Tag: AI art

The Christmas Tree Barn

by Mary E. Lowd

First published in Nature Futures, December 2021, by Springer Nature

“Our trees can recognize faces and everything. They’re approximately as smart as Labrador Retrievers.”

The concrete floor of the basement was freezing cold right through Becca’s socks, and the air smelled moldy.  She hadn’t properly aired the basement out since it had flooded most of a year ago, last spring.  Becca yanked on the corner of the old, beat-up cardboard box with the robotic Christmas tree in it, and the box scraped across the floor as it pulled out from under the tool shelves. Continue reading “The Christmas Tree Barn”

The Dreaming Arm

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original, December 2022

“The dreaming arm had doomed them all, urging them to spend energy they didn’t have to spare…”

One arm sagged.  Seven arms writhed and worked, puckering their sucker discs and pulling the joint-being they composed across the slippery rocks.  The gaspingly dry, slippery rocks.  But the sagging arm — as little as it helped with pulling, and as much as it acted like a dead weight needing to be pulled — had dreamed about crossing the rocks.  It had dreamed of wonders on the other side.  And seven other arms had listened to those dreams.  Been compelled by those dreams, drawn to explore the rocks at the top edge of the ocean. Continue reading “The Dreaming Arm”

Toaster Dragon

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Lorelei Signal, July 2021

“If Tzora couldn’t fly through the deep blue sky with her sisters, then she wanted no sight of their taunting flips and barrel rolls among the puffy clotted-cream clouds above.”

Smoke rose from Tzora’s flared nostrils.  Gray and pungent and entirely lacking in flame.  Not a single spark.  Not enough heat to rewarm a cold dinner roll, let alone toast her doughy, unbaked wings.  Tzora huffed in disappointment, hoping her frustration would translate into a glowing ember inside her scaly nose.  But no luck.  She was still too young to breathe fire like her older sisters.  And that meant she was still too young to fly.  No one else would toast her wings for her.

Too young to toast, too young to fly.  That’s what every Breadragon always said. Continue reading “Toaster Dragon”

Dark Father

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Theme of Absence, June 2020

“As if in a dream, I activate my robotic arm. The false skin boils away, and with a musical hum that I had hoped to never hear, the laser coils power up.”

I didn’t cry. I didn’t flinch. I barely reacted at all.

Even the soldiers on the bridge — trained clones, grown in vats, raised to be soldiers — exclaimed in horror and shock. How could anyone order the destruction of an entire planet?

But Erith Danaya is more than a warlord to me. He is my father. Not the absent kind. He didn’t abandon me and my mother, though every day I wish he had. Continue reading “Dark Father”

Dealership with the Devil

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Theme of Absence, January 2016

“Go as fast as you like, and you’ll never hit anything, never get pulled over.”

The salesman, Devin, shows me another junker — dented fender, bald tires, and a crack in the windshield.

“These cars look like death traps,” I say.  “You don’t seriously expect anyone to buy them?”

Devin laughs, a hollow, plastic sound.  “They’re all bargains!”  He looks over his shoulder, back at the dealership building with a half-burned out neon sign, Bob Reaper’s Autos, over a window with venetian blinds.  A gaunt man, probably Bob himself at a place this small, stares at us through the blinds. Continue reading “Dealership with the Devil”

The Arsenal of Obsolescence

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Voice of Dog, June 2021

“Clearly, these gerbils weren’t as primitive as they looked, and she needed to trust them. She needed to trust someone.”

Lieutenant Vonn crashed through the undergrowth of the wild alien rainforest.  The uplifted yellow Labrador felt like the branches were grabbing at her, tearing at her Tri-Galactic Navy uniform.  She hated this planet.  Usually, she liked planets.  Ground missions were her favorite — getting off the stuffy, artificial halls of the starship Initiative, and setting paw to dirt.  She lived for that stuff — fresh air, walking about in the sunshine!  But right now, all she could think about was Commander Wilker and Consul Tor, stuck in a hole in the ground — a deep, dark ditch; a trap lined with primitive pointed sticks that kept her from climbing safely down after them. Continue reading “The Arsenal of Obsolescence”

The Words in Frosting

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, July 2019

“…it wasn’t her place to judge. It was her place to bake cakes and to kick sad androids out of her bakery if they didn’t shape up and start buying some cake…”

Gary was a humanoid android, programmed to experience the complete range of human emotions.  Right now, he was sad.  His broad shoulders slouched, and his head hung, framing his handsome face with his beautiful raven hair.  He had been designed to be beautiful.

Chirri wasn’t sure what to do with this sad android who’d shown up in her bakery, so she served him a piece of cake on the house.  The felinid-alien slid a gold-embossed ceramic plate in front of Gary, and the android stared disconsolately at the piece of fudgy caramel cake on it for several seconds — a very long time for an android — before saying, “I don’t eat.” Continue reading “The Words in Frosting”

A Pearl for Amelie

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Kaleidotrope, September 2016

“… I couldn’t use her work anymore. She wasn’t performing serious research. She was making up tales of unicorns.”

The letter was sealed and stamped but had never been sent.  Amelie almost passed it over entirely while going through her aunt’s old boxes of science articles and research notes.  It was addressed to a professor at the University of Crosshatch, Maryland.  Amelie didn’t think her aunt had ever worked there, but Aunt Jill had traveled a lot.  She’d studied giraffes in Africa and wild horses in the Gobi Desert.  She’d worked her way across Europe studying the few remaining bison, all kept in zoos.  It seemed like there was nowhere Aunt Jill hadn’t been, so Amelie couldn’t be sure. Continue reading “A Pearl for Amelie”

Anger is a Porcupine, Sadness is a Fish

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Electric Spec, Vol.13, Issue 1, February 2018

“If Iassandra’s words could change Dara into a porcupine of anger, a fish of sadness, then Dara would cast her own spell of words.”

The child with a malformed arm, bent like a bird’s folded wing, had passed through Troway Village a year ago.  Now Dara was a traveler like he had been.  Would her old village welcome her?  A prodigal daughter returned?  Or would she be hurried along like the child and his parents had been?

Dara and Iassandra had been the town’s truth-tellers together back then.  When the villagers had come to them, not knowing what to think of the strange child traveling through their village, Dara had sung a song of gods’ blessings, how they bent the unborn child’s arm, marking him and setting him apart as he grew.  She sang that he should be welcomed and taken in, a child touched by a god. Continue reading “Anger is a Porcupine, Sadness is a Fish”

Waking Up in the Genie Shop

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, January 2018

“You came to us as a female amphibioid and paid us to change you into a male canid. You’re a Heffen now, one of the most common species here on Crossroads Station.”

Sloanee opened her eyes and felt her heart racing.  What was she doing?  Lying down?  She was on the lam.  She should be running or hiding.  Nowhere was safe from the royal guards pursuing her.  Queen Doripauli and her army of photosynthetic tumbleweed-like aliens would stop at nothing to catch and punish the amphibioid who had betrayed them.

Betrayed her. Continue reading “Waking Up in the Genie Shop”