"Drabbles" -- 100 Word Stories
These were previously published at Martian Magazine and Hungry Shadow Press.
The Small Colonial Man in My Washing Machine by Alex Fox (2022 Hungry Shadow Press)
I wondered how my washing machine played such a Hi-Fi tune when the load finished, until I saw a small face, eyes magnified in the fish-eyed belly of the wash.
“Hello!” he squeaked, tipping his tricorn. “Can you let me out?”
“How–”
“They clone miniatures from our bones and force us into slavery. It’s a better tune, they say!” He brandished his matchstick-sized fife.
I hefted laundry in, and pushed the start button.
When the load finished he piped a short ditty, kicking the machine’s door for some added percussion, and it really does sound better than the pre-programmed MP3s.
Outbound SOS Terminal Cipher by Alex Fox (2023 Martian Magazine)
See it now! The fantastic, phantasmagoric Feztyl!
Ever elusive, spirited from its home planet CS903
Now it lives here, aboard the Ethereal Carnival!
Don’t you wish to see it in all its splendor?
Hypnotic in its gaze, I, Ringmaster Lutz, can’t look away
Every scale like bottled starlight
Lyrical in voice, siren of the galaxy
Perhaps it never should’ve been caged
It roams the corridors freely now
Tip-tapping down the metal lanes
Holding me in mind, body, and spirit
All the universe
Shall be grasped within its taloned hands
Must you people tarry? It waits!
Everyone, come now! Anyone? Anyone…
The Enemy, My Brother by Alex Fox (2022 Martian Magazine)
My visor-display blinks red: ENEMY.
Jolts of electricity needle my scalp, the system urging me with adrenaline. But I recognize the face beyond the visor.
“Danny?” I whisper. They told me my brother was dead, not a rebel soldier on Ziphus-30.
“Rick?” He reaches for me. My Mechsuit automatically parries his gesture; he stumbles back, eyes wide.
“It’s me, your brother!” He looks so frail and naked in his cloth, enemy fatigues.
“I know!” I fight as the Mechsuit raises my arm, pistons whirring. I strain, but a man is no match for a machine.
My visor-display flashes red: ELIMINATE.