Peter had sacrificed everything to become a cosmic archeologist. His youth for years of study, his adulthood for years of travel, and any possible family or friends for a solitary existence. He was sure there were many other things he could list if he had time to do so. It[…]
Read moreAuthor: Keith McLachlan
A writer by early morning/later night, and a Fund Manager on the JSE during the day (running the www.smallcaps.co.za blog).
When You Look Away
“The monsters win when you look away,” he said soothingly to her as she lay softly crying on her bed, her eyes tightly closed and her face buried in her pillow. Outside, rain steadily fell as dark grey skies stretched forever, “You cannot look away. You must be strong and[…]
Read moreThe Cobweb Way
Far from the civilized Inner Galaxies, buried deep in a fast-spinning, dead neutron star lies a series of inorganic servers. No human or other life-form could survive the gravity of this dense celestial body but an army of immortal bots maintains its lair. Lurking deep in these dark recesses, the[…]
Read moreCosmic Nectar
The plumes of cosmic gas stretched for light-years across space and, from this distance, appeared majestic in their reach. This was the illusion of scale. He knew that closer to the nebula the sheer weight and violence of the gas would consume anything down to an atomic level. It would[…]
Read moreThe Quest
For the last time, he checked his own pack, the pack on his horse, his horse and even his armour and sword. Everything was ready but him. “You will be just fine, my dear,” his wife cooed to him, kissing him gently on his lips, “Don’t worry about it, it[…]
Read moreThe Lady in the Painting
If you look at me now you will struggle to realize that I was once the esteemed Curator of the Old Museum in Blackpool Bay. I was dignified, respected and well-funded amongst my peers. My current circumstances in this institution seem as pitiful as my constitution but I feel I[…]
Read moreFreya’s Field
It was Friday. This was normally her day but she hardly noticed. The sun shone warmly down, the birds were tweeting and insects buzzing around her as she lay in her open field, but she hardly noticed any of it. Laying her head right down on the field, the grass[…]
Read moreBlack Hole Theory
Norman liked space. It was a cold, distant infinity beyond our minor planetary shores; like a great, cosmic ocean with us as passengers clinging to a random twig of driftwood. The cosmos did not care nor judge, nor even consider such brief, inconsequential things like the lives of humans, let[…]
Read moreThe Age of Leaves
This is not a tale of doom or despair, nor is it one of pain and misery. Much like life, this tale does indeed have despair and misery along the way, but those aspects do not define it. Likewise, this tale also has much pain and a creeping doom. But–as[…]
Read moreBayen Boulevard
Come up from the cold docks, down Blackpool Bay’s Main Street and by the old, creepy Athelard mansion with its weathered gargoyles silently screaming out to all that pass on the street. Keep going by the Old Museum and beyond the Gypsy Market with its smoky shops. If you keep[…]
Read moreIn the Shadow of the Rainbow
Her father had brought a toy Tesla home from one of his trips when she was five years old. He had arrived home late that night. She had heard the old, rusty gate at the bottom of the garden squeak as he stomped inside, kicking the gravel from his boots.[…]
Read moreHell
Goddammit but I need this, he thought suddenly realizing that he could not remember beginning the massage. The thoughts were soon pushed out of his mind as his shoulders ached and his neck felt like it had daggers sticking into it. The music in the Thai spa was soft but[…]
Read moreThe Black Pool
He woke up in his bed screaming, covered in cold-sweat and his heart pounding in his chest. He sat up straight, gasping for breath as if he had been drowning or swallowed. What a strange thought, he thought to himself, swallowed? And just then a single isolated and arbitrary memory[…]
Read moreThe Ambitions of Man
There is a record in the Royal Archives of the Central Repository in the First Galaxy that speaks of a unique species that made First Contact with the Galactic Council many millennia ago. Very few know of its existence and even fewer realize its significance as the species went extinct[…]
Read moreNephthys’ Lament
The light was as fragile as a feather as it filtered through the quiet, somber oaks that lined the Old Cemetery in Blackpool Bay. The quiet in that place seemed removed from the occasional car the drove passed and the odd voice or radio that wafted in from a million[…]
Read moreSleeper Beneath the Mountain
“All things change, my boy,” the old man said when his creation first opened its eyes, “But you won’t. You will outlast me and the rest of us.” The being looked around him with his newly-manufactured eyes, data streaming in as the cold fusion core quietly ticked up into its[…]
Read moreThe Pixelation of Daphne
They woke Daphne up with the third wave of Original Cryo’s. It was 2153. About a decade after they had perfected cryogenic stasis–or, more accurately, surviving cryogenic stasis–and all the legal loopholes had been plugged for its full and unrepentant commercial use. The first wave had been all the celebrities[…]
Read moreThe Monster in the Woods
The site was not far from the village. Strangely close, actually, if you knew what you were looking for and avoided the birds as he did. He had become quite good at this. He had stumbled upon the find while out hunting one night and thereafter been coming back here[…]
Read moreSnowflake
“You just don’t understand real stress until it is owning you,” he said in between puffs of his e-cigarette, it was blueberry flavored, “it is a thousand-ton weight pressing down on you. It flattens you. Squeezes out parts of you that you didn’t know existed. Bad parts. Ugly and alien[…]
Read moreMy Tail
Afterwards, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. I wanted it to be stars but it was just a ceiling. For a while, she lay there too with her head nestled in the crook of my neck and our tails entwined. We lay in silence as the rain came[…]
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