasn’t much to marvel at; in fact, it looked like a space heater from the 1970’s, just with a fancier coat of paint and 6,380 bundled wires snaking out of its base and entering all kinds of unusual places around the laboratory. Some went into sockets, some hugged the wall and left the room, and others rose into the air dangerously enough to get tagged with black and orange warning stickers. Continue reading →

Moana’s Mosaic

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

(reading time: 22 minutes)

Over two hundred students were ushered into the atrium of the Pascal Higher Institute of Mathematics, which was composed of a huge, blue, glass dome held in place by a latticework of metal bars. Sunlight shone in through a hole at the top, bypassing a spinning frame in order to cast the shadow of a shifting tesseract on the floor below. Continue reading →