Hugh J. O'Donnell

Miki and George sat on the balcony and watched the lanterns.
As the last light of dusk faded, they appeared across the city, transforming the sun-bleached concrete into a sea of tiny lights. They were simple things; just candles and paper rising towards the heavens.
George tried to grab one as it floated past, but a passing air current pushed it out of his reach, and he was left with nothing but the smell of smoke.
“Hey Miki, what are they doing all this for?” he asked.
“Why do the humans do anything?” The other cat asked. “To amuse us.”

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!

The astronomer clicked on the first of the latest batch of hi-res photos from the new space telescope.
“Huh,” he said.
His colleague wheeled her chair over. The best science came from ‘huh,’ not ‘eureka.’
“What is it?”
“Does this nebula look like a demon to you?”
She could see it. “You’ve got the horns there, and those three bright stars could be eyes, and that long plume there is very arm-like. Maybe we’ll call it the Demon Nebula.”
“Or the Pareidolia Nebula,” he joked. The second picture came up.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Is it waving at us?”

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!

She sneaked into the Evacuation Zone every day after school, looking for secrets. She wore her mask and gloves to protect herself from the supposedly poisoned air. But a forest had grown up in the twenty years since the fateful siren, and none of the wildlife looked sick or suffering to her.
The zone was like an open-air museum, with houses frozen in time. Inside, books lay open, and plates, their contents long since eaten by feral cats, sat hastily abandoned.
She explored the Evacuation Zone whenever she could, searching for the truth. Someday, she would find the hidden truth.

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!

When we landed on the planet’s surface, we abandoned the generation ships that brought us here. They had served their purpose, and we were more interested in exploring the virgin wilderness of our new home.
They told us the planet was uninhabited. There isn’t supposed to be any intelligent life here. This world is ours now.
And yet, for the last three nights, I’ve seen a flickering light, like a campfire, shining from one of the massive engines on the Demeter.
Tonight, a friend and I will climb the massive, cliff-like side of the ship and find out for ourselves.

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!

Every night, the sage had the same dream. A pair of ravens fought over a dead tree, while the sky above was rent by a devastating thunderstorm. Every morning, he dutifully transcribed all he could remember. He could spot a prophecy, and this one was obvious.
The gods warned of civil war, to the ruin of all. But he was no politician. Still, he wrote letters to sew peace between the royal houses.
He did not expect a pair of armies to appear outside his hermitage, determined to keep him out of their business.
Sometimes, the gods can be subtle.

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!

He’d never been able to explain what the machine was for.
The form had obsessed him, a massive assembly of gears and plates haunting his mind like cobwebs in a haunted house.
But he was never able to make it work. He locked it in a shed and forgot it.
Years later, his granddaughter rediscovered the machine while exploring. The shed door had long ago disintegrated around the padlock, and she slipped inside. She found it hanging in the hot, dusty darkness and fell in love.
At last, the inventor knew what the machine was for. It was for her.

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!

When the rest of the crew was asleep, she would sneak down to the test chamber and run her own experiment. The instrument was beautiful in and of itself; a keyboard and resonating chamber leading out into the dark water.
The scientists were studying wild cetacean communication frequencies. They would play a single note and log the subjects’ responses. 
The scientist didn’t understand. Whales didn’t communicate. They sang. So she took their million-dollar keyboard and played music. She started with simple melodies and built into complex improvisations as the creatures responded.
During the day, they communicated.
At night, they jammed.

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!

The only criminal punishment in the mountain city was exile. What greater torment than to know that paradise was forever out of reach?
The offender was tied to the back of a llama and draped with bells. Everyone in the city heard his passage.
Only a few hours later, he was stopped and freed by a strange assortment of travelers. He recognized a few of them as fellow exiles.
Their leader turned with him to the shimmering lights of the city.
“They think their beautiful cage is all there is,” she said. “Would you like to see what we’ve built?”

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!

He loved the little bodega, even though it was rundown and hard to find. The old woman behind the counter carried the usual necessities, but she also had a secret stock.
She carried a rotating selection of odd snacks and limited-run sodas. If you wanted a discontinued flavor of chips or a promotional novelty from twenty years ago, she could find it.
“I have a specialty supplier,” she said as she rang him up for a box of cereal he hadn’t seen since he was a kid.
In the back, her time machine idled, waiting for her next supply run.

Thanks for reading! You can support me and find links to all my other work via my Linktree!