New issue of Star*Line is out and includes one by me

The latest issue of Star*Line from the Science Fiction Poetry Association is out. It includes my poem

The Consequences of Long-Term Furniture Ownership.

Enjoy!

http://sfpoetry.com/sl/issues/starline40.1.html

"Oxygen" and "The Preservation of Life" published at Speculative 66

Speculative 66 is a web publication of 66 word stories published on the 6th of each month.

This month includes my stories "Oxygen" and "The Preservation of Life" among other great stories.

http://speculative66.weebly.com/current-issue.html

Check out the back issues as well. Some great stuff if you enjoy microfiction.

Enjoy!

The Distances Involved

Merry Christmas Everyone!

My story The Distances Involved is published today at 365 Tomorrows.

The Distances Involved
by Kenny A. Chaffin

“What is it you would want to know?” the synthesized voice asked. Johnson scanned the cryptic and stonewall faces assembled around him and the computer screen before typing. “Who are you? Where are you from? How do we know this is not some prank, some hacker?”

“You know where your antennas are pointed. You know the region we are from.”
....

http://365tomorrows.com/2016/12/25/the-distances-involved/

Enjoy!

For the Good of the Country

For the Good of the Country

We become a nation of bigots

a nation of Fascists

by turning the other cheek

by accepting a Racist as our president

in a smooth transition of power

because that is the Democratic way

Kenny A. Chaffin – 11/15/2016

Sheep

Sheep

When Dolly had babies they were all exactly like her.

The scientists had somehow locked her genome.

No one knew how or why, but the world

would never be the same.

Kenny A. Chaffin – 11/15/2016

Joy

Joy

(from Prosthetic Amalgams II)

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2015 Kenny A. Chaffin

 Joy was shunned by society. She chose therefore to spend much of her time alone; in her room, in her cubicle at work, listening to music on the bus, eyes downcast to avoid attention or conversation.

For her mother it was a difficult pregnancy with morning sickness, back and pelvic pain, near miscarriages, and bedrest which pushed her to the brink. When the nurse brought Joy in for her first feeding her mother said, “This is not my child,” and turned away. Despite reassurances from the hospital staff she refused to accept that Joy was hers. They never bonded. Joy was provided for, but there was no love.

In childhood, even before being ostracized by her classmates Joy began creating elaborate scenarios, languages, people and societies in her mind. She saw them, felt them, touched them, and even smelled them. To her they were more real than life. She felt as if it was where she belonged. There were multitudes of detail in her mind. The blue-green grass was thick, lush. The stucco-like textured walls of all the buildings were something soft instead of hard and caused a tingling in her palms when pressed against them. The people there were nice and friendly. They accepted one another, relied upon one another, helped one another, something she’d never really experienced. The languages they spoke were elaborate and detailed with nuances of meaning that were perfectly clear to her. Nothing like the crude English she had to speak in real life. Joy never told anyone of these wonders in her mind, never spoke of then, never wrote of them, not even in the detailed daily journals she had kept since teaching herself to write at age four.

When the aliens approached Joy knew it before anyone. It was weeks later that the president announced on national TV the approach of an interstellar ship. He said they were attempting to communicate with the ship but were so far were unsuccessful. The news media played a clip of the transmission and Joy immediately knew it said, “We come in peace.” She didn’t tell anyone.

Joy knew they would be landing in western Wyoming. She got in her old beaten-up car and drove, hoping to make it, hoping to meet the aliens. She drove through the night and the entire next day to reach the spot where she knew they would be landing. It was nothing more than a simple crossroads of two state highways outside of Big Piney.

They landed silently and slowly a few hundred feet from her car with no smoke, no fire or rockets. She loved them even before they lowered a ladder and two of them in protective suits clambered down it to the Earth. Joy approached and spoke to them in their own language. “Welcome to Earth. We are pleased to have you.” The larger of the two aliens spoke, its voice muffled by the suit. “Thank you. We come in peace.” Joy was at a loss for what to say next. The alien filled the silence, ‘We would like to enjoy your company, to have you join us.”

“Yes. Of course,” Joy said.

They climbed the ladder into the ship and were gone long before the F-16s arrived.

The Morning After

The Morning After

America is at a Crossroads
we are a Gathering of fools
we have given the reins
of power to a madman.

Kenny A. Chaffin – 11/9/2016