Issue 55 April 2018 <a href="https://www.flashfictiononline.com/issue/april-2018/">Flash Fiction Online April 2018</a>

From H.G. Wells’s tripod-controlling Martians to Douglas Adams’s poetry-loving Vogons, from the cosmic horrors of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos to the scholarly Sorns of C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, science fiction writers and readers alike have long been fascinated with the concept of aliens.

Who are these beings from worlds beyond ours? Where have they come from? What do they want? Why are they here? And what is it about the concept of the extraterrestrial that inspires our imaginations and compels us to stare up at the stars and wonder who might be staring back?

Maybe it’s the stars themselves. Astronomers estimate that there are over 100 billion galaxies, and we’ve barely scratched the surface on exploration of our own. Who knows what worlds might exist beyond what we can observe with today’s technology?

Maybe it’s unexplained incidences on our own planet: UFOs, Area 51, and close encounters. From the time of ancient Egypt, there have been reports of “fiery discs,” “ships in the sky,” and other strange occurrences which we’ve come to associate with visitors from other planets. Even as recently as two months ago, residents of Southern California witnessed unusual-shaped objects hovering in the sky. Were they weather balloons? Chinese lanterns? Or spaceships surpassing human innovation?

Whatever the source of our fascination, this topic opens up a universe of creativity for our authors in this month’s issues, all of which answer one of our most basic questions about aliens in a different way: If aliens did come to Earth, would it be to help us? to harm us? or are they just looking for love?

Join us in this month’s issue on an exploration of brand-new stories that dare to ask the question: What if we’re not alone?

Wendy Nikel
Flash Fiction Online Managing Editor

To-Do List for July 18, 2039

1. Kill my duplicate from another dimension.
2. Get rid of all this stupid kale.

Top Five Reasons I Hate Kale

1. Kale is like broccoli that wishes it were lettuce, or lettuce that wishes it were broccoli. Get your own identity, kale.
2. It contains too much vitamin A. Just way too much.
3. It tastes like sadness with an option for despair.
4. Every time I have been forced to eat kale, I get a parking ticket the very next day. Coincidence??
5. I can only think of four reasons I hate kale.

Essential Components of a Machine That Can Rip Through the Fabric of Reality and Reach into Another Dimension

1. Cadmium-beryllium copper alloy
2. Engine from 2019 Honda Civic
3. Gears????? It should probably have gears.
4. That weird thing from that shop at Branum and Montgomery that looks like a jack-in-the-box but the old man with one eye and a scar on his forehead said would be an essential component of a machine that can rip through the fabric of reality and reach into another dimension
5. Kale
6. A big red button

To-Do List for July 1, 2039

1. Assemble machine.
2. Don’t press the button.
3. Make a list of things I love about myself, like my therapist said.

A List of Things I Love About Myself, as Advised by My Therapist

1. I am the greatest scientific mind of my generation.
2. I am super good at making lists.
3. I thoroughly evaluate the potential consequences of my actions because I am looking out for the world.
4. I care about the world. Mostly.
5. I look really good in a lab coat. I should wear that thing outside of the basement.
6. I am a distinct individual, a singular personage, with my own unique personality.

Favorite Television Shows, in Chronological Order

1. Sliders
2. Fringe
3. Goldfish Grimm’s Spicy Hyperpower Monkeystorm!!!
4. Battlestar Galactica (2034 reboot)
5. The Real Mad Scientists of Beverly Hills

How to Take Over Someone’s Life

1. Observe their behavior and take notes.
2. Clone their Government-Sponsored Personal Information Device (GSPID).
3. Drug them heavily and attend all their social engagements for the day.
4. Be extra charming and make references to the latest episode of The Real Mad Scientists of Beverly Hills.
5. Joke about getting a parking ticket after eating kale because it gets a laugh every time.
6. Don’t kill them immediately because it’s far more entertaining to watch their futile attempts to retake their own life.
7. Kill them eventually, obviously. For best results, wait till they think they have the upper hand.
8. I’ll bet you’re wondering how this list got into your pocket. If you think hard enough, I think you’ll figure it out! We are the greatest scientific minds of our generation, after all.

Ways Someone Could Tell My Duplicate from Another Dimension from Me

1.  
2.  
3.  
4.  
5. …Oh shit.

Tattoo Options

1. Albert Einstein riding a dinosaur
2. The whole periodic table, like, the whole thing
3. Maybe just beryllium
4. “I am the real me; don’t trust the other one”

To-Do List for July 7, 2039

1. Press the button.
2. Figure out where to put my Nobel Prize. Is it a medal or a trophy? I should look that up.

The Fifth Reason I Hate Kale

5. Under certain conditions, it has the power to rip through the fabric of reality and reach into another dimension, which is something I definitely should not have done.

How to Kill Your Duplicate from Another Dimension

1. Gun
2. Laser gun
3. Rocket launcher
4. A gun that shoots tigers
5. I think that weird shop at Branum and Montgomery has one of those
6. A mirror because irony
7. An iron

To-Do List for July 18, 2039

1. Press the button.
2. Avoid being killed because that would be embarrassing.

Things I Am Allergic To

1. Peanuts
2. Bee stings
3. Mango
4. Commitment
5. Penicillin

Things My Duplicate from Another Dimension Is Allergic To

1. Peanuts
2. Bee stings
3. Mango
4. Commitment probably
5. Penicillin
6. Kale

How to Retake Your Own Life

1. Observe your duplicate’s behavior and take notes.
2. Score one for the scientific method.
3. I want to write a cool note here but I’m never going to get this into my duplicate’s pocket.

Pros

1. Amazing scientific achievement, will win Nobel Prize
2. Opportunity to see another dimension
3. Already built the thing, might as well press the button

Cons

1. Could rip apart reality itself, kill myself and the whole world
2. Could explode, kill myself
3. Could initiate phase shift of two dimensions so that we merge and I get lizard arms or something
4. Could release duplicate of myself from another dimension who will take over my life
5. Could make the whole basement smell like kale

Things the Old Man with One Eye and a Scar on His Forehead Will Make from My Duplicate’s Body

1. Spices
2. Love potion
3. A gun that shoots lions
4. Casserole

To-Do List for July 19, 2039

1. Disassemble machine because it’s way too dangerous to have around.
2. Discover a list in my pocket.
3. Read a very familiar list in my pocket about taking over someone’s life.
4. Oh shit.

Previously published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2016. Reprinted here by permission of the author.

She’s four years old, wearing footie pajamas with giraffes on them, and she wants the moon. She’s very specific about when and where. She would like to have the moon on a plate with her breakfast. That way she can look at it while she eats, and when she’s done, she can play with it.

We’re standing halfway down the wide driveway. Well, I’m standing. I’m holding her so she doesn’t get the bottoms of her pajama feet dirty before climbing into bed. The soft flannel catches against the synthetic fabric of my housekeeper’s uniform.

When I deployed here as a servant, the daughter surprised me. Our intel caught the deceased wife, but missed the child. And tonight her daddy is away and her nanny has fallen ill, so it is my job to finish putting her to bed.

The lights in the front of the mansion have been doused so she can see the moon and stars better.

The city lights twinkle in the valley below. They’d be doused, too, but her daddy doesn’t have quite enough influence to dim Los Angeles.

“Even if I could get it for you, the moon wouldn’t fit on a plate,” I say.

She shifts against me and holds out a hand against the nearly full moon. “Of course it would, Anna. See? It’s little.”

What do I say to that? My training didn’t cover explaining astronomical concepts to four-year-old humans.

My training didn’t cover anything about four-year-old humans. It’s her daddy who’s one of the keys to our mission. I’ve had lots of training on dealing with her daddy.

“It’s pretty big,” I say. “Even bigger than your house. It just looks little because it’s so far away.”

She reaches for it, and I indulge her, lifting her up against the sky until she squeaks in frustration.

“See?” I say. “You can’t reach it. Neither can I.”

“I know you can get it for me, Anna. Daddy says you do magic.”

In that, her daddy is right. My parlor tricks are magic, here. I’ve used them first to pique his interest, then to keep it. I’ve taken the contact slowly, carefully, giving him the time he needs to digest each small bit of what I truly am and what I can do, encouraging and reassuring him at every step. In other cities, others of my team are doing the same with other scientists and leaders and representatives of popular culture. And when we are ready, we will come forward, and these humans that we have chosen will help the rest to understand and accept us.

But it is slow work, for the humans resist the urge to believe, even in the face of empirical proof.

“I’ve seen you do magic, too,” says the child.

“Really? What magic have you seen?” I’m not surprised. She has occasionally been present when I do my parlor tricks for her daddy. An unavoidable but not serious happenstance.

“I’ve seen you get the moon,” she says.

I blink, then focus on her earnest and very serious face. “What?”

“I saw you.” She ducks her head momentarily. “I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to see the stars, so I went to the window, and I saw you in the garden. And you called the moon down and held it in your hands.”

I had been communicating with my superiors. She doesn’t sound frightened, so I ask, “What else did you see?”

“You stood still a long time, and I got sleepy, but finally you moved, and you threw the moon back into the sky.” She squirms to get more comfortable in my arms. “I’m cold.”

I increase my body’s temperature and hold her closer as I turn and begin walking through the dark toward the house. The scent of her earlier bubble bath still lingers in her hair, oddly pleasant.

“That wasn’t the moon,” I say. “That was… a flashlight.”

“A flashlight? It didn’t look like a flashlight. It was round all over and not as bright, and why did you throw it back, and how does it stay in the sky? When it went to the sky, it was the moon.”

My training is failing me. Her daddy must be shown again and again, until he accepts what he sees. His daughter looks for the magic, expects it, even.

“It was the moon,” she says, and I cannot deny it—for what she saw was closer to being a moon than a flashlight.

We are nearly at the house, and she turns to me, peering through the darkness at my face. “So when you call it down tonight to play with it, you can just… keep it. And share it with me in the morning.”

When she says this, she sounds like her father, and for that second, I can read her as I do him. To her, the request is absolutely reasonable, logical, and even generous. She’d prefer to have the moon now but is willing to wait until breakfast.

I look at her again. Perhaps it is not the adults that we should be approaching, but the children. She smiles and snuggles into my arms, seeking my warmth against the cool evening air, and I brush my fingers against her cheek.

She sighs and her body relaxes as I mount the steps to the tall front door.

Tonight I shall contact my superiors, relate to them what I have learned. The ease with which human children accept the impossible—the magic—may be a better route to our success. We’d have to retrain our agents, though, and adjust our schedule to give the children time to grow to adulthood.

But a painless contact is worth any cost. We cannot afford to repeat our mistakes. This lovely planet, rich with resources and the untapped potential of these humans, cannot afford a mistake.

And tomorrow morning, if my superiors agree, there will be a small moon on a breakfast plate when the child awakens.

The Thing Inside Pluto was displeased. So was Aimee. Its roiling muscle-goo made her queasy, and she’d dressed for pilates, not for two bland government spooks kidnapping her to negotiate with an alien. She lit a cigarette to block the ozone smell.

<YOU ARE NOT CANADA GIRL> The Thing’s voice reverberated inside her skull. Though it wasn’t The Thing Inside Pluto anymore, was it? It ate through Pluto like barbecue potato chips.

Well, that settled the planethood debate.

“Yeah, fuck you,” Aimee said. A government man gasped. So did the Prime Minister, watching on a screen with other world leaders.

<YOU INSULT ME> It bared planet-shredding teeth. <I CHALLENGE CANADA GIRL FOR THIS PLANET>

“Come at me.”

<YOU ARE CANADA GIRL, VIRTUOUS DEFENDER OF THE MAPLE LEAF, IMBUED WITH THE SPIRIT OF CANADA? CONQUEROR OF BRAAX THE INTERGALACTIC PIRATE, VAMPIRIO THE VAMPIRE LOTHARIO, KO-LON THE SPACE-WIZARD? WHAT HAPPENED?>

Aimee touched her crunchy hair, wrecked by years of playing peroxide-blonde Canada Girl. She thought she’d lost her vanity when she was deemed too old to play Canada Girl’s mom in the remake. She was only fifty-eight, but Hollywood mothers-of-teenagers were forty-five at most, and unlike Drew Barrymoore, she looked like two rehab stints. Having an aeons-old alien notice her age cut. “I told you. I played Canada Girl. You intercepted 80’s broadcasts. She’s not real.”

The mass closed in. She choked on the stench of galactic-level decay. <DID VAMPIRIO SAP YOUR ETERNAL VITALITY AGAIN?>

“That’s a deep cut. You’re a true fan. Vampirio was Jorge Castellano—he writes thrillers now.”

<VAMPIRIO IS AGELESS. DO NOT TOY WITH ME. I HAVE BEEN GESTATING SINCE YOUR SPECIES WAS SINGLE-CELLED>

Aimee lifted the cigarette to her lips and took a drag to still the nicotine-deprived tremble in her hands. First rule of acting: always appear in control. She breathed out slowly, disdainfully. She was trying to quit—she’d been trying to quit ever since she was sixteen and a PA offered her her first cigarette between takes on the Canada Girl set—but this eldritch horror was the best excuse to relapse.

<YOU HAVE NO SUPER-ABILITIES?>

“I once drank a whole bottle of maple syrup for a commercial. Didn’t even gag.”

The Thing sparked. <CANADA GIRL IS A… LIE?>

“A story.”

The Thing Inside Pluto strained against the roof of the black-site warehouse. Bolts popped. The black-haired government man twitched and lifted his gun, like that would help.

A tentacle extruded from The Thing’s mass, reached right over Aimee’s head, and shlorped up the black-haired government man before he could even think to scream.

It squelched. <HE ANNOYED ME>

Aimee shuddered. “Please. Can’t you eat… um… the moon?”

<CONSUMING YOUR SATELLITE WOULD DEVASTATE YOUR ECOLOGY, MERELY DELAYING DESTRUCTION>

“How about Saturn?”

<LIMITED BIOMASS>

“Venus?”

The remaining government man swallowed. “It already ate Venus.”

Aimee didn’t like Earth much herself. She hadn’t had a role in ten years, not even the scraps Hollywood threw middle-aged actresses. She paid rent through the convention circuit. Fifty bucks an autograph. Every year her line got older and smaller. I don’t want to die sounded perfunctory, and she mostly lived for soap operas.

Aha.

“I’m not going to lie,” she said. “Humans suck, but we’re fun. You loved Canada Girl, right?”

<YOUR TRANSMISSIONS WERE PLEASANT DISTRACTIONS INSIDE THE GESTATION SHELL>

“There’s more. Three whole seasons not aired in Pluto.” The Thing shivered with delight, like it had after snacking on the government man.

<HOW?>

“Hollywood loves nostalgia and—never mind. We can keep making more Canada Girl. Forever. But only if humans are still around.” She turned to the government man. “Give me my phone.”

“Security protocol—”

“Who cares!”

He gave it. Aimee found “Canada Girl—S1E1 (2015)” on Youtube. She cringed at the new K-pop theme, but they’d kept her tagline (Canada Girl—Defender of Earth, Freedom, and the Maple Leaf!) and smartly cast a blonde unknown.

The Thing Inside Pluto tucked itself down to SUV size to watch. When the new Vampirio captured Canada Girl, it glowed.

<THERE IS MORE?>

“Every Wednesday, eight p.m. Hundreds of comic books too. A comic book is—”

<I KNOW OF COMIC BOOKS. CANADA GIRL REFERENCED THEM OFTEN>

A tentacle licked her phone but Aimee slapped it away. “No more Canada Girl unless you agree not to eat us.”

<I MUST EAT>

The government man cleared his throat. The Thing Inside Pluto rumbled. “You could eat ocean trash. Until our scientists find you a satisfactory planet.”

The Thing stroked the man’s sweating face with a tentacle. <IS HE LYING, CANADA GIRL?>

“You can definitely eat our garbage. No promises on another planet.”

The Thing was silent a long time. Finally it released the government man. <I WILL SPARE YOUR PLANET AS LONG AS THERE IS NEW CANADA GIRL>

“No,” Amy said. The government man turned so sharply his neck popped. “I want adequate recompense for my mediation services. Not the ‘Canada thanks you, here’s a medal’ bullshit. I want a major studio leading role. Best Actress bait.”

<I AM CONFUSED> said The Thing Inside Pluto.

Aimee touched its jellylike flank. It stung her palm. “If they don’t give me a movie, you can eat the planet. You’d do that for me, right? For Canada Girl?”

In its shivering tentacles, she saw the same adoration as in a trembling teenage boy holding out a comic for her autograph. True fans would do anything, anything she asked.

<YES> The Thing said. <I DEMAND THIS>

The Chinese president’s mouth dropped. The American president paled but managed, “Who do you want? Spielberg, Anderson? Take your pick but gods, woman, call it off.”

“I was thinking Tarantino,” she said.

“Done!”

“Thank you.” The president nodded, though she’d been talking to The Thing.

She stood up and cracked her knuckles. “Who’s going to drive me home?”

The dazed government man escorted her to a black Porsche with tinted windows. Aimee stepped into the car, crossed her legs, and let him close the door for her like the star she was.

So, this column is approaching its third birthday in the fall. If this were a TED lecture, we’d be in the third act of my inspirational journey, where I tell you that I found the meaning of life and made myself wealthy in spirit and cash, and then put my hands in prayer and wait for applause because it all worked out.

HAHAHAHAHA!

Nope. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve leveled up. I’ve got new opportunities, successes, and different sets of problems. Life is better. I have a good life, but one that I now risk losing. My retirement plan cannot be DIE AT WORK.

New skills must be mastered. New failures, rejections, and fears abide. I don’t have it made. I’m still surfing uncertainty and hope I can learn new skills well enough to keep moving forward. So, seven thoughts that are percolating as I try to adjust my life to success and perpetual fear of failure:

1. ENJOY YOUR VICTORIES WHEN THEY HAPPEN: Pulitzer-Prize winning author Richard Rhodes blurbed my book MAVERICKS OF WAR. “Jason Ridler’s Mavericks of War is that rarest of books, a visceral page-turner, which is also a deep examination of an overlooked human resource in war and international affairs—the expert outsider who works from inside while the ambassadors and the generals pace outside the walls.” HOLYFUCKINGSHIT! For those who have loved his blend of rigorous and populist history, this is praise from Caesar. And I want to enjoy it before I have to do another dozen things on my tasks list to grow a better career out of my successes. Smell the roses, blah blah blah.
2. DO NOT CONFUSE A VICTORY WITH STABILITY: Everything falls apart, eventually. Pure stability is an illusion. Learn to take what’s been a success and build it, but don’t forget how everything is tangential. Things you cannot foresee will shake up your life. New ideas and challenges abound. The last five years looked nothing like the preceding ten. Neither will the next five. Learn to love it instead of fear change like a murderer in the alley.
3. REMEMBER TO KILL YOUR PORN DREAMS: I’ve not had flights of fancy with the Brimstone series. I just enjoy writing the books and seeing where they lead. But then, I had no career in novels beyond Kindle stuff, so I’m starting from ground zero and enjoying the build. But with history… this is much tougher. Academia is a broken system, yet I’ve succeeded in making courses for major universities, and releasing both an academic and popular history project despite having zero-pull within the academy. I still hope these successes create more opportunities (my attitude with Brimstone), but a secret part of me wishes it will get me a job teaching history that pays well, that would offer stability and rates that I once expected. Then I look at the stats of positions to PhDs produced each year and go back to looking for other kinds of work while maximizing what comes of the work I have in play. Sure, I joke about getting a film deal with Brimstone or ending up on The Daily Show with Mavericks, but sometimes I find the daydream of being a full-time professor so intoxicating I need to smack it back down to earth with a steel chair. Success does not mean you get what you want. And it never has. It never will. The hope is that it keeps leading to even better things. And when it doesn’t, that’s cool. You just keep going.
4. KEEP MAKING STUFF: There are two indicators in my life that my psyche is headed for a fall: I stop listening to or playing music, and I stop making my own work (fiction, history, whatever). I hate the terms “creative” and “artists” but I don’t have a better term. I need to play with abstraction, story, and joy. If I don’t, then work becomes my god. I worship it at my peril.
5. EVERYTHING HAS A POINT OF COMMENCEMENT: When I was too poor to do history or fiction, I did tons of improv because I loved it and it fed my soul as I worked 60 hour weeks. Now that fiction and history have increased, my time for improv has reduced. I make the most of it when I can, because I’m an improviser4Life, but I can’t dedicate the same time that I used to. It sucks, but it’s okay. It sucks because I love improv and what it provides. But then I look and realize that everything moves in cycles. I had to stop history cold, and it was agony. But now it’s in bloom. Ditto novels. I can take improv into new spaces and places and always do more performance in the future. It’s just operating on a different timer now. You can’t do everything all the time, but that doesn’t mean you abandon things forever.
6. INNOVATION COMES FROM SMASHING THINGS TOGETHER: I use improv when I teach writing. I use history in my improv. I find wrestling analogies for every occasion. I make opportunities and build a career because of what I can combine from my many fields. One or two may be in ascendance, and not every brainstorm sessions requires me to quote Randy “Macho Man” Savage. But it has led to working with ad agencies, three novels, and more fun than I can swing a steel chair at. DIG IT!
7. THE FUTURE HAS THINGS IN IT, TOO: I’ve been so starved and surviving for so long I don’t yet trust the future. But I’m working on it. When I was burning out as a novelist, improv was waiting in the future. When I was burning out on teaching, writing history hid in a fellowship. When I’d given up on novels and focused on improv, a novel deal was waiting. And by waiting, I mean options and opportunities were created by me and others, and I was able to make manifest because I busted my fucking ass over the past twenty years to get good at some things.

The summation: avoid binary thinking. Everything or nothing. Failure or success. Doing or not doing. Life is experienced on a spectrum, not a circuit. You can’t do all things all the time. Pick your spots. Pick your battles. And don’t let fear derail you from taking the best swing you can make.

Keep Jay from his old retirement plan by buying HEX-RATED, FXXK WRITING: A GUIDE FOR FRUSTRATED ARTISTS, or pre-ordering MAVERICKS OF WAR.