Robin’s Egg Sky

by Luc Reid

“So he’s all-powerful, he knows everything, he controls everything that happens, right?”

“We don’t have time for your–”

“This is important! Omnipotent, omniscient, in control, right? Then why ask him for anything? Isn’t he the one who set in motion the needs in the first place, and doesn’t he already know everything we want?”

The wind drifted across the grassy meadow in waves, making the grass billow and almost shimmer.

“This is the old dead end about Fate. Just the act of asking–”

“Not Fate! Control! We’ll do what he wants us to do, and we’ll get what he wants us to get. Why ask?”

“Can’t you stop questioning everything for one minute? Why can’t you just ask like a normal person?”

“Because I don’t like the higher power! I don’t want to submit to something that seems fundamentally amoral to me. Something that goes around making people do what it wants. You hear me up there? I’m not kowtowing to you!”

“Please–”

“Please what? Please shut up, or he’ll hear me? He already knows my thoughts! Please swallow my pride and just ask him for something like everyone else? Fine, I’ll ask him for something. HEY WRITER! I WANT A PONY!”

And with no clear reason or mechanism, there was a pony, a shaggy pony the color of butterscotch with a white, silky mane and liquid eyes. A few moments later, like an afterthought, a saddle appeared in the grass beside it.

They stared at the pony. Then they looked up into the clear, empty, robin’s egg sky.

A Morning Slidewalk Scene

by Rudi Dornemann

This guy comes up the block in a silver jumpsuit, and he’s thinking, I could move to one of those LaGrange orbitals. Plenty of jobs up there, and all kinds of relocation bonuses…

Another guy, older, coming the other way in a plaid jacket that totally clashes with the tattoo on his face, is remembering the cliffhanger ending from last night’s episode of /Urges/, playing it over and over in his mind. He seems to be more interested in the cutting remark that Lola just made to Charles, and less in the way the elevator is falling out of control.

A woman on the expresswalk is going over what she needs to do to clinch the Callazon deal — if she drops the renewal price by 3% and moves the upgrade window from five months to four… Biv in sales owes her a favor anyway. And if she lands this one, Robertson will have to promote her. He’ll have to, no matter what he thinks about clones — the bigot.

There’s silver jumpsuit guy again, going the other way, thinking: …or one of the undersea domes, lots of jobs there, too. And they have great schools — now that I’m pregnant, I can’t just think about myself. I’m sure I’ll get used to the damp eventually. They say it doesn’t feel as claustrophobic as it really is…

A woman passes by, wondering if she should stop off at this coffee shop or wait and just grab a cup from the machine in the lobby at the office, which tastes as good, but the foam’s always a little flat. She doesn’t stop.

A man with one of those biofeedback jackets glides by, mellow and smug. He’s thinking, yeah, it was expensive, but it looks just like my own hair, and with the foil lining, I don’t have to worry about those damn headhoppers anymore. My thoughts are my own!

Latte nearly comes out of my nose at that one. Like anyone cares what he gets up to when he goes virtual, even if he is stealing company linktime to do it. And I hope his real hair didn’t look like that.

You’re right, we should move on; we’ve been here like forty-five minutes. Even though nobody’s noticed, they might.

Wait — here comes that guy in the jumpsuit again.