Free Fiction Rhapsody

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Is this just fantasy?
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Fiction

• At AE: "Automatic Sky" by Stephen S. Power. Science Fiction.
"Marina’s world is a pale speck on Hub’s forward monitor. Having just unfolded at the edge of her system, he won’t arrive at Sonhar for two days, and the wait is killing him. When you travel halfway across the void to propose, you want to fold the void so thin you can hold your girl’s hand through it. Hub’s engine isn’t good enough for that, though."

• At The Colored Lens: "The Transceiver" by J.A. Becker.
"A cold shudder runs through me as I look through the one-way mirror at the psycho in the orange jumpsuit who’s handcuffed to the table. What I’ll see in his head, what I’ll feel and experience first hand will be like living nightmares. I don’t know if I can handle them. I’ve seen some terrible things, but nothing like what he’s done."

• At Lightspeed: "A Box, a Pocket, a Spaceman" by E. Catherine Tobler. Science Fiction.
"The spaceman shows up on a hot summer afternoon, not in the dead of night when you’re crouched in the garden peering through a telescope that shows you the endless glories and wonders of the night sky. There’s no spaceship making a bright arc against a star-spangled sky. Just a man in a spacesuit, standing at the edge of your hammock." Text and Audio.

• At Lightspeed: "The Grass Princess" by Gwyneth Jones. Fantasy.
"It was April, and down in the orchard the first flashing blades of the new year’s growth were pushing aside the old, worn, winter stuff. The sky was blue and very clear, but the wind was cold. So the nursemaids put the little princess down under an apple tree, wrapped in her shawls, and ran away to play tag under the twisted apple branches, to keep themselves warm."

• At Nightmare Magazine: "Upon the Body" by Ben Peek. Horror.
"The sin-eater arrived in Zonia Province two days before the death of the great gun fighter, Arryo Salazar. He was a small man, the sin-eater, thin and wiry, a rusting coil. At sixty-four, he had left the tautness of youth behind, and his skin, wrinkled, but importantly still unmarked, sagged and folded when he spoke." Text and Audio.

• At Strange Horizons: "Cold as the Moon" by Sunny Moraine. Speculative Fiction.
"Before the sun went down Daddy became a bear and ran away over the ice floes."

• At Tor.com: "Hero of the Five Points" by Alan Gratz. YA.
"There were a hundred stories told in the streets of Five Points about the giant gangster Mose. That he was eight feet tall and six feet wide; that his stovepipe hat was actually an upside-down smokestack torn from a Cheyenne locomotive; that his fists were the size of Cherokee hams, his feet so large it took the leather of two whole cows for him to be shod. When Mose was thirsty, it was said, it took a wagonload of beer to sate him, and in the summer months he carried a fifty-gallon keg of ale on his belt instead of a canteen."   






Flash Fiction

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Time is Money" by John D. Sperry. Magic Realism.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "Departure Gate 34B" by Kary English. Fantasy. Religion.
• At Daily Science Fiction: "The Turn" by Tara Isabella Burton. Parapsychology.
• At Quantum Muse: "Camp" by Happy Woodsman. 
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Rocketbike" by Jackson Fitzjames. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Black Rider" by Jae Miles. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Activation Required" by Donald O’Barra. Science Fiction.
• At Toasted Cake: "Last Band Standing" by Siobhan O'Flynn. Audio.

Audio Fiction

• At Beam Me Up: "Beam Me Up # 419" Science Fiction.
Episode 28 of "In Plain Sight" written and narrated by Jason Kahn and “Even a Non-Corporeal Can Get Lonely" by David Scholes.

• At Cast of Wonders: "Into The Forever Place" by Luke Thomas. YA.
"I fasten the last braid about Jad’s shoulder and step back. My belly flutters as I look him over, which isn’t normal. Jad’s my best friend.I’m never more comfortable with anyone than with him. Today,though, he is to be venerated, and he looks the part. I knew the dyes used for this sash were precious, but only now do I understand what that means." Audio and Text.

• At Clarkesworld: "The Saint of the Sidewalks" by Kat Howard, read by Kate Baker.
"Joan wrote her prayer with a half-used tube of Chanel Vamp that she had found discarded at the 34th St. subway stop. It glided across the cardboard—the flip side of a Stoli box, torn and bent—and left her words in a glossy slick the color of dried blood: “I need a miracle.”"

• At Drabblecast: "To Whatever" by Shaenon Garrity. Comedy. Horror.
"To whatever lives in the walls—Please stop taking my half & half. Let’s get this out of the way: I know you’re there. Don’t think I’m unaware of the scrabbling sounds, the walls creaking from your bulk, the way my razor in the morning is never exactly where I left it last night. Richard always said it was the building settling—as if a building, however old, could take apples out of the fruit crisper—but he was as wrong about that as he was about a lot of things beyond the scope of this note. And since he moved out I feel you’ve gotten bold."

• At StarShipSofa: "Predvestniki" by Greg Kurzawa, read by Nick Camm. 
"Ben pressed his forehead and palms against the cold glass of the picture window. Twenty-three floors below, ice floes clogged the Moskva, bumping for position in the sluggish current. On the opposite bank, walkers bundled against the weather followed a towpath along the curve of river. The path skirted the park and disappeared under the covered span of the Pushkinsky pedestrian bridge."