An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
My kid was trying to get up the courage to ask their teacher for help with something, so I asked Midjourney to “imagine courage,” so I could send them some courage. This is what I got:
The kid’s teacher was busy with another student, so I asked Midjourney to “imagine patience,” so I could send some patience along to them as well. Continue reading “Midjourney Illustrates Feelings”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, August 2017
Roscoe’s long ears would not stand tall, no matter how he strained to hold them up. His reflection in the empty viewscreen looked haggard and scared, but he’d stared at it for long enough trying to compose himself. He would never be composed. He had to proceed anyway.
With a nervous twitch of his nose, Roscoe opened a communication channel to the planet below, and moments later, a familiar face filled the viewscreen: his cousin Chilchi. Her ears stood tall. Continue reading “Inalienable Rights”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, August 2017
Chorif held out her upper wing, spreading her feathers to admire the rings and bracelets and pins she’d fastened among her pinions. Her wing glittered with gems from the ice asteroids around Tau Ceti and glowed with Erdidaniian opals. She looked like a queen, and she clacked her hooked beak happily.
All of the salvage crews based out of Crossroads Station had been searching for the lost High Royal Quejon’s vessel for months, but only Chorif had thought to seek out the uplifted lapine servant who’d run away from the Quejon and enlist his services. Continue reading “Principles Over Profit”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2017
The little lapine aliens hopped into the bar, one after the other, noses twitching and long ears swiveling. Narchi had never seen their species in the All Alien Cafe before, and all of a sudden, here were a dozen.
Narchi’s heavy hunched shoulders straightened a little at the sight of the group of them. There was something comforting about how they moved together, leaning in to whisper one to the other, all a part of a little herd. Continue reading “Crescent Horns and Tall ears”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Kaleidotrope, January 2020
Sleek and silver, your spaceship sliced through the darkness of space. Cold, mechanical, everything a rocket needed to be to survive the harshness of vacuum and background radiation and simply the crushing depression of being totally isolated in the middle of a vast nothingness.
But inside.
Yes inside, a bubble of warmth and life support. Oxygen, nitrogen, puffy gases expanding out to fill the mechanical shell. All those good ingredients that let humans breathe. And dogs breathe. And cats breathe. Continue reading “Necessary as a Rose”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2020
The paper cone I’d taped together from an old piece of algebra homework slipped off the pony’s forehead and landed in the clover at her hooved feet. Mallory laughed derisively and said, “What were you trying to do? Play unicorn?”
The pony, Tulip, turned her head away, abashed, but she didn’t say anything. I couldn’t believe Mallory was lucky enough — and rich enough — to be given a real Smart Pony for her birthday, and still stupid enough to treat that pony like trash. Continue reading “Paper Horn”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2018
Clori, a koala-like woman, twisted wires about the pink and white agate in her paws, bending the delicate silver strands carefully with her claws. When she was done, the heart-shaped stone’s wavy lines were cradled in a net of silver that she hung from the mosaic of agates — each one collected by one of her adopted children. Continue reading “The Pink Agate”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2018
Anno watched her mother tuck in each of her siblings to their differently shaped beds. Lut folded his feathered wings into his nest-bed; T’reska stretched out her scaly-green back on her heated bed of rocks; and Iko cradled her primatoid body, swinging lightly, in her hammock. And that was just in this room. The younger ones had been put to bed in their own room an hour ago. Continue reading “The Oldest One”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, June 2017
Chorif’s round feathered face stared down at the contents of the cryo-pod, and her wide copper eyes narrowed. She had been expecting to find valuable cargo for salvage; instead, all she saw was a squirmy green-fleshed larva, about the length of Chorif’s upper wing.
“Anything in there?” Amy called out. She was another space-wreck scavenger. Continue reading “One Alien’s Wreckage”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, April 2020
Edgar Allen was a grumpy cat. He had the sleek black fur you’d expect from a cat named Edgar Allen, but his whiskers shone like slivers of moonlight.
He wasn’t grumpy about his black fur or his shining whiskers. When he thought about them, he was rightly proud to be such a fine feline specimen. Humans who saw him lounging on the warm pavement on the street in front of the house where he lived invariably called out to him, begging for a chance to pet him. He rarely obliged. Though he would sometimes flirt with younger children, trying to lure them into dashing off of the sidewalk in hopes of reaching him. He never let them reach him. But he did enjoy listening to them get scolded by their parents. “Stay out of the street! It’s dangerous!” Continue reading “The Fog Comes On Little Cat Feet”