To some of us, time has a shape, often twisty and convoluted, with no beginning and no end. The years stretch backwards into a deep, black hole of memories, and forward into an impenetrable dense fog.

In “normal” years, I think of time as mostly linear, but, to my mind’s eye, each current year is like a spiral, with December at the top, representing a steep mountain to climb through the fall months, then sliding down into spring, flattening out into a long, level summer, with all previous years trailing behind like the undulating tail of a kite.

However, 2020…

Evolutionary Biology-inspired Sciku

the climate heats up
new virus — can we adapt?
herd immunity

Hello, I’m speaking to you from the year 2169, when your future people –– we call ourselves Fumans, sounds like “few mens” because we’re few and far between –– don’t look quite the same as you do. We all have the exact same skin color, for one thing.

We just want to thank you, our honored ancestors, for finally taking the bold and difficult actions that rescued humanity, in the nick of time, against impossible odds, from certain extinction. …

“It Was a Dark and Stormy Night”

The following story began its life as a 75-word novel, one of dozens I scribbled for a Facebook group a couple years ago. We were having fun, loving words, telling stories, challenging each other to be funnier, pithier, juicier in our offerings.

Writing these extreme short forms is excellent practice for writing in general. Every word has to count, has to contribute to the storyline and character development, and must generate a level of suspense. And most of all, it has to entertain.

And although these super-short novels were intended to amuse and impress the others, sometimes a story would…

Science Fiction

This is the penultimate chapter of a completely outrageous and unacceptable game of “Tag, you’re it” with my buddy Shadowgnosis (Dan Lee). Links to all previous chapters can be found at the end of this segment. Have fun!

Chapter 8 left Joe Lee and Flavio in the basement stairwell writing love letters to Amanda, who turned out to be half Bdelian and extremely attractive to her alien stalkers. Before her eyes, her half-visible alien suitors dissolved into a slime-green mist that enveloped her and her powerful unobtanium crystal, which had started to glow and throb in her clenched hand. …

Fantastic piece, SD. You had me from the first caption! So, here's a thought for ya: I'm thinking it's irrelevant whether life started here or started somewhere else. "Where" doesn't matter much, except as it's a fascinating story to try to unravel for our own planet. If it originated outside our own solar neighborhood, we still want to understand how it began, no matter how far away. Right? And since we seem to expect "aliens" to be more advanced than us (otherwise how could they get here before we got there?), it does seem to follow that logic that life would have evolved somewhere other than here. (I remember those college days long ago when we spent untold hours in underground coffee houses, smoking and drinking and playing chess and talking about how it all began. It's no less fascinating today.) Thank you SO MUCH!

First they’ll come for the journalists.
They’ll toss them in jail like murder suspects,
but those lying meddlers won’t be missed.

Writers, reporters and cartoonists —
then atheists, leftists, and network execs —
but first they’ll come for the journalists.

Science and data, officials insist,
have no bearing on climate effects.
Those lying reporters won’t be missed.

Physicians, teachers and scientists,
their threat to this government is more complex,
but first they’ll come for the journalists.

If the media’s lying, does truth exist?
They’ll get ’em for treason or other pretext.
Those fact-checking meddlers won’t be missed.

Now handcuffed and…

SCIENCE FICTION

This is the seventh chapter of a science fiction romp coauthored by Dan Lee. Here’s a short synopsis of what has happened so far. We still don’t know for sure who Amanda really is, but those rascally Bdelians are definitely stalking her. Why?What do they want? What does Amanda want and how will the Unobtainium Crystal help her get it?

Links to all the previous chapters are provided at the end of this one. Neither of us knows where this is going, but we’re having fun and hope you are too!

Chapter 7: Area 42—It’s Ali-i-ive!

Any normal human who handled an unobtanium crystal would…