A long time ago there was a small town in a picturesque valley where they kept finding more and more coal. It started growing in the mid 1800s and people from all around the region moved there to work in… Continue Reading → Continue reading at the publisher's website.

I decided what to do with the doll. I’d leave it on a train. Any train would do. I picked the last one that night; the one heading to Greensborough. It would be almost empty. I’d put the doll on… Continue Reading → Continue reading at the publisher's website.

When I moved into the boarding house on Whitaker Street, I was told the room across the hall was empty. It wasn’t. Every night, I heard faint movement: drawers sliding, a chair scraping the floor, a cough. But every morning,… Continue Reading → Continue reading at the publisher's website.

I hadn’t been with anyone in three years. Maybe it was the smell. That persistent, sour rot in my breath that no doctor could fix. I tried mouthwash, gum, toothpaste with activated charcoal. Nothing worked. Only garlic helped. So I… Continue Reading → Continue reading at the publisher's website.

Everything we had in the Emirates fit into seventeen cardboard boxes. I rifled through them, pulling my bra from the box marked Important Documents, while vintage Rosenthal china clinked inside Toys. On arrival at the top-rated Airbnb in Sharjah, the… Continue Reading → Continue reading at the publisher's website.

The earliest memory he could hold En-capsule was binding scraps into breathing limbs for Riggers on Skaars Round near Mars. First folds and remnants of the past were more akin to jilted frames in dark hallways far too close. When… Continue Reading → Continue reading at the publisher's website.

As an ER nurse, I’ve delivered a few emergency births, but never a male birth and never on the Lunar Shuttle. And never eight-months pregnant myself. But when the new chef — Ricky Valdez — went into labor, a quick… Continue Reading → Continue reading at the publisher's website.

Hannah takes a moment to steel herself before opening the door to her office. Evelyn looks up at the noise, smiling. Her face is calm and pleasant, but Hannah never feels quite at ease when the A.I. looks at her.… Continue Reading → Continue reading at the publisher's website.