Microfiction Pattern

I felt particularly racist that morning, which was making it difficult to concentrate. Any white male liberal knows the best thing he can do about his guilt is shut up about it. But it's still uncomfortable to have it laid out for you, the way the man talking in the next cubicle did for me. He was speaking in Chinese. It was bad enough that it sounded like total sing-song nonsense to me, which made me feel absurdly guilty, as if I should have learned Mandarin despite having had absolutely no... read more

It was a misunderstanding. When two species, intelligent though they may be, but evolved on different planets, meet for the first time, such misunderstandings are inevitable, but in this case the misunderstanding was particularly tragic. When the generation ship Xi Wang reached the edge of the Mu Arae system, the current captain was the youngest daughter of the original captain, and even then Zhen Juan Chiang was an old woman, in her 80s. Whenever she considered the potential landing of the Xi...

Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy stared directly into the camera. His lips seemed almost ridged, the way the wrinkles stood out around his lips. "I would like to report to the American public the unreserved success of Operation Castle in developing a magickal method for arresting the reactions of nuclear weapons, making us safe from further threats by Germany and their European and Asian allies. "I would especially like to thank the aid of the Micronesian people in contacting the ghosts of the...

He stood at attention at the entrance to his cubicle. His eyes were slightly shifted to the left so he could look at the brown daubs scattered on the cream-colored fabric of the cubicle wall and wonder what caused the stains. The blots showed the horizontal stipple pattern of the fabric quite well. The woman who came around the corner was short, like her hair, with an hourglass shape that would have been considered more attractive in the 1950s. Placing her in the 21st century was her blouse-like...

She was "hot", but not beautiful. If he'd been pressed to look for "negatives", he'd note she was short and stocky and her face and nose were unusually wide. But as he looked her up and down, all he noticed was her lush, curvy figure, the way the single stud in her nose and her pageboy haircut enhanced the fluid youthfulness of her oval face, and how her broad, toothful smile broadcasted her sheer vitality to anyone she met, like a pulsed lamplight of lasciviousness. That vitality was even more...

"My father always told me never to take a job with a deeble," she said. "But he never would explain why." The young man shrugged. "I know, Essie, but we need the money, and it's a Type Four contract. He can't cheat me on it. Even if he goes bankrupt, I get paid via government insurance." As she nodded, her wavy, black hair bobbed. "I'm just worried, is all, Ray." Ray gave her a hug, and she smiled, thin-lipped. Then he was out the door, noting that he would need to re-paint the doorjamb soon...