Leap Day

by Luc Reid

We had to get, like, I don’t know, a million fucking klicks out past Jupiter’s orbit for Leap. We didn’t get to see anything the whole way, and it took, God, like a month and a half. Rinnie and me were going batshit by then, practically, because while it was a huge-ass ship, we were stowaways, and there were only like three places we could hide: hydroponics, cargo 2, and the morgue.

But after the Leap, we figured they’d have to just let us join the colony. Because what else were they going to do, shoot us out into space? Call our moms and and have them come get us in another fucking solar system?

It wasn’t like Rinnie and me wanted to go into space so much as that I got Rinnie pregnant and we figured we should run away because her dad would fucking kill me when he found out. Not like, he’d be really pissed or something, but actually kill me, like with his hunting knife or just beat me down with a tire iron or something. And Rinnie wouldn’t abort the baby, because she said that would be murder, and seriously, I had dreams sometimes that we aborted the baby and it came back and was this little fucking zombie child with its head all wrong. I was way, way more cool with stowing away on the Leap Ship than killing that baby.

“Hey, I think they’re doing it,” Rinnie said.

“Shut up. You don’t know,” I told her. “How do you know?”

“I feel something, like in my uterus.”

“That’s the baby, stupid,” I said, but then I knew I was wrong, because I started feeling it in my uterus. Or, I don’t know, my liver or something. It was like there was a little tiny drain in there, trying to suck me through. It felt like hell.

“I think I’m going to hurl,” I said.

“Wait–” said Rinnie, and then suddenly the whole universe burst into stars and pieces, and there wasn’t me or Rinnie any more, but we were both just tangled together like one person, tangled together with the baby, and the stars flew through us, and we stretched until time stopped and feeling stopped and we were the whole universe, Rinnie and the baby and me.

Can’t Complain

by SaraG

Terrance’s heart never knew what hit it. One second it was pumping steadily at 70 beats per minute, traveling at 80mph on the interstate. The next, it was panicking, 180 beats per minute and rising. The heart knew it shouldn’t go this fast, but it was a sucker for the nerves that tickled it with adrenalin. All its life, the nerves had told it what to do and all its life the heart had obeyed them, even when it knew better. For a second, as the car swerved off the road, the heart considered keeping its own beat. But the moment passed and then… nothing.

Stopping was such a strange feeling. Terrance’s heart had never stopped before. Then came the cold and the drugs that made it forget and the nip of shears separating it from the rest of Terrance. The heart knew it should mourn for its lost body, but quite frankly, it was just too glad to be alive to care, and the guilt of abandoning Terrance would travel with it for the rest of its life.

Terrance’s heart beats in a hole in your chest. You may keep it warm, you may feed it with your vessels and your blood, but the heart knows this isn’t home.

Oh well.

It fends off the attack of your immune system, aided by all those drugs you take in the morning. You catch cold and can’t drink, but hey, you’re alive. You can’t complain.

Terrance’s heart is alive as well. It has a hole for a home and no busy-body nerves to tell it what
to do. Nerves can’t be transplanted so Terrance’s heart beats on its own, 70 per minute, rain or shine, exercise or rest. It feels like it’s working in a vacuum. It can’t communicate with the rest of your body. But it keeps its own rhythm and it’s alive.

It can’t complain.