Category: issue 6

Wanaina the butcher, a flabby man with an unimpressive face who’d built a profession in a town where you could throw a stone and hit three other butchers at once as the stone skidded to a fourth, struggles to heave a case of beef that had been delivered that morning. He carries and stops and carries and stops, all the while sweating buckets through his too-snug white coat. He remembers a time when the task was much easier, and he could sling the case onto his shoulder like a purse and walk a kilometer that way as if it was nothing. Now however, he sucks the air out of the room just by getting up too fast. And where is that damned robot girl anyway?

I first saw her walking to me with blood smeared down her arm from briar scratches and dark juice staining her mouth. Her smile was wide and she waved with both arms when she yelled, “I’m Mara!” across the field, like I was expecting her, as if I could ever have expected her. I was there early that morning, along with my brother, to clear the land for winter planting. Mara carried with her a basket full of Queen Anne’s lace, some gone to seed already, pulled up by the root. The sun glinted off the copper badge that marked her as a member of an Ark.

In the grey mist of dawn, the old sculptor stared up at me and I stared back. It seemed only yesterday that his filmy eyes were bright and blue, so much like his father and his great-grandfather before him whose tender hands had drawn me out of stone into the world. Each had passed to his children his knowledge of stonework, but of all their sundry creations, I was their trophy.

I rise from my spot by the window in Room 126 of the Sunny Glades Home for Health and Rehabilitation. The sun set an hour ago, so it’s no great loss. My front paws extend, claws out, before I shift my weight forward and kick out each hind leg. I don’t have the range of motion I once did — everything creaks and clicks now — but since the moment I selected my first feline host, I found there is nothing quite so satisfying as a good stretch.

The following emails were recovered from the personal computer of Phil Hastings, CEO of Updraft PR, in connection with the Silver Bullet train incident. They document one half of a chain of correspondence between Hastings and Updraft COO Stan Wheaton. Hastings’ computer was seized from his penthouse after he fled to the Cayman Islands. His current whereabouts are unknown. Wheaton surrendered peacefully to the authorities and is currently awaiting trial.

Don’t forget to Stymph at us using the hashtags #NextToNyx #TheMoreTheFerryer to win your next #PickUpStyx ride free!

Leffah’s name was on everyone’s lips, whittled in black and purple like a bruise. None of us Shapesayers can speak it; hence she can’t be unmade. She glides into our clearing and only comes here for two reasons: to whittle words into our bodies and demand narratives from us.

Welcome to Tele-Sympathic space, buddy. My handle is Bee_Balm_Bergamot. What’s yours?

A new &collab notification dinged just as Betto was about to close their Estate for the day. It was past 7pm. Betto had been at their desk since 5:30am for a meeting with the Middle East !Finance team. Once you received the notification, &collab was not something easily ignored. I.O.8 tracked notification deliveries. No way Betto could claim they hadn’t seen it.

In the bright rays of dawn, Princess Andelusia entered her small kitchen and donned her apron. The first order of the morning would come soon.