Eleven Years

Unlike the rest of the world, astrophysicist Rachel Kirby passes on viewing the President's speech. Why would she watch? She knows what message he will have to convey - she helped him craft it.

Instead, she makes a wrong decision - a consciously wrong decision, by heading down to her local bar. What does it matter now? Her work, her life, any of it? Just a matter of time now before everything thing she's done, right, wrong, or indifferent, ceases to count at all. Unless she can make a change. Not in her circumstances, but in herself.

Includes bonus story, "Camerado".

Michael Canfield writes about monsters, superheroes, couples, bank robbers, babies, astronauts, paranoids, hobbyists, and other people. He has published fantasy, science fiction, horror and just-plain-odd stories in StrangeHorizons.com, futurismic.com, EscapePod.com, M–Brane SF, magazines including Black Gate, Talebones, Realms of Fantasy, and other places. His story “Super-Villains” was republished in the prestigious The Year's Best series, edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books). Several other stories received honorable mention in Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series. Born in Las Vegas, he now lives, works, plays, writes, and watches television in Seattle.