Prompt: A 30-something man, a disappointment to his father, has just graduated nursing school. He goes to meet his father at his golf club to give him the good news.
Simon rolled up his sleeve and checked the injection site: purple and swollen. It was splotchy too. He didn’t suffer those side effects last time. He stopped just outside the golf course’s black iron gates and took a deep breath. It hurt, but it didn’t matter. This was the last round of his treatment. Continue reading
Prompt: The dark carnival and its clowns have come again.
The ticket had no information on it at all. It was a pale orange stub of paper. Jeremia had tried a few things to get a date out of it. He had licked it, but that did not reveal any invisible ink. He put it over a candle flame, but the heat produced nothing. He didn’t have a blacklight, so he had to go over to the neighbor’s and borrow his. Continue reading
Prompt: Inside the space between light and dark, color flourished from unseen forces which were yet to be explained.
There has always been a space between light and dark on the planet Earth. Most places in the universe didn’t have that; they were the blackness of space mingling with the harsh rays of light that pushed onward because they had no other ideas. Continue reading
Prompt: A love story between a man and a greasy grilled cheese.
It was really an accomplishment that they had made the tour that dull. There were only six facilities like it in all the world, yet the guide couldn’t widen her eyes long enough to communicate that with any enthusiasm. Continue reading
Prompt: Someone works on a space ship monitoring the ship’s heartbeat with a pair of headphones, but one day the headphones break.
The beat had been completely regular for more than a month. That was a month by the computer’s calculation of course, as none of the crew could keep track with so many stars and planets whizzing by. They were in for the long haul, one arm of the galaxy to the next, and any unscheduled stops could cost their employer trillions. Continue reading
Prompt: Two cougar pilots argue over the pronunciation of an alien word that could prevent the self-destruction of an ancient abandoned alien craft.
There were many titles that could’ve gone in front of her name. Major. Pilot. To some, savior. At the moment she was too full of venom to embody any of them. She was just Paula Babcock: a shouting woman with wild bedhead throwing things down the corridors of the space-faring vessel she commanded. Continue reading
Prompt: Telepathic aliens kidnap a sample group of humans for a zoo, though some aliens object to their treatment.
They couldn’t read any of the signs. They didn’t even know they were signs. All the imprisoned humans saw were light green bars surrounding their transparent enclosure. They were blank, just like most of the walls. The only details they were allowed to see were each other’s faces and the bits of vegetation their captors had brought from Earth to make them feel more comfortable. Continue reading
Prompt: A tivas (galactic tennis) player from a planet similar to Earth plays in the biggest tournament while having to cope with the big war the planet is having and its dangers.
Tivas is the ultimate sport. That’s what my grandfather always told me. That was an interesting sentiment, considering he’d never played it himself, even as a hobby. All he did was watch it. When the tournament package became a little too expensive on the networks in our system, he enrolled me in classes for it. I’ve never really looked back. Continue reading
Prompt: Jamba, a Polish man visiting Australia, is a victim of a series of floods.
He watched the salty water rise to the tips of his toenails and then recede. The tide was rising. He would have to scooch back a few feet if he wanted his swimming shorts to stay dry. That was the most pressing concern he had. The simplicity of it was beautiful. It was what he had sought, what he had traveled half the world to find. Continue reading
Prompt: A boy hiding in the attic of his family’s old house finds an intricately carved wooden laundry hamper and discovers it has a genie inside!
His family didn’t own anything nice. His parents were trapped in the nineties, obsessed with colorful plastic, and they never bought each other jewelry or fancy dishware. They lived in a small house, hoarding their money, waiting for the inevitable car crash or cancer that would suck it away. Continue reading
Blaine Arcade 