"Within This Present Time" is just a few pages long, but in it Karen M. Roberts gives us a rich science fiction story populated with some characters you'll not soon forget. Here's the narrator, the quirky, powerful Sereela, considering her unusual system of navigation:
"No time, no time." I flex my fingers, tapping from strand to strand. "A destination. The pink is always friendly, and the yellow is like sailing on a sheet of ice. Blue is intolerable. Spiky, improbable. Blue."
Karen lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two young children. Previous to this, her work has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.
I asked Karen what "Within This Present Time" is about and she said, "It's a cautionary tale about the hazards of traveling without first consulting Yahoo Maps."
The story appears in Say...have you heard this one? and you can read it by subscribing now (just look for the PayPal buttons on the right side of this page, or e-mail cvrowe at gmail dot com for details). Thanks, Karen M. Roberts!
