Pacific Northwest Enclave – 2305 Kevin struggled for breath as he entered the environmentally controlled foyer of his building. He didn’t want to believe that the air outside had deteriorated. It implied that Kevin’s years of sacrifice had bought, at best, time and not a solution. His breathing had returned to normal by the time he had taken the elevator to his fortieth floor apartment. The door scanned his eye and accepted his password. “Lights,…
Only complete lunatics would get married on Christmas Eve. The church was old, very old for North America, and was decked out with more poinsettias and evergreen boughs than I’d ever seen collected in one place. Candles were the primary source of light for the event and the main source of raw fear for the Sexton. I admit, this old stone church near Picton affected me by chilling my feet and warming my heart. The…
The “Night Danger” signs for moose were getting on his nerves. The pictogram of a large herbivore plunging onto the road appeared too often. How was he supposed to identify a dark moose against a black background? The posted speed limit was ninety kilometres per hour, but he maintained a hundred. Joel estimated he’d be just as dead if a moose made a suicide run in front of his car. Three hours more to Thunder…
December 24th, 1998 Vancouver General Hospital Raymond Kroll was damned if he was going to die in bed. His wasted claw-hand swept the sheet off and he sat up, a significant effort. Raymond hadn’t stood on his own power nor been this lucid in weeks. His roommate, another AIDS patient, was asleep and took her breaths in sharp snorts. Painfully Ray stood and made his way to the window. He could see the moonlit snow-covered…
December 24, 2456: Tol watched the distant star explode. It was beautiful. He gazed listlessly out the starship’s observation deck. Tol was exhausted from a double shift — even the synthetic parts of his body hurt. The star, now a super-nova, was a deadly vista but only because the ship’s radiation screens had failed. Normally there was little danger during the repair period, as the ship’s hull provided modest protection. An exploding star released more…
One Hour AD Two spaceships were locked in combat. The smugglers did not intend to surrender despite being at a disadvantage. When the police vessel moved in to enclose the smugglers’ ship in a force field, the criminals activated their own shields, setting them to overload. The result was a fusion of energy fields. The police could not lower their shields as the smugglers’ would attack. To leave the shields up would lead to the…
Dennis was obsessed. He went to the travel agent and, when they asked him what they could do, he blurted out: “I’ve got to get to Salzburg.” “When?” “Now.” He couldn’t believe his own words. The idea of Christmas away had been brewing for a while, but the insistence on Salzburg was coming from a part of his mind over which he obviously had no control. For an outrageous sum of money he purchased a…
We were in bed, a very nice place to be. It was December twenty-second and glancing out the window showed the snow swirling about our warm house. I carefully worked my fingers down her back, lightly massaging her spine. “Mmm,” she said. “I think so too,” I replied. Megan rolled on her side and gave me a kiss and touched my ear in that way she had. “Did I ever tell you why Christmas is…
Central Park near 5th Avenue and 58th was relatively quiet that December evening. The beam of light from the stars briefly illuminated a piece of grass beside a tree. After the flash there stood, on all fours, an alien. The metallic plates on his back rustled and the creature took in a deep breath. He had been expecting an argon-based atmosphere and was suitably surprised by a lung full of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and…
Thomas David George looked at the Social Committee Memo and blinked. Had autumn passed already? It was time for the company’s annual Christmas party. He stared at the flickering computer terminal and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. Tom faced the dilemma all company social events posed. He did not want to go because he hated parties and dancing and smoking and drinking. Not only that, he hated not being able to talk…