by submission | May 26, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Say you run into the creature from the Black Lagoon in a Costco parking lot on a bright sunny afternoon. The creature is just sitting by a massive tangle of blackberry surrounding a brackish drainage pond.
I mean, it’s still the scaly fish-faced, web-hand-and-toed biped meant to scare 1950s movie theater audiences, but it’s just sitting by the curb where your car is parked, looking like it might try to bum a few bucks off you.
Do you sprint screaming back into the store?
Or pull out two cans of Bodhisattva IPA from the case in your shopping cart and offer one to your down-and-out fellow creature?
Even twelve-year-old me knew that answer when I saw “Creature from the Black Lagoon” for the first time. The 1954 horror film was intended to foster fear of the primal unknown and its monstrous threats. Instead, it made me want to explore the densest jungles and dark backwaters to learn about life we had no idea existed.
You see, I don’t think the studio executives who signed off on that 3-D monster movie could ever have imagined it would help save our planet. But it did.
Because a kid like me was more interested in sharing a beer with a freak of nature than shooting it. Before the term was ever coined, I became a self-taught xenologist, searching for and studying life forms seemingly so alien that few believed they could or should arise on earth. I began to study extremophiles: creatures that find ways to thrive in the harshest environments: molten heat, arctic cold, toxic waste, dire radiation, etc.
And I found that I wasn’t alone. From microscopic one-celled protists like solarion arienae to towering 400 million-year-old prototaxite fungal fossils, more and more researchers were documenting thousands of new species each year in biology labs, in crusty museum collections, and in the field. I did my part. I went to earth’s far corners. I collected. I classified. I catalogued.
I collapsed.
It was too much for too few. I lost my breath in the frantic race to identify and preserve species before they were lost, before we could even understand what we were losing, when the total number of species and their potential benefits on our planet is poorly known.
So poorly known.
And I should know. Because, when I broke down, I had a breakthrough. I’d retreated to a little used research cabin deep in the North Cascades to hole up, hibernate and rejuvenate. As autumn turned to winter, as the cold and snow took hold, the routine of rugged living became restorative. Then it became a revelation.
One clear, crisp morning when foraging through an outer storage shed that had been half crushed by a fallen tree, I didn’t quite find the creature from the black lagoon sitting there (though maybe a very very distant relative) feasting on the detritus of the shed’s abundant plastic storage containers. It looked to be a kind of lichen, a colony of cyanobacteria I’d never encountered before.
And it was flourishing. Not just on the piles of plastic it was munching and mulching, but even old gear waterproofed with PFAS forever chemicals were on its diet. It didn’t take long for me and colleagues I shared the discovery with to understand the implications of a microorganism that could consume plastics and PFAS in almost any climate or condition. With a nod to the film that started me on my journey to know what was poorly known, I named the discovery obscurus lacuna.
It’s been a game changer for ridding our environment of persistent waste and toxins. And it’s made me hopeful. Hopeful that we’re finally learning how much richer our world is when our knowledge of it is not so poor.
by submission | May 24, 2026 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
What a time to be alive!
Count Nicolas, as he’d been known for a while now, exited the flitter the way he did everything: elegantly. A casual wave, and the vehicle gullwinged closed behind him, taking itself off to a loiterzone as he walked away. The great thing about modern technology, he mused, was that servants were unnecessary, but he still didn’t have to expend any effort on the little conveniences he appreciated – there were machines and automatons for everything!
Standing at the grand entrance to Founders’ Hall, he smiled in anticipation. Melissa Azikiwe, head of the City Council’s opposition bloc, would attend tonight’s Civic Ball, and he planned to use the occasion to take their relationship to the next level. This one was special; she made him feel young again – which given his actual age was quite the achievement. And she was quite unlike the vast majority of the herd, who were thoroughly predictable, and therefore boring.
But how the world had changed! Rejuvenation treatments were accessible to even the lower classes, and it was unlikely anyone would be curious about his persistently youthful good looks, however long they’d known him. And if the uncouth asked where he had his work done, he could simply maintain the discreet silence expected of a gentleman, and cut them dead socially should they cross paths again.
During his lifetime, body modifications had come in and out of fashion, too, and while he presently had no need to hide physical oddities like his long canines, he appreciated the enhancements available to a man of means. His emerald eye lenses, for example, were not only fashionable, but fed him information on the body temperatures of those nearby – handy when adaptive makeup could otherwise hide those sudden, telltale flushes.
She’d evidently been waiting for him, as he was hardly inside when stepped up and slipped her arm through his.
“My dear Melissa, are we going public?” he murmured.
“Absolutely,” she smiled back. And going on tiptoe to bring her mouth close to his ear, whispered, “I know what you are.”
He wasn’t often caught by surprise, but his step nearly faltered. “Do you?” he replied calmly.
“Oh Nicolas, yes. At university, I took a minor in anthropology, with a focus on Eastern European folklore. Just for fun. So I do know the signs.”
“I see.” They walked on through the fashionable crowd, making polite nods as they went. “And you aren’t afraid?” he asked softly.
“I know what I want. It’s why I’m a politician. And I very definitely want you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a very attractive man, and I’m sure you’re very skilled after all this time. Very animal of me, I know. But I don’t want you just to turn me on tonight, I want you to turn me. Imagine all that we could achieve together; we could this make this city ours. Forever.” Her eyes sparkled.
“You know you’re taking a risk. I could just turn on you.”
“But you won’t. Because we go well together. Because I can help you hide your true nature in a world where the State knows almost everything already, and will soon know more. Because I think you’d enjoy a new challenge. But most of all… because it would be fun!”
He looked down at her in astonishment, and she laughed prettily. “Am I wrong?”
“No. No you are not.” It really was a chance worth taking, so he smiled back, and with mutual understanding they stepped out to face the long, long future together. What a time to be alive, indeed.
by submission | May 23, 2026 | Story |
Author: Arkapravo Bhaumik
“It is said that eons ago when there were chariots flying in the sky and men could walk on the fabled red planet and travel well beyond Saturn. The advanced civilization had also devised truthsayers and named them Aaaiyee. These beings could foretell the future by encompassing everything from the past. They were the authority of knowledge and power of their world.”
The children were amazed about this tale that their wizened guru, the Great Maraber, started telling them this evening. Their glittering eyes could not contain their excitement, and one of them called out.
“What happened next, Great Maraber?”
“It is a tale of sorrow, my children, and it doesn’t end well. A tale of two lovers who wished to be together. They went to one such Aaaiyee, as was the social norm in those times. This Aaaiyee’s name was Ackerman. Ackerman spoke, and the truth was difficult to swallow: “These two should not get married, as their offspring have a difficult future.” The two lovers were heartbroken; the woman wept her heart out, and the man left the city, as everything in the city reminded him of his love.
“Offspring?…” A child asked.
“Their kids were not to have a good future.” Great Maraber replied.
“However, it is not the end of our story. After about a month, it was seen that not just Ackerman, but a number of such Aaaiyees, were predicting the same difficult future for the people getting married.”
Great Maraber paused for a moment.
“Soon, all Aaaiyes were predicting a sinister future across the world. This was a flaw of their civilization; they took the word of the Aaaiyess and did not think for themselves. A few months later some of the rebel scientists who worked without the help of Aaaiyees reported that a massive chunk from outer space was headed their way, and it would destroy everything.”
“The Aaaiyees knew of this, but they never told anyone?” A child asked.
“Oh yes, they kept it as a secret. They were fearful that such a panic would lead to civil war and social unrest. It is said that there were nine billion of them. Imagine nine billion people fighting for food and drinking water.
“So, what happened to them? Did they run away to other planets?” A child asked.
“Very few did; a great many died. It was a devastation. Great Maraber spoke in a sorrowful voice.
“So, the lesson here is to never try to undo the almighty. We are to live for today and should not attempt to seek the future. The past is well behind you, the future is a mystery, and the present is the gift.”
by submission | May 22, 2026 | Story |
Author: Shinya Kato
The grey cat Minuet was asleep on the windowsill.
Sunlight drifted through the glass and settled across her back. Outside, the campus lawn shimmered in the warm air.
“By the way,” Karim said.
“When the professor talks about his theory, he always raises his right hand and looks into the distance. You know — when he says, ‘The Sun and the ocean are connected.’”
Erena laughed softly.
“Oh, that gesture.”
She leaned back in her chair.
“I actually like it. For a moment, it feels as if the whole world connects inside his head.”
Karim frowned.
“Honestly, it looks like a teenager pretending to summon cosmic forces. He raises his hand and starts talking about auroras being ‘traces of energy convergence.’ The first time I saw it, I thought it was some ritual.”
Erena shrugged and lifted Minuet from the floor. The cat purred, and the faint projection of the magnetospheric structure field in the lab flickered slightly around them.
“Karim, you’re still young,” she said.
“You’ll understand that gesture someday.”
“There’s meaning in it?”
“Oh yes.”
She nodded toward the luminous mesh projected across the room.
“The professor isn’t looking at objects. He’s looking at connections.”
Karim glanced at the glowing threads floating in the air.
“You mean the environmental structure idea.”
“Yes.”
The projection showed a faint network spreading through the room, lines drifting like slow currents.
“In the old sense,” Erena said, “environment meant temperature, atmosphere, ocean currents. Physical things.”
She pointed to the display.
“But environment is really the structure formed by relationships between things — energy, matter, and fields.”
Karim tilted his head.
“Relationships between what?”
“Everything.”
She gestured toward the window.
“The Sun heats the ocean. The ocean moves the air. The air shapes the climate. Climate shapes life.”
She paused.
“And life shapes thought. Thought reshapes the environment again.”
Karim watched the shifting lines of light.
“So the environment isn’t just physical.”
“No.”
Erena looked outside.
“It includes minds.”
Karim laughed.
“That’s a big definition. By that logic, souls are part of the environment.”
Erena thought for a moment.
“Yes,” she said.
“They probably are.”
Karim shook his head.
“So one day, environmental science will study heaven.”
“Maybe it already does.”
Her voice sounded almost casual.
“If heaven isn’t a place but a phenomenon created by relationships between beings, then it may simply be another environmental structure.”
Karim blinked.
“The professor definitely says things like that.”
“Yes,” Erena said.
“With his right hand raised.”
They both laughed.
At the window, Minuet slowly opened her eyes.
Her ears twitched.
Something moved in the grass outside.
A mouse.
The cat lowered her body, muscles tightening.
Karim watched.
“You know,” he said, “cats catch mice as if they can see the future.”
“They predict a few seconds ahead,” Erena said.
“With their bodies.”
Karim considered this.
“So that’s also part of the structure?”
“In a sense.”
She nodded toward the lawn.
“The cat’s nervous system. The mouse’s movement. The vibration of the ground. The air. Gravity.”
“All of it forms one temporary structure.”
Karim nodded slowly.
“And when the cat jumps…”
“…that moment is a convergence.”
Minuet leapt.
The mouse darted away. The cat landed lightly on the grass, empty-pawed.
“Close,” Karim said.
But then he noticed something.
The projection in the lab had begun to shift.
The threads of light were bending westward.
Toward the ocean.
Karim frowned.
“Professor… this isn’t normal.”
Erena stood and looked at the display.
The structure field pulsed once, gently, like a wave passing through it.
“That shouldn’t happen yet,” she murmured.
“Yet?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she looked toward the distant sea.
“The professor has a strange hypothesis,” she said at last.
Karim waited.
“He thinks environmental structures sometimes reorganize before physical systems respond.”
Karim blinked.
“You mean before the atmosphere reacts?”
“Before the magnetic field shifts.”
They both looked at the display again.
The luminous threads drifted slowly, as if the world itself were leaning toward the horizon.
Karim turned toward the window.
The Sun was lowering over the ocean.
Suddenly, the chain seemed obvious.
The Sun warms the ocean.
The ocean moves the air.
The air bends the grass.
The grass moves the mouse.
The mouse moves the cat.
The cat moves his own gaze.
All of it is inside the same structure.
Without realizing it, Karim lifted his right hand slightly.
As if testing the flow of air.
Or listening for something.
Behind him, Erena spoke quietly.
“See?”
Karim turned.
She was smiling.
“I told you. One day, you’d raise your right hand.”
Karim sighed.
“…This is bad.”
“Why?”
He looked back toward the sea.
“For a second,” he said,
“I think I understood the professor.”
Outside, Minuet wandered slowly through the grass again.
The structure of the world continued to shift.
Sun. Ocean. Air. Life. Thought.
Everything connected through patterns no one could quite see.
The sky above the campus was quiet.
Ordinary.
Still.
The Earth’s magnetic field had not yet begun to move.
The aurora had not yet appeared above New York.
That would happen a little later.
But something in the structure of the world had already begun to move —
long before physics noticed.
by submission | May 21, 2026 | Story |
Author: Frank T. Sikora
My father’s favorite test subject, a 57-pound bio-genetically altered male piglet, Wilboar, AKA Willie, soars over the storage shed. Its broad wings rhythmically flutter; its eyes dart up and down, left and right. A GoPro camera with AI-level stabilization lenses sits on Willie’s sleek head. I track Willie from the landing site, holding my breath in anticipation of another disaster, my weak legs barely holding steady. Wille, though, is unaffected by my anxiety. He squeals with delight.
My mother and brother, Finn, also follow, riding in the three-wheeler, ignoring the stream of piglet poop trailing behind the silly beast, ready to transport him back to the lab. Microsensors in Willie’s tissues, organs, muscles, and bloodstream allow Father access to multiple physiological data points; the quantum processor calculates probabilities, certainties, and unknowns, all in real time. After one more circle around the shed, Willie descends. Father’s joyful whoops pour through our headsets.
Until today, Willie never traveled more than 150 meters and only a few meters off the ground, tumbling like an overstuffed anti-aerodynamic sausage. Thankfully, mother insists on proper protective ware including a helmet and cup. Yes. I said that. Got to keep his genetic line intact. Can’t start over. Too costly.
Willie is the fifth in line of Father’s flight-engineered miniature swine, having previously experimented on other mammals. Willie’s bones are hollow like a bird’s. His high metabolism provides sufficient fuel for flight. Given their internal organs resemble ours, piglets are Father’s second experimental choice.
After Willie lands, I limp over and inject Willie with a small dose of Propofol. Once sedated, we will wheel him into Father’s lab, which sits behind the house and adjacent to the barn. We lift carefully, mindful of his wings, which span three meters across, plus his one-meter tail feathers.
In the lab, Father will examine Willie before placing him into his personal pen. If we kept Willie with the other hogs, they would tear him apart, jealous of his ability or just because he is different. So human are the swine: intolerant and cruel.
Inside, we pass a clinical history of Father’s failures. Failed experiments float in formaldehyde tanks — physical reminders of Father’s hubris: Poor creatures, bastardized and brutalized with eyes too human, and for what? Glory? Renown? It was Mother who insisted we keep them, hidden from the world but not from us.
I want to burn them all.
Father greets us, smiling and clapping. “Good work, my loves. Wonderful.”
It’s good to see Father happy. He comes over and wraps me up, “Big hug, my little Nova,” he says. I miss his hugs. Most days, he can’t even look at me.
“It’s guilt,” Mom said once. “He can’t forgive himself.”
“Can you forgive him?”
“No.”
It must be awful to live with a man you admire and yet loathe. I don’t loathe Father. He wants to change the world. He dreams of flight for all. I understand.
Mostly.
Me? I represent all that is good and bad about Father. He wants to fix me, but Mom insists that I remain as I am. No surgery. No alterations. A harsh lesson.
I wish I could go to school like Finn. I wish I didn’t have to hide behind an online AI persona. Father thought he could design a wonder child — a marvel for the world to behold.
Father kisses my forehead. “I admire you, so. You have your mother’s strength and grace.”
I know Father loves me. I wish I loved myself.
Someday.
I smile back, holding my tears at bay. I spread my useless wings and bow.
