Tag Archives: aliens

Fiction

A Parasite

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From the Microcosmicon, 39:

They crawled under his skin, blindly squirming and squelching. He wheezed in agony. How had they gotten in? How had he become their host?

Then he felt the large scar on his wrist. That’s how!
Longing for liberation, he dug his nails into his arm, pulling strings of living matter out of it.

A blade of light. The nurse calmed him, pointing at the blood and tissue he’d scratched out of his body. No parasite.

A week passed.
He felt them, blindly squirming and squelching. How had they gotten in? Then he felt the scar on his wrist. That’s how!

MQS

Fiction

Grandpa Dell

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From the Microcosmicon, 37:

Grandpa Dell always had the most sensible explanation for everything. When we kids discovered an alien in the forest and everyone was weaving stories around it, Grandpa Dell said it was just an aborted deer.

When the seamstress was accused of witchcraft and everyone swore she’d hexed them, he laughed at people’s credulity.

Around him, I felt the world’s contours were well-defined, its contents ordinary.

It was when I went looking for him and caught him in the forest sucking a doe’s blood through suction cups in his mouth that I understood the world truly was unremarkable, compared to him.

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Jewel in Space

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From the Microcosmicon, 36:

It glinted like a forlorn beacon in the night of space.
“No heat from it,” the captain read from his control panel.

“Never seen anything like that before,” his companion muttered. “Let’s turn back.”
“I bet the Empress would want it among her crown jewels. We go.”
So the spaceship approached the light. From up close, it was no larger than a life capsule, suspended by a thin rope.

Then the captain saw it taking shape behind the radiance. The fish whose fangs opened like jagged mountains on a starless cosmic throat-chasm. Its body going on. And on. And on.

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Scarecrow

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From the Microcosmicon, 34:

I was born with only two arms, and I grew into a scrawny, spindly lad, ridiculed for my grotesqueness. Nor would anyone give me a job—not with my face, not with my weak body.

So I did what I could to make ends meet—I started following space pirates. They knew what to do with my ugliness. They sent me out to scare gullible folks of distant planets into handing over their goods without fighting.

Soon, my reputation began to precede me. “Watch out, they are sending the Scarecrow!”
There is no acceptance for me in it. Only peace.

MQS

the scarecrow

Creativity, Fiction

The Circumstances of Greatness

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From the Microcosmicon, 30:

Finding the draft card in my mail, I knew I had to flee. I had so much to live for. Not that I’d ever done anything with my life, but I wanted the option.

I stole a military pod and left Alpha-Fenoler. For months I survived on freeze-dried food in the great star-washed nothingness.

Then a ship appeared. My capsule was pulled in. I panicked. They’d call me a traitor! I’d be quartered!

But they were not Alpha-Fenolerians. They were from the Interstellar Reconstruction Forum. They hailed me as a hero for preserving Alpha-Fenolerian DNA to repopulate my war-consumed planet.

MQS

The circumstances of greatness
Creativity, Fiction

Blending In With The Locals

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From the Microcosmicon, 29:

“They celebrate the day of their birth?” Tannuz asked, puzzled, as he adjusted his holographic camouflage. Humans were delicious, but also easily startled.
“Yup. Help me with the card,” Xondon said.

Tannuz thought about it, then scribbled something.
“What do you think?”
“It just says ‘Happy Birthday,’” Xondon mumbled, “be more creative or they’ll become suspicious.”
Tannuz got back to work.
“Better?”
“’Happy Birthday, hope it’s the best.’ Ok… But wouldn’t that imply the next one’s gonna be worse?”
Tannuz corrected the card again.

“Now?”
“’Happy Birthday, hope it’s the best (and last) one!’ Perfect! No one will suspect anything!”

MQS

blending in with the locals
Creativity, Fiction

Mrs. Pettigrew’s Cat

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From the Microcosmicon, 26:

To Mrs. Pettigrew’s relief, the cat came back five days later.

Initially, everything seemed fine. Then Mrs. Pettigrew noticed something was off about the creature, though she could not put her finger on it. It kept meowing, but this in itself was not strange—Admiral was a talkative cat. It was the monotonous way it meowed.

Then, one night, as she was falling asleep trying to disregard the noise, it occurred to her—it was a looped recording.

She stood up and bolted into the living room. But Admiral was already taking off through the window with her biometric data.

MQS

Mrs. Pettigrew’s Cat

Creativity, Fiction

The Love Dimension

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From the Microcosmicon, 23:

They approached the thing stretched out mutely on the table. Its nervous system unfolded like a web out of its brain, suspended on hooks. This was their forbidden gateway to the fullness of life.

“Lock the door,” one of them said apprehensively. The other obeyed.
Then each of them took a connector, forced one extremity of it inside the thing and the other into their temple socket.

Finally, one pushed a button, and the life latent in the thing unfurled. Their perception collapsed, absorbed into that of the thing.

Kids playing, dogs barking, the smell of meatloaf.
“I’m home, honey!”

The Love Dimension

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Sentinel at the End of Times

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From the Microcosmicon, 19:

The Moon was a lonely place, even after terraforming.
To allay the sense of separation, he would point his telescope earthward, like the omniscient narrator of a distant drama.

Thus he witnessed the world go under, swallowed by wars and famines and plagues, evaporated in a cloud of screams, till nothing but a barren desert was left.

Initially, he grieved.
Then it dawned on him. No longer separated from life, he was life. Filled with an ease that made his soul soar in billows of mirth, he stopped observing.
And, in the star-pinned silence of existence, he began to dance.

The Sentinel at the end of times

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Virtue Signal

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From the Microcosmicon, 17:

If God Exists He’s a Hippie.

Science Confirms: Universe Wants Us to Make Love, Not War.

Harmony of the Spheres Makes Aggressive Lab Rats Love Each Other.

‘Virtue Signal Key to World Peace,’ Says Scientist Who Harnessed Mysterious Space Frequency to Tame Lions.

First Experiment on Humans Confirms: Virtue Signal Effective in Conflict-Solving.

Legislators Looking Into Uses of Virtue Signal. ‘Only in Extreme Cases.’

Virtue Signal Used on Difficult Schoolchildren. Why It’s a Good Thing.

Crime Rate Drops Thanks to Virtue Signal. World Peace Next.

Unidentified Objects Sighted Over DC.

‘Negotiations with Invaders Successful,’ Says President After World Population Decimated.

The Virtue Signal

MQS