Author
Erica L. Satifka
You Have Contracted a Deadly Song Virus
I can tell by the distracted look in your eyes that you're barely paying attention to me, but that's perfectly fine. You're among friends here. Every man, woman, and occasional child who walks through those doors knows exactly what you're experiencing. There's no shame in being…
Bitter Medicine
The telltale heat signature lights up Foster's screen like a Roman candle. "That one," she says, pointing at the blocky warehouse. Two interns peel off and barrel down the hill to where the second vehicle is parked behind a stand of trees. A few minutes later, Foster hears a…
Attending Your Own Funeral: An Etiquette Guide
1. Dress properly. You owe it to yourself to look your best. Tori straightens her skirt and fluffs up her hair. She steps out of her Volvo and plants her high heel in a pile of muck. A forest, she thinks with a frown. Why would I have chosen to be buried in a forest? Did I turn…
Clarity
Today they turned the fog off. At the office, no work gets done. We walk around holding up paperclips and staplers, rotating them in front of our faces. We smile like Cheshire cats and skip down the halls. In the wake of clarity, we become schoolchildren. "It's like you're…
Dear Conqueror
I did everything you asked me to. When the leaders of the Three Remaining Nations League came over for coffee and trade agreements, I was the one who put the rat poison in their creamer, making sure to spoon in the exact proportion that you wrote down in your grandmother's…
Five Days to a Better You with Parallel Worlds (Executive Edition)
Monday: Slide a steak knife up your sleeve. Smile when you enter the office through the plate-glass window that faces the sidewalk. The glass will shatter, but it cannot harm you. Because you, my friend, are a Winner. Mandy the receptionist will press the alarm when you burst…
Days Like These
On days like these, when the boredom reaches down Park's throat like a debutante's finger, it's all he can do not to hop on his board and hoist a hearty double-middle-finger salute to this crummy slice of consensus reality called Home Sweet Home. He'd do it too, if he knew the…
Thirty-Six Interrogatories Propounded by the Human-Powered Plasma Bomb in the Moments Before Her Imminent Detonation
1. When you lifted my body into the belly of the great gray ship, did you know I was sentient? 2. Did you know that I felt pain? 3. Were you aware that my species is a vain one, and that such alterations as you placed upon my body were abhorrent to me? 4. Did you realize that,…
Super-Parents Last All Childhood Long
***Ed Note: Adult Language*** "They weren't really robots," Shora said. "Just the brain. I think everything else was grown in a vat." "A vat?" "You know, like a big container? Maybe it's not a vat. I don't know how they made them." Shora bit her lip. "So, anyway, that's why you…