Washing Day

by R. S. Breed

For nine minutes, an ordinary morning survived three hundred years.

The crew of the Grebe know the outside passage. Keep wide. Mind the margin. Don't stare into the grey. Then one of the ship's clocks begins losing time, and where there should be nothing but dark, a garden appears.

A woman hangs washing in the sun. A child runs barefoot across the grass. A dog lifts its head. None of them can see the five people watching from centuries away.

Procedure says record the phenomenon and move on. The crew still have to decide what it means to witness an ordinary life after everyone in it is gone. Washing Day is a complete standalone science-fiction short read set in the Fracture Cosmology. No previous reading required.

A standalone short story in The Working Sky. Complete in itself — start anywhere.

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