HeyJaredThe Oort Cloud
Award-winning, non-fiction writing about reading, writing, art, family, love, astronomy, orbital mechanics, and life. Long form stories are featured along the links at the top.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 3
- Latest publication
- Sep 11, 2026
- Audience
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 23, 2026
Latest issues
Ground Zero (opens the original)
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In dream my skin has been charred soot-black, not all over my body, but on my arms, my legs, my penis, my chest. In dream I only notice the burns if my eye happens to fall upon that area of skin. There is no pain. No pain, but a deep, shuddering fright when I see my blackened flesh and am reminded once more of the severe burns I carry.It was a dream the night of September 11th, 2006, five years after that other September 11th. I was awakened from my dream by the sound of laughter, the splashing
Ancient Light (opens the original)
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The first telescope I ever got was in the mid-60s, for Christmas. I was maybe seven years old. It was stored in a closet of the house for weeks before Christmas Day, wrapped in brown paper. I still remember marvelling at it from the hallway; in my child’s eye it was huge. Because it was kind of pointy at the top, I said it looked a giant pencil, and my parents started calling it that: the giant pencil.It was a crappy little telescope, but I didn’t know that. All I remember being able to look at
Sinister Systems (opens the original)
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Extremely excited to be included in this sci-fi horror anthology. My story, “The Creeping Phlox,” is a foray into religious fanaticism and suburban folk horror. <img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="1080" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_
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