The Skwib: Octopuses’ Garden

Peter Stumbersby was a devotee of the Browning Diving Suit, though for some time he had owned an original Flannigan Breathing Apparatus (it almost killed him.) Neither of these submersible garments were cheap to maintain. The Browning Suit, especially, got a little funky, as he insisted on wearing it even

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The Skwib: The Merchant Banker Awards

Thorsson had a very small but fanatically loyal client base. They especially liked his aggressive stance vis-a-vis derivatives and lopping the heads off of their competition. Alltop enjoys credit-swap de-cranialization. Originally published January 2007. Thanks to Hans S for the skull-splittingly good photo. More of Toulouse Le Grandfig’s work can

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The Skwib: The Future Is Frenzied

Professor Albedo-9000 Frink (the Third) was justifiably proud of his invention. It had taken him nearly 300 years of his genetically enhanced life to construct the Frink Dojigger 12. (Experimental models 1-11 proved un-viable.) Using only the finest Moussorgsky rodent filaments and all the heavy element Poutinium available in the Liquid Fermentation Galaxy, he had […]

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The Skwib: Star-crossed lovers

1960 … formerly unknown Mexican sci-fi!, a photo by x-ray delta one on Flickr. The being had crossed all of known space to find her, Lola LaBozla, the smartest woman on Earth. It had tracked her from Earth orbit using the prototype of her own wearable artificial intelligence unit and spaghetti cleanser (AIUSC), that while […]

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The Skwib: A middle year satori

Beauty is relative, a photo by True_Bavarian on Flickr. At a certain point in your life, you realize that you are who you are. That isn’t to say that your life won’t change. Of course it will change. So will your personality, but not in big ways. If you’re an introvert, you’re not going to […]

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The Skwib: A Robot Regrets

Meeptron the Bio-Destruction Bot looked out at the wasteland that once was Peoria and thought that his work had actually made it look nicer. Of course, he was programmed that way, so he couldn’t really help it. He thought about that little Red Juggernaut he’d met on Robo-Leave that summer. Gloria. Yes, sweet Gloria. She […]

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The Skwib: Everyone’s a critic

Hank didn’t care that act had won the Most Unconvincing Bear Award six years running. He had been practicing on his flugelhorn, and he was sure that this season would be different. The crowds were going to love the new routine: the breathtaking flugel-glissandos, the ursine feel to the dance, and his hat. God, they […]

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The Skwib: Taking one for the team

It seemed unlikely that Janet was an “anthrax tester” for the Department of Defense, as she claimed. It just didn’t seem possible that she could snort a gram of weaponized splenic fever each and every hour for weeks on end and not show any effects. (Apart from the tremors, vertigo, muscle twitches & paranoia.) For […]

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The Skwib: Stiff Upper, and So Forth

“I have London on the line, sir.” “What do they want?” “They’re asking about the penguins.” “The penguins?” “Yes, remember, penguins is the codeword . . .” “For what?!” “You know, sir, the uh, devices . . . the prophylactics. . .” “The prophylactics?! What the hell is that supposed to be?” “Oh, sir, please. […]

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The Skwib: The Smears of a Clown

They were never going to give him a Nobel Prize for Buffoonery. The Pulizer committee had told him in no uncertain terms that there wasn’t a category for astonishingly narrow, rakishly worn top hats. And he’d been shut out of the Oscars for years, even though the critics had not condemned his broad portrayal of […]

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