Too Cuddly

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, May 2021

“”Okay, so you don’t want to be a giant teddy bear,” Maradia said. “What do you want to be?””

“Where did your plush exterior go?”

“I stripped it off.”  Anxlo7’s shiny metal interior gleamed, skeletal and mechanical, without the cinnamon brown teddy bear fur that usually covered her.

“But now you look… scary,” Maradia said to the robot she’d designed for Crossroads Station’s upcoming children’s carnival.  “You’ll scare the kids.” Continue reading “Too Cuddly”

Dry Skin

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Shark Week: An Ocean Anthology, June 2021

“I know that if I can hold out long enough, my skin will regain its natural levels of moisture. But I don’t think I can make it.”

My skin is drying out.  I can feel the withdrawal symptoms.  I want to go back home and run a bath, lace the water with sim-dopa66, and soak, soak, soak up the delicious chemical through my salamander skin.  Without the magic chemicals, I’m withering, drying up, shriveling like a water lily in the desert. Continue reading “Dry Skin”

Where Have All the Mousies Gone

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, December 2021; recipient of the Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction

“My grandmother died ten years ago when the cats invaded our world, landing their flying saucers on top of our cities, crushing our skyscrapers, and then chasing our people like we were nothing more than animated rag dolls.”

Does it matter what your last thoughts are when you die?  If you could choose them — they would be hope, wouldn’t they?  A bright future.  Waiting.  Ready.  And you’re going to miss it, but wouldn’t you rather die looking out on a shining expanse of golden sunlight, reflecting off ocean waves and filtering through leafy forests?  Cities full of smiling people, whiskers turned up in happiness.  Bare paws dancing on the concrete streets, and long tails tied together, turned like skipping ropes as adults, filled with laughter, act like mere kits. Continue reading “Where Have All the Mousies Gone”

In the Roots of the World Tree

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Typewriter Emergencies, November 2020

“…the fastest way home was to do what Queen Seltyne wanted. Then she would be sent home through the summoning circle, instead of slowly collecting enough life-leaves to summon her own portal, high in the world tree’s branches.”

Alia heard water dripping all through the city.  Every surface was damp, cold and slick.  She smelled mold in the air.  It came in great huffs as the wind moved.  The summoning circle would open around her, and suddenly, mold would be all she smelled.  She hated it.  She loved water, but not like this.  She longed for the open ocean of her home realm, but she’d been called here.  To Dornsair, the city beneath the hanging roots of the world tree.  The rotten bottom of the world. Continue reading “In the Roots of the World Tree”

Green Skin Deep

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in All Worlds Wayfarer, September 2020

 “The humans don’t understand us,” she said.  “We have to stick together.”

“We’re so much alike,” Trinth said, forming the sound of the words through her flute-like reeds.  She certainly didn’t look much like S’lisha, a reptilian alien.  Trinth looked more like a cosmic rosebush — she saw through flower-like eyes; spoke with flute-like reeds; and used grasping vines to walk and grab. Continue reading “Green Skin Deep”

Silicon Valley

Well, I made it 6.5 episodes into Silicon Valley before breaking down and crying about how hostile and sexist that tech environment is, and how that’s pretty much why I ended up an isolated stay-at-home parent instead of able to have a paying job that would suit me.

I started writing a thread about my experience trying to break into the tech world as a ridiculously smart college student attending one of the top tech colleges in the country… Continue reading “Silicon Valley”

Not Spider-Man and the Seven Angel Donors

“The boy’s parents couldn’t take time off of work to grieve for their sleeping princess boy, because they worked at Mal-Wart, and without the protections of a union, they couldn’t afford any time off.”

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, June 2022

This is not a story about Spider-Man, because Spider-Man is owned by a company.  This is a story about a young boy, on his first day of high school, who was bitten by a spider and fell asleep like a princess in a fairytale.  He fell asleep for the life of the author — which in this case would be his parents — plus seventy years. Continue reading “Not Spider-Man and the Seven Angel Donors”

Bird Box and A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place is overall a good, valuable movie, and I actually quite liked its sequel…

But I’m never gonna forgive it for its first ten minutes.

If I’d known what to expect from the beginning of A Quiet Place, I’d have probably skipped the movie entirely. Or maybe I’d have been prepared and thus able to forgive it. Continue reading “Bird Box and A Quiet Place”