original short story: ∞ falls 1 stand

by Lance Schaubert

“The Grand Falls do not exist, Earthson,” Drez said. 

“Of course they do. I’ll take you there and see.”

“We cannot leave Reygloa’s system, Earthbrother,” Yorvo said. “And what sort of Earthbrother name is Stacy? Our data shows no Earthbrothers named Stacy.”

“Sexist,” Stacy said. 

“Yes,” Yorvo said, “Indeed I am a person who has sex as I am also machinist who machines parts, but I know not what this has to do with your having taken Earthsister’s name.”

Drez vocalized a rebuke tone at Yorvo and asked, “What does Stacy mean, Earthbrother?”

“Anastasis. Stacy for short.”

“An Earthsister’s name,” Yorvo said.

Drez said, “Cease. What proof have you for the Grand Falls?”

“Why does no one like falls anymore?” Stacy asked.

It had not started out so weird. Stacy had spent his morning normally: tending to the wild chickens in the audubon center, taking a nap in the hammock he’d erected across the branches of the great Redwoods that now grew where oaks and sycamores once permeated the shale in the rainforest climate. He’d been trailblazing near the falls when they’d picked him up. The initial shock of alien abuduction went about how you’d expect and ended with Stacy having blue blood soaked kale sticking out of his right ear and a temporary tattoo of an eighties cartoon on his thigh complete with a life fox they’d fuzed into his back. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to  do much of anything other than meditate on how he’d been trailblazing when they’d picked him up. How badly he missed it now.