One Bright Morning

by Luc Reid

“Say, mister, you sure are going fast in that thing.”

“My God–get out of here, kid!”

“Whatcha got there, a rocket pack? You invent it?”

“No, don’t touch that! Keep away!”

“Aw, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m not a ghost or anything like that. I’m a angel!”

“I can see that.”

“I wasn’t always a angel, though. I was a kid once. You got kids?”

“Angels are a separate kind of beings. They’re not people.”

“Some of ’em. Not me, though! I died in 1938. Fell in the creek and banged my face on a rock and whaddaya know, next thing I’m a angel! Lost my two front teeth, too. See?”

“Stop getting so close! You touch the wrong knob and I’ll drop a mile straight down. Can you just go home? I have to talk to God. Things aren’t going right down there. I don’t think this is how it’s supposed to be.”

The kid-angel swooped in little spirals around the man as the rocket pack blasted the man up through the blue glare and toward the golden glimmer he could already glimpse far above him.

“I don’t know,” the kid said. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea. Cantcha talk to him from down there?”

“I tried that.”

“What are ya, a preacher? Ya look like a preacher.”

“I am.”

“But yer an inventor, too?”

“Get away from that! Shoo! Didn’t you hear me? You could kill me fiddling with that!”

“Sorry. I just never seen anything like this. I’m mighty interested! What’s this do?”

When the kid-angel touched a switch, the rocket pack sputtered and died. The man screamed as he tumbled backward, down toward the clouds, his arms outstretched and a pleading expression on his face. The kid-angel fluttered in place.

When the rocket pack man was gone, the kid-angel wiped his nose on his sleeve, which had gotten runny from all the crying. Finally he looked upward and flipped his wings once, sending him shooting toward Heaven. He wouldn’t be needed again for another 63 years, Saint Peter had said. He’d be able to spend the rest of the time playing and talking and swimming and singing hosannas and whatever he liked. In Heaven, even. And he could go say sorry to that man when the fella arrived in a few minutes.

But it was still a crummy job.

Milkmaid

by David

I was born here. My parents came from Earth, stolen before the stars aligned, so they just have one head and two arms apiece. Most humans here are slaves, but I have a good job. I get regular meals and have my own sleeping place under the grub shed. I’m a milkmaid. I milk the grubs. They look sort of like dholes, but they are white and their faces are tiny. Twice a day I milk the ichor that comes out from nipples on each body segment. Of course their nipples are not like mine, and they don’t have breasts either. Their little faces are so cute, with round black lips and rows and rows of needlelike teeth, noses that are just patterns of holes, and eyes so shiny and black they look like seeds. The ichor stinks. It reminds me of the smell from the pit where they threw disobedient slaves until there were so many rat scorpions they had to call in the Horde.

I have my own bed. Sugar mushrooms grow under there, and I eat them early in the morning before anyone else finds them. They are so good. Also, slaves sleep outside the fence and every morning some of them come in covered with bites, or the oozing blisters made by the rat-scorpion stings. Most of the slaves don’t live as long as I have already. I’m grown up now, I am 14. That’s old enough to be a bride of He Who Is Not Named. I hope that this year his priest will choose me. If I carried the Son, I would not have to work as a milkmaid. I would tell everyone else what to do, and inspect them at their work, for the first two trimesters. After that, they would have to bring me whatever I wanted. If I carried the Son I would keep them busy finding things that don’t grow here. Things only found on Earth, and nowhere since the alignment. I hope I would not want the same things Kerry wanted. Before the end she was asking for live lizards, the entrails of virgins and other disgusting stuff. And none of it made a difference. She split open and was all hollow, just like the rest.

The end