Ayla pushed the kitchen door open with her hip, balancing two large trays of food on either hand. She weaved in and out of the tables, putting down plates of sandwiches, steaming bowls of soup, and mugs of coffee as she went. Most of the faces were familiar, local friends who came into the “Dish for Trish” Diner regularly, others had the distinct tourist look.

One of the diners stood out. A boy about Ayla’s age, 21, with shockingly orange hair that was cut raggedly and uneven. He wore a long, black coat, a faded tshirt and ripped jeans. He sat with his shoulders hunched, eyeing the room as though it could be secretly full of poisonous frogs.

Discarding the now empty trays, Ayla went over to the boy. “Good afternoon, how are you?” She said with a smile, flipping her curly blond hair out of her face with a quick flick of her chin.

“Fine.” the boy said, looking like he’d just remembered where he was, “I’ll have a number six. No onions. Pepsi.”

“Sounds good, anything else?” Ayla jotted down his order, then tucked the pencil back behind her ear. As she did so, the boys eyes fastened on her wrist.

He stared at her, not answering her question. Ayla shifted uneasily. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the flash fiction piece that I wrote for Helicon West and performed last week. It’s a science fiction story, this particular scene is taken from the plot of a television series I am working on writing.

Humans have a terrible habit of ignoring things they don’t like. Even when things should be left as they are, we humans can’t resist. I was no different. I thought I was smarter than the natural order of things.

It started- well, that’s complicated. See, time has become difficult ever since our small group of Quantum Physics students discovered how to travel through it.

For this, we’ll say it started on that first Tuesday in October, when we went back to that day. I didn’t know we had come out on that day. Not at first.

As we headed for city hall, I glanced around, a sense of deja vu tingling down my spine. Reaching the corner, I stopped dead. The street signs indicated we were on that street; Marigold Lane.

As the others ascended the marble steps, I quietly separated and made my way along the street. I looked towards the bookstore and saw that I was right. I knew this town, I knew this street. I knew this day. The old, beige station wagon was parked on the curb. Read the rest of this entry »

The planet’s surface reflected light at odd angles, causing Jim to squint, trying to get a good measure of the terrain. The heat from the sun was intense, and the atmosphere looked rusty.  Jim climbed off of the exit ramp of the starship, the sound of scraping metal coming from beneath his feet.

Jim exhaled slowly. It was not what he had expected, but he couldn’t yet tell if it was worse.  Glancing back at the ships, a sad, battered remnant of their original Refugee Fleet, he knew it would have to do.  He had managed to get those ships off the ground once, but it would be foolhardy to try again, if only for the fact that every adult they had needed serious medical attention that they couldn’t give while manning a ship hurdling through space.

The planet they had landed on had been the only one available. The only other planets near enough that they could have made the trip were allied with the StelTer Alliance that had driven Jim’s people, the Litore, to flight in the first place.  This small, inconsequential planet had been a dumping ground for the Industrials for years. Jim wasn’t sure how many years, but wagered if he dug deep enough, he could figure it out by dating the pieces of tech that made up the landscape. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a scene from a story I wrote with a friend a while ago. This scene is it’s own standalone, completely in medias res.

Tanya sat cross legged on the bed, her head bowed. Her bangs hung in front of her face. The purple streak was long gone, and had been replaced by red only on the tips of her hair. She couldn’t remember if she had dyed it or if that had been the work of the Program. She had never wanted red before, it reminded her too much of blood,  but now….well, now, she figured, that association was fitting.

Her fingers traced the cold metal that lie on the bed in front of her. It’s shape was familiar now, and no longer sent the same shudder of revulsion through her that it once had. She closed her eyes as her fingers brushed the trigger.

Images invaded her mind. Her father, cuffed to the metal chair, gagged, glaring. A boy, scared but deadly, young but hardened. Faces she hadn’t had time to study, faces she had chosen not to study. Blood. Death. All faces of her victims. People she had killed for the Program.

She opened her eyes with a gasp, tears threatening to emerge from her eyes. She blinked to fight them off, but that brought on a fresh round of memories.  Tidas, telling her not to kill him.  The emptiness and apathy that had consumed her when she saw his face. She had almost pulled the trigger then.

“Tanya?” His voice accompanied a soft knock on the doorframe. Tanya did not look up. Read the rest of this entry »