My work in Scifaikuest, May 2025

moon colony

my pug and I explore

the renovated dog park

***

There Is Nothing Gentle About Us

by

John J. Dunphy

“We will not go gentle into that good night.” Resistance members revised the title of Dylan Thomas’s poem to serve as our oath. We have vowed that, despite the overwhelming odds against us, we will never give up the struggle. The Resistance doesn’t fight merely for its own members. We fight for all humanity.

Yes, all of us will eventually be killed in combat. The extraterrestrials who have invaded Earth possess instruments of destruction that make our species’ best weapons seem like children’s toys. But, though our cause be hopeless, we will fight until the last of us is slain.

To date, no Resistance member has been taken alive by the Enemy. If we’re wounded and can’t keep pace with our fellow fighters, we detonate a device fastened to our bodies. In a best-case scenario, we take a few of the Enemy with us.

the shout of “FREEDOM!”

followed by

an explosion

then wails of pain

not of this Earth

John J. Dunphy owns The Second Reading Book Shop in Alton, IL