Author
Wendy Nikel
Speaking for Those With Obsidian Tongues
Time passes slowly for those made of stone. Each day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day. At least that's what they tell us. Donal rushes into the tent where I'm eating cold oats and slides his tablet across my makeshift-table crate. "Just got the…
Knitting Weather
"First Phoenix. Then Albuquerque. Grand Canyon. Flagstaff. Each time those fools switch on a new weather regulator, the storms here grow worse. Winds forced where they'd never gone before, rain flooding rocky earth. Sure, they're comfortable now, with their perfect tourist…
In Pictures of Gunmetal Gray
*********Editor's Note: Disturbing, adult story follows********* Willa always told me that to get realistic sketches, you have to draw what you see, rather than what you think you see. Nowhere is that truer than in the courtroom. I'm shoved in the third row of the gallery, my…
This is Not the Beginning; That is Not the End
The Pihsecaps speeds through cloud layers--bright-dark-bright-dark--until finally, with a stutter of the engine, we burst through the haze. Finn swears. He blinks and straightens himself up in his seat, obviously shaken. "Shhh--" I grit my teeth and pull on the controls to…
Truth, in Plain Sight Hidden
It's election day and every electronic device registered to me is beeping in one-minute intervals. They chirp with the urgency of a fire alarm, a persistent reminder for me to do my civic duty. Ignored, they'll start chirping every thirty seconds, then every fifteen, until by…
Economic Principles of the Zombie Apocalypse
People Face Trade-offs I face the PizzaPlace manager, Bennigan, who's pointing his instrument at my head. He pulls the trigger. It beeps. "98.6." Normal, non-zomb range. We make the trade: one timecard for one pizza. One hour when I should be studying for my Econ exam in…
Travelogue of the Perennially Lost
2002 Our concert tickets said 7PM, but by 8, we were crossing the Minnesota River again, scrutinizing the MapQuest sheets by the dome light, and wondering where we'd gone wrong. Had we made the turn east onto West Old Shakopee Rd? Or west onto East Old Shakopee? And who's more…
Glitch
I'd been working at the T-Port station for three weeks before I saw a glitch. It was a lousy job: no benefits, long hours, and as boring as weather channel reruns. The station, which was conveniently located between the airport, the Amtrak station, and a 7-11, was two bus…
A Jar Full of Secrets
There are secrets in the air tonight. On nights like these, the humidity weighs them down and keeps them from floating up to the stars. They snag like luminous cotton balls on Mr. Roberts' too-tall grass and bob along the edges of Chesapeake Pond, pulsing their eerie glow until…
Inertia
A body in motion will remain in motion, and one at rest, at rest. We are both at once: flying through the galaxy at speeds approaching light, cradled in the arms of our cryogenic chambers. Traveling, slumbering side-by-side, in perfect synchronicity. We are two of two-hundred,…
All the Days We Can't Leave Behind
I don't mention the days between. She's back now, so it doesn't matter. Right? I try to pretend it didn't happen. (It did, but it didn't.) We continue our routine of "before," with takeout-box debris and scribbled Post-it fridge messages and her helmet--intact and…
Questions Posed in an Alien Tongue
I'm twenty years old when they take me back to the ship. "You've now reached your race's adult stage," they explain, their mouths fluttering in that strangely mesmerizing way of theirs. I don't ask how they know so much about the physiological development of my race. For fifteen…
Britannica in Dust
Grandma kept her set of dusty old Encyclopedia Britannicas locked up in the heavy oak china cabinet in the parlor. They sat there, concealed from view behind her diplomas and the fading photograph of her as a young woman in a business suit, shaking hands with the last of the Old…
Between the Lines
We met in the pages of the book, somewhere shortly before Act II. It wasn't my story. It wasn't his. We weren't even secondary characters--not the best friend or the sidekick, and certainly not the villain. But we were there, on the edges, behind the lines, between the letters.…
The Shape-Shifter's Mother
On Monday, Jeremy Sanders woke as a turtle. He hadn't always been a turtle. His mother certainly hadn't given birth to a turtle that rainy night five years ago, but there was no denying that's what he was now, from his exquisite, beak-like mouth all the way down his coarse shell…
Rain Like Diamonds
The queen hoarded the barrels of seed, keeping them locked within her coffers among the diamonds and gold and strings of perfect pearls, remnants of the former days of prosperity and excess. The seeds would receive neither sun nor water nor nutrients from the soil until unlocked…
Sardines in a Tin Can
Scrape. Shift. Shovel. Heave. Scrape. Shift. Shovel. Dump. The work is monotonous. Hard. We labor tirelessly without any breaks, though the sun's rays burn us and the shovel's handles rub off the outermost layers of our fingers and palms. The soles of our feet have permanent…