dreamszilla

After a major crash in his truck, a war-traumatised cowboy contemplates his mortality. Image generated with OpenAI The truck was careening out of control. No place to go but over the cliff now. He knew it, and in the same moment knew that he couldn't do a damned thing about it. What was at the bottom of that cliff? he wondered almost casually. Time stretched and the vision through the windshield slowed to a creep - like one of those slow-motion nature films where the jackrabbit's trying to outrun the coyote, he thought amusedly. Oh well. He'd ride 'er down to whatever awaited him at the bottom; ride 'er just like an old ringy bull bolting outta the chutes. Who the hell knows , he thought. Might even get up, dust my hat off, and walk away - just like old Wile E. Coyote did it in Looney Tunes! What the hell was at the bottom of that blasted cliff, anyway! A mental block stood, both legs firmly planted, between him and any recollection. Ju...

You are the shaman Pathana, and this story will possess you. Image generated with OpenAI This story is now shared with you. You possess it. You are you, and you are the many people reading this story, now, then, and later. You are all connected through this one story as you, the shaman Pathana, discover a small iron chest hidden deep beneath the defeated dragon's hoard of gold and gems. Iron shields most magics, and so you suspect this chest stores an eldritch treasure. You lift the box, and it is not heavy beyond the weight of its iron. You shake it and hear a single object inside sliding side to side, rather than the clanking of jewelry or other trinkets. The hinges of the small chest are molded directly from their surfaces. The hasp from the lid and the staple on the front base are similarly molded, and a solid seamless thick iron ring seals them together. You cast an unbinding spell and touch your wand to this iron ring. Your wand glows, the iron ring glows, b...

When mayor Earl Peck's pickleball park wrecks the quietude of Christine Slow's hometown, she hatches a risky plan for revenge. Image generated with OpenAI I can understand why they played at night. Last summer was the hottest on record. But for those of us who live nearby, it sounded like fireworks or gunfire. But things change, don't they, pickleballers? Blame it on Charlie Krapf in room 32, Esther Stone in room 26. Blame it on Wilfred Slow, who taught me, his grandniece, how to shoot. Uncle Wilfred was a southpaw tool and die maker who lost his left thumb and forefinger in a machine press. He fired his rifle with his middle finger. Everyone has one disadvantage or another. Uncle Wilfred overcame his. Summers, he and Aunt Betty spent weekends at their cabin on the Wabash. While Aunt Betty quilted and made blackberry pies, Uncle Wilfred fished and shot squirrels, rabbits, and the occasional deer. He stirred the resulting burgoo with his right hand. My moth...

Captain Drake's spaceship is about to implode after several asteroid collisions, and not all of the crew is going to get out alive. Image generated with OpenAI Smoke. Glass. Sirens. The impact - whatever it was - had sent Captain Drake tumbling across the command room like a ragdoll. He rolled off the cracked terminal and thudded onto the glass-strewn floor. Shock and pain gave way to instinct and adrenaline. He got smartly to his feet and spoke into the wrist of his suit: "Vitals?" "Negative critical damage detected, sir," the suit bleeped back. "Two minor fractures in lower right ribs." "I can live with that." Under his feet, Drake felt the ship shudder, as if with pain. The air fizzed red and orange with alerts. Something must have hit the Valiant. Something huge. "Captain!" the ship's lead researcher, Professor Désolé, leaned in the doorway. His light blue suit was caked with smoke, one lens of his sp...

Rolf Ebeling imagines a world where the air is poison and music is taboo. Image generated with OpenAI A year after the government mandated sealed enclosures for every house, Brad and Kelly moved into their new neighborhood. They pulled up to their "forever home" in a stale-smelling rental car in time to see the moving company haul the last of their belongings inside. Six-legged flatbed moving robots loaded with boxes scurried through a giant tube that stretched from the back of the moving truck to the front door airlock. A thick plexiglass divider separated Brad from Kelly. Kelly sat on her side of the car writing in a notebook and listening to an algorithmically generated music stream. Over the hiss of the car's oxygen system, Brad could hear muffled glitchy fragments of the algo track. The bleep bloop blap made Brad nervous. He wanted the movers to finish up, so he could get inside the house and shut the doors. He would wait impatiently until there were fe...