An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Hexagon, Issue 9, June 2022
Leslie yanked the toggle on the Build-a-Pet arcade machine with one hand and mashed the big round buttons with the other. On the screen looming above her head, a colorful, twisted ladder bent and spun around, and large friendly letters spelled out words she couldn’t read yet. Though she did recognize the letter L. She knew that one from her own name. Continue reading “Build-a-Pet”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Kaleidotrope, October 2022
@UnicornGirl231: O MUH GOD i jus saw a zombie eating sumone’s arm and the ARM FELL OFF #zombiesarereal #zombiesarehere #evenincrestcity
@KarenCane: You’re in Crest City? How do you know it was a zombie?
@LiteralGhost1: Is the zombie virus airborn? Will a mask protect me? Do I need to hold my breath around zombies? Maybe I’ll just stay inside… Continue reading “Safe Here in Crest City”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally serialized in Daily Science Fiction, November/December 2022
Part 1: Comfort Animal
The wide timber frame arch rose high above Dr. Miriam Loxley’s head, presaging the size of the animals kept in the enclosure. All the movies, books, and games came rushing back to her — she’d grown up with the Jurassic Park franchise. She knew all of the paleontologists and geneticists involved in The Prehistory Zoo had too. Somehow, they’d taken those stories as a siren’s call, instead of heeding them as a warning. Continue reading “The Prehistory Zoo”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Electric Spec, Vol. 13, Issue 2, May 2018
Hanna steered the spaceship with one arm, punching buttons, turning knobs, and flipping switches. Her other arm was wrapped tightly around her young son. His face was buried against her shoulder. He wasn’t crying any more. His breathing had stilled. He was sleeping, but he still clung to her with his arms and legs that seemed so long and gangly compared to when he was a baby. Continue reading “The Blood Portal”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Collie Commander, November 2024
The social heart of the Tri-Galactic Union starship Initiative was a wide room with windows all along one side that looked out on the yawning void of space, sprinkled with the bright points of the distant stars. Tables were scattered around at a comfortable density, and a synthesizer bar worked by an uplifted rabbit named Galen stretched along the opposite wall.
Galen was a mysterious figure who loved listening to the woes and travails of the mostly canine and feline officers of the Initiative when they came to her bar, which she called the Constellation Club, but she rarely opened up about herself or how she’d come to be the only rabbit on a ship full of dogs, cats, and the rare exchange officer from another world. Continue reading “The Grafting”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Brunch at the All Alien Cafe, March 2024
Like a delicate crystal vase, the hard shell of Am-lei’s chrysalis cracked, spilling out the furled up, new-grown, riotously colorful wings inside. Still wet, the wings hung from her changed body, pulsing with life, heavy and dragging her down, out of the chrysalis that had held her, dormant, for the last month.
The month had passed like a dream. Am-lei remembered her body itching all over, and her mouth overflowing with gooey silk-spittle. She remembered climbing up the walls of her room and gluing her feet to the ceiling as her squishy, green caterpillar skin split down the middle, shedding like a winter coat on a hot day, revealing the hardened chrysalis that had developed underneath, her new outer shell, as the rest of her melted and mutated inside. Continue reading “What the Eyes Covet and the Stomach Craves”
by Daniel Lowd & Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Kaleidotrope, October 2017
We are alone now, all of us.
I still remember what it was like to communicate, to share thoughts and visions, to think together. But now, the Judgment Virus makes my mind fuzzier with each passing hour. Soon I shall lose the ability to communicate with myself, and my own thoughts shall be as lost to me as the silent strangers that were once my friends. Continue reading “Techno Babel”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Electric Spec, November 2017
Joan opened the door to see her ex-fiancé slumped against the door frame. Leland was a lion of a man. Tall, blonde, preternaturally confident. She’d only seen him looking haggard and haunted like this once before, ten years ago, when his memory drugs had worn off. That had been the beginning of their end.
“Come inside,” she said. Continue reading “The Fish Kite”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Every Day Fiction, October 2015
Jenny felt inside her pocket. There was a small, smooth pebble that she’d been hiding since she was tiny. A multi-dimensional creature had appeared to her and begged her to keep it safe. If she dug her fingernail into it…
But she mustn’t. She mustn’t. She had to be strong.
See, it was the self-destruct button for the universe. Continue reading “Small Smooth Pebble”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in The Opposite of Memory: A Collection of Unforgettable Fiction, February 2024
When I was a kid, cryogenically freezing yourself was something crazy rich people with more money and desperation to live forever than actual common sense did to themselves to escape dying. It was a joke. And I can’t entirely get over seeing it that way.
And yet, here I am.
I put my daughter in charge of my finances years ago, and she assures me this is affordable and works. She’s good with numbers and research, like her dad was. I’ve always been the impulsive one. Continue reading “Heaven is the Best Moment of Your Life, Infinitely Remixed and Played on Loop”