Small Smooth Pebble

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”

Heaven is the Best Moment of Your Life, Infinitely Remixed and Played on Loop

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Opposite of Memory: A Collection of Unforgettable Fiction, February 2024

“…while you’re frozen, we’ll keep your brain stimulated, causing it to form an endless dream centered on those seed memories.”

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”

Two Roads Diverge

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Opposite of Memory: A Collection of Unforgettable Fiction, February 2024

“People use the hypercrystals for all sorts of reasons, of course. Not just big decisions, like this one.”

Sometimes two roads diverge in a wood, and you can never know what would have happened if you’d taken the other path.  Or so I’m told.  It hasn’t been that way since before I was born.

Like my mother before me, I lay my hand on the hypercrystal when it’s time to decide what I want to do with my life — whether I want to have a child and become a mother or… not. Continue reading “Two Roads Diverge”