The small fern glistened as light started to fill the sky. It was covered with a thick reddish frost. Palesa removed a glove and dusted some of it off with her fingers, before quickly putting the glove back on. The green of the half-unfurled frond was now visible. She called her companion.

Dear Victor, I’m leaving you.

I’ve been unhappy for years. With your ghastly obsessions with electricity and body parts. With your paranoia about being followed — frankly, formerly dear husband, it’s disquieting you maintain a belief in monsters. Believing you can create them!? You are not God! The eccentricities I found…

The first days after the Parliament bombing were intense. The leader had to learn everything from the clinic: the source of the threat — anti-clone activists again — and the various ways the culprits were to be caught. She had to help everyone come to terms with this blow to the idea of a peaceful and democratic nation.

I believe they will come back to me again. Out here, in the woods, late one night. My friends don’t believe I met them; they say it’s because I did too many shrooms that night, but I know what happened. I’ve had good experiences and bad experiences on shrooms before, but this wasn’t like anything I ever experienced before. It was truly transcendent

Her breathing matched the bear’s halting inhalations. Everyone was sad, but for Rosana she was losing family. Xi-Xi’s last breaths were public, but her last months were Rosana’s.

Washing, feeding, aiding in any and every way. Xi-Xi was much older than anyone had expected, and as the last surviving Giant Panda in captivity…

–I come with an important message from the future.

–You’re from the future?

–Yes. I have an important–

–Sure you are. Prove it.

–What? I have come from the future with–

–It’s like a Dyson Sphere. But for tackling the Earth’s-

–Dyson like the vacuum cleaner?

–No, a Dyson Sphere. Where you harness the sun’s energy by building receptor panels–

–I’ve heard of them. How does it work?

On a cold night, you can go whenever. The contraption works best in the cold, the guy said: if it gets hot, things won’t go well. Then he walked off into the snowy woods in your clothes.

A short jump first, maybe 5 years? Enter the date, then go.

She took a deep breath before she stepped out. The frozen red sands crunched under her boots. She remembered that vacation in Arizona — she was just a kid: the cold burned now like the heat did then.

At five paces, she decided to breathe in. It wasn’t pleasant, but that was mostly the cold. The second breath felt easier…