We sent more probes into the shimmer, each one came back with data points and images that were impossible: pictures of the team that built them, SKUs of the parts ordered.
Whatever #magnanimous entity lay in the beyond, it wanted to show us it knew us, knew how we were made, and it cared.
#vss365
Section Q promised the greys a #bountiful workforce in exchange for their technology.
We used it to modify our food, but didn’t foresee the decline in birth rates and the spread of obesity and cancer.
Turns out, us growing fat and sick was accidental self preservation.
How human is that?
#vss365
Snow filled driveway and structures nearly buried in it.
Outside, the snow kept falling.
He’d been shoveling for days, but now #lethargy draped itself over his shoulders like a weighted blanket.
He didn’t need to get to the garage anymore.
The front door? There was food enough for a week.
He laid down and listened to the quiet of the cold.
#vss365
#vss365 and micro-fiction loving friends, some great writes here in this edition, including a piece by yours truly.
#writingcommunity
www.fairfieldscribes.com/issue-55.html/
Thank you, Eileen! 😄🙏
Every probe sent into the shimmer, the #cataract of light that stretched across the quadrant, reported the same data: time stamps from before it had been sent.
Recordings of the team who had assembled it, images of its component parts; it was as if the shimmer gave memories to the metal.
#vss365
In the upstairs bedroom at number nineteen, Garrick’s Way, behind a fake wall in the closet, is the gateway to heaven.
Those expecting the #splendour of the pearly gates arrive into the kingdom of God disappointed and smelling slightly of mothballs.
Peter runs the coat check.
#vss365 #splendor
Thanks, Maria! 😄☀️✨
The library had many rooms in the basement, where rare, powerful, works were kept.
Mel had the only set of keys.
Patrons thought her kind, but #timid; little did they know her whispers put the sun to bed each night and the stars only twinkled when she allowed it.
#vss365
😄🙏
On her 70th birthday, Mara began a #quest to find the girl who once believed in dragons.
She searched closet boxes, old notebooks and attic dust, until a small brave voice answered her from within, warm and waiting, reminding her of the adventures she’d had in the place beyond the sea.
#vss365
I of course meant right angles.
I am much better when I’m writing first thing in the morning, it seems. 🤣
Paul was forever adjusting, #obsessed with right angels and parallel lines. It gave Nancy joy to leave forks upside down in the drawer or books hanging off the desk corner.
When she passed, there was no one to keep him in check and his universe, finally aligned, snapped shut around him.
#vss365
Looking forward to your words! 😄
“The #velocity with which your thoughts reach your tongue is truly staggering.”
“Some of us process in real time.”
“Yes, and sometimes letting a thought marinate is wisdom.”
“Careful, overcooked is still overcooked.”
I can sit here in the coffee shop and listen to these two all morning.
#vss365
I chased you into the stars.
Our #orbital paths meet, mostly at industry parties, where inhibitions are swallowed up by black holes and satellites silence phones.
I’ve seen your show, it’s great. My pilot wasn’t picked up, but getting auditions.
I miss being back at the start with you.
#vss365
Our cottage lit up from the frozen lake, footprints in the snow leading back to it.
Snow angel on a frozen lake.
I’m outside now, the music of the party muted in the cold air.
The lake calls to me, hewn into triangles by the day’s snowmobiles.
I walk out on it, lie down and take in the #stellar symphony above.
I make an angel, then follow my own steps home, back to the warmth of my friends.
#vss365
📸: mine
Thanks, Pauline! 😄
Thank you, Maria! Appreciate you checking it out!! 😄📘🙏
The issue is now available for all to read!
See below for links and give Haven Spec a follow while you’re there!
My first published piece:
We are the Giants We Fear.
#writingcommunity
On the lawn, glasses raised, they smiled #knowingly at each other, remembering the best parts of their life together.
The kids asleep on the blanket at their feet (they’d thought it best for them to drink the tea first), they leaned in for one last kiss as ash fell around them like snow.
#vss365
Don tore at his skin, #crazed, positive something was growing inside it.
Something animal.
Something #beastly.
Shreds fell to the ground, bloodied, clumped, staining the dirt road dark.
He had tried to hide from the moon, but it rose anyway, a #blatant reminder off who was in charge.
#vss365
The latest issue of @havenspec.bsky.social has arrived!
Check out my story and a number of great reads from some other talented writers!
Thank you, Danielle! 😄🙏
The audience, fresh from a go at the #bouncy castle, now sits #mystified as the coins disappear from under one cup and appear in another.
Squeals are quieted, cake goes uneaten, as Marvin whispers.
The kids don’t want to go home with their parents.
They want to stay with him.
Forever.
#vss365
Haven Spec Magazine, Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026. Cover and table of contents. The issue is now available to subscribers, and its contents are as follows: Cover Art by Matthew Spencer. Fiction: Fragments of Sky in Quantum Grief by Lex Chamberlin. She Will Help You The Only Way She Knows How by Janel Comeau. Skin Deep by Cressida Roe. Tring-a-Ling by Dafydd McKimm. We Are The Giants We Fear by Lee Zanello. Poetry: If I must exist here, by Eleanor Ball. Fairest One by Sophia Zhao. Persephone Wins Custody of Herself by Marisca Pichette. Roommate by Arthur H. Manners. Mothercraft (a villanelle) by Erin Brown. Nonfiction: Letter from the Editor, Ya Herd? by Leon Perniciaro. Poetry for the End of the World by Jessica Peter. Little Fiction Reviews by the Editors of Haven Spec Magazine.
Our ✨February 2026 issue✨ has now gone out to subscribers!
This issue is full of the uncanny, the spooky, and the delightfully strange, so give it a read and let us know what your favorite piece is!
Subscribe today to read it now!
havenspec.com/issues/issue...
The surface of her memory itched; something familiar stirred in the tall grass, cicadas whirring in the trees.
An #enchanted evening. A tall man, thin as birch, pointing to a horizon where clouds hung low behind a #mountainous curtain.
Words sung, not spoken, a spell she’d not yet broken.
#vss365
🤦indeed lol
🤣
I like the creative justification.
