The moment of transition was 7:34 AM today, July 17th, and this one was unique in that nobody saw it coming. Haverforth Diedeli finally stirred awake thirty-four minutes after his alarm clock began to buzz at him, and at the moment his eyes popped open and his brain started to churn out thoughts, he was the main man. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Haverforth was the single pivotal human out of the entire species, and in a span of seconds, we are sure you all noticed.    We would like to apologize for any inconvenience and offer this explanation:    Transitions like this are usually prepared for by S-Mundi network administrators. The Mindsh

I'm uttering directly into your eyes. I'm speaking through your retinas And triggering electric storms Inside your brain, Heating your gray matter until It bulges against your brain case, Shooting sparks through your nerves. Stories are epilepsy and my words Are a seizure.

I shook them out of the bush as best I could, with the admission that I was humbly intimidated by the brightness of their ruby bodies, the yellow specks and their very long, black legs. My intimidation was likely instinctive: bugs bite and bright ones are often poisonous. My respect, though, was my own, for never has destruction been my first instinct upon seeing insects and spiders. I found them beautiful, fascinating, and to be intimidated by them was the greatest compliment I could give them. But the shrub had to go, the plant frozen to death in the unusually cold week prior, and so I shook the dozen bright red bodies from the dead limbs o

Summer light flashes off my dog's red-brown fur as she writhes upright on three legs at a time. Her jowls click and spit, and confused yelps rattle over her quick heart. A dog does not know what a seizure is, so she just kicks along, distressed that her legs won't work and mistaking the frantic huff of her breath for her own panic. My voice speaking to her is not audible over the thundering thrum of electricity in her brain while she slathers her suddenly heavy head against the ground. Her red tongue slides limp, bubbling with saliva, over otherwise comfortable green grass; it tastes like dirt and lightning. She rolls over the weight of her h

That's your father's face under the swelling and leaking; he had to pull himself close so you'd recognize him after the fight. Your sister touches his neck where the strong man punched him, while his puffy lips mutter that daddy's okay and his eyes swell shut. You shiver and sob at the edge of the ring, ignoring the applause for the smiling man who raises his monstrous arms meters away. You can't hear your father's breath but watch his struggling chest, and your hands feel numb on the camera your mother bought you. The steely terror in your arms distracts you from pictures, but you won't need a camera to recall each bruise and gash. Two

Looking down on Times Square from where he stood atop the Ninevan hotel, his human form beginning to ripple about him in a sure sign that he was in his last moments of existence as one among this planet's only soul-possessing species, he gave himself a final second to reconsider what he was about to do. He always gave himself that second, but never changed his mind. Breathing deeply the cool night air of the city, tasting it, savoring it for the last time, he grimaced and spoke into the air around him. "Power availability optimal. Above-average yield expected. Commence project immediately." And a small, electronic voice answered from a devic

Leanna escaped from her husband's speech by telling him she had to use the bathroom. Every time they cooked their steaks wrong, he would spend ten minutes explaining to the waiter what it meant to be a true connoisseur of fine meat, what it meant for a steak to be well-cooked or poorly-cooked, the joy a magnificent sirloin could bring his very soul and the tragedy of a wasted ribeye. The speeches had amused her while they were dating, and still did sometimes even now that they were married, but after a long day at work and a week into a fresh try to break her smoking habit, all she wanted to do was eat and get cheered up. But whatever. She d

"It's all this blank space, and it just sits there being nothing, doing nothing, aspiring to nothing. And I've got to fill it up. Which shouldn't be hard, putting something where nothing is. But the catch is that I can't get anything from the outside to the inside, so all this nothing is all I've got to work with. And how am I supposed to make something out of nothing? "Monads. "That's a whole lot of nothing, and we in the business call it monads; it's plural, nothing made up of something. Am I losing you? Good, I don't want to talk to you anyway. I've got work to do. "... Still here, huh? Damn, don't tell me you actually want me to explai

"I don't want to be fragile anymore," she prayed, "Please make me a god." At that precise moment there were precisely 23 bullets in the air near her, and each one had its velocity precisely reversed, 23 shooters struck precisly where they'd sought death and falling into their own shadows. Dead grass and blood-muddied desert ground resonated an instant, a pitch of dust, a screeching scream, a white flash and then the air itself shook with a dull laziness as it began to spiral around her hiding place. She sensed the changes and stood slowly, seeing the ruins of her home about her - shattered walls and furniture, burned photographs and soot-cov