Machine Feelings

Available from Amazon.com.

Some of the stories in this collection have appeared in:

Alfie Dog Fiction, BLINK! Fiction for the Time Impaired, Bewildering Stories, Bleeding Ink Anthology, Calamities Press, Catesbury.com Sable Mare Tales, Daily Frights 2013, 365 Days of Frightening Flash, Daily Science Fiction, Danse Macabre, Fable Online, Fiction on the Web, Flash Fiction Magazine, Indiana Science Fiction Anthology Series, InfectiveINk.com, Literally Stories, Literary Yard, Microliterature, Midnight Circus, Nanoism, Nine: A Journal of Imaginative Fiction, One Forty Fiction, Potluck Magazine, Quail Bell, Separate Worlds, Short Humour Site, Static Movement, Story Shack Magazine, Stupefying Stories, Used Gravitrons, World of Myth, Zodiac Review

…The Good Book talks about this day. It describes it in great detail,” he remarked.

“If it’s true–if this really is the end of the world, why aren’t you inside praying with everyone else?”

“I’ve always maintained a private relationship with my creator,” he said.

At that moment, they were both startled by a painfully loud, trumpeting noise.

–from “When Pigs Fly”

…As Harold and I watch Puff hover, we hear a car pulling up our gravel driveway. Then, we hear a second car. Then, another. And another.

Dang!

Yufo tourists. They’re mostly city folk. Been here all summer. Most of ’ems been staying at the Sunset Motel, but the university kids have a makeshift campground on the Rogers farm ten miles down the road. They have their hi-tech yufo-detectin’ equipment set up there. Harold says they sniff at the ether with their fancy rotating parabolic antennas until they find a yufo. Then they hightail it to the last known coordinates. Harold understands that radio stuff; I don’t. Anyway, they got a bead on this particular yufo and now they’re here.”

–from “Puff”

…Gomph made a circular motion with his paw around his abdomen to indicate apology. With his other paw, he pointed to himself, then he followed with a sweeping gesture through the sky.

“I am sorry, human. I assumed you were presenting me with a greeting gift. I have traveled from far, far away to visit your species.”

“I don’t give two hoots if you got a full belly, or what high-rise you live in. This is my turf! Go trick-or-treat somewhere else. Unless you want to contribute–scat! You’re scaring away the paying customers. Kapeesh?”

–from “A Failure to Communicate”