marylowd – Page 111 – Deep Sky Anchor

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”

Last Day in Hawaii

I’ve never been woken up by the crowing of a rooster before…

Time to put ear plugs in and go back to sleep.

Mango toast and fresh pineapple for breakfast. Continue reading “Last Day in Hawaii”

Just Another Day in Hawaii

Turns out my sleep schedule wasn’t broken… I just switched to Hawaii time several months in advance of finding out I’d be coming to Hawaii.

Snorkeling is magical. Continue reading “Just Another Day in Hawaii”

The Relative Perceived Danger of Zip-Lines and Mushrooms

The 15-year-old this morning at a zip line place: *steps into thin air to ride a half mile zip line with zero fear*

The 15-year-old this evening at a restaurant, expressing genuine anxiety: “I’m just afraid they’ll bring the mushrooms out before I’m ready for them.”

Flying to Hawaii

Thor: Love and Thunder seems pretty good. It’s hard to be totally sure since I watched it on an airplane after getting up at crazy-still-dark-AM-early o’clock and was too tired to be awake but too uncomfortable to be asleep. Continue reading “Flying to Hawaii”

Hawaii in Hawaii

Just listenin’ to the Beach Boys’ song “Hawaii”… in Hawaii. No big deal.

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”

Star Trek: A Final Unity

I finally finished watching the 5 hour walk-through of Star Trek: A Final Unity, the video game I couldn’t figure out how to beat as a kid. I’ve been watching this thing in five minute chunks here and there for months now.

It… uh… still seems like not a great video game.

First Flight

My kids will be going on their first airplane flight tomorrow. The 15-year-old is worried about all kinds of contingencies like the plane crashing in the ocean. The 9-year-old? Not worried, in fact, feeling totally prepared because they’ve played a Roblox game about that.

Extra Sibling

Well, this is a new problem—the main character in the novella I’m writing has so many siblings that I lost track and accidentally added an extra one. So, I’ve had to go back and remove that sibling.

Fortunately, I caught it before that involved changing more than one sentence.