SF Drabble #14 “Free Ascent”

I was in Yosemite a few summers ago with a couple friends from college. We happened to arrive at the same time as a party of Udibe with their U.N. guide and bodyguards: my first real life encounter with aliens.

Seems they wanted to climb El Capitan. We were scheduled to make our attempt that weekend, but after some negotiating we gave up our spot, and up went the Udibe. It took them about 15 minutes total. Their wide, eight fingered hands are apparently very good at grasping rock, and they explained that they’re used to about twice the gravity.

SF Drabble #13 “Revelations”

Just after my son was born I took him to a Ginhah fortune teller. Human palmistry is fake, of course, but the Ginhah clearly know things. She took one look at one of my son’s hands and balked, wouldn’t give me a reading. I offered to pay double, but she refused. I’m almost certain she was afraid of him, of my son.

I haven’t told my husband about it. I tried to take the baby to a different Ginhah fortune teller, but they’re all closed, gone offworld, something about a religious holiday. There’s nothing marked on the calendar though, oddly.

Drabble “Historically Speaking, Not Good With Tools”

When I was seven, my older brother and I got bunk beds for Christmas. My dad put them together. He also put together the bookshelves I got at ten, and the computer desk that Aunt Jean gave me that I used all through high school.

Freshman year, I had an entertainment center my roommate assembled for me, paid in beer. Sarah, my girlfriend senior year, bought us a rocking chair she put together while I was at class.

A couple years later when Sarah got pregnant I bought a bassinet. I built that myself while she rocked in the chair.

SF Drabble #12 “First Impressions”

The ship was immense, an inverted bowl shape with a dozen landing struts a hundred feet tall, and it set down astride the highway out of Dakar. Which was an inconvenience, at least until the UN decided it was safe to reopen the road. Then everyone with a car took it upon themselves to drive back and forth under the thing taking camera phone video. There were a lot of accidents.

Later, when they learned to speak our language, we asked why they landed there. They said that they considered landing in Central Park, but it just seemed so cliche.

Zombie Drabble #42 “The Man From Apt. 812”

“Thank you…”

He just shrugged. The leather jacket made a creaking sound as his shoulders moved. He didn’t look up, he was concentrating intently on pissing against the brick wall.

“No, I mean it. That thing would’ve gotten me.”

“Woulda ‘gotten’ you? They’re zombies, this ain’t touch football, pal. It woulda eaten you. And you’re welcome. Now less noise, right?”

“Right, okay.” I whispered it. He zipped up, and I handed the shotgun back.

“Stay on me. I mean on me. We need to find a truck. With gas.”

I’d never even spoken to him in the elevator before today.

Zombie Drabble #41 “Molar 47”

I was stupid. I was so afraid of the dentist. Drills, and not just the pain, either: the noise too. The shots we won’t even talk about. Hey, you brush your teeth every day, you floss once and a while, use Listerine, you’re ahead of the game, right?

Now, I would give anything to find a living dentist with electricity for his drill and a supply of novocaine. The pain is almost unbearable. There’s a guy in camp who says he’ll pull the tooth for me. He has pliers.

I’m not there yet. But, probably, soon. That or a bullet.