Crackle. Pond. Night. A giant frog-like creature emerged from the padded water, its long tongue zapping a firefly. Then another. Then another. With each firefly it ate, it glowed a little more.

Dr. Elk had been studying the frog for some time. You are somehow both scary and beautiful, he told it, transfixed. From first sight, the creature had captured his imagination. Eventually he could do nothi...

In the corner is exercise bike, dusty and neglected. There are two long lamps, on each side of the sofa like Greek columns. Black pleather couches and a table with a bottle of salt and pepper and a small lidded bowl full of sugar. A magnifying glass pokes up out of a container full of pens. Plastic water bottles are everywhere, half filled with water, still. From of a tomato-shaped vase pours fork...

It was dark now, so new-moon dark that River and I used our

hands to feel along the bricks. We came back to the main road and its street lamps, we let them guide us past the Chinese food stores, past the Japanese hot pot place, past the rows of houses that all looked elegant in their dilapidation, lights still aglow as other students and their music thumped a faint beat in the background. I could ...

War has changed over the years. It used to be real people, once a long time ago, on horseback, with swords, and real wounds: and now it’s what it is. Hunks of metal, drone, robots. As we looked through the perspective of the robots we’d sent to the front line of combat, explosive sparks coming up everywhere, I saw for the first time what looked like a giant tarantula. It was the most impressive fe...