We looked up, goggle-eyed, as the sky darkened. The saucer blocked out the sun, its lights a tiny galaxy of artificial stars. A white light, weightlessness, and first contact was made.
Jimmy went for his slingshot. I pulled a pack of gum.
A sea of large black eyes stared back.
Matt Warnock is always thinking about stories, what-ifs, and mushroom hunting.
We’ve been here for years, laughing among ourselves at your silly stories of UFOs, balloons, and Roswell crash. Visitors from outer space! your newspapers say. Cover stories, we say. Not understanding your culture and language made us stick out at first, but we’ve learned. We mingle freely among you now.
Connie Taylor left California to become a commercial fisherman in Alaska. She fished salmon, crab and shrimp for twenty years before settling in Cordova to become a printer and art gallery owner. Now she’s a publisher, photographer, and author. See more at fathompublishing.com.
“Why is everyone afraid of these new sea creatures?” the boy asked his mother.
“I just need you to pack your bag right now, okay, sweetie?” his mother said, frantically stuffing a suitcase.
The boy slid a toy into his bag then paused, “Where is the Sea of Tranquility, anyway?”
David Malone is a writer and editor for a trade magazine in the Chicago suburbs. His fiction has appeared in Fiction Vortex and MiddleWestern Voice.
Like all lovers, they carefully carved their initials into the earth as a symbol of the permanence of their love. Their mission completed, they boarded their respective vessels and shot off into the sky.
Millenia later, archaeologists are still trying to solve the unearthly mystery of the geoglyphs in Peru.
AJ Joseph tweets very short stories as @sonobeus.
It all started as a joke, but thousands of us did end up camping in the desert. We couldn’t get any closer than five miles from Area 51 because of the military roadblocks, but a large tent city quickly emerged. When the alien ships arrived, the joke was on us.
Eddie D. Moore travels extensively for work, and he spends much of that time listening to audiobooks. The rest of the time is spent dreaming of stories to write, and he spends the weekends writing them. His stories have been published by Jouth Webzine, Kzine, Alien Dimensions, Theme of Absence, Devolution Z, and Fantasia Divinity Magazine. Find more on his blog.
He swirled his spindly grey finger in the air before pointing randomly at the galactic charts.
“So where are we going for our vacation?” she asked, with bated breath.
He drew back his finger, revealing an isolated blue and green planet.
“Darn! Practice shot?” he asked.
“Practice shot,” she agreed.
Melanie Rees is an Australian author. She has published over 60 stories in markets such as Apex, Daily Science Fiction, Persistent Visions, and Aurealis. You can follow her on Twitter @FlexiRees or at flexirees.wordpress.com.
The saucers appeared at 12:15 pm on Feast Day, when we celebrate victory over body shaming and our collective morbid obesity.
The saucers searched for intelligent life, abundant natural resources or a population able to power their work force back home.
The saucers left at 12:16 pm on Feast Day.
Chelsea Roberts on most days can be found writing essays and short stories at pastpaperanswers.com.
Andile could trace his family back to an eighteenth century shaman, but he was sure this was a first. Torso and abdomen were insectile; gonads mammalian in defiance of bio-mechanical laws. But the brain…? It phased in and out. His scalpel hovered…
The attackers were advancing to claim their dead.
Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry under the brooding brows of Donegal hills which he occasionally hikes in search of druidic inspiration.
As the eradication patrol passed, creatures emerged from the shadows, balancing on spindly limbs as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
They approached the embassy timidly, tiny eyes peering up into the perimeter viewer.
The ambassador was nearby.
“Let the humans in. It was their planet.”
Hatched in the spire of Saint Eugene’s cathedral in Derry, or close enough for reality not to be offended, he swoops down with the odd Science Fiction manuscript which is duly transcribed from bird-scratching by his alter ego under threat of a severe head-clawing. Refusing to be identified, his partner in crime will only admit that Falcon, a Peregrine, can be seen vole-hunting in the local cemetery to feed his family. This is presumed to be a source of inspiration, but who can tell with raptors.
He squinted at first, but then shielded his eyes when the light proved too overpowering.
“Why me?” he bellowed in the direction of the source. “Surely there are better specimens for you to abduct.”
Move your hand, came the reply, unspoken and foreign, yet understood. We can’t see your face.
Eldar is currently wondering (1) what achievements are considered noteworthy enough to include in a bio, and (2) whether perhaps a blurb highlighting failures is more telling and useful. He figures that some governing body has already addressed and decided on this issue.