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For the god Brahma the Creator, the act of Creation was never a one-and-done affair. He understood that when releasing an unpredictable element like humanity in a newly designed world, it would take some cycles to work out the kinks. That was why Brahma believed in an iterative process: four Yugas to chart the inception, progress, decline, and collapse of the world under humanity, an honest post-mortem, followed by a new version of Creation, with an updated design informed by hard data.

ve been covering the night shift lately. It just makes sense. Bernie has kids and Trevor has early morning classes over at the state college in Weatherly. At our last staff meeting, Andy (our manager) kinda-sorta indicated that I should step up and cover for the other two. He likes to see his employees striving towards something—family, career, whatever—and encourages us to support each other in those ventures. It’s not like grocery store clerking is anybody’s life ambition. Except maybe for me.

You’ll believe the dead are finally contacting you one week after you move from the countryside to São Paulo, two weeks after you turn 30. And much like both the moving and the birthday, the experience will be kind of bittersweet.

“This is mostly your fault,” Baozi said as he bandaged the still-bleeding forehead of the stranger propped against the tree. “You jumped out at me from the trees without so much as a word of warning. Nearly scared me to death. Instead of stabbing you, I only punched you lightly.”

“How many times have I had the misfortune to die?” Juliet falls into her chair with a dramatic toss of her head. “As many times as the rest of us.” Desdemona rolls her eyes.

Your Esteemed Majesty Samrat Maurya, All the suns in all the worlds must hide their glow, so bright may the Empire shine. With these words, I offer you peace and great health.

Your emperor is dying. Your emperor is dying, and so you drape garlands of lavender and moonlight across the windowsills, spit the mulched flesh of a nara fruit gently into his bruised-blue-waiting lips. Smooth a wet cloth over his forehead as he tosses beside you in bed, pale as the ice of the Seething Sea.

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 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.

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?