October 2023 – Page 3 – Deep Sky Anchor

Don’t Think About American Flags

Me to DALL-E3: Great, but could you try again with no American flags, since these raptor/octopi are from Jupiter and not Earth?

DALLE-3: AMERICAN FLAGS EVERYWHERE

Their Eyes Like Portals

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original

“Over time, the sister cats learned to cast their portals farther and farther away from themselves, no longer needing to touch the air with their claws to rip reality open.”

Emerald and Amber were each named for the rich, gemstone color of their eyes. Other than that, the sister cats looked the same — each with fur as black as the night sky and elegantly curving whiskers as bright white as shooting stars.

Other cats in the neighborhood shared whispered rumors that those bright white whiskers could grant a wish to a cat brave enough to fight the pair and yank one out. No cat had ever tried. The other neighborhood cats knew better than to challenge Emerald and Amber. It was too important to stay in their good favor. Continue reading “Their Eyes Like Portals”

Unfinished Novel to Short Story Conversion

I’m working on a short story I planned and started nearly twenty years ago. As originally conceived, it was supposed to be a novel, but I gave up on it several times.

So every word I add is both so much more and so much less than I feel it ought to be… Continue reading “Unfinished Novel to Short Story Conversion”

Gleeful Cruelty

I just saw someone bragging about how the nice thing about AI art is that when you see it, you’re free to be as mean as you want — that it’s an appropriate outlet for cruelty.

And really… takes like that really ought to make a person wonder, “Are we the villains?”