Month: January 2023

The Dragon’s Mask

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, January 2023

“Faye smiled tentatively, settling into this new reality they were creating together out of lies, a reality where what she’d seen — a true dragon’s face, staring into hers from only inches away, begging to be seen, understood, and maybe loved — was only an illusion.”

Bark broke from the trunk of the sharillow trees in large, curved chunks, littering the forest floor along with their fallen leaves.  Storakka sifted through the pieces at the base of the biggest tree she could find, her talons running over the slightly curved sheaves of wood, rough on one side and smooth on the other.  Finally she found an oval one she liked, about the same size as a human face. Continue reading “The Dragon’s Mask”

The Freedom of the Queen

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Oxfurred Comma Flash Fiction Contest, July 2022

“Why did you leave me alive?” the queen bee buzzed at the honey look-alike, puddled under her tree. “Why didn’t you eat me too?”

Amber fluid dripped from the hive, but it wasn’t honey.  It was thick and gooey and satiated.  The amorphous being, gold and honey-like, had infiltrated the hive, feasted on the honey and then on the worker bees who’d made the honey; then the drones who the worker bees had waited on; and finally, on the delectable morsels of unfinished dough that were the eggs and pupae.

But not the queen. Continue reading “The Freedom of the Queen”

Awards Eligible Stories in 2022

This year Deep Sky Anchor took a big step forward and released 9 all new, original pieces of fiction and one non-fiction essay! If you’re reading for awards or just for fun, we’d love to have you read them.

Here are links to all our original releases from 2022, along with their genres, approximate word counts, and the month they were released: Continue reading “Awards Eligible Stories in 2022”

Flowers Want to Be Free

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, January 2023

“Sometimes, you hear about a dandelion managing to grow up from a crack in the concrete somewhere in the city. People who are lucky enough to find it go viral instantly with their pictures.”

The city stretches as far as I know in every direction.  Some kids at school say it covers the entire world, wrapping the globe of our planet in concrete snakes and strangling tentacles, dimpling its surface with metal and glass towers.  I don’t know if they’re right.  The websites that would tell me for sure — the good, scientific, trustworthy ones — are behind paywalls, and my parents say we can’t trust what we read on the free sites.

I know we can’t trust what we’re taught in school. Continue reading “Flowers Want to Be Free”