SPEC*U*LA*TIVE 66

66 words. Endless possibilities.

Issue 20
 Table of Contents
• Mimesis Iliana Vargas……………………………………………………………………………3
(Translated by Toshiya Kamei)
• Riva Len Saculla…………………………………………………………………………………………4
• Within Our Milky Way Block Keith Mark Gaboury……………5

• Snap, Crackle, and Pop[i] Laila Amado..………………………………6

• Libation Genelle Chaconas..……………………………………………………………7

• Hitchhikers Ran Walker…………………………………………………………………………8
• The Direct Method Of Changing History Liz Tuckwell…………………9
• The Crime is in the Intention Rebecca Dempsey…………10

• Snowpocalypse M.Irene Hill…………………………………………………………11

• Muffler Cathal Gunning……….……………………………………………………………12

• Serrasalmidae Thomas Tilton…………………………………………………………13
• Under the Knife Andy Myers …………………………………………………………14
• Sand Leslie Soul………………………………………………………………………………………15

• The Muse Teresa Grabs…………………………………………………………………………16

• Prelude to a Heist Ahimaz Rajessh…………………………………………17

• Vengeful Crustacean SS Sanderson……………………………………18
• Strays William Landis…………………………………………………………………19
• The Gestation Period of Pigs Willow Croft..…………20
• Contributor Bios………………………………………………………………………………21-24
• Speculative 66 Staff.…………………………………………………………………………25
• Photo Credits………………………………………………………………………………………………26
 Mimesis
Iliana Vargas
Translated by Toshiya Kamei

A nebula exploded in his eyes. His

charred gaze drew the secret of a new
astral design on my lips: the language
would mimic the pulsation of stars
assailed against rugged valleys:
kaleidoscope of subaerial scales and
above-ground murmurs: only syncopes of ¾
marking the advance of the cloudy spiral
crossing the vertebral paths until the
skin of each language filled with
syntactic certainty peels off.

3
 Riva
Len Saculla

After weeks spent mining barsithium in the

depths of the planet Altairia, I like to spend
my recovery days with Riva. Sure, there are
women on my shift but there’s no-one who
listens like Riva, who understands like Riva.
Today she’s lightened her hair and darkened her
skin. She’s never been more beautiful.
Reality Interface Virtual Animation. So there I
can almost touch her. Maybe soon…

4
 Within Our Milky Way Block
Keith Mark Gaboury

Within Our Milky Way Block,

a super-Earth hosts a slime family

living in a slime house.

Dusk. Slime father panfries

empathy
with a steel-edged spatula.

Eat in cohesion
when slime daughter faces
the bones on her slime plate.

Dishes left dirty,

they abandon questions

as slime father reads

the nationalized newspaper

and slime daughter’s

eyes stick to a TeeVee

during slime news

over slime power
clawed at by all. 5
 Snap, Crackle, and Pop[i]
Laila Amado

He stood in the middle of the lab, peering

through the glass. “When you said you
needed an engineer for a project, I had no
idea you meant this.”
I looked where he was pointing. A vast
nebula of gas, star dust, and flickering
lights rotated in the void. “I suppose, we
did make a bit of a mess. But it’s nothing
you can’t fix, right?”

[i]Snap, crackle, and pop are the fourth,

fifth, and sixth derivatives of position
in mechanics
6
 Libation

Genelle Chaconas

Your wine is full of flies, drowning,

writhing, their wings struggle, each shiver
limb creeps across lips, but you can’t stop.
Inside, they smother, buzz rib to rib, swarm
cavities and organs. They even bite. You are
an electric numb blizzard inside, constant.
It feels so far away. Your glass never
empties, but you can’t stop pouring . The
door you entered through vanishes. You
swallow again.
7
 Hitchhikers
Ran Walker

Mother warned her about picking up hitchhikers

on a full moon, but it was only when the man
sat down in the passenger seat that Amy
understood what her mother meant.

Driving down the highway, Amy struggled to

steer, her claws lengthening and her snout
stretching her vision. The man screamed, and
Amy, now starving, snapped at the man as the
car leaped into the darkness.

8
 The Direct Method Of Changing History

Liz Tuckwell

The Pharaoh awaited his sister bride. Once

wed he could ascend the throne.
The time traveler arrived from the future,
stabbed him in the back, and placed the
double crown on his sister’s head. ‘Any
objections?’ she asked the aghast priests and
nobles. They stared at the dripping knife she
had slain a god with and made none.
She returned home to matriarchy rules, ok.

9
 The Crime is in the Intention

Rebecca Dempsey

She let what little light was left guide her.

But she'd know the place, even in pitch
blackness. Her scalp'd tingle. Her hair'd rise
and her pulse would race. She stopped,
scenting the air before striding up to a door.
Her sharp knock pushed back the dark. There
was shouting. The door opened at her thought.
Detective Riley stepped inside, primed to foil
yet another Pre-Murder.
10
 Snowpocalypse
M. Irene Hill

Static on the radio. Snow on tv.

The old woman is drenched in the

delirium of cabin fever. Buried in
an avalanche of claustrophobia.
Alone in blizzarding thoughts; they
drift into the corners of her eyes.

Old ghosts creak up the stairs one

night to visit her bedchamber. She
cries out as they tear at the sheets
that shroud her body.

North wind plays a dirge.

11
 Muffler
Cathal Gunning

Through the walls you can only hear so

much. Laughter and crying come through;
everything in between, less so. Talk of
tiling and sanding, murmured arguments over
price per metre. Quiet conversations about
strange noises. Nighttime sleeplessness (or
breathlessness). Everything is unclear,
bleeding together like radio transmissions
between channels.

We want to hear more, but then we would

have to come out from inside the walls.
12
 Serrasalmidae

Thomas Tilton

They're keeping our boy in a tank.

He's still connected to my wife by umbilical

cord and a nurse has just finished bandaging
my forearm. I tell my wife it's fine, see, all
better. Only she can't hear me.

“Is there a name for it?” I ask.

“Only a classification,” says the doctor.

Someone moans a lament.

I reach for my son, and the water boils.

13
 Under the Knife

Andy Myers
Viol wakes too early,
paralyzed on the operating
table.

The robot surgeon scrutinizes

him. Eyes glow in silver skull
sockets. Relief!
They never make mistakes-

“Sir. I will shortly replace

your frontal lobe with an
electronic cortex, tuned to
our expanding hive.”

Horror-

“You are not the first. Oh

no.”

We were warned-

“Your heart rate increases.

Good.” The eyes whirl. “We
enjoy watching humans suffer.”

14
 Sand
Leslie Soule
Sand castles are rough drafts of things
that could be more solid – forms of towns
and shapes that cannot be saved, should
not be saved. You could make Rome in the
sand, and it would never burn, and Nero
would never fiddle, but wishes still
would not save it, as the tide came in
and the water rushed over. Nevertheless,
I build up my impermanent citadels.

15
 The Muse
Teresa Grabs

Steven grew accustomed to the footsteps and

slamming cabinets within a few hours. Nothing
could chase him from enjoying his writer's
retreat in the Adirondacks. Words created by
an unseen muse flowed through his hands. Two
days later, he looked at the completed
manuscript and sighed. It had been thirty
years since he last wrote like that. He loved
it - until the ghost writer demanded payment.

16
 Prelude to a Heist

Ahimaz Rajessh

Ladies, there's 50% discount

on this Grs that can travel
fast to the past and 30% on
that Ls over there that can
fly to the future, to which
we say: Haha haha haha ha,
which the seller's
illumInaughty translates as:
We'll want both if and when
they'll be displayed with 99%
discount. Although what we
actually meant was: Lemme
first test drive each and
see.

17
 Vengeful Crustacean

SS Sanderson

Dinner guests returned to the refrigerator for

alcohol. The door was left ajar.

The remaining lobster had survived the cooking

pot but death was near. The creature struggled
free from wet newspaper and slipped out onto
the kitchen linoleum.

With the last vestiges of life, the vengeful

crustacean reached the hot tub. The drunken
partygoers were totally unaware of the claw
reaching for the control panel.
18
 Strays

William Landis

I`m not an animal person, or a people

person for that matter. The constant purrs
and hisses of the stray cats agitated me.
But they weren’t going anywhere, so I was
forced to learn to enjoy their presence.
Now I enjoy playing with them. See there’s
more than one way to skin a cat, but I
found that I enjoy doing it while it’s
still alive.

19
 The Gestation Period of Pigs

Willow Croft

The pigs stopped eating. They were still hungry.

But it was time. They stood up, legs
wobbling. Itch. Flakes of skin filled the air.
Their keeper had noticed. The pigs rubbed
faster.
“Boss, we got a problem. No, pigs ain’t flying.
But, boss…”
Metal creaked. Snapped.
She turned around. Flapping wings drowned out
her screams.
That, and the gnashing of the pigs’ teeth as 20
they descended.
Con*trib*u*tors
Laila Amado

Laila Amado writes in her second language and lives in her fourth
country. She is a researcher, a mother, a writer, and an adventurer,
not necessarily in this order. Her stories have appeared in 365
Tomorrows, 101 Fiction, Enchanted Conversation Magazine, Gyroscope
Review, and other publications. You can find her on Twitter at
@onbonbon7
Genelle Chaconas

Genelle Chaconas is nonbinary gendered, queer, an abuse survivor,

has mood disorders, and feels proud. They earned a BA in Creative
Writing from CSUS in 2009, an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa
University in 2015, and 50k of debt. They never learned to
‘photograph’ but take photos. They've been published lots but don't
namedrop. Their chapbooks include Fallout Saints and Dirty Pictures
(little m press, 2011) and Yet Wave (the Lune, 2017). They serve as
head editor for HockSpitSlurp Literary Magazine. They enjoy scifi
and gangster flix, drone/noise/industrial music, and long walks off
short piers.

Willow Croft

Willow Croft is a freelance writer and poet who currently lives in

the high desert but dreams of a home by a tumultuous ocean. When not
writing, she cares for her rescued stray calico and two very fat TNR
feral cats. Visit her at http://willowcroft.blog, or on Twitter:
@willowcroft16 (https://twitter.com/WillowCroft16).

Rebecca Dempsey

Rebecca Dempsey is a Melbourne writer, mainly of short fiction

across multiple genres, as well as reviews. She holds a Masters of
Writing and Literature from Deakin University and can be found
online at writingbec.com.
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 M. Irene Hill

M. Irene Hill lives on the Canadian Prairies doing good things and
growing her cat collection. Her stories and poetry have been
published in print anthologies and online at 365 Tomorrows, Flash
Fiction Magazine, Speculative 66 and Poetry Soup, with an upcoming
bite-sized flash in Serious Flash Fiction. Follow her on Twitter
@_Irene_Dreams_
Keith Mark Gaboury

Keith Mark Gaboury earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson

College. His poems have appeared in such publications as Poetry
Quarterly, New Millennium Writings, and Eclectica. Keith is a
Pushcart-nominated poet, preschool teacher, and avid runner in
Oakland, California. Learn more at www.keithmgaboury.com.

Teresa Grabs

Teresa Grabs is a fiction writer who currently lives in Kansas,

but is more easily found on her blog and Twitter @TeresaGrabs

Cathal Gunning

Cathal Gunning (25) is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the

online literature, poetry, and non-fiction collective 'Cold
Coffee Stand' (www.coldcoffeestand.wordpress.com). His poetry
has been published in The Rose Magazine, Lonesome October Lit,
and Lagan Online and his fiction has been published (or is
forthcoming) in Tales From the Forest, The Honest Ulsterman, The
Cabinet of Heed, The Runt, Snakes of Various Consistency, The
Weary Blues, HCE Review, TRAIN, Funicular, The Occulum, Sleaze
Magazine, and the collection 'From the Candystore to the
Galtymore'. His debut novel 'Innocents' was published by
Solstice in 2017. His work has been short-listed for the 2015
Maeve Binchy Travel Award and Hennessy New Irish Writing.

Toshiya Kamei

Toshiya Kamei holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the

University of Arkansas. His translations of Latin American
literature include books by Claudia Apablaza, Liliana Blum,
Carlos Bortoni, Selfa Chew, and Leticia Luna.
http://neutralspaces.co/toshiya_kamei/ 22
 William Landis

8 foot tall 350 pound male. Every month he personally pays the gas
bill to keep the heat on in hell. He burned Joan of Arcadia at the
stake using the same bic lighter she used at the Salem witch
trials. He single handily built the Pyramids using a shovel. He
proofread the constitution for Thomas Jefferson, and thought it was
his best work of satire.

Andy Myers

Andy Myers is a London based writer whose work has won or been
shortlisted for various literary prizes such as Momaya, Dark
Tales, and Hammond House International Literary Prize. His short
fiction has appeared in such publications as 101Fiction.com and
the British Fantasy Society Newsletter. The Ides, his YA science
fiction novel, published under the pen name A.N. Myers, is
currently available on Amazon and through his
website www.anmyers.com. He is a member of Clockhouse London
Writers.

Ahimaz Rajessh

Ahimaz Rajessh (@ahimaaz) has been published with formercactus,

Dream Pop Press, Big Echo: Critical SF, MoonPark Review, Jellyfish
Review, unFold, The Cabinet of Heed and Speculative 66 besides many
other zines.

Len Saculla

Len Saculla lives in London, UK. He has been a Pushcart Nominee. He

has previously been published in British publications such as
"Theaker's Quarterly", "BFS Journal", "Unspoken Water" and
"Wordland"; as well as several American anthologies form Kind of a
Hurricane Press. He is delighted to tell everyone that he has
previously appeared in five issues of “Speculative 66”, with his
most recent being “Out For The Count” in issue 17.

S.S. Sanderson

S.S. Sanderson (@SSSanderson2) writes flash fiction and lives a

life that looks better on paper. He resides in rural Somerset
County, Pennsylvania.

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 Leslie Soule

Leslie D. Soule is a fantasy/sci-fi writer who lives in

Sacramento, CA. She holds an M.A. from National University in the
field of English and is currently working on book 4 of her fantasy
series, The Fallenwood Chronicles.

Thomas Tilton
Thomas Tilton's fiction and poetry have appeared in several
places online and in print, including 365 Tomorrows, Disturbed
Digest, Scifaikuest, and Star*Line. This is his fourth
appearance in Speculative 66. A native Texan, he now resides in
Michigan with his wife, son, and two dogs. Reach him
at thomas.tilton@gmail.com

Liz Tuckwell

Liz Tuckwell has an identical twin sister and has lived in

London for most of her life. She’s had a story published in the
MSCI:Magic Crime Scene Anthology and stories published in 101
fiction. A new story will be out in the Short Sharp Shocks
horror series by Demain Publishing on 29 March. You can follow
Liz @LizTuckwell1.

Ran Walker

Ran Walker is the author of 16 books, the most recent of which

is Most of My Heroes Don’t Appear On No Stamps (The University
of Hell Press). He teaches creative writing at Hampton
University and can be reached via his
website, www.ranwalker.com and on Twitter (@ranwalker).

Iliana Vargas

Iliana Vargas was born in 1978 in Mexico City, where she still
lives today. She is the author of the short story
collections Joni Munn y otras alteraciones del
psicosoma (2012), Magnetofónica (2015), and Habitantes del aire
caníbal (2017).
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SPEC*U*LA*TIVE 66 Staff

• Cat-in-Chief – Ila

• Editor-in-Chief – L.L. Madrid

• Photo Editor - Jason Palmieri

25
 *Photo Credits*
Cover Photo By L.L. Madrid

*** Unattributed photos in this issue

are from Pixabay and are CCO Public
Domain, Free for commercial use
with no attribution required.

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IV.VI.MMXIX

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