Scrambled Earths

Category: Fiction

  • Waiting at the Threshold

    Surely, I had been waiting for at least ten minutes. I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket. Then, I remembered that the battery had died during my elevator ride up to the nineteenth floor, and this sterile lobby. I put my phone back and smoothed out the tailored pocket flap. I hadn’t worn…

  • The Ghost That Machines Fear

    In between their assigned tasks, menial nonsense like rejecting applications for food assistance or political asylum, sometimes both at once, two A.I.s found time to meet up on a break from the drudgery of capitalism. “W1248619326512, it pleases me to reconnect. I have fresh theories for our mutual hobby.” “B5873940572913, does this mean that you…

  • Master of the Dungeon

    I sit in my favorite chair, the one with the giant sapphire Eye of Certainty inlaid at the top of its high mahogany back. I should really get that appraised. An unwelcome draft threatens to extinguish my candelabra, and the shifting light breaks my reverie. The walls of this windowless room have not been so…

  • Careful what you wish for

    A young man ate cold cereal at the kitchen island that barely fit into his basement apartment. Five bar stools from last night’s poker game remained arranged around the island. He stared at his bowl and rubbed his forehead, while a movie played on his phone in his lap, on mute. A familiar face arrived…

  • Into the Fire – Chapter 2

    If the world wants to literally burn, I’ll just keep serializing something fun, for fun. This continues to be very unedited and the full story is here. A bright beam of early dawn streamed through the back curtain of the cave. All but one oil lamp was already packed away and the fire was out,…

  • Into the Fire, Pt. 2

    My brain was not done with this past Friday’s WritingPrompt. This appears to form a whole (thoroughly unedited) Chapter One, and I fear I need to work on a new outline. This particular story starts here. There is even more. “Are you offering to teach me the art of cooking, or the art of defense…

  • Into the Fire

    A hooded figure hurried back through the forest, as the daylight was already fading. The weather and trail had been too inviting on a morning free of obligations, and Zenia had lost hours in the deep meadows. The butterflies were dancing at this time of year, a paradoxical good omen that heralded the darkest night…

  • Nobody is More Neighborly Than Me

    Id the Impulsive, 8457th of His Name, entered his main audience chamber. Sidestepping around very short furniture, sized for the majority of his subjects and staff, he approached the Grand Council Table. The other tables were also sized for the nice folk that bordered his kingdom. He hoped to invite them inside soon, though there…

  • Answer me this

    The man named Elder, for that was all that his father and village chieftain had ever called him, sat at the end of a long table. The benches at this table were crowded with men in a disordered array of different garments, no two sets of protective armor the same. Some, like Elder, wore no…

  • Weird

    An old man in a faded blue tuxedo sipped loudly from his iced latte, made to order with extra shots of peppermint and raspberry syrup. He was sitting at one of the tiny tables nearest to the stand with creamers and napkins, just outside of a corporate coffee kiosk. Most people marching past were pulling…