Author: marylowd

Evil in Your Heart

It is possible to have good in your heart and inadvertently do great evil; it is also possible to have evil in your heart but choose to do good. We can control our actions, but we cannot always control what’s in our hearts. Everyone makes mistakes. Is it worse to make a mistake if you have evil in your heart? If people see the evil in your heart and are scared, is that a mistake? Is it a crime? If you have evil in your heart, must you live in fear of ever being known?

Last Week of Furry Book Month!

Furry Book MonthHeading into the final week of Furry Book Month, we have a special treat for you:  a Tri-Galactic Trek story.

“Danger in the Lumo-Bay” and, in fact, the entire Tri-Galactic Trek universe was inspired by a slush reader for an unnamed furry noir anthology commenting that he hoped someone would submit a Picard-in-the-Holodeck story.  Once the image of Captain Picard — re-imagined as a Sphyx cat — was in my head, there was no getting him out.  I had to write that story. Continue reading “Last Week of Furry Book Month!”

Danger in the Lumo-Bay

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Inhuman Acts: A Collection of Noir, September 2015

“It felt amazing to break the rules instead of make them. For once, he could defy expectations, behave recklessly, and there would be no cost.”

Captain Jacques twitched his naked ears and swished his bare, pink tail as he stepped into the lumo-bay, a large, empty room with hexagonal, blue grid-lines on the walls.  Even though he was a hairless cat, the captain always held an air of dignity.  No other cat or dog ever wore a Tri-Galactic Navy uniform with greater aplomb than he did, but today Captain Jacques wasn’t wearing his uniform.  He was dressed in a pin-striped suit and a floor-length, tan trench coat, split down the back. Continue reading “Danger in the Lumo-Bay”

Frankenstein’s Gryphon

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things, November 2015

“Flowers in small bouquets, mostly the yellow and white blooms of arctic poppies and snow buttercups, and other tokens such as handmade dolls or tiny flags marked most of the graves. The largest patch of freshly overturned dirt, though, bore no markings — no tokens of love.”

Igor the arctic fox lurched across the tundra, limping from the deadened feeling in his left hindpaw.  That paw had never fully woken up when Frankie Mouse reanimated him.  The electric surge from the lightning bolt hadn’t made it that far, but Igor was still grateful to Frankie.  Without his kindness, Igor would still be lying in an unmarked grave, forgotten and unmourned.  Instead, Igor adventured across the tundra on glorious missions in service to the most magnificent mouse throughout the land. Continue reading “Frankenstein’s Gryphon”