An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
by Mary E. Lowd
A Deep Sky Anchor Original, June 2022
This is not a story about Spider-Man, because Spider-Man is owned by a company. This is a story about a young boy, on his first day of high school, who was bitten by a spider and fell asleep like a princess in a fairytale. He fell asleep for the life of the author — which in this case would be his parents — plus seventy years. Continue reading “Not Spider-Man and the Seven Angel Donors”
by Mary E. Lowd
A Deep Sky Anchor Original, May 2022
Selina knelt in the middle of the empty Hamilton Middle School room. She’d pushed the desks and chairs up against the walls, leaving the floor clear for the bull’s eye pattern she’d drawn with salt. The only light came from the soft cold glow of the moon behind the shuttered windows and a flickering warm radiance from the ring of candles around the outer edge of the bull’s eye. In the middle, the very middle, she carefully placed the brittle body of a dead bumblebee on the circle of salt. She had considered using a wasp, but she was looking for justice, not vengeance. A solution, not escalation.
Continue reading “Sting Once and Die”
by Mary E. Lowd
A Deep Sky Anchor Original, December 2021
Warm buttery crumbs flaked off the toasting bread and sprinkled down to the diminutive city built on the metal tray below. Gooey cheese dripped off the sides of the horizontal toast. Metallic creatures — ant-like with their half-dozen legs and expressive antennae, but tiny, so tiny, ant-sized to an ant — scurried back to their minuscule buildings, seeking refuge from the reeking rain. Later when the fallen scraps had cooled, foragers would gather them up and the city would feast on bread and cheese. Continue reading “The City In Your Toaster Oven”
by Mary E. Lowd
A Deep Sky Anchor Original, December 2020
The short, stout, furry alien stared out the starship’s curving bridge window at the star-studded black sky. His black fur blended into the sky like a shadow, but the blaze of white over his forehead stood out like a brand. His rounded ears splayed, and he curled his heavy claws into fists. “I don’t belong here,” he muttered, and the ship’s computer translated it. “None of my people do.” Continue reading “Treasure in the Sky”
by Mary E. Lowd
A Deep Sky Anchor Original, September 2020
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a cat in sight of an empty box, must sit in it.
However little known the feelings or views of such a cat may be on their first encountering an empty box, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of all good cat owners, that all empty boxes are considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their cats.
“My dear Mx. Kitty,” said the dog to her one day, “have you heard that the Amazon truck has arrived at last?” Continue reading “Excerpt from Purride and Purrejudice”
by Mary E. Lowd
A Deep Sky Anchor Original, March 2016
The dance was over, like most high school dances, around eleven. The music stopped, and amid barks and yips of outrage, the lights came on. Without the blasting music and strobing lights, the crowd dissolved into a mass of individual dogs standing around awkwardly. Katasha’s ears flattened, and she drifted away from the bandstand, suddenly feeling weird as the only cat in the audience. The band playing tonight, Dog-Step, didn’t exactly have a lot of feline fans. Continue reading “High School Dogs”