Category: Quick Reads

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”

Pen Pals with the Tooth Fairy

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, December 2022

“I lost my tooth tonight, so you could meet Santa Claus. I know you will fall in love.”

Ella didn’t like apples, but she’d been trying to wiggle her loose tooth out for an hour.  Now it was almost bedtime, and if she didn’t eat something with a big CRUNCH, then she wouldn’t get to introduce the tooth fairy to Santa Claus.  So, she took the crunchiest looking apple from the kitchen counter — one of the horrible green ones that her mother liked — and sank her teeth into its sour flesh.

Bingo.  She spat out the mouthful of apple into her palm… and her tooth too! Continue reading “Pen Pals with the Tooth Fairy”

Why You Should Follow Me Back on Social Media

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, December 2022

“In none of those alternate dimensions, all those tangled webs and threads of the multiverse that I can access through my multi-verse-telescope-o-meter, have you ever once … followed me back.”

1. I’ve consulted with the Oracle of Delphi and asked her whether you and I would ever be friends. She said we would be the best of friends, and Apollo would sing songs of our friendship on Mount Olympus.  Hestia will smile, sweetly and secretly, as she stirs her hearth fires and thinks of our friendship.  Bacchanals will be held in our friendship’s honor.

2. I have a time travel machine, and that’s just really cool. After you’ve followed me back on social media, and we become friends (good friends; I don’t let just anyone use my time machine) I’ll let you use it.   Continue reading “Why You Should Follow Me Back on Social Media”

The Dreaming Arm

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, December 2022

“The dreaming arm had doomed them all, urging them to spend energy they didn’t have to spare…”

One arm sagged.  Seven arms writhed and worked, puckering their sucker discs and pulling the joint-being they composed across the slippery rocks.  The gaspingly dry, slippery rocks.  But the sagging arm — as little as it helped with pulling, and as much as it acted like a dead weight needing to be pulled — had dreamed about crossing the rocks.  It had dreamed of wonders on the other side.  And seven other arms had listened to those dreams.  Been compelled by those dreams, drawn to explore the rocks at the top edge of the ocean. Continue reading “The Dreaming Arm”

Dealership with the Devil

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Theme of Absence, January 2016

“Go as fast as you like, and you’ll never hit anything, never get pulled over.”

The salesman, Devin, shows me another junker — dented fender, bald tires, and a crack in the windshield.

“These cars look like death traps,” I say.  “You don’t seriously expect anyone to buy them?”

Devin laughs, a hollow, plastic sound.  “They’re all bargains!”  He looks over his shoulder, back at the dealership building with a half-burned out neon sign, Bob Reaper’s Autos, over a window with venetian blinds.  A gaunt man, probably Bob himself at a place this small, stares at us through the blinds. Continue reading “Dealership with the Devil”

Queen Doripauli and the Sproutlings

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, January 2018

“What did an amphibioid care for the political concerns of sentient flowers?”

Sloanee’s slick, sticky amphibioid fingers wrapped around one of Queen Doripauli’s slender twigs.  The queen’s sea-green fronds uncurled, caressing the richer green skin of her amphibioid lover.  Doripauli’s yellow daisy-like petals brushed ever-so-lightly against Sloanee’s face, and the froggy alien’s bulbous eyes closed blissfully.

How could Sloanee give this up?  She had loved Queen Doripauli since she’d first set eyes on the photosynthetic floral alien.  Her eyes were pink roses; her mouths were blue irises; she was a living bouquet — color and splendor and everything that was right with a universe filled with infinite diversity. Continue reading “Queen Doripauli and the Sproutlings”

Anger is a Porcupine, Sadness is a Fish

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Electric Spec, Vol.13, Issue 1, February 2018

“If Iassandra’s words could change Dara into a porcupine of anger, a fish of sadness, then Dara would cast her own spell of words.”

The child with a malformed arm, bent like a bird’s folded wing, had passed through Troway Village a year ago.  Now Dara was a traveler like he had been.  Would her old village welcome her?  A prodigal daughter returned?  Or would she be hurried along like the child and his parents had been?

Dara and Iassandra had been the town’s truth-tellers together back then.  When the villagers had come to them, not knowing what to think of the strange child traveling through their village, Dara had sung a song of gods’ blessings, how they bent the unborn child’s arm, marking him and setting him apart as he grew.  She sang that he should be welcomed and taken in, a child touched by a god. Continue reading “Anger is a Porcupine, Sadness is a Fish”

Jetpack and Cyborg Wings

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, October 2018

“Neither of them wore spacesuits — their exoskeletons protected most of their bodies, and a thin coating of amphiphilic goo around their joints sealed the gaps up well enough for an hour long joy-jaunt around the station’s exterior.”

Lee-a-lei and her clone-daughter Am-lei perched in the Crossroads Station recreational airlock with their long spindly legs folded.  The two lepidopterans exchanged a glance with glittering, multi-faceted eyes.  Lee-a-lei was nervous and kept flapping her mechanical wings, but her daughter looked excited.

Am-lei didn’t have wings.  She’d followed the traditions of their homeworld and had her yellow-blue-and-purple wings cut off after she metamorphosed.  So, she wore a simple zero-gee jetpack like a human or one of the canine Heffens would.  The jetpack strapped around her thorax, firmly secured.  Lee-a-lei had checked her daughter’s straps several times. Continue reading “Jetpack and Cyborg Wings”

Black Swans

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, October 2022

“Why are you afraid of the black swans? They’re only swans, floating on the surface of a lake, gleaming with the depth of nebulas in their feathers.”

I watch the lake, peaceful and serene; white swans float on it with the graceful delicacy and stillness of ice sculptures or many-tiered, fondant-covered wedding cakes.

Then the black swans come.  One after another.  Crashing into the water, wings spread wide and flapping.

Progress has begun. Continue reading “Black Swans”

Thirty Honey Feasts To Go

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Theme of Absence, July 2018

“My great-great-great-grandmother was the last queen who had the honor of awakening you,” the ship’s computer answered. It was a hybrid brain — part computer, part hive — with the reigning bee queen at its heart.

Marga held her broad paw up to the star-studded window, lining it up so a single spark of light tipped each of her blunted claws.  Her own constellation.  She wondered if any of those stars had habitable worlds circling them.  She knew none of them was New Sholara.  Not from this window.  Not from this side of the ship.

A purple-and-amber-striped worker bee buzzed down and landed on the thick brown fur of Marga’s shoulder, reminding her that life support was limited.  She left the window behind and moved from one cryonics pod to the next, starting their rejuv cycles.  Bees followed her, buzzing in the air. Continue reading “Thirty Honey Feasts To Go”