“The Wind has not changed its pattern since the tumble of the world. It tears across the surface, weaponizing the cold weather so no one can live in it, and then it vanishes for seven days. It brings down branches, yes. But it’s never left such marks before, like—like a beast! Why has it changed, now? What else could it do?”

“Where the Wind sleeps,” Teren said, “Is not a mystery, though.”

The air stagnated in the streets. No, it rotted, like so many leaves in a compost pile. Siran grabbed her oxygen mask off her bedside table and clapped it over her mouth.

When the Thwaites glacier thawed, the news prattled /
about how stock in plastic water bottles fell /

Every autumn, the billions of maple trees turned the entire surface of the 27^th moon a vibrant red. It had happened every year since the settlers of New Earth had landed 362 years ago. Except, this year, Tiradel’s trees had no leaves.

When Jan reached four years into sixty, his daughter and her son flew off into the glorious first exploration past the Milky Way to somewhere called Z-1.

It's the loudest on windy days. In the spring, when the temperatures swing in Nebraska from 34 to 80 in a day, the wind gusts roar up 50 mph. On those days, the fan squeals like a newborn tyrannosaurus rex. 

Luce wiped sweat from her eyes. Her knees hurt from kneeling on the skyroof, nailing shingles where the clouds had fallen through.

Nimia pulled her body along the underground tunnel with her muscled arms, one grip at a time. She passed the pods where other Pullers, like herself, worked, their hands plugged into the company interface.

The streetlight blinked, and Laura fell towards it. The gravity on Planet F1SR, or “Fissure,” felt like dream falling, except you never woke up from the jolt.

She could see the ones that had come before her, and after, that had perched in the chair in the waiting room of the auto dealer shop. They superimposed over her body like layers of frosting on a cake, a finger here, a curly bit of hair there.

What if all the stars worked a 9-5 with-
out healthcare or matching 401(k)s?
Would they shine so bright or
their long light arms reach Earth?

The secret compartment in the bureau slid open with the self-assuredness of a French word pointing out its silent vowels. Libby’s jaw dropped, her lips popping into an ‘o,’ and stood there with the museum’s identifying tag in her hand for a good five seconds.

Rory slogged through the field of plastic, swinging her metal detector like a divining rod. If she dug up just a dollar fifty more in change, she could buy a full week’s worth of rations instead of three days.

My mind won’t stop once I lie supine. A thousand reminders prick through from my subconscious—how could I forget the trash full of my shed skin?

The purring rumbles throughout the cathedral room. It is loud, but not the horrible, bright kind of loud that bars or doctor’s offices have. This is a cozy loud.

Georgia dumped the 50-pound bag of cockroaches in the hole and flashed a thumbs-up to the camera man. “One of the worst environmental conundrums, f-fixed,” she said to Tommy the reporter. “And it only took us a h-h-hundred fifty years.”

“Can you believe it?” Est-L’s wife, Nen-L, twirled and pointed at her microscope. “There’s even smaller things called planets! They orbit those tiny stars!”

The rose unfolded another petal across the Atlantic. Another wave of heat, killing all in its path. But she felt nothing from so far away. The space station elevator room ran a little chilly.

“I was a Russian code breaker in ’73,” Merina said. “You think dog is hard to figure out? You’ve been barking for 45 minutes.”

When Lissa drove the long stretch to work from Omaha to Lincoln the past few days, her iMind just fuzzed out, like a TV station gone staticky.