Excerpt and Link: "Exit Strategy"

"Exit Strategy" was my first story published this year. It's a flash SF story with amusing dark humor, published by 365 Tomorrows in February 2012. The quick tale begins as follows:

Grant pushed through the crowd, ignoring the direction indicator. He longed for elbow room and privacy, luxuries of a forgotten past. But rumor had it there were still places–distant, underpopulated islands. He only dreamed of reaching their shores … until today.
He shoved and nudged through the ebbing crush until he found Cali at 5th and Main–brown hair, golden eyes–now she would finally take him seriously.
“You again?”
“We need to talk.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Alone,” he whispered.
She laughed and gestured to the throngs around them.
Grant scanned the nearby faces. No one paid attention. It would have to do. “I have a way out of here!”
“Of where?”
“The crowd.”
“Oh, please …”

From the 365 Tomorrows web site:

365 tomorrows is a collaborative project designed to present readers with a new piece of short science and speculative ‘flash’ fiction each day. Launched August 1st 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year, we’ve been on the wire ever since.
In addition to reading the stories, you can engage in discussion about them and other future looking topics in the forums.

For a complete list of all my available published stories, click here.