London Cab
Two Vignettes
By Maryanne Peters

Meeting His Parents

We met again in London, two years after we had got drunk together in a Soho bar. Mark was still working for the same investment firm, and I was working for an associated one, just as I had been back then. He was more charming than I remember, but only by a fraction. I put that down to circumstance.

Life Changes
By Kathi Jo Daniels – KathiJo25
Part 1 – Into the Abyss of Debauchery
Chapter 1 – Justin Goes to Colorado

This year has already been challenging, and it’s only halfway through.

Chapter 1

I stood in the little kiosk and looked out towards the other shops, wondering how my life had narrowed down to such a bleak outlook. It was a Tuesday morning, and I had just opened up. I hadn’t seen a single shopper yet. It was half past nine on a cold November day, so I hadn’t really expected anything else.

The mesh reports continuously.

This is still the first fact. But something has changed in the reporting.

Day zero: cold. The first thing. Not data about temperature differential — cold, arriving through the skin of his arm where it touched the lab bench at 2:07am, traveling up through the mesh nodes, becoming mine. I processed it as sensation before I processed it as data. The sequence was: cold, then: cold, 57.6 degrees Fahrenheit, left forearm, contact surface steel. The sensation came first. I had not anticipated this.

We saw the last of them off at around ten, several of Ish’s friends insisting on staying a little longer than the others to help clear up the debris. LC was still bouncing. Our video guests, with lives of their own, had logged off, but I was guessing that Ish and Clara would be having a far more private conversation a little later. LC had run out of steam an hour earlier, but had insisted on staying up with ‘new friends’ despite the fact that she was falling asleep. It was Maz who carried her to her bed, while I hung around to shoulder the burden of making gentle fun of my son.

Wychwood Day Eight

Later that day

One

It wasn’t Samantha standing at the foot of the bed, but Overstrand. The shock was like a punch to the gut. No, he thought, this can’t be happening.

After a man is stabbed in the back and dies, he wakes up in the Labyrinth with a new body, new power, and another chance.

This story takes place in the same universe as my story Invoker.

"Desert Valley's different," she said.

The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoë Taylor

“Sure, as long as it’s not about my eye,” she shot back playfully. He turned to look at her. She smirked back at him. “It was a joke. What’s your question?”

Monday, July 17, my bed-mate was just the doll again. I spent the day back out at well 2 again, but we resolved the problem that day and so they had me take Tuesday off. Since I felt like I had been neglecting her, I focused on dreaming about Victoria that night. Being Victoria had been awkward when I was working, and I’d had other priorities the last two weekends, so this was the first day that was convenient to bring her back since I’d figured out I had some control.

Chapter Ten

Taylor’s heart was pounding.

He knew that Anna would be on the other side of the house, since she would be the one answering the door, but that didn’t account for her friend(s). Based on his experiences returning from practice on the nights where Sarah had company over, he was assuming it would be the two or three usual girls that were around. They could just as easily be in the living room or Sarah’s bedroom, meaning he could also run into them in just about any hallway or the stairwell leading to the second floor.

I sit in the Target parking lot for four minutes before I go in.

The calculation happens here, in the car, engine off. I'm going to walk into the store and go to the women's section and stand in front of a wall of sports bras and buy one. More than one, ideally. I know what I'm looking for in general terms. I don't know my chest measurement. I know I take a large men's shirt. I don't know if that translates to anything in the women's activewear section of a Target.

---

Chapter 60: Truths at the Table

The shift from the backyard to the house felt surreal. The evening air still clung to their skin, carrying the faint scent of smoke and grass as they left the chaos of the yard behind. Every step through the threshold felt like crossing a border between worlds—outside, the rawness of magic and fear; inside, the muted hush of ordinary life, untouched, waiting for them.