Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 3: Amelia

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Amelia wondered idly if the octopus changed his patterning in purposeful ways to bluff the other players into thinking he had good or poor hands.”

The Lucky Boomerang squatted on the tarmac like a half-melted scramball.  The name of the spaceship had been hotly contested for a few months while it was being built — a lot of dogs and cats had wanted to name it The Lucky Frisbee for the flying disc-shaped toys, because deep in the cultural consciousness of the Uplifted States, spaceships were still expected to be flying saucers.  Even though they never were.  Even The Lucky Boomerang was only vaguely disc-shaped, and that was largely because the committee who had approved the hull design had added non-functional wings to either side.  For aesthetic reasons. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 3: Amelia”

Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 2: Sequoia

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1 or skip ahead.

“Sequoia had been thinking about moving from Earth up to one of the otter space stations for some time, to be closer to the stars.”

Sequoia collected stars like other squirrels collected acorns.  Not really.  Because squirrels didn’t collect acorns anymore, except for kits on the playground.  And no matter how much Sequoia wanted to gather all the stars in the sky — all the red giants and blue dwarfs; all the pretty yellow and orange ones — up into a pile and bury them deep inside a black hole where they would be hers, all hers and only hers forever and forever, you just can’t do that with stars. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 2: Sequoia”

Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 1: Yvette

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer to read in e-book or paperback form, learn more here.  Or if you want, jump back to book one or return to the end of book three.

“Yvette had never won first place at a competition — second sometimes, third often. Never first.”

The mouse whirled through the air, paws hitting the gym mat in rhythm as she flipped:  front paws, back paws, front paws.  Head over tail.  Her long tail streamed behind her, making fancy curlicues in the wake of her carefully practiced routine.  Finally, Yvette pirouetted up to the high bar, spun around it and launched even higher into the air — nearly flying.

When she came down, the mouse landed — perfectly — in the center of the mat, all four paws on the ground.  She drew a deep breath, and then rose up, standing just long enough to smile at the crowd, before taking her bow. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 1: Yvette”

Stranger Than a Swan

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in All Worlds Wayfarer, Issue XII, September 2022

“The tentacled creature had become, in an instant, the measure by which she would judge the rest of the world, for the rest of her life.”

Eggshell cracked, and the dome of the world broke away, showing a whole other world, infinitely larger and more complicated, beyond the confines of the duckling’s natal home.  It was time to lift her head — breaking the eggshell further, widening the crack in it — and then spread her wings, shaking out the scraggly, wet feathers plastered to her dimpled skin, letting them begin to dry into soft, yellow down. Continue reading “Stranger Than a Swan”

Octopus Ex Machina

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in ROAR 11, July 2022

“How did you do this?” She was sure, deep under her fur, that the octopus was behind the snow. “And why?”

The thing that surprised Lora most about being an otter was that her face was round, and her nose was round.  Everyone thinks of otters as long.  With their sinuous spines, like weasels and ferrets, they’re big ol’ fuzzy noodles.  But when Lora looked at her face — round.  So round.

When Lora had been a cat, her face had been full of corners and edges; triangular ears, articulated muzzle; even the shape of her eyes had been filled with crescents and sharpness.  Continue reading “Octopus Ex Machina”