In the gently pulsing blue glow of standby lights, the forest was sprouting new growth. The bulbous mushroom heads of hubs formed fairy rings in the matted tangle of the forest floor. Thick bundles of cables were pushing free of the undergrowth to twine around heavy trunks in search of an unclaimed access port. Seedling […]
My growing rage was stalled by the sound of approaching footsteps. I noticed with some interest that the emotion had been stored away — compartmentalised — leashed and ready to be recalled at a moment’s notice. My mind was now taken with curiosity at the richness of tone and detail my new ears picked from […]
Bookfest comes but twice a year.
Hart’s workshop was a small place set a block back from the city’s edge. Parts small and large scattered the benches lining the walls; the only clear flat surface was the table beneath the window where Hart sat working on the turbine of a sensor platform. “These the plans?” Rebbecca asked, examining the blueprints tacked […]
Scritch, scritch. The rat eyed them from atop an upturned bathtub. Its whiskers looked suspiciously like piano wire, and tinkled slightly when it wrinkled its nose to gnaw at the nickle clutched in its paws. “I guess there’s life here after all,” said Peter. Startled by his voice, a flock of something with wings beaten […]
I am sure, when they handed me the formula and a blank cheque, they did not know what they had created. As memories come back to me now, squashed short somehow as if to make room for others yet to arrive, I wonder that perhaps they did not create it at all. Regardless of their […]
When the Princess died, the King had her body laid upon a bier in a small courtyard. Its walls were high and windowless, and its sole door hidden away in mazes of passageways and rooms long unused. This done, he locked the door and retreated into his grief. The kingdom ran itself mostly, and comings […]
He came to in a room that smelled of fish and salt and bile, the echo of a scream that sounded familiar rapidly fading from his ears. It was a basement, probably; large, stone, and dank in a way that rooms above ground could never manage. It was also dark — dark enough that the […]
The God Of The Wastes was out there somewhere beyond the dunes, buried in the sand. She was the god of death. She was their protector. The God Of The Skies stretched above. He was the god of life. He was their creator. The stories of the People told of a time when the tears […]
Alice was crouched on the beach, building cathedrals in the damp sand when Peter arrived. He stood for a minute or two while she smoothed the last few grains from a steeple, then helped her to stand. He kissed her before she could speak. “Not that I’m complaining,” she said, “but what was that for?” […]