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 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).
Bayen 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[…]
Read moreBad Connection
“Of all the things that I regret,” she sighed, “I regret letting go the most. It was my choice, after all, but once made, you can’t take it back. You can’t go back. After walking the Dreamlands, the Slow World loses its shine. It is dull and cold, weighted like[…]
Read moreUndying Love
“Michael, can I have my pen back?” the lady politely asked, her hand outstretched. Her pointed, polished nails blood-red against her pale skin. The room paused. The air-con was cool in here and, if you really listened, you could hear it breathing through the hidden ceiling fans like some ethereal[…]
Read moreThe Passage of Virtue
“Well met, brother,” a dull, blue-eyed man says as he squats down by the fire, a drink in his hand, “What have we learnt?” Barbarians are screaming around them. Somewhere a woman is climaxing loudly, and the fire is chasing its sparks up into the twinkling cosmos, ever-watching and eternal.[…]
Read moreMaterial Girl
“You broke another one?” Jules exclaimed to her husband who was carrying a broken form from his bedroom, “Must you be so rough with them? They aren’t free, you know?” Miles shrugged as he walked passed, blew her a kiss and dumped the broken sexbot by their disposal unit. The[…]
Read moreThe Sea’s Secret
Despite being late Summer, the air of Blackpool Bay retained a surprising chill to it. It was likely that the ocean’s nearby current cooled the air but none of the dour, weathered locals seemed to notice. By the looks of them, he doubted that any of them cared. He had[…]
Read moreA Sleepless Fog
I wish I could recall the detail. Any detail, really. But, all too soon, the darkness shuffles and I am alone again. I stand up, grab a smoke from next to my bed and light it. The world pauses while I inhale and she leaves. The door clicks as she[…]
Read moreBetty’s Bridge
Betty first saw Hell through a car window as they sped down the Interstate. Outside, the trees turned to ashen husks as the cornfields became desolate dustbowls. The sky hollowed out to an empty darkness that swallowed all the twinkling stars whole. She began crying and her mother pushed her[…]
Read moreFrom Whence You Cannot Awake
He could not get comfortable. He wasn’t in pain, just slightly uncomfortable. The cushions were soft and the couch was spacious but he kept shifting his weight, unsuccessfully trying to find a spot where he could relax. His neck hurt and he felt fat. His shoes were too tight but[…]
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