The Love Song of Oliver Toddle

The Mediocrity Principle

From the category archives:

Sci-Fi

by Jeffrey Miller
Sometimes when the door opened, it coincided with another door at the end of the hallway opening. When that happened, if Desset pressed himself against the far wall, he could see outside. The glimpse never lasted more than a couple of seconds, but even the briefest image of yellow sunlight on white pavement [...]

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To Plant a Tree

March 15, 2010

By Warren R. Langlois
“Mommy? Are we going to die?”
Veronica let out a faint sigh and closed her eyes for a moment to collect her thoughts. She closed the book she was reading to her son and quietly laid it on the bed. Suddenly Dr. Seuss no longer seemed very important. She [...]

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The Stranger from Elsewhen

March 15, 2010

by Mark F. Bailey
When the Stranger came calling, I had only just buried my wife and child on the hill above our house. The dirt still on my hands, he followed me to the well, where I washed away the soil and a part of my life. He didn’t talk. He just [...]

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The Death Experiment

March 15, 2010

by Vincent L. Scarsella
Death is one of two things; either the dead man is nothing,
and has no consciousness of anything at all,
or it is, as people say, a change and a migration
for the soul from this place here to another place.
- Plato, Apology 40c
*
But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not [...]

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Slipped My Mind

March 15, 2010

by Christopher Mari
It’s noon on a Friday in early February seven months after the war ended. Callahan’s in my office less than an hour and he’s already polished off half my whiskey and given me heartburn. It’s not so much his frontal assault on my booze that’s given me a sick stomach or the [...]

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Symbionts

February 15, 2010

by Kate Kelly
Martin charged up the stairs two at a time, his jaw tensed, teeth gritted together and hands clenched into fists by his side. His anger surged like a tide in full flood and his trainers thumped on the marble steps, and repeated as dull echoes beneath the high ceiling of the faculty building. [...]

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Whisper

February 15, 2010

by Ilan Lerman
I’ve got something to tell you, friend.
Come closer. I have to whisper it in your ear.
It’s a secret.
* * *
Jordan snapped the red flag down and started the meter. The fare pulled the taxi door shut, rocking the whole cab as he sat down. The meter chattered and whirred like a clockwork insect.
It [...]

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The Light That Leads to Darkness

February 15, 2010

by Donald Lunsford
The sickness woke him. Silver sharp bells rang in his ears. Pain rolled over his skin like heated burlap scraping and plucking as it went. His nurse, Huko, ran in plunging his hypo-syringe into the spider web of IV bags hanging beside the bed. He pressed a button on one of the [...]

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And Would Suffice

January 15, 2010

by Sunny Moraine
The problem wasn’t the air.
They had expected it to be the air, until the first atmospheric analysis had revealed a breathable atmosphere, much to everyone’s surprise and eventual delight. No, the air wasn’t a problem. The cold wasn’t the problem; they expected it and came well-equipped for it, with thermal suits, and each [...]

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Martian Dawn

January 15, 2010

by Pamela J. Jessen
Our ship will touch down at Martian dawn,
exhaust throwing gales of organ sand
into the thin atmosphere. We’ll cheer
once, briefly, then bend to our tasks
of securing the craft, transmitting data and images
twenty light minutes to an Earth hungry for Mars.
-
Month after boring month we’ve watched as Mars
grows closer, more substantial and realization [...]

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Trip Of A Lifetime

December 15, 2009

by Jannette Johnson
The last time Don went on a vacation, he’d met his beautiful wife. Right from the first moment he laid eyes on her, he knew she was the only woman for him. When their precious daughter Lizzy was born, he felt life couldn’t get any better. Then Lizzy got sick. Very sick. And [...]

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Space Vampire!

December 15, 2009

by Richard Marsden
The bay door of the ship opened and the first thing that struck Ernst Model was the scent of decay and stagnant water. Humid wind whipped across his face as he trudged down the landing steps and gazed at the pitiful landing pad and ‘civilization’ beyond which consisted of a few pre-fab structures [...]

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Sound Effects

December 15, 2009

by Margaret Karmazin
When it first happened, it was so quick we almost missed it. Tony had just made this really weird noise with his mini-synth while Jesse was blowing on a didgeridoo; Marcelle was thumping on a djembe drum, wagging her head in a trance doing her idea of an Arabic chant and I was [...]

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