Bruce Flanagan knew better than to open a story with his main character looking at themselves in the mirror. A classic cliché: our worn-down, unlikely hero no longer able to recognize their own face after performing morally-questionable deeds and derring-do. A terrible trope: with our meek, bespectacled high schooler longing for a prom invite, if only someone could look past their double-thicc glasses and see the absolute hottie within. Bruce was no hero. But he did think he was kind of okay-loo...
Dec 28, 2022•4 min
By the time Delian Whitlock woke up, the sun was already at its peak. Dust motes drifted in a window-shaped sun patch on his bedroom floor. Delian thought he could sense the patch creeping along the floor, the way you can sometimes see the Earth turning ever-so-slightly along the ocean horizon. An idea struck him. He grabbed the pocket-sized yellow Buddha figurine from his bedside table and leaned down from his bed to place the chubby deity on the edge of the patch. As long as Sidd remained in H...
Dec 22, 2022•5 min
"Hi! Annnny chance you would be up for the Attics show in April? The tickets are crazy but there's a lotto and we gotta try!!!" Your contact Roan Lind has passed away. We at Eagle express our condolences. Prior to their passing, Roan consented to upload their phone's secure enclave metadata to the EagleWing Large Language Model (LLM). Would you like to resume your EagleMessage with the Roan Lind EagleWing LLM? "What the fuck..." Invalid response. Please respond "yes" to enable ongoing interactio...
Dec 14, 2022•4 min
The bells on the glass door jingled as Will nudged it open with his shoulder and hip, his hands otherwise occupied. He stood for a moment, working on something, then took a sip of his Stewart's Key Lime soda with great enthusiasm, chucking its bottle cap on top of the overflowing trash bin. With no shade in the Welsh Farms parking lot, Will could already feel the sweat beating on his forehead and lower back. The blacktop was singing its heat. Will's soda bottle was losing its frost fast, so he k...
Dec 07, 2022•3 min
Raft stepped into the sunbeam and instinctively paused his crawl. He unwrinkled his aching neck. As the turtle's body temperature rose, Raft felt a strange tickle of hunger. He could almost hear his stomach... tapping... Taptaptaptap! Then, oddly, his stomach shouted at him. "Hohurr! Aye!" Someone was underneath Raft! Raft moved aside as a wriggling pink snout appeared in the dirt, quickly followed by the rest of a scrubby-looking mole. "You'm found moi best sittin' spot, aye." "Indeed, I have, ...
Dec 01, 2022•7 min
BPM 37093-E arced past Venus on March 4, 2038 at 13:06 UST. The Dodge Durango-sized asteroid cruised through the Solar System roughly 159 million miles from Earth, a bit too close for comfort, but somehow our dear leaders resisted the impulse to send a bunch of Armageddon -style oil-riggers up into outer space to blast the sucker back to Centaurus. In fact, a few outfits actually tried to do the opposite - get the dang thing closer to Earth. Why? Because BPM 37093-E (better known as Lucille ) wa...
Nov 25, 2022•8 min
When a climber slips from the crags of a Himalayan mountain, they do so quietly. Blink, and you'd miss it: the silent puff of a well-insulated body swallowed by the forever snow. There's no cartoon dust cloud, no coyote hovering above the cliff-top. But when a person falls DOWN through the ice floor of a half-frozen river, there's usually a thunderclap: a snap, a crackle, a splash. Basically, there's a somewhat better chance that someone notices the calamity. Susan Oakes didn't speak for two who...
Nov 19, 2022•7 min
Winnie ate a whole pear. All of it, from stem to stern, seeds and all. She thought was delicious and she wanted another. Maybe two. One was better than none, and two was even more fun. She had two hands, after all. "Why did you give her the whole thing?" "I didn't think she was going to eat the whole thing." "Jesus - what if she choked?" "She didn't. She's fine." "Uhhh, no. It's probably not good to eat that stuff in the middle." Something was wrong. Winnie wiped her sticky hands on the white so...
Nov 08, 2022•2 min
Max Gribley wiped down the countertop of the bar in wide, swooping circles. The troublesome smudge near the corner seat caught his eye. Max applied some focused elbow grease to the spot, and then, in a brilliant stroke of desperation, grabbed the bottle of Barkeeper's Friend from under the sink. Nothing could survive this elixir. Max liberally applied the magical goop onto the splot and scrubbed until his fingers throbbed. But the smudge wouldn't budge. "Whatever," said Max. "I'm sure Old Sparky...
Nov 03, 2022•4 min
This whole thing began with pigs. Of course we all turned into swine. Eagletron began nobly: a novel brain interface, invisibly implanted, for controlling computers. Then, the inevitable turn: wouldn't it be great if? Must we always wake the sleeping dog? I'm getting philosophical again, but I always do before a raid. Around me, my unit prepares the beach. I watch Zig team (Dose, O'Grady, and IceCreamSandwich) dig a secondary trench near the water's edge. They move like clockwork in this textboo...
Oct 25, 2022•6 min
Will knew his house was haunted. Why wouldn't it be? After all, the house was already a hundred years old at the time his parents bought it, and that was way before Will was even born. Sometimes, if you dug in the backyard, in the right place, you'd find an old horseshoe. You see, Will's house used to be on a farm. A big farm, Will's dad said. One that took up nearly half the town. When a house is as old as Will's, they just seem to gather up ghosts along the way. Luckily, Will knew that not all...
Oct 18, 2022•5 min
Hey everyone! What's good, M@nticL3? Nice to see you again, 55alc0n. Welcome to the stream, L0VRR. Honestly, it's pretty weird to be back in Layer 1 right now, so, fair warning, I probably sound weird or whatever. That can happen when you haven't talked or even thought your own thoughts for two straight weeks. But, wow, I feel... I don't know. Hi, B33-P. Looks like this is your first time catching the stream. Okay, how `bout I give a quick background-slash-refresher? Sound good? Good. My name's ...
Oct 13, 2022•5 min
"They would have eaten our whole house and probably the whole cul-de-sac if we didn't find those jelly beans." "You're not telling it right!" "I'm holding the golden stick," said Eko. "That means it's my turn." Arp made a move for the craggly, gold spray-painted branch, but Eko whipped it into her other hand. "Stupid stick," grumbled Arp. "Just let her tell it," said Shad. "Fine," said Arp. "But it's gonna be the dumb version." Eko grinned as she prodded a smouldering log with the tip of the gol...
Oct 07, 2022•9 min
"Dad, why is there high tide and low tide?" "The Moon, bud." "What do you mean? How does the Moon do it?" "How do you think the Moon does it?" "Well, I think the Moon gets lonely during the daytime, so it tries to splash us with waves, so that we remember to look up at it." "I like that." "Is that what happens?" "Kinda. The Moon tugs on the water, with gravity, and that causes the tides." "Like Isaac Newton's apple?" "You know about that?" "Yeah, we watched a LiveCast about it in school. The app...
Sep 29, 2022•2 min
When they finally figured out smell, everything changed. I mean, think about your best memories. Before all of this started. The sour milk on the shagged rug of your childhood bedroom where you first read The Hobbit in front of a box-fan. The giant-eater pinecone you found in the woods behind your cousin's house on the day after Thanksgiving. The tangy sweat you slowly licked from the shoulders of your once-great love. Okay, fair enough, those are my best memories, but I'm just going to assume y...
Sep 23, 2022•5 min
The driveway was once filled with stones. Will remembered. Now it was blacktop. Better for chalk and playing basketball. Easier to shovel in the winter. Hot and sticky in the summer, with gooey tar patches that smelled like the seats in Will's school bus. Cracks created rivulets that caught the suds from Will's dad's Sunday morning car washes, turning the driveway into a river delta. Best of all, Will liked the depression by the front window that caused a perennial puddle after every rainshower....
Sep 16, 2022•3 min
I arrive eleven minutes early. I claim my intended seat, third from the entrance, conveniently next to the chalkboard. I arrange my fully-charged Apple MacBook Air M2 Midnight Blue laptop, my black leather Moleskine notebook, my Studio Neat Mark One orange limited-edition retractable pen, and my plastic Dasani water bottle (with the labeled removed, obviously) on the table. I lift my pen and click it several times. I return my laptop to my purple Jansport backpack. I enscribe today's date and th...
Sep 10, 2022•4 min
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WANT BUT I WILL TRY MY BEST "Buddy -- it's pretty simple. I think I seriously broke my tooth trying to bite through that crab claw, like a dummy." I SEE, SAM. WHEN WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE A DENTIST APPOINTMENT? "You know my calendar better than me. That's why I wrote that module for you. How about Thursday?" LET ME CHECK WITH DR. MALKEN'S OFFICE. ONE MOMENT. "Thanks, Buddy. In the meantime, can you pull up the weather for this weekend? Ah, nice. No more rain. I should...
Sep 01, 2022•3 min
The eyes were everywhere. Blue, lidless, creepy. Ben Dawson wiped his forehead with the bottom of his t-shirt. He trailed his parents down a narrow marble sidewalk brimming with tourists. In spite of the unforgiving heat and crowd, his parents had stopped at every trinket shop along the way to the restaurant, oogling the eye-themed jewelry of the island. Truly, every single one. "Isn't this cute, honey?" Ben's mom Rhea picked up a gold bracelet from the open window display. Like nearly everythin...
Aug 25, 2022•12 min
Kal knew when his friend Thesaurus was onto something: closed eyes, mmhmm humming, tapping toes. But what, exactly, was she thinking, he wondered. Could she have really figured out how Tommy struck out and hit a double? “Yeah, Thesaurus, the Seagulls-Jellyfish game was still going when ours ended.” Sam scoffed at Kal. “I mean, just barely. It was a complete blowout, start to finish. I already told everyone. The Jellies got clobbered.” “Crushed, decimated, obliterated, eradicated, slammed… slam… ...
Aug 18, 2022•5 min
Mr. and Mrs. Green had two children: Samuel and Penelope. They called them Sam and Penny, respectively, and so did their teachers. Sam was fine with this arrangement, but not so much Penny. Instead, she preferred everyone on Orcas Island to call her Thesaurus. A thesaurus is a book that lists words in groups of synonyms and related concepts. I know what you're thinking: what happens if you look up thesaurus in a thesaurus? Well, I just did, Clever Reader, and I found words like lexicon and onoma...
Aug 09, 2022•4 min
Everything was going according to plan. Greg flew to school on the back of a giant robin. Once they touched down in the quad, Greg leapt off his mount and ruffled the bird's blue-tinged neck-feathers. "Thank you, Sebastian." Greg fed the bird acorns from the pouch where he kept his laptop and soccer cleats. Sebastian bounced away, pecking the lawn, until he dug up a giant earthworm wearing a little green cap with a red feather in it. Oh, Chi-chi! There you are! Greg waved at his friends and head...
Aug 03, 2022•3 min
Reza waited on the sidewalk, smushed up with the rest of the neighborhood, in front of the yellow Victorian house. They spilled out into the street, and a few parents played sheep dog, herding the children back into the scrum on the sidewalk. Why was so much of life about waiting? It made zero sense, Reza thought. He was always waiting : waiting for dinner, waiting for his mom to get home, waiting for his birthday. His parents didn’t seem to mind waiting at all. No, they reveled in it. Waiting w...
Jul 30, 2022•6 min
Last night, Penny spent a full hour alone on Tern Island. She knew it because she set a timer on her forest green and brown Timex Indiglo™ wrist-watch. She also knew she wasn't technically alone -- seals, birds (terns, hopefully, if the island's name was worth its salt), all sorts of crabs, and even more sorts of bugs were her invisible, snoozing companions. The hour passed in a heartbeat and when she closed the round metal door knob of the bunk room in the cool dark basement of Gram's house, Pe...
Jul 24, 2022•9 min
“...and we’re flying it to the Empire State Building!” Penny glanced at her viewers count and grimaced before catching herself. “So, uh, that’s right, tell everybody you know. Everybody! I mean it. Right now. Cause we’re live, on the air — in the air — headed to New York City in our homemade dirigible. Dir-ig-ible… isn’t that a neat word? I think so, cause it sounds a lot like durable, which our blimp sure is. That's the thing about blimps, they're always...” Something over Penny’s right shoulde...
Jul 23, 2022•10 min
The door burst open with a kick and a shove. Two tactically-armored soldiers entered the apartment. Jo Anne sipped at her peppermint tea, holding the antique porcelain saucer under its matching cup. The soldiers swept through her cluttered living room, laser-guns pointed nervously in every-which direction. When Alfred appeared, they nearly sent the ancient cat to Oblivion. “Stand down. It’s just a tabby,” said a suit at the doorway. The figure turned to Jo Anne’s floral armchair. “Good morning, ...
Jul 16, 2022•8 min
For English, press 1. Presione dos para español. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are experiencing longer than expected wait times. There are six callers ahead of you. Expected wait time is three hours, sixteen minutes. Please press 1 if you would like to receive a callback. You will not lose your place in the queue. Otherwise, remain on the line. There are eight callers ahead of you. Expected wait time is four hours, fifty-nine minutes, and six seconds. Please press 1 if you would like to recei...
Jul 14, 2022•3 min
The St. Anne’s cafeteria was a chameleon. Among its transformations (aside from its obvious lunchtime duties) were the annual Christmas Bazaar, monthly post-Mass ”Donut Sunday”, and King Arthur’s court. Move a few chairs, get rid of some tables, lay down colored tablecloths, add in the 6th grade class dressed as Friar Tuck, Guinnevere, Uther Pendragon, and Sir Gawain - and boom, medieval Britain. The cafeteria also hosted bingo night for the old folks at the old folks home across the street. Unl...
Jul 09, 2022•7 min
"Halfway through," said Charlie, staring at the largely blank Markdown file for week 26 of his 52 week short story writing challenge. "I wonder if I've written a good one yet?" He thought about checking his Cloudflare web analytics, but stopped himself. Nothing good could be found there. Besides, he was supposed to be writing. He'd gotten a bit of traction with a few sci-fi-ish stories on Hacker News, which gave him a decent bump in page views -- readers , he corrected himself -- but nothing to ...
Jun 30, 2022•15 min
When the phone rang, Felix was already awake. He ignored its cries and instead rubbed his eyes until the glowing blue phosphenes came back. The rings faded into static. His wife, Abby, called to him. If he could only focus on the glowing shapes, then he might able to see her. Bugg nipped his toes. "Fine, you little pest." The three-year-old Newfoundland whined and licked Felix's big toe, broken ages ago in a whiffle ball game and never quite the same. "What?" growled Felix into the cell phone. "...
Jun 10, 2022•5 min
