J. Otis Haas
Bio
Space Case
Achievements (25)
Stories (122)
Filter by community
Chronicles of the Golden Dragon
There weren’t always dragons in the valley. However, after heavy rainfalls, the raging river that bisected the jungle would surge up its banks, and huge blue ones, covered snout-to-tail in lapis-lazuli scales that glimmered with an oily sheen, would fly in from the north and congregate at the rusting ruins perched over the roiling torrent. When the river ran swiftly enough the ancient structure would glow with mysterious lights and hum and crackle from within. This was clearly what drew the dragons, and so Zoe’s people were fearful of storms. When the ruins glowed, The Mouth of the Mountain, deep within the cave they called home, would open and lightning-like arcs in its maw would spark over the bones of all those who had been foolish enough to venture within.
By J. Otis Haas4 years ago in Fiction
The Hitchhikers Who Hide in the Punctum Caecum
You have a blind-spot. This isn’t a criticism, it’s a fact. If you’ve ever been stargazing and discovered some distant celestial object that fled from your field of vision when observed head-on you’ve experienced this phenomenon. You may have been encouraged at some point to draw a dot on an index card and find it yourself, goaded into a little game to teach you a thing or two about perception.
By J. Otis Haas4 years ago in Horror
The Genius
I met The Genius in middle school and I learned a lot from him. Not facts, but life lessons that have stuck with me for decades. I can’t use his real name, because he’s Somebody now, a paragon in his field. Early on The Genius would assert that he was destined to become a great scientist as if it were somehow divinely ordained. It was easy to believe, he’s brilliant, among the smartest people I’ve ever met. You could see him receiving accolades in any endeavor he undertook.
By J. Otis Haas4 years ago in Confessions
The Blank Expanse Between Worlds
Two paths diverged in a snowy wood. Perfect, tiny flakes gently drifted down from a slate-gray sky. Jack turned and saw his footprints gradually disappearing beneath the falling powder. Tall trees and impassable undergrowth surrounded him. The gleaming blankness of the ground ahead filled him with the same anticipation that a fresh sheet of paper once had. He remembered how full of potential each page had once seemed.
By J. Otis Haas4 years ago in Fiction
All of Everything and Beyond
I am a Toiler, made in the image of The Creator, who is Perfect. My Task is to serve my Queen by serving The Creator, who filled the world with Danger and clumsy Giants to keep Her creation humble. If I succeed in my Task I will be rewarded with wings and fly off to join Her in The Sands Above.
By J. Otis Haas4 years ago in Fiction
The Brazen Bull
The Tyrant King’s terrible gift was pushed into the great hall the day before the feast by slaves who thereafter gave the thing a wide berth as they made preparations around it. That evening a dignitary from The Peninsula arrived to practice the speech he intended to deliver the following morning. Inquiring about the draped object and the cords of firewood stacked beside it he asked whom the gift was from. Upon hearing the answer he blanched and sailed back home under the moonlight.
By J. Otis Haas5 years ago in Fiction
The Looping Way of Things
Viv looked down at her ring while she smoked, her eyes tracing the intricate mathematical design wrought in micro-fine platinum wire, finer than the thinnest human hair. Since the day it had come into her life Viv had been losing herself in her ring. A therapist once told her she was “dissociating” when she did that, retreating to an inner-space where she was safe from what she feared most, which he said was “abandonment.” He always wanted to talk about her father.
By J. Otis Haas5 years ago in Horror
The Bittersweetness of Pyramid Level Z
“Just tell us what you saw and you can have some cake,” Counselor Connolly repeated. Zygmunt Zysk stared at the slice of chocolate cake on the table between them. “Come on, Zyggy,” she said, using the kind of informal friendliness they used to get you to turn on others, to turn on yourself. “You know full well the whole Pyramid will crumble if we don’t all do our part,” now appealing to his patriotism and sense of civic duty. “Don’t you want some cake?” Zyggy realized this tactic might work. He also realized the cake might be poisoned.
By J. Otis Haas5 years ago in Futurism
Possible Remains
We were on a 15 year mission to Europa, 6 years there, 3 years collecting samples, and 6 years back. There were 42 sites of interest and 7 of them had been designated as being of possible archaeological significance. As I crawled up the ramp with my last load of samples from Site 42, Ship informed me that she hadn’t heard from Earth in over two years.
By J. Otis Haas5 years ago in Futurism
My Mother
I tell people I was born in a room full of cats with no doctors present in a castle atop a hill in the woods. That’s close enough to the truth. One of my exes would tell people the cats licked me clean under the kitchen table. That’s not true, we’ve never had a kitchen table.
By J. Otis Haas5 years ago in Families
Gemini (May 21-June 20)
Today is your lucky day, Gemini. This is the first ever True and Accurate Horoscope you have ever received and the good news is that its Truths will hold True not just today, but every day for the rest of your life. That’s the bad news, too. You have been analyzed to the core of the depths of your being and consciousness. Based on our assessment you should stop reading now. Your history indicates that you are not ready. Answers may lie ahead but it will quickly become evident that even with the fog lifted rack and ruin may lay unavoidably in your way. Best of luck whichever path through these yellowed woods you choose, Gemini.
By J. Otis Haas5 years ago in Humans
A Modest Meal
It is said that Scientology was started after a wager made by Isaac Asimov to L. Ron Hubbard that the latter could not start a religion. It is said that a similar wager led to the creation of the restaurant I ate at tonight. It is uncertain whether it was Musk and Batali or Zuckerberg and Marco Pierre White, and one could never tell, for the kitchen was most certainly closed to prying eyes, but it was the same sort of combination of derring-do and disregard that led to the existence of Swift’s.
By J. Otis Haas5 years ago in Horror
