Author
Mary Soon Lee
Dragons and Drabbles
They say dragons despise drabbles, deeming a hundred words a derisory allotment to tell any tale worth the telling. Hardly surprising. You have the advantage of time. Centuries upon centuries, coiled on the cold coin of your hoards. We dragonhunters don't have time to waste. You…
Rocking Chair
Don't get up, little sister. Please. Please don't stop rocking. I can only talk by the creaks. That's part of the curse. What curse? The one from our nurserymaid, silly. The new one with funny pink hair. I could've been a frog, if I hadn't stomped my foot when she said she'd…
Tea and Bamboo
My father has become panda, my mother elephant. They are altogether out of place in my living room, for all my mother tries to look at ease, gripping a tea bowl in her trunk. It's their third visit since they were uploaded. "Would you care for mung bean cake or more bamboo?" I…
On the Disappearance of Dragons
There are numerous conflicting theories concerning the disappearance of dragons. These range from the drab (dragons never existed in the first place), to the staggeringly improbable (they constructed a time machine), to the romantic (the many variant explanations that dragons…
Paw and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single human in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a cat. However little known the feelings of views of such a human may be on their first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the feline…
Why I Threw an Apple
The simplistic answer is because I was, rightly, irritated that they didn't invite me to the wedding. Hence I threw the golden apple to cause trouble. And kindly note my superlative success. The resulting squabble between those three stuck-up bitches, Athena, Aphrodite, and…
Preface to "Monster Hunter"
I was five years old when I met the monster under my bed. First I heard a muffled shuffling, like the noise the neighbor's dog made turning in a tight tail-chasing circle before he settled down for a nap. But we didn't have a dog. I clutched my stuffed rabbit, Sister Resistance,…
In My Tower
Don't believe the songs you've heard. Don't think I'm languishing in this stone tower, combing my golden tresses, waiting for a prince to come. They came. Three princes in all. The first prince rode up when I was twelve years old, young enough that I still yearned for the world…
Just Desserts
First Contact wasn't like any of the scenarios I'd ever read. I'd spent twenty years out in the belt and beyond, trying to persuade Texans to negotiate with Muscovites, Oligarchists to listen to Chinese Technocrats, the Separatists to even acknowledge the existence of the…
Instructions for Time Travelers
0. Memorize the continuum index: Genghis-Mao-Curie-8AZ7. 1. Observe, but do not intervene. The path to dystopia is paved with good intentions. Never exit the time machine while in the past. Never communicate with prehodiernians. 2. Set left-hand dial to desired era. Set…
Charmed
********Editor's Note: Mature Themes, Disturbing Story********** The cruelest thing Cinderella's stepmother ever did was offer to take her to the ball. Cinderella, fifteen and foolish, mistaking cruelty for kindness, threw her arms around her stepmother's bony figure. "Thank…
Let's Pretend
Let's pretend this is about two other people. Call them Ada and Jane. Ada was an overweight, sarcastic software engineer, fed up with people assuming that because she was black she must have dodged drug-dealers on the way to school. Jane waited tables in a Thai restaurant, the…
A Retrospective on the Third Millennium
Exhibit 1: Homo Sapiens. In the long-ago, humans shared the same basic shape and lived in the same basic place. They had four limbs, two eyes that could distinguish neither ultraviolet nor infrared, one orifice where food entered, two where it exited, and they were all confined…
Keeping House
In a well-run household, such matters as laundry and dusting and the scouring of pots need not concern the mistress of the establishment. Discarded silk robes will discreetly wriggle their way to the washing tub. Each morning after breakfast, the soap will jump in, and the…
Fantasy Nights
Knight I was barely fourteen, the eighth of the eleven princes my father had amassed between his five wives. When Sir L invited me to view his butterfly collection, I naively believed I'd spend the evening admiring swallowtails and fritillaries. Instead I was taken aback (and in…
Dwarf Varieties
Mountain dwarf. Hardy, stout, subterranean stock. Male specimens swarthy, bearded; females elusive or hard to distinguish from the males. Famed for axe-wielding miners and warrior-smiths. Disposition: stalwart, stubborn, steadfast. Frequently hoard treasure. Note: the dwarven…