Being alone was the least of his worries. Looking out at the void, the emptiness was hypnotic, enticing him outside.
His crew was sadly gone and two years remained until his arrival. “But who will need rescuing by then?” he thought.
He switched the ship to autopilot just in case.
The Sea of Tranquility made an excellent graveyard.
You can visit it any time, rows of delicately carved stone standing silent in the Earthlight.
It was surprisingly easy to set it up. A digger. A priest. A few vacuum-grown flowers.
Some people still doubt it was ever built at all.
William Shaw is a student, editor and amateur journalist. He is slightly obsessed with the moon. You can find him on Tumblr, where he writes haiku poetry about Doctor Who.
The five-person crew slept separately under strict orders. The sentence for co-mingling was death. Still, Annie and Louis persisted, furtive behind the commander’s watchful eye.
When the burgeoning beneath Annie’s spacesuit could no longer be ignored, Louis was summoned.
“You have a choice, Lieutenant. There isn’t enough oxygen for six.”
Clara Ray Rusinek Klein is bilingual in Spanish and English. She holds a BA magna cum laude in Political Science with a minor in Religious Studies. Ms. Klein is an internationally published creative writer and author. For more information and a full list of current publications, see clararayrusinekklein.wordpress.com.
To our naked eyes, millions of pinpoints prick the night skies. They dazzle, dangling from immeasurable heights. We do not understand them.
But when our hearts resonate with theirs, they are a wordless fire, larger and brighter than anything on Earth.
The stars do not reveal themselves; we seek them.
Rhol Abisan is a a coffeeholic; a Lover of Books; a fan of J.R.R Tolkien; a Musician; an Artist In His Own Way; Melancholic yet Hopeful; a Treasure Keeper; a Wanderer but not Lost; a Follower of Jesus Christ.
“You and Reese were too close,” Gary said. “That’s why you broke up. See that stone wall running down the middle of our property? Lisa and I mend it every spring.”
“Why in the world would you do that?”
“So we can stand on opposite sides when we need to.”
Wayne Scheer has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net. He’s published stories, poems and essays in print and online, including Revealing Moments, a collection of flash stories.
Their emotions raged like wildfires. Their passions rumbled like earthquakes. Their fears echoed like windblown whispers through the valleys.
They whirled in their orbits, teasing each other, admiring one another’s moons, coming close and then dancing away, all the while singing to themselves, “She loves me; she loves me not.”
I thought stasis would be like sleeping: I’d close my eyes on Earth, and open them a hundred light-years away. I thought it would be an escape.
But it was more like a dream, a slow swirl of half-reality. I spent ten years inside my own head, reliving that memory.
This story was based on the prompt “that memory” at TypeTrigger.
Jim the Space Rabbit had always wondered what Mars was like.
One day, he flew his space rocket to Mars. He got out and looked around for a bit. It was cold and dry.
He told his friends he’d found diamonds and met aliens, but they knew he was lying.
This story was based on a title suggested by Al Gore.
“Where are we?” grumbled Trim, rolling out of bed.
“Planet X!” enthused Portly.
“What!? Why?!”
“I dunno,” said Portly. “It’s a ‘forbidden fruit’ thing, I guess.”
“But don’t you know about the Curse?”
“What curse?” said Portly.
Trim groaned haggardly. “Now we’ll never be able to recite the alphabet again!”
This story is based on a title suggested by @keab42.
“Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven…”
“Ha! Poor seven. Gone before its time.”
“What?”
“You said nine ate seven!”
“…That’s really juvenile.”
“Oh, lighten up! Why is everyone always so serious around here? It’s not like we’re performing heart surgery or anything.”
“No. We’re just launching manned space flights.”
“Those are real?”