The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

Found the shit on my porch one night… Fucking ding-dong ditch or whatever. A little baggie with two blue capsules. And a stupid note with two words… “Do try” I figured it was some shitty prank from my “experimental” friends from down the street. We’ve tried nearly every reasonable drug there is, trying to get the most psychadelic trips, maintain the best highs.. DMT, E, Acid, some experimental shit this dude sold me for wayy too much. Shit fucked me up… I tripped I was dust floating down from the ceiling. Lasted like eight hours. Fucked… me… up… Anyway, the pills had like an orange 17 on them… Looked them up online, and couldn’t find anything. I threw it on my dresser and crashed for the night. I called all my friends the next afternoon. They all “claimed” they had nothing to do with it. “Wasn’t them”. I figured one of them would fess up eventually… Over the next week, I pretty much forgot about it. None of my friends said anything, so either they forgot, or it really wasn’t them. I di...

She has her mother’s bright blue eyes, Daddy’s Little Angel does. And the most beautiful smile you’ve ever seen. She could melt an iceberg, she could. Everyone that knows her just loves her to death, and I’m so proud to call myself her father. She’s a gift from above, I know it, which is why I must protect her, no matter what the cost! Some people just don’t understand. It all started a couple of weeks ago. Some nasty little girl was teasing Katie, my Little Angel, and she just wouldn’t leave her alone. She was saying nasty things, saying how poor she was and saying she was dirty and such. She just had the filthiest mouth; little girls shouldn’t be so nasty. Well she followed Katie home that day throwing dirt at her and telling her to take a bath in it. Well my Katie showed her what’s what, yes she did! And Daddy couldn’t be more proud. I don’t think anyone should hurt a child, even if they don’t mean it! Don’t get me wrong! But Katie never did anything to anyone, and I love her to dea...

You volunteer at the mental health clinic. Given the dangerous nature of the residents, they assigned you the rooms of the less violent patients. The suicidal. Those who hear voices. Those that don’t say anything at all. You become close to a mute man named Arthur. He is a rapt listener, willing to nod his head for hours as you tell him the story of your life. You mention your past, your present. The people involved in both. Your hopes for the future. And Arthur just nods. After several months of listening, you figure that you owe it to Arthur to get him out of the clinic. He can’t be happy sitting in a room by himself nodding at interns everyday. You talk to the supervisor of the clinic. You argue that he isn’t harming anyone. That he grooms and feeds himself with no problems. That perhaps his condition is a physical aliment. The day comes when your arguing pays off. The supervisor has agreed to let Arthur go. You rush to his room to tell him the news. “You’re free!” You shout. “Isn’t...

When I was a little boy, I was afraid of monsters. They always lurked in the dark places where the light didn’t reach. It didn’t matter how many times my father shone a flashlight into the dark corners of my closet: I knew, the moment that the light was gone, the monsters would come back. And they always did. When I grew up, I learned why: the real monsters don’t hide in dark corners and closets. The real monsters are the ones that live behind your eyes, in the darkness of your mind, and it takes more than a flashlight to send them away. You’ll find what you’re looking for in my basement. She’s still alive, but the others are long dead. (I’ve kept their teeth in ziploc bags in my file cabinet. Maybe you can identify them from dental records.) She hasn’t eaten in days, and she’s lost a lot of blood, but she might still live if you hurry. All I ask is that you leave the light on when you go. This prison cell is very dark, and I’m afraid that the monsters will come out when you leave.

Driving home from a friends house, you sit at a red light when you hear a familiar tone from your phone, sitting in the passenger seat. A text message. Probably from your friend; you always leave things at their homes. Being a responsible driver, and the light still red, you open the message and wait for a moment for the image to load. Suddenly, a photo pops into view. Red, obscured, strange contrast. And no text accompanying it. But the light is green, so you close your phone and go back to driving, wondering vaguely what that was, and who would have sent you it. Perhaps someone accidentally took a picture of the inside of their bag or pocket and sent it to you. You’re still caught wondering as you pull up to the next light, also red, and another little tone from your phone. You flip it open, hoping for an apology from a friend, but find yourself waiting as another photo loads on the screen. This one, still mostly red, but textured now with scraps of blue, yet still indiscernible. Thi...

!MESSAGE BEGINS We made a mistake. That is the simple, undeniable truth of the matter, however painful it might be. The flaw was not in our Observatories, for those machines were as perfect as we could make, and they showed us only the unfiltered light of truth. The flaw was not in the Predictor, for it is a device of pure, infallible logic, turning raw data into meaningful information without the taint of emotion or bias. No, the flaw was within us, the Orchestrators of this disaster, the sentients who thought themselves beyond such failings. We are responsible. It began a short while ago, as these things are measured, less than 6^6 Deeli ago, though I suspect our systems of measure will mean very little by the time anyone receives this transmission. We detected faint radio signals from a blossoming intelligence 2^14 Deelis outward from the Galactic Core, as photons travel. At first crude and unstructured, these leaking broadcasts quickly grew in complexity and strength, as did the me...

In the small town of Stull, Kansas, there once stood an old one room chapel on top of a hill, surrounded by graves. Beside the church was a cellar that was very difficult to find, as its doors had grass grown upon them. In front of it church was great tree that was always bare. None of the towns members could recall ever having seen a leaf upon its branches. In the towns earliest years, well before the civil war, there were several farming families that lived there. The minister’s daughter had fallen madly in love with a boy from nearby, but had her heart broken when that young man was discovered to have impregnated a certain flirtatious townsgirl. The two were married, and all the while the reverend’s daughter saw them, happy together, and her hatred brewed until after 9 months of painful endurance, that despise boiled over. Shortly after the young couple's child was born the minister’s daughter went to their house. They greeted her cheerfully but noticed, all too late, how she ey...

If you asked me how long we’ve been down here, I wouldn’t know. We don’t see the sun, and nobody seems to have a watch. It doesn’t matter anyway; we don’t have anywhere to be. For all we know there isn’t anywhere left to be. The surface has surely been overrun with death and decay by now. There are six of us left. Until just recently there were seven. Her screaming has stopped now and I feel relief. It was hard to sleep with those agonizing screams and the banging on the steel door. Huddled in my blankets, I look around at the other survivors; four men and a woman, all of us unkempt and haggard. At one point we all worked here, but since the accident it’s become our prison. The painfully low amount of food is in a pile in the center of the room, so we can all keep an eye on it to make sure nobody is taking more then we’re allowed per day. There’s enough food for three, maybe four meals. None of us want to think about it. We just stare. There are no beds, just piles of blan...

A laundress, newly moved to Charleston following the Civil War, found herself awakened at the stroke of twelve each night by the rumble of heavy wheels passing in the street. But she lived on a dead end street, and had no explanation for the noise. Her husband would not allow her to look out the window when she heard the sounds, telling her to leave well enough alone. Finally, she asked the woman who washed at the tub next to hers. The woman said: “What you are hearing is the Army of the Dead. They are Confederate soldiers who died in hospital without knowing that the war was over. Each night, they rise from their graves and go to reinforce Lee in Virginia to strengthen the weakened Southern forces.” The next night, the laundress slipped out of bed to watch the Army of the Dead pass. She stood spell-bound by the window as a Gray fog rolled passed. Within the fog, she could see the shapes of horses, and could hear gruff human voices and the rumble of canons being dragged th...

My Internet Service Provider used to have offices in a shopping center before they moved to their (comparatively) lush accommodations elsewhere. There was a drop box at that original location. The monthly bill was due, and thus, there but for the Grace of the Net I went. It was about 9:30 p.m. when I left. From my relatively isolated apartments, it’s about 10-15 minutes or so to downtown (Abilene has a population of about 110,000). Right next to Camalott Communications’ old location is a $1.50 movie theater. At the time, the place was featuring that masterwork of modern film, Mortal Kombat. I drove by the theater on the way into the center proper and pulled into an empty parking space. Using the glow of the marquee to write out my check, I was startled to hear a knock on the driver’s-side window of my car. I looked over and saw two children staring at me from street. I need to describe them, with the one feature (you can guess what it was) that I didn’t realize until about ha...

We’ve all experienced it, right? That sudden feeling like someone is looking you. A chill runs up your spine, and you are convinced that you have to find the source of the sensation. You look around and see someone just randomly staring at you. At gives you even more of a spook, but, after a few seconds of awkwardness, it subsides. You and the person go your separate ways, never to see one another ever again. Or are you? Why is it that we get that sensation when we make eye contact with another human being? I will tell you why. Its because they aren’t human beings. Not. At. All. They look just like us, talk like us, act like us. But there is something strange about these creatures that mock us. They are each destined to certain people in their lives, they know not of who they are or what they look like. Just ordinary people, like you and I. When they find one of those people, the two of them make eye contact. At that moment, they are linked to you by a mortal bond. That is,...

The trio of city workers stood six stories below the surface. Amidst the ancient network of iron, cement, and stone, they monitored the array of sensors and scanners that bedecked their protective suits. Traipsing through the dread stillness, they entered a chamber strewn with bones, debris, and long-since rotted organic matter. As the beams of their headlamps played across the rusted bolts and water-stained fixtures, they came to rest on a panoply of strange creatures attached to the walls. They seemed like large, shelled insects the size of box turtles. From the bottom of the spiky domes protruded long, thorned tails that tick-tocked back and forth in the eerie silence. Agreeing that this was the source of the anomalies detected by the metropolis above, they decided to report back after a quick look at the blood-and-rust colored bugs. The radio man fell to his knees complaining of a sudden migraine. The navigator, dropping his equipment, screamed that his teeth and bones...

Even as the sun vanishes behind the tall, impossibly green trees and the rainforest around me fades into darkness, the air feels unbearably hot. I can’t walk anymore tonight. I’ll have to find a place to sleep. The leather pouch that the mystic gave me just before I left the village hangs heavily from a loop on my belt, knocking against my leg softly with each step that I take. He insisted that I take the pouch, filled with crushed flowers and roots and soil, into the jungle with me so that I might be safe from danger. I agreed, partly to oblige him in whatever superstition he might be heeding, but also partly because the villagers here know more about these jungles than anyone. The concoction in this pouch may very well be a great bug repellent or emit a subtle odor which wards away any number of wild beasts. I’d ask the mystic exactly from what dangers this little leather bag is supposed to protect me, but I know that the stubborn old man would never tell me. I’ve spent ...