First Contact (part 3)

First Contact (Part 3) by Shady Rose I was selfish. Perhaps I was the only one who grasped the magnitude of my good fortune. To be the first Earthling to contact the outside universe in millenia was no small task. I knew that there would be many in my community who regarded the arrangement with […]

funeral for store brand whole grain

Funeral for Store Brand Whole Grainby Shady Rose I’m just going to get rid of a fuck ton of stuff right now instead of holding onto it forever saying I’ll donate it I just donated most of my clothes and shoes and whatever they probably don’t need the random half-broken shit lying around my house […]

This is Not A Place of Honor

You might be disappointed to know that all our plans for the nuclear waste sites went to hell. You know, all those glorious and Romantic designs we made thinking “Later civilizations must understand this: We mean danger, death, and DO NOT ENTER.” We really should have known by then what humans are like. After all, […]

First Contact (Part 2)

I’ve always felt that human beings have a poor appreciation for silence. After all, as social creatures we can’t help but surround ourselves with the evidence of other people. A faucet running in another room, a laughing child outside on a spring evening, the soft breathing of our lovers as they turn over in our […]

Sleeping Dogs (excerpt)

Lights up suddenly on Hakima, dressed in torn white rags and spattered with crimson. Her arms are spread at her sides, held carefully so as not to touch her own body. She is shaking and dissociated. After a painful, long pause, she speaks. HAKIMA; Too long ago I was a swaddling babeRememb’ring now I think […]