Safe Places by Sylvia Heike

Hush, little baby.

Tonight, we sleep underground, beneath Martian sand-flowers and worms and bones. The walls of the space station will protect us like a womb tomb and tomorrow we’ll continue our journey towards our new home. Mama doesn’t know where it is yet, but I promise we’ll find it.

Sleep now in Mama’s arms as if they are your crib and cradle and coffin, and dream. Maybe you will see daddy. Wish for a quiet night, a morning with sunshine and evacuation ships and battlemechs and explosions.

There, there, little baby. Listen how Mama’s heartbeat goes boom, boom, boom.


Sylvia Heike is a speculative fiction writer from Finland. Her work has appeared in Nature Futures, Flash Fiction Online, PodCastle, and more. When not writing, she likes to go hiking and looking for birds.
Read more at http://www.sylviaheike.com or follow her on Twitter @sylviaheike


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