Hey, Rob here. So you know how it goes, I get myself down an Internet rabbit hole, and I wind up on this thought problem called The Ship of Theseus. I won’t tell you what it is, it’s in the story, but it reminded me of that factoid that every seven years all of our cells are replaced, the old ones dying and the new ones growing, and we’re essentially a new person. Now, we humans don’t notice it, and can’t do anything with the old bits, but what if there was a life form that could? Read on…

Hey guys. Apparently scientists have been growing brain organoids for a while – taking human stem cells and cultivating little clusters of neurons, to help with brain disease research. At some point someone raised the ethical question, “what if we grow a brain that gains consciousness?” But everyone pooh-poohed that idea, I mean, come on, it’s just a cluster of cells, right?

Hi guys, Rob here. This story’s been bouncing around in my head for a loooong time. I hate to do this, but once again I can’t tell you much about it up front, other than it’s about a heist with two long-time professional thieves, and that their mission doesn’t go as expected.

Hey, Rob here. This is another quickie, so I don’t want to say much other than it’s about that weird, cigar-shaped object that came hurtling past Earth about a year and a half ago, named Oumuamua. That much is true. The rest, well…?

Hi guys! Rob here, welcome back, I’ve got a little holiday treat for you… This story was inspired by a video I saw, yes, it was one of those days you don’t know how, but you wind up an hour later watching a YouTube video of someone driving around what looks like a ghost town, right near Area 51 in Nevada. It’s a real town, called Silver Peak, and the video gives you this creepy feeling, and so of course I thought, “What secret might be hiding in this town?” Then, I don’t know why, I got the idea that a mash-up of Bridges of Madison County would be fun. And then I heard a holiday song on the radio or something, and thought, “Oooh, even better: I’ll make it a Christmas story!” Enjoy.

Hey guys! This is another one of those short stories where if I tell you anything, it’ll give it away. But I can tell you it’s about Artificial Intelligence, and the “Singularity,” the name scientists and futurists give the moment that computers match and surpass human intelligence.

Hi guys! I don’t want to give too much away on this story, so I’ll just say it was inspired by something I saw that made me think that some people are so gifted, it’s impossible for me not to think they somehow touch something divine. Let’s get right to it! 

Hi guys! Today’s short story was inspired by an article I read in the New York Times about a couple of men who, many years after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011, still go diving every day looking for remains of their loved ones. It’s so sad, they understand I think the futility of the search, but something compels them to never give up, and it becomes a ritual to honor the dead, or sorts, or at least that’s what I thought of it. So as I’m reading this article, of course, I say to myself, “What if…?” and this story spilled out of my head, complete.

Hey guys! I just read an article yesterday, about Mark and Scott Kelly, the twin astronauts, and how Scott came back after a record length trip aboard the International Space Station, and they found that his DNA was no longer identical to his twin, Mark. What an intriguing premise for a story, right? And I’m also a twin, so the idea wouldn’t get out of my head. I decided to make this one a little more like a series on conversations I might have with my twin brother if we were astronauts and something like this happened, so it reads more like a radio play, with nothing but dialog. Enjoy!

Another quickie, almost flash fiction at just 1,000 words, about a mysterious signal received from space. Is it a message, or something else?