Short stories and flash fiction from writer Simon John Cox.
Three short stories that speculate about the distant machines that may or may not influence mankind's future. Perks Of The Job Two detectives investigate a death caused by excessive genetic enhancement. Where do we draw the line when our bodies can be changed at will? Still In a post-apocalyptic world a man and his son… Continue reading Distant Machines
The technology behind the TV show Quantum Leap is real, a black project run by the Pentagon in the 1980s to embed its spies directly into the minds of America's enemies. Shut down due to test subjects going out of control when inhabiting other bodies, the technology has been stolen by North Korea and the… Continue reading A Quantum Leap
When Adam Bradford's sister goes missing he drops everything to assist the police, travelling up to the isolated village where she lived. When he arrives at her cottage, however, he discovers a life in disarray and a bedroom filled with cryptic notes and mysterious blurred photographs. At first he puts this obsession down to some… Continue reading The Slender Man
Writing my sci-fi story Fool's Gambit got me wondering: what is science fiction? What is the definition? Where do the boundaries lie? What are the rules? I'm sure there are a lot of well-researched and philosophical articles out there that Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein* their way towards a perfectly serviceable definition, but frankly I can't… Continue reading Something something something aliens
I've written the theme music to three 1980s films that don't exist but which should. Blood Hack: Los Angeles, 1997. The near future. When a gang of cyberterrorists implants a computer virus into the president's cerebral cortex, a former hacker is forced to return to a past he thought he'd left behind--uploading himself into the… Continue reading Michael Ironside plays the chief of police
A perfect globe, precious and fragile. The only one of its kind. Zoom out: crooked trees with leaves like wax, grasses little more than wires clinging to the ground. Zoom out: a rash of tin roofs overtaken by sand, only dust moving now in empty veins. Zoom out: an iron-hard land, baked and cracked by… Continue reading 100WC – Zoom Out
His body is cracked and bowed, his clothes stiff with dirt. His day is a doorway and an upturned cap, cans of cider, corrugated cardboard. His nights are darkness blotting like ink and the bitter howls of the ghosts of his past.
Joseph Monroe started building the sarcophagus on the day his father fell under a bus. “Fall under a bus?” he said, “No sir. A nice peaceful death, that’s what I want.” It took him six weeks, and when he’d finished he lay inside and announced that he’d remain there until his dying day. He fixed… Continue reading Body – SmallTales
The shadow that the sun prints on the parched sand is as sharp as pressed metal, and its edge creeps towards him like a curse. He huddles into the shrinking panel of shade. An hour until the second sun rises. Maybe less. He rubs the visor of the envirosuit and wishes again that it wasn’t… Continue reading Shade – SmallTales
I met Ed on a train. I jumped it outside San Isidro and there he was, bundled in the corner of one of the freight cars. Drink? he asked, like it was nothing, and offered up a bottle wrapped in brown paper. After that we rode the tracks together for a while – Pecos, Sonora,… Continue reading 100WC – Ed
Simon John Cox 