Consolation Prize

by Luc Reid

That the teleportation device he’d invented didn’t work as expected only made him smug that he had tested it on himself, as anyone with cojones would do, so that regardless of the distorted figures streaming by him through the long tunnel of colors and sharp smells and moments of dizziness and near-memories, regardless of the feeling that he had forgotten his legs and the inability he had to focus enough to look down and see for sure, regardless of his unfed poodle Toy George who by now would be whining in the kitchen to be let out, regardless of the weeks-old, unanswered letter from his estranged brother that would now be permanently unanswered, and despite the sense that before too long he would break into particles and be sucked in by the distorted figures, the howling shapes, he could not feel entirely disappointed in the results, because after all, if he hadn’t invented teleportation, nonetheless he had clearly invented something.

Childhood still sucks

by David

So one day after school Carlos says he’s moving to the Sun.  Ever since he grew the second head he’s been acting strangely, but I was like “whoa!”  And Billy goes “can I have your Game Tesseract™?” but Carlos says he’s taking it with him.  Now you’re probably thinking, “didn’t I learn in school people can’t live on the Sun,” but they totally solved that problem at Beijing Tech, or someplace in Asia, which I saw in a web comic on NewJournal earlier this week.  This guy had a totally realistic simulation. You could have multiple avatars just like in a real game and it was like you were really on the Sun. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.  See, Internet access between here and the Sun really sucks and since Carlos has been my best friend since, like, last summer, I think we should move to the Sun too. I’m sure you can get a really cool job there, probably better than you have here, because everything is new and on the edge there.  Or, this is better, I could go live with Uncle Mort on Mercury, and he has those adapted horses and I’ve always wanted to ride one. I’d be way closer to the Sun, so Carlos and I could see each other and stuff.  Cos, like, I was going to invite him to my next birthday party and I can’t do that, I mean, I can do that, but he can’t come, if he lives on the Sun and I still live here on Titan.

The end