For Tomorrow's Moon
Her final letter to him must have been her shortest, yet in so few words, it said everything:
"My most treasured, I can’t wait to see you."
None of her usual Highspake flair, no flourish.
Of course, I’d delivered the message on her behalf—translated her words into Machine, encrypted it, destroyed any physical evidence—just as I’d faithfully done for every message between them during the past year. Then, I’d taken a precaution to trigger an erasure of this liaison from my memory banks, in case I should happen to die. No one would expect a genpure Sophont to have the capability of wiping their own mind; by the time they cremate my decaying, inoperable body, all traces would have vaporized.
Air and Nothingness Press's open call for Our Dust Earth presented the kind of challenge I enjoy a little too much as a writer: to conjure a story within a rich, tension-filled world, as defined in the accompanying mini table-top role-playing game (TTRPG).
The world of Our Dust Earth belongs to the dying earth genre, where we're at the end of life on Earth, or the end of our existence. My story in this volume is about love and the seeds of rebellion, but best of all, as a polyglot myself, I got the chance to indulge in my passion for language in this story.
Our Dust Earth was edited by Todd Sanders. Stories by: Ryaan Akmal, Kailey Alessi,
Grant Canterbury, Greg Clumpner, Paul Crosby, Jeff Currier, Chris Doty, Joel Glover, Victoria Hayward, Zoey Hedman, Liam Hogan, Chris Kouju Koh, D.C. Kugtima, Jamie Lackey, John R. Muth, M. Kelly Peach, Ana Sun, Michael Teasdale and J. Edward Tremlett.