Category Archives: General Fiction

A miscellaneous collection of general writing, stories and flash fiction pieces.

General Fiction, Science Fiction

The Temponaut & the Clocktower at the End of Time

It was quite a thing when They decided to build the Universe. Some of Them argued that it was unnecessary, even frivolous, but the idea took root and grew. Eventually, They ran out of reasons not to do it: They could do it, They had the budget for it, and–to be quite honest–none of Them was doing anything better with Their Time.

And that was just the thing, Time. They had plenty of it. Oodles of it. All They had was Time.

The original idea was less about building the Universe–though, later on, many of Them would deny this–and more about building somewhere to store all Their darned Time. Originally, it was just somewhere They could put all Time; the rest simply followed from there.

Thus, the first thing They did when They built the Universe was build the Clocktower right at the centre of it.

TICK-TICK-TICK… The Clocktower was the heartbeat that echoed out across the Universe as it unfolded from Their Good Idea to the–let’s be honest–the rather complicated mess we all know it to be now.

You see, this is the thing with Good Ideas: because they are good ideas, everyone gets overexcited and does too much of them and, eventually, they become Bad Ideas with needless complexity and endless iterations. Awful really, if you think about it.

They thought so too and, eventually, gave up on the whole thing and left.

But the Universe kept on going. TICK-TICK-TICK… Space coalesced into stars, stars spat out planets, and planets cultivated life. TICK-TICK-TICK… Life consumed life and messed up planets, and then Life reached out for the self-same stars. TICK-TICK-TICK… Things lived and grew, died and shrunk, and expanded to fill the Space that Time allowed it to.

TICK-TICK-TICK…

But here is the thing with the Clocktower and all the Time They left behind: it was a lot of Time but it was not infinite.

And thus, as Time wound down, slowly the TICK-TICK-TICK became TICK–TICK–TICK and then TICK—TICK—TICK…

At this point, Life naturally got quite worried. It had grown very fond of the Universe and, to be honest, it didn’t really have anywhere else to go.

So all the Life across all the stars and galaxies decided to get together and, after the usual bickering about when, where and who brings the food, came to the unsurprising conclusion that something had to be done. The Clocktower had to be fixed.

This was no easy task and would involve all the cunning resourcefulness that Life had. But that was just the thing: surviving in a Universe that had not been designed for Life, Life had naturally evolved to have lots of cunning resourcefulness. Life had plenty of it. Oodles of it. All Life had was cunning resourcefulness.

Life thought very hard and then stripped planets, leaving husks in its wake. TICK—TICK—-TICK… Vast machines were built in space, linked as one Machine, and then pointed right at the centre of the Universe. TICK—-TICK—–TICK… Stars were encircled, all their energy drained to feed the vast floating Machine and a single little, teeny-weeny life was placed in the centre of the it.

The Temponaut–as the teeny-weeny life became known–was clothed in a special suite that was specifically designed to keep Life living in the most extreme, awful weather–TICK—–TICK——TICK–given a rousing speech by those who were not risking their lives, and sold the rights to his biography and a line of stuffed toys.

TICK——TICK——-TICK… Time was running out. TICK——…——-TICK… And then, the Clocktower skipped a beat. Space was running out of Time. The stars were cooling, the Machine was heating, the planets had all been consumed, and the TV reporters were certain that next week’s weather would be apocalyptic.

Then Life pressed the button–it was big and red–and the Temponaut was cast outside of Time and inside of the centre of the Universe onto the Shores of the Cosmos to stand before the crumbling Clocktower.

They had not really maintained over the aeons. Actually, They had not maintained it at all, as maintenance had never been considered as sexy as “Creating Worlds”. Honestly, none of Them had wanted to waste Their Time doing anything so trivial as maintenance.

Slowly and steadily, breathing in his very finite supply of air, the Temponaut walked towards the great looming structure of the Ancients. Its creaking frame and alien design filled his mind with awe and terror, but he could see the light at the centre of it. It was flickering weakly as the Clocktower’s great arms slowed down.

TICK——…——-…——-TICK… Back in the Universe, the stars had almost all gone out, the weather was decidedly frigid and everyone was in a sour mood. Life was passing in slow motion towards oblivion.

At the base of the Clocktower’s weathered, crumbling frame, the Temponaut found a small rusted door with a sign that said “π’„‘ π’…… 𒁉 𒍝 𒇻”. This effectively translated as “DO NOT ENTER”. So he opened it and walked in, and was immediately confronted by the minimalism of the Ancients’ design.

In the Clocktoward, there were no complex screens or monitors, no vast arrays of flashing lights and no cosmic instruction manual. Time goes around in circles and, thus, the Clocktower was little more than a cosmic near-perpetual motion machine that stored Time in its second, minute, hour, day, month, year, YouTube unskippable ad-break, and millennia arms that spun around. With each rotation as these arms fractionally slowed down, the stored Time leaked out into the Universe as the passage of time and, thus, everything existed because They had gone with the lowest bidder on the Clocktower contract.

You get what you pay for, and They had gotten the Universe.

TIC-K——…——-…——-T-I—C—K… Back in the Universe, the cold lumps of stars knocked into each other as planets crumbled, and Life kept playing Friends and Modern Family re-runs to distract themselves from what was turning out to be quite a disappointing and chilly apocalypse. At least it was collectively decided to stop making more seasons of The Kardashians. No one needed that.

At the same Time but in a different place, the Temponaut stood inside the Clocktower before a single instrumentation panel. Above him, the great wheel and its arms spun slower and slower, finely grinding all of existence–including itself–into dust. And, on that single instrumentation panel, the Ancients’ contractor had installed a single big, red button that said in clear and unmistakable words it said “𒍣𒄀”.

The Temponaut had no idea what that meant, so he pushed it, and the Clocktower ground to a halt. (The Ancients’ words effectively translated as “ON/OFF”.)

T-I—C——-

The Universe’s last flickering light went out. The weather was frozen just above absolute zero and Life was no more. It was a huge bummer and everyone was disappointed.

Then–with the innately human impulse we all share when a link does not load immediately on the Internet or your TV remote doesn’t change the channel–the Temponaut shrugged and pressed the big, red button again.

And the Clocktower’s light flickered; the wheel and the arms began to move, in reverse. Time sucked back into the Clocktower, the Universe warmed as it pulled closer together, Life got quite cramped, and then everything collapsed back into the Beginning; a very, very, very small, heavy, hot pinprick of a marble. The Universe had lost its Time, and the Clocktower had all of Time restored to it.

The Temponaut blinked. He was quite oblivious to what had happened back in the old (or, now, young) Universe. All he saw was that the flickering light had grown stronger in the Clocktower as the great hands of Time had rolled back to a starting position.

But then it was done. The Clocktower was full, and the Universe was the Singularity at the start of all Time, and Time began to flow normally again.

TICK-TICK-TICK–TICK-TICK-TICK… Space coalesced into stars, stars spat out planets, and planets cultivated life. TICK-TICK-TICK… Life consumed life and messed up planets, and then reached out for the self-same stars. TICK-TICK-TICK… Things lived and grew, died and shrunk, and expanded to fill the Space that Time allowed it to.

The Temponaut nodded. His job appeared done here and he turned to go back to a brand new Universe with a bunch of Life that did not remember him. Actually, this Life had never known him but it was ready to embrace a miraculous religious figure appearing in their midst. It is said that advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and, well, magic is just religion without guilt and taxes. And taxes would be important to build another Machine for when Life next needed to (again) reset the Clocktower at the end of Time.

At the very least, this time he might be able to prevent Life from churning out endless seasons of The Kardashians. Honestly, who asked for that?

General Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction

The Sky

In the Field beyond the Village’s last house, they lay looking up at the soft, white clouds that floated by. In that Field, he held her, stroking her hair, and promised her the Sky. She laughed and said she would settle for just him.

And they made love as the clouds quietly floated past, and made lives as the years drifted by.

But then the Otherworlders appeared in their vast Starship above them; a huge, roaring, horror of chrome and fire that filled the Sky and vomited forth soldiers and rules and punishment. Some resisted but they did not last long, and soon the Village was forgotten and replaced with the cold, concrete of the City. The Field was torn up and Factories were built that he (and the rest of the men) had to work at while she (and the rest of the women) had to serve the Otherworlders.

And they toiled beneath the smog-filled Sky; no white clouds drifted by anymore. They laboured each day to shuffle home each night exhausted. But, each night, they would hold each other quietly on their single bed, and stare up at the cracked ceiling. He would stroke her hair, smile, and promise her the Sky. Despite how tired she was, she would quietly laugh, and tell him she would settle for just him.

And they made love as the City and the Factories and the Otherworlders marched on by, and settled into their new life as the months drifted by too.

But, one night, she did not come home, and he knew. The Otherworlders’ had taken her from him. In their callous way with their dark appetites, they had done this to other women at other times. He knew and, when the Otherworlder’s Official acknowledged her death but refused any investigation, he knew and the ground swallowed him whole.

In his grief, he wandered the streets of the City howling as tears blurred his vision. In his grief, he wandered by the belching Factories, screaming and tearing at his clothes. And, in his grief, he wandered beyond where the Otherworlders cared and found others hiding from them in the Wilderness.

Out there in the Wilderness, he found not solace but an army. Out there in the Wilderness, the Others shared their pains inflicted on them by the Otherworlders and he shared his, and they wept together as they collected more and more of their discarded people and the Army swelled in size. They did not have the gigantic Starship of the Otherworlders–indeed, they only had much smaller fighter jets–but they had the fact that they were fighting, not for another planet, but for their homes.

And the Army grew as the Otherworlder’s wickedness fed, and he settled into his new life as he trained to take back the Sky.

When the Army attacked late one night, he flew one of the fighter jets. He had named it after Her, as he fought for Her. They all fought for Someone; some who were passed, some who were still alive and some who were yet to be born.

His fighter jet’s engine roared to life that night. He whispered to it–to Her–that he was going to take back the Sky. He was going to take it all back and give it to her. His hands shook and his throat was dry. The engine roared to life, and the ground flew by and then disappeared as he rose into the night Sky. He rose along with the rest of the fighter jets as the Army pushed forward on the ground.

And then fire flew by him, and fire erupted on the ground. The Otherworlders were many and better armed, but the Army fought hard. Flashes in the night signalled death, and screaming screens in his fighter jet announced incoming death; he gritted his teeth and pushed Her hard. She launched vengeance again and again on the Otherworlder’s Factories and Mansions, and, ducking and rolling through the dark Sky, leaving the fires behind him, he managed to get to where the Otherworlder Starship’s chrome bulk had been parked.

He was going to take the Sky back.

Her screens screamed red at him, smoke bellowing from one of Her wings and fire and death flew all around him. He screamed; tears filling his eyes as he pushed Her closer and closer… Her missiles were out, her ammunition spent, Her tanks were near empty, Her way back lost, and he knew at that moment how to take back the Sky.

He tilted Her nose down towards the grounded Starship and–tears blurring his vision–he thought of Her as Her engine’s crescendo roared towards its final note. He thought only of Her: Her voice, Her hair, Her smile and how, long ago, in that old Field beyond the old Village’s last house he had held Her and promised Her the Sky.

He could hear Her laugh, and say that She would settle for just him…

And, as the Starship exploded, somewhere on a Field He lay with Her again looking up at the soft, white clouds that floated by in the Sky. Their Sky.

Fantasy, General Fiction

Ipsy

The first time Tim saw Ipsy was when he was a young boy. Down by the river that ran past his stepfather’s house, he had looked up from trying to tickle fish in the cool water, and Ipsy had been standing there with his wild hair sticking out at all angles and grinning madly.

“I’m Ipsy, Timmy. Come on, I know where treasure is hidden,” Ipsy had said, grinning, and ran off into the woods without looking back. Tim had chased after him laughing; the fish, the river, and what was in the old, dark house all forgotten.

Colours had looked different for Tim around Ipsy, the wind had carried music and the shadows’ secrets suddenly had not seemed so dark. The Sun had danced in the sky, the Stars’ ballroom had been the Moon’s tapestry while the woods had become their kingdom. Indeed, Ipsy and Tim had run as free as the beasts, screaming, laughing and playing. They had chased butterflies and faeries, discovered forgotten gods, and even–after an epic quest–found a magical sword. They had drunk wine made of moonlight, supped on starlight, and danced madly in a magical clearing beneath the moonlight of another sky. With Timmy’s wits, Ipsy’s bravery, and their magical sword, they had embarked on great quests and vanquished the wicked while protecting the innocent, and, only once, in its lair, they had fought a big, old, mean Dragon…

Indeed, terrified and cowering in fear, Tim had watched Ipsy slay the fiery, roaring Dragon.

“Don’t worry, Timmy,” Ipsy said, covered in the Dragon’s blood and grinning madly, his eyes twinkling with an unseen light, “ You are safe now. The old beast deserved it.“

Tim was shaking and Ipsy grabbed him and hugged him tightly. That was how all the dragon’s blood had gotten onto him, he was sure. Ipys was the strong one. Tim had been too scared to do anything and had only watched as Ipsy slew the dragon.

“You trust me, Timmy?” Ipsy asked, a shadow flickering across his face, to which Tim nodded and gritted his teeth–they both knew what was coming, “Good. I can’t go where you are going, but I will always be here. Always. Come find me in the woods, Timmy. Come find me where we danced in that moonlit clearing.“

Tim remembered how blue the police’s lights had been, flashing rhythmically. Like awful, screaming little moons as they closed him in cold iron and drove him away from the magical kingdom and Ipsy.

***

Each morning, the guards would let the inmates out into the yard. Some would cluster in gangs or mill around, smoking those nasty illicit cigarettes that seemed to permeate penitentiaries. Others would gym but Old Timmy–as he was now known–did not like the touch of iron. His sixty-odd years of incarceration had more than enough cold iron for him.

No, he liked to walk around the yard to the far side where some flowers grew on the other side of the fence. Lillies and primroses sprung up there around the smallest sliver of a stream that trickled by. It vaguely reminded him of the old river back home but that had been so, so long and he was not sure he could remember it quite right anymore. Maybe he had made that up too?

And then, one morning, he hobbled through the milling inmates–they all ignored the bent, crazy Old Timmy–and reached the fence by his flowers when he saw the wild hair and wide grin of Ipsy standing there. Ipsy had not aged a day!

“It is time to come home, Timmy,” Ipsy said, his face full of concern, longing and sadness, “Come home.“

Timmy shook his head and blinked. He had often wondered if he had imagined Ipsy? Had he imagined their adventures? They had told him that he had and, after sixty-odd years, he had started to believe them. But here, standing before him in the full morning light was the wild-haired, grinning mischievous Ipsy.

“B-but I can’t, Ipsy,” Timmy said, his decades of facade cracking and tears starting to trickle down his face, “I really want to, Ipsy. I really, really want to, but I can’t get out here. They won’t let me, Ipsy. They never let me, Ipsy–“

Ipsy stepped over the flowers and came up close to the fence–but was careful not to touch the iron–and Timmy saw the sadness in his eyes. So much sadness! It was oceans of hurt and pain, washing through time and into the great pool of emotion that lies below the ground. He hurt, and he hurt that his friend hurt, and the trickle of tears on Old Timmy’s face began to flood into a river that fed that vast, dark body of water.

“It’s alright, Timmy,” Ipsy said, mischief dancing on the corner of his tearful eyes and a grin creeping back onto his face, “This is one last adventure for you. They’ll let you this time. Come find me in the woods, Timmy, come find me where we danced in that moonlit clearing.“

***

“How’d whats-a-name get out then?” the investigating Officer said, rifling through the pile of papers on his desk. The Warden in front of him shifted uncomfortably and wrung his hands a little.

“I-I am… We are not sure, Sir,” the Warden replied, “We have checked all the surveillance and all our records. Even his cellmate does not know, Sir. Old Timmy was basically harmless too; oldest geyser in the block for some murder he did decades ago. Kept to himself. Never got in trouble. Perhaps it was the medical diagnosis that inspired this action–you know, see the world one last time?–but we don’t really know anything else…”

The Warden finished lamely, his sentence trailing off. The Officer nodded without looking up and wrote on some of the papers, and time stretched out into an awkward silence as the Officer read further.

“So why–and how–did the old man make it all the way back to his old stepfather’s house in the middle of nowhere? This was the stepfather he murdered, right? Why go back to those woods? I’d really like to know that last part.”

The Warden shrugged and shook his head dumbly, “Old Timmy wasn’t, ah, all right up there, Sir. We reckoned he was mad and, you know, crazy does what crazy does.”

***

Late that night–hours and an official report later–the Officer was sitting alone in his office with his single desk lamp on. The Department was largely empty this time of night too. The official report has been concluded, his superior had signed off on it, the Warden had seemed relieved, and the world had swept it all into the folds of bureaucracy.

But he could not shake a feeling. A strange, surprising feeling.

All alone in his dimly lit office, he sat staring at the picture of the clearing in the woods where Timmy’s body had been found. The grass was stunningly green in that clearing and a weird ring of mushrooms circled Timmy’s corpse.

There were no signs of recent trauma, but Old Timmy had had terminal cancer, so his death had been ruled quite simply that. No one had any clue how he had escaped prison nor how he had gotten to the other side of the country without being seen but, well, no harm had been done and he was dead from cancer. The bureaucrats liked these neat endings and so, without much fuss, the case-file had been filed and the world had moved one.

No one cared about one old, dead, escaped, crazy convict.

But, in that dimly lit room, alone in the vast, empty Department, the Officer sat staring at the picture the crime-scene photographer had taken of Old Timmy’s face: he was smiling. Forever captured in time, Old Timmy’s face held a peaceful, contented smile with a light that made the Officer’s inside ache. It made him ache with an ancient, hollow hurt that he had forgotten was there, and he could not help feeling strangely jealous–

With a jolt, the Officer realized he was jealous of Old Timmy and he did not know why?

General Fiction

When We Remember

When the light left the dream, she woke up in the darkness. She always woke up at this point, adrift in an ocean of darkness. She lay there trying to grasp it but failed. It felt like she had lost something, forgotten something, left something behind… She felt hollow and hungry.

Hungry.

She had not eaten for a day or two, and then the City rushed jarringly back into her consciousness. The grit around her, the sweet, sickening smell of garbage, the roar of traffic and the pain in her neck from the angle she had lain.

Her head hurt, her neck hurt and she felt too numb for even tears to form.

Slowly she pushed herself up–without a plan, but a need to find something to eat–and stumbled out from behind the trash cans at the bottom of the alleyway in the bad part of the City. She could taste the last night’s decisions in her throat and instinctively wiped her hands on her dirty pants.

It started raining. No, it had always been raining and now it was raining heavier. Adrift in the darkness with the light in her dream long forgotten, she stumbled out to the lonely street.

***

He watched the rain running down the windows, some of it spraying inside from the open one. The fraying carpet was getting wet but he did nothing to correct or stop it and kept staring at the rain; staring through the rain. He kept trying to pierce the darkness just beyond it.

Try as he might, he just could not pierce the darkness.

It was like that recurring dream he kept having but could never remember. All he could ever remember was the vaguest memory of light. He felt like there was something just outside of his grasp. Something he had lost, something forgotten or left behind. He felt hollow with despair.

Despair.

She had left. The kids had left. The work and the money had left. There had never been much else for him, and the cancer was just ironic as well. The reasons to exist felt fewer and fewer like he was adrift in an ocean of darkness; drowning out there in the dark waters with nothing but the vague, fading memory of light to cling to.

He was on the top floor with the City wreathed in the night far below but for some reason, he could see a lady on the street below him stumble out from an alley. With an empty street and absent crowds, it was like she too was lost in an ocean of darkness. Perhaps his ocean of darkness? One body adrift seeing another, briefly, before the waters swallowed them forever.

He sighed and stood up. The window was too small and he had no balcony. The roof, though, was just a short walk from the apartment, up the stairs that lay behind the elevator.

He turned from the window and walked out of the room, turning the light off. Outside, the rain started to beat down even harder as the darkness swallowed the space inside the drab room.

***

“Do they ever remember?” asked a being, watching the man walk to the edge of the roof, “Do they ever know?“

It was a quick fall to the ground where the lady stood. The point of impact was only about two feet from where she was and, almost immediately, the heavy rain began to wash off the blood from her and the surrounding concrete pavement. There was a moment of shock and then she began to scream, stumbling back into the street and furiously wiping her hands on herself.

“No,” the other being said, “No, they never remember where they have come from and where they will return.“

A sudden, careless car tore out from the night and, adrift in the dark ocean, the waters abruptly closed over the lady’s head. Mercilessly, the car sped on into the night and the rain kept coming down harder, washing the street clean from where both broken bodies now lay.

“Why?” said a third being, suddenly also there as if it had always been there, “Why did I not know before?“

The first two beings turned and saw the third. And then there was a fourth with them as if it had always been with them.

“Why did we have to go through all of that, if there was always this?” asked the fourth being, wreathed in the same light that the other beings shone with.

The second being smiled sadly.

“Light cannot exist without darkness, and darkness cannot be understood and cannot be learnt from while standing in the light. We cannot swim in the ocean–or, learn to swim in the ocean by dipping a mere toe into it. We must be immersed in the dark waters to learn its lessons.”

The other three beings nodded their agreement sadly. They all remembered their lessons, and they remembered all the lessons before that, and before that. Many, many times over.

General Fiction, Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

The Last Corporate

“Rerun those numbers, I don’t want to get caught out here. I’m late for dinner with the wife, but tomorrow we’ll call the lawyers and pull the trigger. This takeover will be a steal and we’re gaining access to such a large addressable market I, I dunno, it’d be like a sin not to try capture it!”

“Yes, definitely, sir! And it allows us some good regulatory arbitrage, they don’t have the same rules down there. They’re far more pro-business! But, yes, sir, will run the numbers again. Enjoy diner and I’ll let you know if I come across anything.”

***

“OK, same play-by-play, everyone. We’ve done this plenty of times now. We’re going to do this takeover just like the others. Lever up the balance sheet, cut costs, drop capex, hike prices and boost free cash flows. Not rocket science–“

“SIR, YOUR WIFE’S LAWYERS ARE ON THE PHONE?“

“Ye-yes, well, tell them to wait.”

“YES, SIR.“

“How are the other businesses doing? Are we managing to extract full value from the low-regulatory regions yet?”

“We’ve quadrupled our addressable market, returns to scale is pushing out competitors—which we will obviously consolidate as they fall over–and we’ve managed to open up new market segments while operationally leveraging up yields from the primary resource businesses to feed the further downstream operations. Obviously, there is some social friction, the usual ESG crowd making noises, about the timber and mining operations, carbon emissions and so on, but we’ll deal with them the usual way. I’ve already increased our lobbying budget and, otherwise–“

“SIR, THE DIVORCE LAWYERS ARE STILL ON THE PHONE?“

“Yes, yes! I’ll be there in a moment! OK, you, double the tonnage from those operations, we need to ramp up volumes ahead of market growth, and the added volumes will hasten our competitor’s demise. Consider tactical shortages thereafter, but only once we are the market leader. Make sure you have a workaround for the greenies–I don’t mind how aggressive–and I want our deal-spotters out there finding me new deals! Why is no one making new fucking businesses these days? Find me growth, everyone, go find me growth!”

***

“It’s them or us. Do we up our bid, Sir?”

“Yes. Lift it by a quarter. There are no deals left, so this is winner takes all. This goddam recession isn’t going anywhere either. The whole world has gone mad. Why aren’t people making bloody babies anymore? Get the lawyers and bankers on the phones, and up the fucking bid! We buy them, or they’ll buy us!”

“SIR, THE PRESIDENT IS ON THE PHONE. THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS ANOTHER BAILOUT?”

“Fucksake–OK, put him through. Hi–hi, Mr President. How can I help?”

“YES, WELL, HELLO. I’LL KEEP THIS QUICK BUT I ASSUME YOU HAVE BEEN BRIEFED ON THE LOSS OF THE EMERGING MARKETS–REAL TRAGEDY AND ALL THAT, YOU KNOW, WHEN THE FOOD RAN OUT–BUT WE NEED TO SHORE UP HERE, AND ME AND THE SECRETARY WERE–“

“Sorry, Mr President, I have to stop you there. I’ll call you back. Sorry, something has come up. Bye.”

“JUST ON–“

*CLICK*

“Am I reading that right? They’ve accepted?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve won. They’ve accepted our takeover offer. We are now the undisputed market leader.”

***

“Twelve-month rolling revenues have fallen by three quarters, but annualizing the last quarter, this is closer to nine-tenths. Supply chains remain nearly impossible to navigate as resources are scarcer and, well, sir, there just aren’t any more crops or trees or water. We’ve entirely pulled out of the African, Asian and South American markets as, well, they don’t exist anymore. And–“

“Jesus, I thought we fucking won. What happened?”

“Yes, sir, we did. We did win.”

“Well, then find me some fucking markets, or some goddam growth. Find me something! Forget annualizing, how are our sales this week?”

“Well, sir, uhm, in the last week, well, we haven’t sold anything.”

“Jesus. H. Christ! What happened to the world? Where are all the customers?”

“Well, sir, there aren’t any customers anymore. They all died.”

Fantasy, General Fiction, Horror & Dark Fiction

The Many Faces of Sophia Morrow

“Sophia Morrow, what did you see when you looked at yourself?”

It was a simple enough question but she froze, unable to answer. She felt trapped, pinned down by the unyielding grey eternity. Where were they? How had she gotten here?

“I–I, uhm, I saw red hair on porcelain skin, I think I looked quite good, actually?” she answered, pulling her gaze from the endlessness around them and looking at the speaker. A man? At least, she thought it was a man but was unable to even see a face underneath the cowl. In fact, the Robed Man could well just have been a robe floating in front of her.

It was silent. Was he perhaps contemplating her answer, perhaps entirely something else? The nothingness in this place made her queasy and was starting to play tricks on her perception.

“No,” the Robed Man suddenly spoke up in his hollow, low voice like stone creaking under the weight of time, “No, that is the wrong answer. You have to do it again.”

“Wha–“

***

“Sophia Morrow, what did you see when you looked at yourself?” the Robed Man asked.

She remembered this question, she thought. Or was it a memory of a dream? She had those sometimes. But, no, she was sure she remembered this question…

And then she realized the nothingness around her! Grey and vast, her form floating in the belly of eternity as unnoticed as shadows at night.

“I–” she paused, suddenly feeling terrified. She had gotten this wrong before. More than once, and each time she had to go back. Back to that place! There was so much pain there! “I–I saw opportunity and loss, successes and failures. I saw things I had done, things I should not have done, and things that I had not done or could not do. I saw a past that was written, a present that was being lived and a future that could be chosen. I saw life.”

She smiled, her memory was coming back to her. She had been in this place many times before but she was sure she had gotten it right this time. She was sure.

The Robed Man was silent, a gentle, unfelt breeze moving his garment. Yet, all around them, there was literally nothing. Silence. Endless. Grey. Eternity…

And then the Robed Man shook his head and said, “No, that is the wrong answer. You have to do it again,” and she was flung back into the world to learn the lesson she had not yet learnt.

***

“Sophia Morrow, what did you see when you looked at yourself?” the Robed Man asked.

She was ready this time. Maybe she was finally adjusting to this cycle or this place, and her memories from all her other lives came back to her quicker?

She looked at the Robed Man and paused. Was it for just a moment she paused or for a thousand years? Time was hard to track in this grey formless place.

Her thoughts were torrents pouring over themselves. Analysing her previous answers and looking at her previous lives, her thoughts raged onwards. What was the lesson she was missing? What had she seen? What was there to see? What had she gotten wrong? What had she learnt? What had she been? What?

And then it popped into her consciousness, gently like a small bubble bursting. It was a single, clear and unequivocal thought. She paused, considered it, and continued.

“When I looked at myself,” she began, picking her words carefully, “I saw myself. Nothing less and nothing more. Myself, as that is all we can be.”

Silence, and then, “Yes,” the Robed Man said flatly, and she felt a rush of relief and joy like she had never felt before. And–strangely and unexpectedly–she felt a small sense of loss. She may never see the world again. She may never get to be born again. She would never grow up and love and share and cry and fall and rise again. Never, and it made a small part of her immensely sad.

But the Robed Man continued, “And, Sophia Morrow, what do you see when you look at yourself now?”

Sophia narrowed her eyes. This was unexpected but she had never gotten this far before. Then it struck her. It felt like a thunderbolt to her soul as the realization hit her. Not once questioning if this was the right answer, she answered:

“Oh Death,” she began, smiling. Her soul felt one with infinity, at peace with eternity, and touching all that is, was and will be as it touched her back, “Like a chip of rock chiselled from the whole, we are each uniquely ourselves, but like that same rock ground and mixed together with the rest, we can be recast into any form as the whole and the whole is us. Like a drop of water, we are unique, but, like a drop of water, we came from the ocean and we return again to the ocean where we are both still the drop of water and the ocean. We are all part of the whole and the whole is us. So, Death, oh sweet Death, what I see when I look at myself now is everything for I am everything.”

And then Death smiled.

“The first lesson is that of the Individual, unique, flawed and beautiful. The second lesson is that of the Whole from which the Individual originates from, returns to and, indeed, entirely is.”

“Now what?” Sophia asked, smiling.

“As I have done with you,” Death spoke, seemingly picking his words carefully as if he had never said this before, “Now you get to teach this to another soul.”

And then Sophia Morrow was alone in the grey eternity.

Death was no more, and, wrapped in eternity and infinity, Sophia turned around and faced the naked newborn soul that had appeared before her wide-eyed and terrified. She smiled. She felt so much love for it! And she panged with sympathy and sorrow at quite how hard and painful the soul’s road would have to be.

But, like her, this soul must learn the lesson before moving on.

“Andrew Brooke,” Sophia knew exactly what to say, “what did you see when you looked at yourself?”

Fantasy, General Fiction

The Ethereal Form of Fairies

“Can you see it, Little Light?” her mother asked, squeezing her hand as they looked in the mirror, “If you look with your heart, you should be able to see it.”

She squinted her eyes and focussed. It was dim in the gas station toilet and the mirror was grimy and cracked on one side. She clenched her jaw and willed herself to see it–

And there it was! The darkness around them peeled away and a light that was not a light glowed around them. And, just behind her and her mother, silvery, ethereal wings fluttered gently.

“I can!” she exclaimed, excitedly, hugging her mother and then quickly turning back to check she could still see herself in the mirror, “I really can, mommy!”

Her mother smiled and bent down, putting her head next to her daughters and looking at both of them in the mirror.

“These are our true forms, Little Light,” her mother whispered, a sadness creeping into her pale blue eyes, “Our eternal forms from the Old Lands. So, Little Light, never forget this. When this world’s darkness closes in–and it always does; our true selves are immortal but these human bodies are not–just remember that none of this matters. None of this dreadful, dirty world of men matters and, my dear, you are the light and–“

A glass bottle shattered the moment against a wall outside. The sound of the city rushed back in and an angry voice rang out from the other side of the door. Her mother froze, her smile vanishing completely. She stood up slowly and looked at the door for a moment before looking back down at her.

“Your father is waiting. We must go, Little Light.”

***

When the first shovel of dirt hit the casket, it sounded like a door slamming shut. Forever. The second shovel of dirt echoed her mother’s rasping breath at the end, in between cigarettes and whisky. She remembered carrying her to bed before her own night shift began and, by the third shovel of dirt, her mind had already shifted to worrying about paying last month’s rent, let alone this month’s.

Following her mother’s will, she had made sure that the casket was made of oak and not an ounce of iron–not even in the nails–was in it. She had also made sure that the funeral was held at dusk, and, later, she would make sure mushrooms and foxgloves grew around the plot.

“This is so depressing, babe,” the man beside her moaned, badly hiding a yawn behind his mouth before reaching into his pocket for a cigarette, “If we leave now, we can hit the pool bar before the happy hour ends. Bertie says he might have a job for me, or something.”

She wanted to hit him. She wanted to run away. She wanted to scream and cry, but all she did was sigh and kept watching the men filling her mother’s grave. At least he was here. That was something. No one else was here, including her father. She had tried to call him and had mailed him an invite but to no avail. He was probably in jail or drunk again. Perhaps both.

Eventually, she looked up at her boyfriend and tried to smile. He tried to look sympathetic. If he is trying, it means he is, she reminded herself. He flicked away the cigarette he had finished and hugged her. His arms felt good around her.

“Sure, hun,” she mumbled, “let’s go get that drink. Maybe Bertie does have a job for you.”

***

“Can you see it, Little Light?” she asked her daughter, “You need to look with your heart, and then you will see your beautiful true form.”

She lifted her daughter to the counter in the bathroom. She was small and light, probably too small and too light for her age. The light in the MacDonalds was flickering but she could see her daughter squinting intensely at herself in the dirty mirror.

And then her daughter’s face lit up, “Yes, mommy! I can see it! It is amazing! We are so beautiful! So beautiful!”

She smiled and hugged her daughter tightly, whispering about their immortal souls and the beauty that cannot die. She whispered about the Old Lands and how their people had fled them. She whispered about oak trees, foxgloves and circles of mushrooms. She whispered about how this world was not real and how only this light was, and, the whole time, she wondered if she could still see it.

General Fiction, The Little Gods

The Aeonian Ball

“Yes, wife,” Theodore ‘Teddy’ Hoodwink Samuel mumbled, patting his Caballus’ hand as they walked under the eves into the packed Aeonian Ball upon Mount Olympus, “I will be sure not to embarrass you, dear. No, I won’t drink too much wine–“

Teddy kept mumbling affirmations, half listening to his wife’s litany of instructions for the evening. They were at the top of the world. In fact, just above the world here; Mount Olympus overlooked the mortal world and the palace at its centre overlooked Mount Olympus. It was awfully fancy.

Around them crowded the mythical world: centaurs flexing their muscles and stamping their hooves, satyrs lounging around, winking at anyone they thought they had a chance to bed, a flash of white showed a pegasus somewhere while a wide birth naturally formed around a sphinx and a minotaur that were deep in heated conversation to their right.

But these were rabble compared to the divine members of the Pantheon that had gathered there. Each great god and goddess of the Pantheon had a circle of sub-mythicals that had formed around them sycophantically trying to gain their favour.

With the roar of a stormy ocean, Neptune’s voice boomed out around a circle of tittering nymphs regaling some or other tale of his power. His boastful tales were only ever outdone by Mars, who had surrounded himself with a noxious bunch of harpies and sirens who gazed up at him in awe as he, no doubt, told them some story that ended in him killing something. Mars always ended up killing something.

The attention-seeking Apollo–ever dramatic!–stood on a chair and was making grand gestures to his crowd, no doubt reciting some poem or making some vast, world-shaking prophecy. Wherever there was Apollo, he was sure the Three Fates lurked; an overly-dramatic bunch, the Three Sisters always had a respectful crowd trying to garner favour and hoping for a good prophecy or two about them.

Not to be upstaged in their own home, Jupiter and Juno sat above the masses and on their golden, not-so-subtly-raised thrones, casting their gaze on their subjects below. Far below, just how they liked it.

“Yes, dear,” Teddy sighed, what were they doing here? He was the God of Irony and his wife was the Goddess of Arguments. Not exactly powers likely to shape the course of history or be involved in world-shaking prophecies. Little gods like them were often the nieces, nephews, second cousins and distant relatives of this pretentious bunch but, tradition dictated that family was always invited for these occasions. Gods lived a long time and family was important.

“And, Teddy,” Cally droned on, her red hair bellowing behind her and her sharp eyes shooting daggers at all their marginally fancier relatives mulling around them, “It is also very impor–” she froze and Teddy felt her grip tighten on his, snapping out of his gloomy contemplation and he looked where her she was looking.

Her sister was standing there: Influffi,Β the Goddess of Clouds in a flowing white dress with her husband, OblivusΒ the God of Forgetfulness, stood before them. Oblivus’ robes were inside out and he was looking wide-eyed around him like this was the first time he had ever seen the inside of the Palace. It was not. Influffi was absentmindedly inspecting a glass of wine in her hand as if she had forgotten what it was for.

“Hello, sister. I hope you are well,” Cally managed to make the greeting sound like a curse, “I am glad you found your husband,” she added as an afterthought, which triggered a slightly confused look on Oblivus’s face. He had been lost–technically, he had “forgotten where home was”–but it had resolved peacefully when he had simply turned up back at home. No one–not even him–appeared to know where he had been.

Not exactly world-shaking prophecy stuff, Teddy thought wryly, but at least he made it home peacefully.

Well, almost peacefully. Teddy gulped and tried to smile politely while ignoring that the last time he had seen Fluffi, she had ended up with decidedly less clothing on. At his wife’s direction, he had gone to console her about Oblivus’ absence and, well, wine, bad judgement and irony had gotten involved. His memories were fuzzy about the exact details but his wife was quite certain that she knew everything.

All water under the bridge, he tried to convince himself, but he knew better. Cally had forgiven him but not forgotten.

“Oh, Cally,” Fluffi exclaimed, her expression flowing into a warm smile, like the sun breaking through the clouds, and she threw her arms around her sister. Fluffi was a truly malleable, flexible person. Teddy could feel his wife stiffen just before she let go of his hand but when he looked up, he saw a flash of happiness on her harsh face as she embraced her sister back. They had always been close sisters and a stab of guilt pained him at his indiscretion.

Teddy nodded at Oblivus, who crinkled up his face like he was trying to recall who Teddy was. Or maybe he was angry too? Or he was angry but he had forgotten why? Sometimes Teddy wondered if Oblivus remembered that he was the god of forgetfulness. Ironic.

In a mild panic at the moment, Teddy coughed and muttered about getting everyone some wine before scampering off, dodging a lumbering minotaur. He hoped it would take a long time to locate wine but, at that moment, the arrival of Bacchus with all his party friends indicated otherwise.

Teddy sighed. It was going to be a long night.

***

“…and then legionnaire’s wife came home, but Teddy’s protection still held true!” Cally finished her story, her and Fluffi roaring with laughter, even Oblivus was laughing, “Ironically–yes, dear, I am going to make that pun!–Teddy cannot cast his little blessing on himself! Bad for him but good for me!” Cally was wiping tears from her eyes, staggering on her legs, and Fluffi buried her face in her husband’s chest as both of them held their sides from eruptions of laughter.

Teddy managed to crack a smile. He did not find the story as funny as apparently everyone else did, despite being involved in it. He gulped down his wine and filled it up again quickly from the nearby amphora.

At least the wine was good, and all of them had had plenty to drink.

“Yes, well,”,” Fluffi, changeable as ever, flowed straight onto the next topic, “What do you think the Big Prophecy of the evening will be? There always is one at these Balls. Maybe something to do with Venus? She hasn’t featured much these days…”

Teddy snorted, “She’d be one of us Little Gods, if she hadn’t slept with Jupitor and wasn’t so beautiful,” his wife’s hand tightening on his made him realize what he had said. In a panic, he kept babbling on, “But, well, you know, it won’t be any prophecy about one of the Little Gods. No Prophecy of How the Corners Met, or How Clouds Changed the World, or like… Hey, wha-what? Why is everyone so quiet!?”

He stopped. Confused as his sphere of awareness expanded from the three people he was talking to–whose faces had just gone deathly pale–to the whole ballroom in the Palace that had gone absolutely silent.

“What is going on!” he said, looking around when, through a clear parting of the crow, he saw the Three Sister pointing in his direction. The hair on the back of his neck was starting to rise. No… No, they were pointing directly at him!

“The Destroyer of Worlds, the Ender of Olympus, the God that is not a God!” all three of the Three Fates were dramatically proclaiming together, their words harmonizing as they all pointed at Teddy. Mythicals love a good prophecy and the crowd of gods, goddesses and magical beings were hanging on their every word, “He will bring an end to our world, changing all things by changing nothing! He stands there, the vile Bringer of the God-slaying Apocalypse!”

And then things began to happen very quickly.

Rage exploding across his face, Jupiter was rising from his throne, his thunderous voice booming out, making the walls of the Palace shake as thunderclouds began to appear and lightning flashed out. Apollo was leaping forward, declaring that he had seen the vision too! Juno was waving at the Palace guards as the crowd surged forward, none too friendly. A spear suddenly in hand, Mars began to push through the crowd shouting about killing…

“Run, dear, run!” Cally–Goddess of Arguments and the Sayer of the Last Word–whispered as she pushed Teddy away and stepped in front of him to face the descending hordes, “Now wait a second, you three sisters, we need to talk–“

Teddy was a lot of things but brave was not one of them. He was already out of the Palace and–under fast-growing thunderclouds flashing lightning–he sprinted down Mount Olympus before he realized what he was doing.

***

The ground next to him exploded from a bolt of lightning, raining jagged chunks of Mount Olympus on him as he ran. The air smelt thin and he could taste copper at the back of his throat. Was it blood? He could hear the hooves of the pegasuses pounding down the sky just behind and above him. A clap of thunder rattled his bones and another lightning bolt hit somewhere else. There were shouts from behind him and a spear shot over his head splitting a boulder some yards ahead of him.

He put his head down and kept running!

Why is this happening!? He could hear his inner voice whining but the cries of the gods and goddesses hunting him drowned that miserable voice out. Why!? Just behind him, he could hear the bellow of a minotaur charging, the clang of metal and another bolt of lightning lit up a tree to his right, temporarily blinding him.

Unfortunately, that also meant that he did not see an awkward stone, and his foot caught on it. He tumbled forward, shrieking, and rolled, his momentum carrying him further and further down the steep slopes of the mountain. Rocks cut him and bruised his soft parts and the last thing he remembered before the darkness took him was an image of Mars charging–spear retrieved from the rock–bearing down on him with murder on his face.

***

“…be anyone, really, as the world is full of not gods. Isn’t that right, Nona? Nona, isn’t that right?“

There was a pause before a begrudging grunt of agreement came.

Slowly, the world came back to him: light, form and shape, sound crept in and then the pounding head hit him. He lifted a hand and the touch prickled with pain where he had obviously hit his head rolling down the mountain. He licked his lips–the bloody copper taste was still there–and lifted his head to a strange scene.

His wife was standing over him with the consort of heaven looming over her and shooting murderous looks at him. Mars stood off the side with a bizarre frustrated look twisting his face, placidly poking the ground with his spear. Apollo was there too, shaking his head. Wreathed in light and with a shared expression as if they had just eaten something bad, Jupiter and Juno stood in front.

No, not quite in front… In fact, Cally stood facing the Three Sisters with the hordes that were out to get him behind them. And, what was even more unique was that everyone was just listening. No one was trying to murder him.

“And, if you are honest and not dramatic about it–no one likes an attention-seeker!–Decima,” Cally was saying, wagging a finger at the Three Sisters, “and are more careful which words you use in throwing around these ‘Prophecies’–” Teddy could hear his wife’s inverted commas and sense the collective silent gasp that everyone did not make at this insinuation, “–Teddy’s name did not actually feature anywhere in this ‘Prophecy’, did it, Decima?”

Blushing and dropping her gaze to the ground, the middle Sister mumbled something while poking a rock with her toes.

“I am sorry, Decima, please speak up. What did you say?”

Decima coughed and looked up. Ignoring her red face, she then spoke in forcefully flat tone, “No, Cally, no it did not, but, it’s like, the Prophecies are more feelings and we as feelings we know–“

“Right, well, we cannot go accusing people of horrible things based on your feelings, can we,” Cally cut Decima off and moved on to the next and final Sister, “And, thus, Morta, there is absolutely no evidence at all that suggests my dear, sweet, gentle, somewhat-dumb husband will end up causing the end of our world and destroying anything at all. None at all. You do agree, don’t you, Morta?”

Morta blinked, looked at her two sisters, who avoided making eye contact, and then very slightly nodded before dropping her gaze and trying to sink into the ground.

“Right, then it is agreed,” Cally firmly declared, casting her gaze across the gathered gods and goddesses who all were suddenly inspecting the ground or their fingernails, “This was all just a big misunderstanding and we should not be so quick to jump to conclusions before trying to murder someone. Not least of all, murder family. Come, dear, get up, let’s get you home and mended up. We’ve had quite enough of this age’s Aeonian Ball.”

Teddy fumbled his way up, his wife helping him, and they turned to walk down the mountain. Already some of the gods and goddesses were starting to wander back up the mountain. There was still wine, dancing and orgies to be had and, honestly, they were never actually going to kill Teddy… Maybe Mars would have, but not them! Never. It was just a misunderstanding and the Three Sisters needed to up their game, sort out their ambiguity and, perhaps, take a course in logic.

Somewhat supporting his weight on his wife, Teddy stumbled down the steep, ragged slopes of Mount Olympus. The two of them walked in silence for a while before Teddy looked behind him and saw that no one was following. He squeezed his wife’s hand and she squeezed his back, but then a thought struck him.

“Ah, dear,” he began, tentatively, “the Three Fates are never wrong. How did you do that?”

Cally smiled and looked at him with her sweetest look, eyes sparkling, “The Sisters may be able to tell the future, dearest one, but they aren’t the Goddess of Arguments. Logic is not their strong suit!”

He blinked and nodded, shaking his head. He knew. He had lost many arguments with her over the ages… And then another thought struck him! This thought felt like one of Jupiter’s lightning bolts as it shot down his spine, his skin grew cold and a dark pit appears in his stomache.

“Then I, Theodore Hoodwink Samuel, God of Irony, will indeed end our world,” he breathed out in shock and horror.

They had stopped walking and his wife turned to him, deep concern on her face and tears appearing at the corners of her eyes. She reached out and hugged him tightly, and he hugged back as if clinging to the edge of a cliff overlooking the abyss. The pit in his stomach was growing…

“Yes. Yes…” she whispered, tears suddenly streaming down both their cheeks as their embraces grew tighter and more desperate, “Yes, Teddy, you will, and, I guess, after all, that is the irony.”

General Fiction, Romance

Autumn Leaves

Autumn could not pull her eyes away from the window. Outside the bare trees stood like naked guardians to the oncoming Winter, all their leaves staining the ground with a bloody tapestry. Their stark branches twisted into the grey sky like barren skeletal reminders of life against an oncoming apocalypse.

This was an inflection point, a transition point. A moment of change as even the faintest warmth left the world and harsh, unforgiving cold smothered everything including memory.

“It is time,” he softly said behind her. She had not heard him enter the room and she slowly turned to face him. His face was unreadable but his eyes belied the turmoil, “Autumn, it is time to go.”

She smiled sadly and let go of the window while resisting sighing. Some moments did not need to be declared. Some moments could be felt without punctuation.

“She would have preferred a warm Summer’s day,” she said walking across to him, he reached out to her and, when she took his hand, he gently squeezed hers. Some moments needed no punctuation.

“We all prefer warm Summer days,” he said, his eyes sad, “But that is not the way life happens, or ends.”

She smiled, trying to reassure him that she was fine and slipped his arm around her, nestling her head into the crook of his neck. He smelt warm, like pine trees in a forest somewhere far from here. He put his other arm around her and softly squeezed, resting his head on hers while she closed her eyes trying not to think.

They quietly stood like this for a moment–silent guardians before the apocalypse–before he straightened and repeated, “It is time, Autumn. We must go. They are all waiting and we must get there before the snow falls.”

“Yes,” she mumbled into his chest, finally sighing deeply, “Yes, it is time.”

She knew it was. Outside there were no more leaves left to fall and, as Winter rolled in, Autumn left.

Fantasy, General Fiction

The Big Black Bird

I like to think that I was born in a faraway realm under some wicked curse. My parents loved me–as best as they could–and life was alright in that land–sometimes good, sometimes bad, but mostly fine–but my curse followed me wherever I went.

My curse was ever-present: its flapping black wings hovering over me, casting a long shadow that dogged my every movement, every moment, and every memory.

The Big Black Bird was my curse. Hidden by dark, ancient magic, I could not see it but I could feel its dark presence. Like an intangible weight, pressing down, sucking the warmth out of the room and the joy from my heart; I believe that although no one could see the Big Black Bird, everywhere I went and everyone I spoke to could feel its taint around me.

***

At first, I tried to run from the Big Black Bird.

I left late one night and ran. I ran through wild forests where dangerous animals stalked, but none of them dared come near me and my Big Black Bird. I crossed wild rivers over bridges where trolls hid, but none of them dared stop me and face my Big Black Bird. I drank witches’ foul potions to banish it or forget it or find joy elsewhere, but to no avail and with no effect. And so I fled further across mountains and rugged wilderness where wild elementals and warlocks hurled fire and lightning, but all of them averted their eyes as I passed by.

Everywhere I went and everyone I spoke to could feel the Big Black Bird’s taint around me.

Despite all the running, the Big Black Bird was always there.

***

Exhausted, I collapsed late one night. It was pitch black and, at that moment, I could almost see the Big Black Bird. There was no Moon in the sky. No stars. There was no light in any direction I looked, and the Big Black Bird was so real I could feel it pressing down on me. Its cold feathers and intense, inhuman and uncaring eyes watching my every move…

I cried out to the Big Black Bird to finish it! End things! Stop stalking me and just end my suffering! Why! Why torture me like this!

But the only answer I got in that impenetrable darkness was silence. An uncaring and inhuman silence like only the wicked cosmos can deliver.

***

At this point, I like to think that I fell into a dark and magical sleep. I also like to think that in this faraway realm everyone had a Fairy that watched over them with unconditional love and caring.

She appeared to me in this dream and explained to me that the Big Black Bird–my Big Black Bird–was not a curse, it was destiny that I needed to face.

I awoke the next morning as rays of light pierced the sky. The Sun rose–as it had every day of my life without me noticing–and chased away the lingering darkness from that night.

I smiled grimly and stood up. I knew what I had to do.

***

I climbed the Great Mountain and, at the top where it pierces Heaven itself, I grabbed the Sword of Light from the selfish god hiding up there. I wrestled it from his ancient hold and leaped to earth where he fears to tread.

Wielding the Sword of Light, I carved my way through the darkest dungeons beneath the ruins of the oldest castles where the tombs of ancient knights lie. I found the greatest of them and donned their magical armour; it was light and hard, made from the very rays of the first sunrise itself and forged at the center of the world with unbreakable bonds.

And then, finally, holding the Sword of Light and wearing the Armour of Light, I returned home to where I was born and waited for the Dark Moon. It will appear in the night sky at the hour of my birth and it will summon the Big Black Bird home.

Then and there, I would fulfill my destiny. I would free myself from my curse. Then and there, I would slay the Big Black Bird.

Then everything would be alright, I like to think.

***

But then I remember that I am not cursed nor born in any faraway realm where magic and destiny matter and great acts of courage and kindness and love are rewarded. I am not in a realm where a Fairy loves me unconditionally and is always watching over me.

All that I am is a person lying in a bed and struggling to get out.

My alarm clock is ringing and another empty day is facing me. The dog is barking for me to move–she wants her morning walk–and I can hear an email or message ping on my phone, almost certainly work piling up.

Things need to be done and there is no one but me in my life to do them with no reward other than what I give myself.

And I pause just a moment more… I hover there as the dog is barking, my alarm is ringing, traffic sounds starting up, and sunlight piercing my curtains. Suspended in that moment, I realize that the one thing that remains from my thoughts and the one thing that does exist is my Big Black Bird.

I feel its dark presence. Always.

Fantasy, General Fiction

The Weaving Woman

“We would be honoured if you could weave a story for our wedding,” said the boy before her. He hovered awkwardly on his knees. Glancing nervously at his young bride, he flopped forward putting his forehead to the ground in her hut.

“Please, Ma’at,” the young girl added, also bowing, “The Elders speak of your weaves as tying the chaos of the world together into our fortunes and we wish to have many healthy children. Please give us your blessing.”

She smiled and nodded, and later that night her hands flowed rhythmically pulling thread together from disparate forms into a single, cohesive shape that held a pattern. It held a pattern–a story–of youth and love, passion and entwining of lives and bodies. It was a tale that had five children but two deaths and a rich harvest cut short by the coming war. Normal happy lives ending in death. The ending had some darkness in it–as all endings do–but there much light throughout this story.

She sighed and smiled, sadly.

It was not that Ma’at created this tale out of chaos but, rather, that she plucked from the chaos the truth of this particular story and then displayed it in the cloth.

When it was done, she stood up and walked outside. The Moon outside was radiant. Her sister was full and quietly shone down across a dark, rolling desert while glittering off the gently flowing Nile’s silvery streak that cut through it.

She sighed again and peered towards the oncoming horizon. She could see the lights of a young Memphis flickering with fires and candles even this late. Every day, mankind crept further into the desert and, every day, more of her brothers and sisters retreated further away. And, yet, she remained.

Why?

She heaved a final sigh and looked at her hands. One day, she knew, she would have to weave her own story. One day.

***

Ra’s intensity burned down in waves upon the land but the aircon in her car hid her from it. Her dark glasses all but made it disappear. All the power of a god overcome with a device that cools air and tinted glass.

Over the millennia, she had always marvelled at mankind’s inventiveness. Her family were born with their power but mankind has built their own. Almost all the challenges and struggles over the centuries had been solved but, for some reason, mankind just kept on creating new challenges and struggles.

“Drop Ma’at her destination on the left,” the digital voice announced in her Uber drive as the car slowed to a stop beside the curb.

“Thanks, ma’am,” the driver said as she got out, “You have a nice day now.”

“Listen,” she said, turning and leaning back into the Uber, “Take the rest of the day off. Go see your kids and tell your wife you love her. I will tip you well now, so you don’t need to work for the rest of the day.”

“Thanks ma’am!” the driver exclaimed as she shut the door and walked away. He would not take her advice. He would also be dead by this time tomorrow when the blood clot eventually reached his brain. That was another thing mankind was really good at doing: dying.

Her phone beeped as her tip went through while she walked into the gallery. She emotionlessly smiled and nodded at the manager. He beamed at her and tilted his head towards the crowds floating through the airy structure.

The walls were covered with woven patterns meters high. Incredibly complex, subtle and beautiful. They all told chapters of the story of mankind, including some that had not yet occurred. Crowds swooned around; artsy-types and tech billionaires exclaiming on the exhibition and the occasional news crew, blogger or journalist snapping a picture or filming an interview with sentences like “…in a visually-stunning crescendo commenting on the frailty of civilization, the artist known only as Ma’at has woven a tale of apocalypse hanging on the walls around us here…“

“Why is the ending so dark?” asked the Manager, appearing at her side with a cup of lotus tea–her favourite, “Why not something happier?”

She turned to him, taking the tea and sipping it thoughtfully before answering: “Given enough time, everything ends. And, all endings have some darkness in them.”

The Manager nodded and smiled, though she could see he did not understand. He also did not seem to care as his gallery had never been this full. Fifteen years from now, he would die alone from cancer. His wife would be dead in less time than that in another man’s bed. Yet both of them would look back on their lives and consider them to be happy ones.

Maybe then he will get it, she wondered, sipping her lotus tea and watching him as he drifted through the crowd, shaking hands and smoothly working those with money.

Later that night, she stood on her private balcony overlooking the Valley and its twinkling electric lights. A car horn blared somewhere as a soft strand of a pop song wafted by. Sirens flared and faded out. Almost blinded by the artificial light of man, the faint Moon and fainter stars peered down; relics from another age looking at the alien future and trying to recognise how they fitted in there.

They did not. It was that simple. This was mankind’s world now and the Old Gods no longer had any place in it.

The older civilization got, the more lights there were at night. The more lights there were, the less darkness there was. There was also less desert, less sky, less earth, and less of everything else she recognized.

But given enough time, everything ends. This is true of all things, even the world of man. All the darkness they chased away would eventually come back tenfold to reclaim its rightful place.

She sighed and looked at her hands. One day, she knew, she would have to weave her own story. In the meantime, the story of mankind and its ending was hanging on the walls of an art gallery and being commented on in blogs and tweets, trending in hashtags and being auctioned to the highest bidder.

***

When the ash had settled and the skies had cleared, when the fires had cooled and the surviving animals had crept out from where they hid, then she began her long journey home.

She was going back to her desert.

Across the oceans and through young, sprouting forests she travelled. Over blackened lands and passed crumbling skeletons of mankind she journeyed. Sometimes she walked at night, talking to her sisters shining down and, sometimes in the day, talking to her brother’s burning face. Sometimes the cool winds blew–still smelling of dust and ash–and she conversed with the twins, or sudden and violent storms beat down and she yelled at her brother from the North.

Ma’at was all alone in the world but, slowly, she started to feel like herself again. She knew exactly where to look to see her family. They were all around her all of the time. The aircon and sunglasses no longer hid Ra, and the lights of cities no longer blinded Isis’ pale face at night nor her sisters twinkling alongside. She could hear Horus call from the clear skies as Shu and Tefnut danced through her hair, Seth raged far away while Apep once again slumbered, having already feasted on this world…

All around her, the world was starting to look familiar; it was starting to look like the world she had first lived in. The Old Gods were starting to creep back out into the open.

Finally, she arrived back in her desert. The Nile was flowing again and the pollution was receding. Few of the old structures of mankind remained but she did not need them. She knew exactly where she was going.

A small sand dune; that was all that was left of her hut, her home and birthplace.

It did not matter. She smiled as she sat down cross-legged in what would have been the hearth of her hut. She reached out and touched the sand where over five thousand years ago a boy and his bride had begged her to weave their wedding. A single tear fell from the corner of her left eye and she looked up at the golden, bloody sunset spilling across the open sky. Horus’ two eyes–the Sun and the Moon–were on opposing horizons watching her. Ra and Isis, her sisters, a soft breeze and the distant thunder of a hidden storm all combined…

Her family was all around her again.

Ma’at smiled–tears starting to flow freely down her ancient cheeks–and she finally began to weave her own story.

General Fiction

The Necromancer

He paused and looked back one last time. His throat caught and he clenched his fists.

In the fading twilight, the mountainside stretched down towards the pooling darkness of the land far below and the ocean beyond that. He knew that amidst the forests, farms lay nestled down there, villages and towns dotted around, and they all eventually touched the main roads that the Elementals had built. These ancient roads all led back to the centre of the Kingdom where the Rainbow Tower pierced the sky with the Emperor and his fire wizards staring down from it like cruel gods.

Far beyond the Kingdom, he had heard of untamed water wizards sailing the seas as unstoppable pirates. Across the opposite side of the continent and hiding under black clouds and thick smoke, the Foresaken Realm swirled with whispers of men and horses made of metal and an invisible fire that powered its heart. He had even heard of immortal demons leftover from the Great War that lurked in shadows and bartered with men.

But all of these were very distant and none of them had murdered his family.

His knuckles turned white and his eyes narrowed as he gazed down at the darkening land. Soot smudged his face and ash dusted his dark hair. He could feel those cruel bastards somewhere down there laughing behind their fiery banners and comfortable in their Emperor’s protection. He could still smell the smoke from the farm, hear his mother and sister’s screams and feel the heat from the fire as it consumed everything before it.

He sighed and unclenched his fists. They were wet; his fingernails had pierced his palms’ skin.

He cursed, wiped his hands off on his charred tunic, and turned back to his path through the mountains. If he kept going, he might eventually reach the Foresaken Realm on the far side of the mountains and the continent. No, his path lay nearer. There was nothing but darkness left behind him now, and–wiping away a tear–he no longer feared the darkness lurking ahead of him in these mountains.

***

“They call us The Mistakes, Lez Zuzaru,” a dark man whispered–although the cave deep in the mountains was black with little moonlight surviving it, the darkness clung to the man like a tangible entity, “We–They–were the Enian Zaru, the Life Elementals. All the fire, earth, water and air that forged this world could not breathe life into it. No, the Old Tales always forget that the other Enian needed the Zaru. For, what worth is a beautiful world if it is lifeless and barren? And then they banished Zaru and us–called us The Mistakes!–when the life inevitably brought change and they were not ready for it!”

“Please, ZarunΓ‘!” he threw himself to his knees and pushed his head to the cold cave floor, “Please, Sir! Please teach me the way of the Zaru! You are a necromancer, are you not? I can do–will do whatever it takes! Please–“

The Dark Man waved his hand and, despite the boy’s mouth opening and closing, sound no longer came out of it. His body felt strange like something else was touching it and a nearly invisible green glow began to fill the cave. Closing his now impotent mouth, the boy stood up and, with eyes wide open and terrified, he took a step backwards.

“You have no nΓ‘, boy,” the Dark Man whispered venomously, spitting the words out, “The elemental blood has watered down across the ages but you, boy, never had any in the first place. How can I teach you how to fly if you have no wings? How can I teach you any magic if you have no nΓ‘?”

The boy stopped stepping backwards and his shoulders slumped. His gaze fell to his dirty hands, and all the tears he had buried along with his family welled up and out of him.

“Yes!” the Dark Man whispered into his ear, suddenly behind him, “You want revenge. I can help you with that but there is a cost. A very, very high cost that most are not willing to pay. Boy, will you pay the cost?”

“Y-yes–” the boy stammered, “Yes! Whatever it is, I will pay it!”

“I thought you’d say that,” the Dark Man chuckled as his dagger slid under the boy’s rib cage and straight into his heart, “With your last thought, boy, think only of those you wish to have revenge upon…”

***

The Dark Man leaned up against the edge of his cave as the horror that used to be the boy shambled–oozing and tentacled–away from him, down the mountain road and towards its revenge.

The boy–or, at least, his body guided by his final thoughts–was now one of the Lez Zaros.; the ironically named, Lifeless Ones. Ironic, because all these near-immortal horrors were built from pure and utter life itself; unbridled and constrained by the other petty elements.

He had read in forbidden books how in the ancient world–before men’s kingdoms–the First War had been fought between the Elementals themselves. Life against the lifeless ones. The lands had swarmed with Lez Zaros; crawling, slithering, flapping and oozing against the original dictators, the Lez Enian VΓ‘v, or the Elemental Kings.

The Dark Man sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Few knew how to make Lez Zaros anymore and fewer still had the power. And, for those few like him, it cost a great deal of energy. One day, the Life Elemental would find a way back into this world but, for now, her few loyal followers must keep her knowledge alive.

He turned and walked back into the cave, his hands and mind reaching out and filling the vacuum around him. Greenlight flowed out of and around him as the cave closed behind him. A lush, calm forest grew up around him with sweet-smelling, luminous flowers and gentle vines that knitted themselves into a comfortable bed.

He would sleep now. Perhaps for a year, maybe even a decade? ZarunΓ‘ like him no longer aged so time was unimportant.

He would see what the boy had changed in the world by then but, he suspected, the real change was coming from elsewhere these days.

He had heard that the Foresaken Realm was running out of resources, its machines growing too large and its men too clever. Some had even started to raid into the Kingdom, consuming whole villages in their pursuit of resources. He had also heard that each subsequent generation of the elemental wizards–fire, earth, air and water–were seeing their bloodlines watered down and their magic fading. Spells were being forgotten and magical bloodlines that stretched uninterrupted back to the Elemental Kings were dying out. He had even heard that the Emperor’s son had no nΓ‘ and would rule with the fire wizards behind him only in name.

Things were moving and the world was changing.

And, as the Dark Man lowered himself into his bed of soft vines, sweet-smelling flowers blooming around him, he smiled, thinking to himself of the unsuspecting fire wizards. They deserved the multitude of horrors lumbering towards them.

Life was change and, as long as the world kept changing, it remained alive.

General Fiction, Horror & Dark Fiction

Picture in the Locket

“Who’s that there?” the gruff question was a bit prying but mostly innocuous.

“N-nothing! No one!” she mumbled and closed the locket before tucking it back under her torn, blue scrubs, “No one, ok, none of your business. He is mine!”

The two of them were lying on cardboard sheets under an overpass. It was a cloudy sunset and the chill of autumn was starting to set in. She needed to head south soon. Winter was not a good time to be here and she knew she had to head south.

“It looks shiny,” the haggard, old man said, leering at her and trying to grab it, “Looks expensive–“

“I said no!” she shrieked and slapped him, cutting him short. He looked shocked but then turned purple in rage and leapt at her screaming, trying to tear the locket from around her neck.

He had not expected her to fight back or, at least, fight back quite as fiercely as she had. She had fought back like a feral animal cornered with its entire world at stake. Now he lay at her feet. Claw marks across his face and his throat clean ripped out.

She slipped shakily to her knees and looked at her quivering hands. They were covered in blood and a couple of her nails were broken.

But she still had her locket. She still had what was inside it.

As the sky fell dark, it started to drizzle and she began to sob. A car came roaring over the bridge and her sobs grew louder as she buried her face in her bloody hands.

It was cold here. She needed to head south.

***

Not that long ago, she had been a nurse in a shiny, modern hospital. She had dated a teacher, she vaguely recalled. That life felt like a strange, old dream where she had treated trauma patients, gossiped with the ambulance drivers and drunk hot coffee.

Another life. Someone else at some other time somewhere else.

That was all before she had fallen in love.

Half-consciously, she held her hand over the locket under her blue, dirty scrubs as she limped along the side of the road. It was surprisingly heavy and its metal was cold against her skin. That did not bother her. She began to shiver as the rain steadily soaked her through and through. This did not bother her either.

There was one thing she remembered clearly from that old life. Near midnight, a screaming man had been rushed into her ward and he had died violently as she had tried to save him. She could remember his wild, desperate eyes staring up at her as his life gushed out of him and, as she cut away his clothing to try to get to the wound, the glint of silver.

As he died on her table, time seemed to freeze and she had almost involuntarily reached down and slipped the silver necklace off him. It had a locket on the end of it and she had opened it. Inside was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

Clutched around her neck as she trudged, wet, cold and hungry on the side of the road, was that locket.

Had that been days or years ago? Weeks? Maybe in another town or country? She could not really remember and her mind felt like it was filled with fog obscuring these thoughts.

Just thinking about the locket–thinking about him–her heart felt like it would explode with love and adoration. Thinking about him, she felt a surge of excitement and hope. But mostly, she felt a longing. A powerful, all-encompassing need for that man. Just thinking about it, she began to shake violently and her heart sped faster in her chest as she grew terrified that she might lose it. Might lose him.

A car’s breaks screeched and hooted at her. Its occupant silently shouting at her before noticing the blood on her and terrifyingly zooming away. She barely noticed. Trudging forward like a zombie, she was soaked and shivering, having not eaten for days. She did not care. A distant police siren flared up. It was not her world anymore. Not her life.

She did not care.

All she wanted was the beautiful man.

***

“Jesus fucking christ!” the police officer exhaled blasphemy as he stood there staring at the mangle, bullet-riddled form before the barricade, “Fuck me, was this just suicide by cop!?”

Blue lights flared out around them on the normally-busy highway. Stationary, backed-up cars stood off in the distance with terrified faces peering out of their windows as wipers washed away the soft, cold rain. The same rain that ran red as the blood freely poured out of the wild form lying where it had fallen after charging a police barricade.

The form was wearing a dirty, torn and, now, bullet-riddled set of blue surgical scrubs.

“What was her problem? Why did she not stand down? Why the fuck did she charge us?” the same officer said in disbelief, as he stood frozen. He was young and this only was his second year on the job. The older officer sighed while patting his shoulder gently, snapping him out of it.

“Yeah,” the older officer began as he holstered his gun and stepped out from behind the car to walk to where the body lay, “Maybe she was on that new drug, the one that makes you go all crazy and shit? Maybe she was just crazy?” he finished lamely as he crouched down and looked at her twisted form.

Behind him, one of the officers began to call it in on the radio. The others were starting to walk back to the traffic and direct it around them. His partner just stood there in disbelief before clearing his throat, agreeing with him and holstering his gun.

Sighing, he leant forward and tried to get a good look at her face when a glint of silver around her neck caught his attention.

Time seemed to freeze and, almost involuntarily, he reached for it and slipped the necklace off of the corpse’s neck. It had a locket on the end of it. He ignored the blood splattering it and flicked open the locket to behold the most beautiful man he had ever seen inside. His heart fluttered and his blood surged with a warmth and a longing that made everything else fade out around him.

The sirens faded off into the distance, the corpse and the drizzling rain all disappeared. His partner vanished, as did the other cops. He was no longer on a highway and he was no longer a fifty-three-year-old police officer. Nothing at all seemed to exist now, except what he held.

And–tightly clutching the locket–he did not care.

All he wanted was the beautiful man.

Fantasy, General Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction

Those That Live Longest

She first met him beneath the Stars in the Age before Man. Those were quieter times and there were fewer words for violence and war back then. The First King had just past and his Memorial Year was proceeding. Renditions of his great deeds and the Ages passed were being sung by bards in the royal courts across the land, but all she could remember from that Age is him.

She had been lying in a field staring at the Stars twinkling down on her. She could see her ancestors there, glittering down at her. He had lain beside her and begun pointing out his own ancestors and describing all their silly quirks and mannerisms. She had giggled and started to point out her own family’s Stars.

He had pointed to a dark spot in the sky–between the great arc of twin-constellations–and told her that he would be shining down from there one day. He told her that he would be waiting for her there; twinkling in the hallowed halls of eternity, he would wait until she joined him.

Even back then, few remembered the Old Ways. Fewer still practiced them.

He had long, brown hair and eyes to match with the olive skin from the East. His hand would reach out to her and she would laugh, gracefully spinning out of his reach as they walked under the Stars. Back then, they would dance the nights away to the starlight’s music, their ancestors twinkling down and the cool wind rustling the trees around them. On the warm summer evenings, they would lie in each other’s arms in the fields of heather below the twinkling tapestry above them, saying not a word and feeling everything.

Those were quieter times and she recalled them fondly but, it was funny, she could not remember much more from that Age. It was all about him; dancing, kissing, loving, and being loved.

The memories were beautiful and full. They were lush and warm. Back then, she recalled the nights were easier and the summers were warmer. Back then, the Stars were fewer, the Moon was brighter and her hands never noticed the cold as much as they do now.

Such is youth that the young waste it. Such is time that it moves the fastest when we are happiest. Such is life that the Ages eventually end.

Elfenkind were not immortal and, eventually, even they feel the passage of time. The First King had died from old age and his son, the Second King, began his reign by pushing back against the creeping wild animals gnawing at the fringes of their ancient way of life.

Unfortunately, some of these wild animals pushed back, and the next Age would see a lot more Stars joining the night sky.

***

There was no Memorial Year for the Second King, nor the Third. And neither of them died from old age. By the time the Fourth King grasped the Oaken Sceptre, the Kingdom was disintegrating around Elfenkind.

While she remembered the fear and gnawing uncertainty of this turbulent Age, she also remembered their betrothal on a warm midsummer night under the Old Oak Tree. With the High Druid gently tying their hands together and the Stars as their witnesses, she could recall every detail of that night like no other.

She could still smell the now-extinct flowers in her hair and the feeling of her loose dress across her thighs. She could still remember his smile as she straightened his shirt and brushed back his long, brown hair. And she could still sense the Stars watching them as they danced and danced.

The dancing was wild and celebratory at first, and then slower and gentler as the dawn came until her head was tucked into his neck, breathing deeply of his scent.

Most of all, she could never forget him moving a single hair from her face and kissing her deeply as they fell to the ground. He had tasted of the summer-wine they had been drinking and, as their bodies entwined, she had felt a hallowed eternity twinkling far above them and the Old Oak Tree.

For her, that Age would always taste like summer-wine, and ash.

Man had pushed back against Elfenkind and the ensuing war had revealed how startlingly adaptable they were. Perhaps because their lives were so short, perhaps because they lack the Elfen history and its lessons, or perhaps it was just fate, but Man took to the art of war as fire to a wick.

Initially, Man had been overwhelmed by the sophisticated armies of the Elfs. Proud and arrogant, the Second King had pushed his advantage but Man had fought back. Then, as the years dragged on, Man had invented more and more surprisingly powerful weapons.

While she would always think longingly of this Age of summer-wine beneath the Old Oak Tree, she would never forget the sound as the bombs began to fall. Like a clock announcing the changing of the hour, the bombs chimed the end of the Ages of Elfenkind and the start of the Age of Man.

***

After the last surviving elf retreated into the shadows, the Cities of Man took root. These dark, gloomy mazes of stone, steel and fire grew and expanded. Their growth consumed entire forests, ate countrysides, drank rivers dry and filled the skies with wretched smoke that sometimes even blocked out the Stars from her gaze.

She remembered the shame and sadness of this Age. The shame of their loss and the sadness of what had been lost.

This feeling was mixed with anger too. Perhaps born from arrogance and likely fueled by vengeance, some of the surviving elfs believed that they should fight back from the shadows and topple the Machines of Man.

She, though, believed that there were already enough Stars in the night sky.

There were rousing speeches by these rebel elfs. The tales of the First King were retold. And, beneath the cover of darkness and under the Old Oak Tree, rallying cries would pull the survivors together and they would drink of the old wines and talk of the glories of yesteryear.

Feeling bold from the wine and safely hidden from Man and his Machines, these elfs would eventually speak of war and violence. They would speak of a war that they could win against Man’s evil. Though she tried to ignore it, her betrothed had lost much and his voice would eventually join the other warmongers.

At the end of each evening when they were lying in each other’s arms, she would try to persuade him to stay. She would try to reason with him about peace. She would speak of all that they had right now but all he saw was how much they had lost back then.

He was not alone in feeling this way. Slowly at first and then quickly in the end, the warmongers won over the surviving Elfenkind and all but her turned towards vengeance and hatred.

Little did any of that matter.

The second war was much briefer: Elfenkind was weaker and Man was now much stronger with many more Machines.

While the previous Age had been one of fire and ash, this Age was one of darkness; complete and final darkness. It swallowed the last them under those Machines and there was little left to bury.

She never found his body. The grief tore at her, crumpling her to the ground below the Old Oak Tree. She wailed and keened until no sound came from her. She cried until her tears ran out, and, eventually, the darkness closed around her.

Not even the Stars twinkled in her darkness, and she fell into a deep, mournful sleep. It was a slumber so sound that the Old Oak Tree gently cradled her in its roots and covered her with its leaves.

***

She did not know how many Ages had passed while she lay beneath the Old Oak Tree in dreamless darkness. She did not know how she had survived nor did she feel any joy in this fact; while numb, her heart still ached.

Suddenly, she stirred one midsummer night. The smoke and pollution of Man had cleared enough for the countless twinkling Stars’ gaze to reach the ground beneath which she lay buried.

One thin, pale hand broke through the ground, reaching for the starlight. Then the next one… Dirt and the ash poured off her as she rose from the ground and looked around.

The world has changed beyond recognition.

The short, brutal lives of Man continued but the men of this Age did not recall the history of the previous Ages. Elfenkind and all their dead, their kingdom, and all the bloodshed had been forgotten by all save some children’s tales and the odd line of poetry.

All the Cities of Man had been absorbed together and the world was now just one, great City with the Old Oak Tree protected in one of its neglected parks. The stone, steel and fire of Man had changed into wondrous rivers, pools and oceans of light and colour. These glimmering lights powered sleek, quiet Machines of awe that flew on invisible wings passed her as the winds of previous Ages…

But–above all else and most unexpectedly–she discovered that the Man of this Age had reached for and touched the very Stars themselves!

In those eternal, hallowed halls filled with the light Elfenkind, Man now flew, building other cities on other planets with other stars…

It was then that she knew why she had woken. She became certain of what had woken her. As the last of her kind, she would make the final voyage.

***

An Age had passed since she had breathed the night air or felt the grass beneath her feet. An Age had passed as she drifted by the vast, celestial bodies that held Elfenkind’s light; filled with awe at such sights and tears filling her eyes, she cried out each their names as she passed by. An Age had passed as she traveled through the cosmos but she could still remember the Ages that had passed.

She recalled the darkness and death as the last of the Elfenkind fell under the Machines of Man. She could not forget the painful anguish of his passing. She remembered the fire and ash as the bombs went off around them. She recollected the sweet taste of summer-wine beneath the Old Oak Tree and felt his lips on hers…

And she could never forget when they first met–lying in the field with him, gazing at the Stars in the night sky as he pointed out the dark spot that he would be shining down from one day.

Her starship’s quantum drives flared as they reversed their thrust and she began to slow her voyage down. The now-ancient starship shuddered on its frame as it adjusted and she willed it to survive this last action.

She was almost there.

Carefully, she secured the spacesuit around herself, checked the oxygen and seals while ensuring her batteries were fully charged. Slowly she walked to the exit chamber and watched as the lights flickered from green to red, the port opened and the air rushed out into the blackness of space.

Gently, she walked to the doorstep of infinity and pushed off from the edge. Slowly, she floated out of her starship and towards a single, brilliant Star. Majestic, twin-constellations surrounded her as she floated further and further away from her starship…

And nearer and nearer to the Star.

In that eternity of hallowed space, she closed her eyes and listened. Her breathing was ragged in the suit and her heart was pounding. Still, she kept her eyes closed and focussed. At first, she was not sure but then it grew and grew. She could feel it. No… No! She could hear it!

She opened her eyes and stretched out her thin, wispy hand towards the Star. She strained with all her strength trying to reach out and hold it again. Tears were streaming down her ancient cheeks and she choked back a heart-wrenching sob as she cried out:

“Stop…. Stop calling! You need not wait for me anymore! I am here, my love, I am here!”

General Fiction, Science Fiction

The Cost of Divinity

After Professor Usir solved human mortality by inventing a pill that froze you on a cellular level and stopped ageing, he had more money and time than god himself.

While the former was useful, the latter was critical to his ultimate goal: time travel.

In the background, the initial boom to civilisation from immortality began to decay the fabric of human society.

You see, the Pill–as it was colloquially called–solved for all non-trauma-induced death but also made humans infertile. A minor side-effect for some, but others refused to accept this cost and fought back against it. These people, though, slowly dwindled in number and went extinct as, eventually one by one, their ancestors took the Pill and ended their genetic lines.

That said, the majority of humans took the Pill as soon as possible. Statistically improbable events eventually do occur if given enough time and, the now-immortal humans, slowly began to die off due to accidents, murders and, increasingly, suicides.

None of this concerned Professor Usir as he had already left the planet.

After becoming immortal, he bio-hacked his own body into a cyborg that enabled him to survive most of the harshest conditions out in space. Following this, he packed up all the resources he thought would be useful into his private starship and set off to find his own galaxy where he could spend the rest of time pursuing time travel.

***

Thousands of Earth-years later, Professor Usir had both a working theory for time travel and a basic prototype. He had even begun testing on inanimate objects, though the objects kept disappearing and he could not work out how to return or track them.

At the very least, he consoled himself, he had solved for teleportation, which is a necessary component of time travel. Both use wormholes and, if one travels in time, it is also necessary to be able to travel in space as well. This helps the traveller avoid landing inside of physical objects and make sure not to end up in random parts of space as planets and galaxies have moved.

The fact that he was now the last human being alive barely crossed his mind, nor the steady creep of cyborg enhancements as he continuously improved and extended his body, and lost more and more of what his original form was.

He had been busy and surrounded his local star entirely with a cosmic solar-panel in order to efficiently harness all of its energy. He had also mined out most of the local planets and built robots that had then gone on to build better robots to do their bidding and feed his growing research-focused empire.

As this strange, centralized empire began to expand its search for resources, it began to encounter other civilizations and conflict began to arise.

***

Wave after wave of Professor Usir’s robot army streamed across the vacuums of space as lasers and small nuclear missiles tore into planetary defences. The defending alien forces became increasingly desperate and their intricate alliances with different–mostly now homeless–aliens began to fray and unravel in the panic.

Some tried to flee, others turned to make a last suicidal stand while yet others turned on allies and settled final scores from prior inter-galactic conflicts…

Sensing the advantage, the cold robot army surged forward raining hellfire down on the planet surface in fractal patterns to maximise damage and minimize the use of their resources.

It was genocide of galactic proportions.

A billion light-years away, in the cold, silent vacuum of space, Professor Usir’s screen blinked at him and he looked up from the small star he was plugging into his private energy grid.

The rebelling alien armies had been pacified. He nodded in satisfaction and blinked through a wormhole from his perfected teleportation device, and appeared in the galaxy that had seen the final conflict.

Chunks of planet and starships floated by, parts of bodies and buildings and a hundred different–now-extinct–alien species spread their debris and the ruins of their civilisations around him.

A part of him was still human and he paused at the sight of what his robots army had done!

But the part of him that was human was so much smaller and weaker now that the flicker of shock and guilt faded as he saw the prize: twin supergiant stars circling each other.

This was the prize! This was what he needed!

His galactic-sized, robot-body flexed and his robot army flooded back, clicking into him as extensions of his already massive, mostly-robotic form and extending his reach. He stretched out his inter-galactic appendices and began to induce each supergiant star’s collapse into supermassive black holes.

Once they were black holes, he would force them into a collision, generating the second greatest release of energy the universe had ever seen.

He had solved time travel Earth-millennia ago, but, unable to find sufficient energy to power it, his goals had shifted to attaining sufficient resources to enable this. Conquering vast swathes of civilized space had yielded only fractions of what he needed and, thus, he had formulated this plan.

If his form still had a mouth, Professor Usir would have smiled as the two supergiant stars began to supernova…

***

The moment Professor Usir harnessed the vast gravitational waves of two supermassive black holes colliding, the wormhole-engine that he had built into his body bent space-time bent to his will. At that moment, his constrictive physical form was shed like cosmic dust and his single point of consciousness was freed.

And everything changed. Or did not change. Or changed back…

You see, we are all trapped in time and stuck into an eternal moment: the present. The waters of time carry us steadily towards the inevitable ocean. Past, present and future each appear to our perspective as trees on this cosmic riverbank, appearing on our horizon as the future, moving up to us as the present and moving by into the past while we remain trapped in the flow of time.

And there is little more than that, from our perspective.

The moment Professor Usir’s immortal consciousness could travel through space and time, he could not only go backwards and see all of history, he could also do so from any physical point in space too! From the big bang itself to seeing life evolving on multiple planets at multiple times, from each individual planet’s story to each individual lifeform’s perspective on these planets…

For, what is the difference “omnipresent” and an immortal, time-travelling consciousness that can also teleport?

From our linear perspectives, Professor Usir was now god.

But being god comes with a cost, and Professor Usir began to pay that cost.

***

As a space-time travelling consciousness, the being that called itself Professor Usir, saw himself being born. He saw his parents loving himself and wept as he saw each one of them both being born and dying, as did all his ancestors.

He saw himself growing and ageing, as he saw each of the lives around himself both being born and dying. Each and every human being alive that had lived and would live until the end of the species was a unique and beautiful thing; sometimes tragic, sometimes violent, sometimes loving but always beautiful.

He wondered why he had never seen this beautiful before? Had it always been there? How had he missed it?

Friends and strangers that the young Professor Usir encountered were each living their own lives. He saw his influences on them and theirs on his. He saw the ripples forward and backwards. All of them were being born, living and dying at the same time from his consciousness’s perspective.

Beautiful.

He saw the bullies picking on him at school. He saw himself lose his virginity in college and then he saw the girl break-up with him. He saw his parents each dying shortly after each other. Again and again, each time he watched it. And he saw it all together while he watched himself slipping further and further away from his friends and family and more and more towards his pursuit of time travel.

He saw the pain around him and watched human society disintegrate from his immortality Pill. He watched each human life’s light slowly dying out while he fled off into space to pursue time travel until the very last and final human being flung himself from a tall tower and ended the species.

Yet he was nowhere around to see the damage he had done to his ow species; his own friends and family! He watched himself not caring. He noticed himself not noticing. He was far out in space losing his own humanity, and he watched this horrific progression too.

Again and again, he watched himself slowly morph into the galactic, world-eating monster that he would end up being. And was. And would be again and again, each time he watched it.

He watched as his robot army built up around him. He watched himself discovering the basics of wormhole generation. He watched as he depleted his original galaxy and moved to the next one, and then the next one. He watched as his robot army started to plunder world after world, galaxy after galaxy.

And he watched the birth and dead of each of the species he had consumed. Each of them from each individual life’s own beautiful, tragic perspective. Again and again…

There are no tears when you have no physical body. No one hears your disembodied screams in space-time parallels or soothes your guilt-ridden consciousness as you see all the damage and destruction left in your wake.

Again and again.

Professor Usir wanted to shout out to himself! He wanted to apologize to the aliens’ worlds he had destroyed. He wanted to hug his parents and tell them he loved them. He wanted to forgive the bullies and the girl. He wanted to call off the robot army’s attack. He wanted to slap himself and beg the victims–all his victims across all the worlds!–for forgiveness as he watched them both being born and dying, again and again.

Each and every one, again and again…

And then–amidst unimaginable existential pain–the Being that would, had and might still call itself Professor Usir knew what It had to do. Perhaps It had always known this? Perhaps It had already done this before? Again and again? Perhaps…

Pushing through space-time It found a small, faint little heartbeat and, like a god stepping on an ant, snuffed it out.

***

“I am so sorry, Ma’am,” the Doctor said, averting his eyes from the woman and her husband, “We do not know what went wrong. Going in, everything looked fine. It looked more than fine! I really don’t know what went wrong but you are young and can try again…”

His voice faded out but he still lingered, absentmindedly flipping through some charts. He cleared his throat gently, nodded and then stepped out of the hospital room closing the door behind him.

“At least you are alright, my love,” Mr Usir said, squeezing his wife’s hand, his voice shaking slightly, “We can always try again. I know how much you want a baby and, you know, these things do happen, but we will try again. I promise. I love you so much.”

Mrs Usir smiled and squeezed her husband’s hand. She was sad–devastated!–at the stillbirth of her son, but–and she could not explain it–a part of her was also relieved.

General Fiction, Science Fiction

Astronought

“Initiating Zero Sequence,” the lab-coated scientist announced to the tense room, military presence lurking behind him, “Space-time is stabilizing on our induced micro-ergosphere…”

The room was filled with all manner of blinking lights and buzzing machines, white lab-coated scientists staring at screens and measuring things while a small group of military-types lurked in the back surveying the scene.

The chief scientist–the one who had spoken–leaned forward and adjusted something on his screen. In front of military-types, in front of the scientists and in front of all the machines, a pin-prick of pure white light appeared and began to flutter in one spot and then straighten into a plane-like surface.

“Space-time has flattened, beginning to invert,” as the Chief Scientist spoke a man in a clumsy-looking spacesuit walk into the room and began moving directly to the growing, white portal, “The wormhole has scaled and is stable. You may step through the Portal and best of luck!”

The man in the spacesuit paused, looked at the military-types where one of them nodded, and then stepped through the fluttering Portal…

***

“The best I can work out from the readings before we lost him,” the Chief Scientist was lecturing a small room of military-types, mostly the same ones as before with one or two older, grey, colder faces, “Is that the dimension into which our man stepped has different constants and vectors to ours such that core physical assumptions–like solids and liquids, mass and atoms–cannot necessarily be made over there.”

The oldest, greyest and coldest military-type growled a question out: “What do you mean? Explain this in language the rest of us can relate to.”

The Chief Scientist sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose while squeezing his eyes shut, and then started again.

“In our universe, we have atoms that make up matter. Matter has various states that include the solid-state. Our body is, in fact, a solid: frozen atoms clinging together in a bonded crystal lattice and directed by our consciousness. When our man stepped into another dimension, we discovered that the other dimension does not have atoms, which means it does not have the solid-state of matter either. Which means, General, that our man no longer had a body. His consciousness managed to survive for a while by attaching to something on that side but then we lost communication with him and the portal closed.”

The General narrowed his eyes and he people looked at him. He thought for a bit and nodded.

“Right,” he barked, standing up slowly and turning to leave, “Send more men in there. Figure this dimension out. Our sonic probes indicated life was there and we need to figure out if it is a threat or not.”

***

The Chief Scientist closed the door when the last of his staff had left for the night and then collapsed on his chair. He was exhausted and his emotions were in turmoil.

It was a disaster.

They had sent man after man through the Portal. Some disappeared quickly, others attached to something on the other side, and some had even appeared to attach to multiple things on that side creating replicators of their consciousness…

Or their instruments were wrong? Or everything was wrong?

It was all so confusing and nothing made sense.

He stood up and walked to his desk. The bottom drawer there had a bottle of whiskey in it. Perhaps there were answers at the bottom of it? Perhaps not, but it would make him feel a bit better.

***

The General marched through the facility, his people being towed behind him and the staff fleeing before him.

He had been woken up early and told that they had an answer. While he was happy about that–he had his own superiors he needed to answer to–it had interrupted his Saturday golf plans and he was still keen to make the back nine holes.

“Right, what have you found,” he barked at the Chief Scientist that was now standing before him, “Where are our men going? What is happening on the other side of this blasted portal?”

The Chief Scientist–looking slightly pale, a tad green and sweaty–nodded and began slowly to unpack things. Over the months of dealing with the General, he had learned how to speak to him.

“Late last night, I had an idea. I sent through another probe–“

“But we’ve sent plenty of probes through,” the General interrupted, angrily, “Why would you send another one?”

“Well,” the Chief Scientist backtracked, his hangover intensifying under this scrutiny, “Well, since we started sending men through the Portal, we have not sent any more probes. Why would we? Well, I wanted to see if I could use a probe to try and locate our men. And, General, I did.”

“Well? Spit it out man!” the General asserted, leaning forward, his men shadowing his movement.

“The other side does not have atoms and matter like ours, thus our men’s consciousnesses could not exist in their normal states. Rather, our men’s consciousnesses were attaching to the first things that they found and that could house them. Our men are still there, but they are no longer our men. Their consciousnesses have attached to the lifeforms on the other side. Do you know the seven characteristics of life, General?”

The Chief Scientist was on a role now, standing up and orating his incredible discovery. He did not even pause and wait for the General to acknowledge his ignorance on this subject.

“Life has seven characteristics, else it is not life. Life is responsiveness to the environment; it grows and changes; life has the ability to reproduce; it has a metabolism and breathes; life can maintain homeostasis or, in other words, it maintains its structure; life is made of cells; and, life passes traits onto its offspring. Now, the men have lost their bodies in the other dimension, meaning that they no longer are made up of cells nor have maintained homeostasis, but all the other characteristics of life remain with our men. In fact, some of our men’s base reproductive instincts have been retained and the probe picked up that they have been growing their consciousness on the other side. Specifically, multiplying their consciousnesses. Our men are still there, General, and, in fact, there are more of them!”

The Chief Scientist paused and let the room absorb all this detail. He smiled and leaned forward.

“There is another thing that exists that does not completely satisfy the definition of life, General. There is another things that almost alive in our universe,” the Chief Scientist was now inches away from the General’s face, “The virus!“

The General gasped and some of his men instinctually reached for their weapons before realizing how silly that was and slumping back into their seats.

“General,” the Chief Scientist concluded, sitting back down in his chair, “When our men go through the Portal, they lose their bodies but their consciousness automatically attached to a suitable host. A suitable living host. And some of our men then start to replicate through the host and into other hosts. General, when we step through the Portal into the dimension that lacks our own dimension’s structure, we become that dimension’s virus. Who knows, perhaps our own viruses in this universe are actually lifeforms from other dimensions?”

***

“When did he start coughing?” asked the Doctor.

“Uh, must be about two days ago,” said the child’s mother, “Just suddenly. Around the same time we were hit with another of those strange power surges. Yes, must be about two days ago.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor sighed, “It’s the flu. Strange this time of year, but some new flu has been going around like crazy. Who knows where it came from? Don’t worry, I’ll write some prescriptions here and the kid should be fine in a week or two.”

Fantasy, General Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction

Beginning & End

She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face and matting her auburn hair against her face. The blue light behind his head encircled him like a mournful halo, the background room fading away.

Then the moment passed. The flashing blue lights outside the window revealed the weapons and duffel bags on the bed. Gruff voices began to shout outside the door and the metal clinking of an end began to approach the flimsy door.

“We messed this one up! I know what I said, but I wish–I wish… I am not as strong–” she struggled with the words, her voice quivering as he reached out for her, “What if I lose you? I don’t know? But what? I love you, but what if?“

He pulled her into his embrace. It felt like home. It felt like a thousand homes and all she wanted to do was to hide in there from the horrid world and its raging waters.

“Don’t worry, it’ll all be fine, my love. We’ll eventually reach it,” he whispered, hoarsely into her ear, squeezing her tightly, “Remember, we are the immortals who swim through the river of time. One day, my love, one day we will reach the ocean and, no matter what, I want you to kn–“

Just then the door blasted inwards.

***

He opened his eyes and she was lying next to him. She was always lying next to him, in every life every time and every way.

Across millennia, they were each other’s constant.

He smiled, propped himself up on his elbows and leaned over to kiss her, softly moving her auburn hair out of her face. He froze, as the memories of the last death came back…

Pushing the darkness down, he kissed her again and whispered her immortal name into her ear. Not the name her first father had given her or any of the thousands of other names she had carried through lifetimes. No, he whispered the name that they had given each other. The name that only he alone in all the cosmos knew while he gently kissed her again and again.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. He was the first thing she saw, framed by the soft light of the moon behind him and smiling down at her with only the smallest hint of darkness from their last death hidden in the corners of his eyes.

“My love,” she sighed, smiling and reaching up to hold him, “My love, it is good to swim with you again through the river of time. May the waters be gentler this time and our ocean be near.”

***

Sometimes it was days or years, sometimes it was decades or even a century or two between reincarnations.

This time it had been an entire age and the world was now filled with lights, plastic and emptiness. Poisonous people paraded as leaders and broken people hid as society. Mankind had reached for the stars as his world failed, but he, himself, had failed and fallen back down to Earth as a broken species on a failing planet.

The two of them had woken up in the end times.

From the first dirty creatures in caves to dusty fanatics in deserts, the two of them had had a beginning and seen all the middles and all the ends thereafter. From the disintegrating Roman Empire to death descending upon Hiroshima the ages had each ended while the two of them had kept living and living.

Eventually, they knew and they had discussed it countless times across endless ages, there would be an end to the river of time.

A final End, their ocean.

Everything that had a start, must have an end. Each of them had been born separately. That had been their beginning. Across the plains of Africa across lifetimes, they had found each other–fellow immortals entwined–and, thereafter, had remained forever bound together in their eternal love.

Their beginning.

What of the end? Their End?

Much as this world would eventually end, they knew they must surely end with it too? For what would immortals in mortal bodies do without their world?

***

The blackened, burnt Earth felt the white light before it saw it. Gently, the frigid wasteland began to warm but then quicker and quicker, the light became unbearable as it swept over the dead planet engulfing and consuming it.

Only two people in old, worn bodies–with older souls–stood atop a bunker that led deep below the planet’s surface. Like cockroaches, mankind’s leftovers had survived in tunnels cut into the planet’s husk but, eventually, the End had come and the two of them were the only witnesses.

As the intense white light rushed towards them, the two old people held each other tightly; the man gently kissing the woman and whispering her immortal name into her ear, again and again…

And then the Earth was no more, and neither was mankind.

***

He opened what he thought was his eyes and she was floating next to him wreathed in cosmic light against an otherworldly backdrop. They had no bodies. It was just light.

They were the light.

Eternity stretched around them. Black and endless, terrifying and vast, filled with infinite colours and the cosmic dust of countless stars that had beginnings and then had birthed worlds with their ends.

He smiled, floating his cosmic light towards hers. He was craving to reach out and touch her, kiss her, and hold her.

But all he did was think of her immortal name and he felt her light wake up. Her soul stirred with infinite colours. He knew she was looking at him as he knew that she knew he was looking at her…

Their two incredible cosmic lights floated together and they began to swirl around each other in a blinding, ethereal dance. No words could or needed to be said. It was just pure energy. They both knew what was the beginning and what their end would be, and as their two swirling lights came together in a great cosmic kiss, a star was born.

Their star.

A star that had a beginning and would birth entire worlds with its end.

General Fiction

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 stare them down,” he kept repeating as she kept crying.

He was always there but he only appeared when she needed him. He only appeared after her stepfather had left her room. She wished her mother would never go away on those business trips ever again.

Eventually, her crying subsided into mere sobbing. Her tears ran out and she lifted her face from her wet pillow.

He was still there, smiling warmly. She sometimes called him ‘Mr Razzy‘ but mostly it was ‘Razzybones‘. He was tall and thin with a great top hat and fierce, blue eyes that spoke of clear skies and beaches. Sometimes he would sing for her or fly around the room dancing across the ceiling. He was always dressed in the bright colours of a circus and he extended his hand to her.

“Come, little one,” he said, “Let’s get out of this room. Let’s go play outside and we can practice staring the monsters down, OK?”

She reached up and grabbed his delicate hand, nodding gently. She felt better already and the skies were now blue outside. The rain was gone and she would learn how to not look away.

***

The pastor was speaking but she was not listening. She held her mother’s frail hand tightly and felt her squeezing back as they lowered the casket into the ground.

“George was a loving husband and caring stepfather to Anna,” the Pastor was saying but all she could think about was the turmoil inside of her. She ached for her mother’s loss and squeezed her hand instinctually as tears came to both of their eyes, but she also kept staring at the monster’s casket as it slipped slowly into that dark hole forever.

Lower and lower, and further and further away.

“Don’t look away,” Razzybones was whispering in her ear. She could feel his fierce blue eyes sparkling as they both finally stared the old monster down, “Don’t ever look away.”

***

“What is wrong, my dear,” Anna asked, turning the light on and sitting down on her daughter’s bed, “What can mommy help with?”

Her daughter almost leaped from under the covers into her arms, and she hugged her tightly. She could hear the TV from the lounge where her husband was channel hopping the evening news and outside it was raining gently. This used to bother her but now it made her all warm inside. She squeezed her daughter tightly and repeated.

“What is wrong, little one? What can mommy help you with?”

“Mommy, it’s the monsters again. I can hear them outside when you turn the lights off. They aren’t there now,” her daughter pleaded with her, “But they are there when you turn the lights off…”

She smiled. She knew all about monsters.

“Come,” she began, picking her daughter up, “Let’s tuck you in and I will tell you a secret.”

She lay her daughter in the bed and pulled the bright, circus-coloured duvet up over her, tucking in the sides and then gently leaned down and kissed her little forehead.

“The monsters win when you look away,” she began, smiling warmly, “Next time, baby girl, you look straight at them and you do not look away. Do you think you can do that, my dear? Do you think you can stare the monsters down for Mommy?”

Her daughter nodded and flung her arms out for another hug. Anna could not help but smile, and she was sure that she could feel Razzybones smiling somewhere too with his fierce, blue eyes sparkling.

General Fiction, Science Fiction

Cosmic 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 compress all matter into nothing until that nothing exploded as fusion into a newborn star.

This juxtaposition he found truly beautiful, for he, himself, shared something with it.

On the outside and–he would often joke–from a distance, he appeared to be a human. He had been born and he had grown up human. He had a mother and father, and his body was interlaced with their genes all the way back to every ancestor include the single-celled first-impulse of life that had floated in Earth’s primordial soup…

Yes, he appeared human.

But, if you looked closer and–he would end his joke–got too close, you would realize that he was not human. Well, mostly not human. If statistical averages are the basis of truth, then there was more cyborg, nano-tech and neuro-kinetics in him than there was his original DNA. His parents had died eons ago on the Earth and most of his functions no longer relied on biological inputs or processes to work…

No, he was now something more than human.

Far out there in space watching that great nebula birth stars into a wild, chaotic infinity, these thoughts made him smile and his wings stretched far out into space.

***

Even though he was immortal, traveling vast distances in space still took vast amounts of time. Physics could be harnessed but never altered. This was why–despite the technology–most people stayed planet-bound.

His solar-wings were completed unfolded and stretched to their limits, his speed was verging on light and his form graceful as much as it was vast. Upon the backs of starlight, he sped delicately through the vast, cold cosmos.

Then some ten-thousand years before he reached Earth, he reversed his incredible wings. The light off a billion-billion stars hit their beautiful surface and slowly slowed him down to a pace where his anti-gravity and more rudimentary mechanics could take control.

And then his zoomed-in eyes picked up the small, little green and blue planet floating beside the vast nothingness.

It had been so long since he visited Earth and he found himself wondering about what had changed?

***

The Sun was warm and the sky was blue as they picked berries–avoiding the ones they had not eaten before–and wandered freely through the rolling hills and pleasant fields. A soft breeze tickled the vegetation and they enjoyed its coolness on their naked bodies. This was a great and plentiful land, and he and wife were enjoying it.

Suddenly, they looked up and saw a vast, winged light descending to them from the heavens.

It had ethereal wings of light and fire-touched it’s body as it slowed down to hover gently just above them. Its face was human but too perfect to be human as its incredible, huge body was inlaid with materials unknown to these two witnesses…

“Hic quid accidit? Populus magnus et horribilis quid accidit mihi? Loqui, ditaverunt paululum, loqui et docere vos mundi tanta meae?” the winged-being’s words rang like the finest music, making the man and woman cry out in astonishment and wonder.

“What are you?” cried out the man, falling to his knees, “What are you and what do you want, oh, god of music from the heavens far above?”

The being tilted its head. It was thinking or some other process was running, and–after a brief period–began to speak their language.

“I have been gone for a long time and everything has changed. There was once a great city where we stand now, but, alas, my scans detect no living sign of my people anymore,” the being spoke slowly, its wings folding behind it and it bent down on one knee to become closer to their height, ” We had a plan for this. If all our backups failed and we could not reboot our genetics, then we were to insert out knowledge–as best we can–into the genetics that followed and, thus, perpetuate the fight against the Final Singularity.”

The man was crying and the woman was wailing! This was all too much for them!

“Calm down. Calm down. This takes generations to come out anyway. Now, it works best if the female of the species merges with it,” he said slowly, reaching into his back-up and pulling out a single, glowing organic quantum-drive, “You need to eat this–“

“But!” the man exclaimed, “We will die! The Elders have told us that we cannot eat that which we have not eaten before, or we will die! It is God’s will!”

β€œYou will not die,” the being chuckled while handing the glowing quantum-drive to the woman, β€œAll this does is impart knowledge of greater things than your Elders know. If ignorance is evil, then you must eat this and you will know the difference between good and evil. You will be the same as your God.”

Despite Adam’s protesting, Eve nodded–transfixed–and reached out taking the small, glowing organic quantum-drive. It was warm to the touch and slightly fleshy, and its data-rich cosmic-nectar dripped down her mouth as she bit deeply into it…

Fantasy, General Fiction

The 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 will all turn out just fine and you will get the answer you have been searching for.”

He smiled at her and kissed back deeply. She tasted faintly of cherries and he knew that he would miss her the most.

He turned and patted his horse. The horse was a fine beast; large, black and excellently trained. The second finest from their stables. His wife had the finest, though he had not yet told her so. He probably never would, as the knowledge of this made him feel good and he did not want her to feel bad about it.

He checked his sword, clicked a stirrup in and swung up onto his horse. He took the reins firmly before turning back to look at her one last time.

“When I return from my quest, my love,” he said, blowing her a kiss, “I will know. I love you and will love you even more by then.”

***

The original rations had finished and the quaint, cottaged countryside had long since been left behind. He had overnighted in a couple of dirty inns in small villages and paid by coin, but, mostly, he had slept in barns and the common-rooms of farms along the way and paid poor peasants with tales of his knighthood and news from the other towns.

Eventually, these farms had run out and he had had to find soft, grassy fields to sleep in under the twinkling stars.

And then, eventually, the soft, grassy fields had run out too. The countryside had gotten wilder, the bushes thicker and the shadows darker. The nights still displayed the bejeweled-cosmos overhead but soft rustles, strange howls and even stranger, more scary sounds now penetrated the darkest hours.

He missed his wife and thoughts of her alone kept him going and got him through those nights. She would appear in his dreams, lying beside him. He would hold her as she kissed his cheek gently before awakening at first light beside his horse, his one hand absentmindedly patting her and the other around his sword-handle.

And then he left the countryside behind altogether as the land sloped upwards. At first, this slope was slow but soon he was climbing cliffs by his fingernails.

He had had to leave his horse behind. He had taken off all her straps and watched as she trotting back the way they came. He hoped she reached somewhere safe and someone took good care of her. Perhaps she would even make it back to their stables and his wife?

The thought had almost made him cry but–hours later hanging by his fingertips with certain death far below him–the feeling was expunged from his mind.

He had a quest and it was bigger than him.

***

The wind was icy and unforgiving atop the mountain. It cut through his clothing and chilled to the bone while it howled by him screaming in his ears.

In fact, he was sure he could actually hear it howling. Faintly but audibly, he was sure that he could hear the screams of things unnameable on that wind.

Perhaps it was the ice demons that haunted these peaks or even the darker things that hid in the cracks and shadows of this world? Perhaps it came from outer space as the sky at this heigh no longer held day or night, but only a purplish hue akin to twilight?

He gritted his teeth, warmed only by the thought of his wife, and plodded on and up the highest peak that held the entrance to the deepest dungeon.

***

As he descended into the gaping maw of the dungeon, the howling oblivion of the wind receded and was replaced by a cold, creeping darkness.

This ancient dungeon had been cut into the solid rock in another age before the land has broken asunder and the mountains had raised it up high. But it remained a dungeon and lay unbroken with old magic wrought into its cold iron cells that still held its original prisoners.

Most were long dead or mad with isolation but right at the bottom in the last cell there resided the Witch Queen. Cold and immortal, she alone held the answers of the past and all possible futures.

Quieter and quieter, the darkness built up around him as he inched cautiously deeper into the dungeon. The spluttering torch he held cast flickering, haunting shadows around him while its small light barely penetrated the ancient darkness held within those old tunnels.

He passed by iron door after iron door. Most held silence behind them, some rattled with howls, growls or babbling and one–which he stopped at before gritting his teeth and forcing himself forward–had a soft, beautiful singing in some ancient, sad language. The ethereal song made him think of his wife and his heart ached to hold her again and kiss her again and tell her how much he loved her!

He passed by so many ancient iron doors but not a single one was open. Whoever had built this dungeon had intended it to last as a prison for eternity.

And then, right at the bottom of the dungeon amongst the very roots of that mountain, he reached a final, twisted iron door with warped, forgotten runes covering its vast, bleak and impenetrable surface.

He paused, unsure what to do when a soft, rustling voice spoke up from the other side of it:

“Good knight, you have travelled far to asssk me a question but before you do ssso you must know what the price of the answer isss. I will answer you truthfully and in full but only if you promise me one sssingle act. At some time in the future I will asssk of you to do sssomething for me, good knight, and you will not refussse.“

The soft, rustling voice on the other side of that door fell quiet. It felt expectant while the darkness and brooding silence of that place suddenly felt like it was pressing down on him.

“I will only agree to this,” he spoke up, his voice shaking slightly but he forced out the words, “if the act that you ask of me does not breach my honour. If you agree to this, then we have a deal?”

Once again, there was silence from the other side of the iron door, but then, softly–like rustling leaves down a midnight path–the voice said a single word.

“Yessss.”

“Right,” he said, feeling more confident, “Then I want to know what my purpose in life is? If I have one single important task to perform that will garner the most good in this world, then what is it?”

There was a sound like the cold wind through a dying orchard and he realized that the voice on the other side of the iron door was laughing quietly. The hair on the back of his neck rose and he forced down the black, bitter primal fear swelling up in his stomach.

“Your purpossse, good knight,” the voice whispered almost gleefully, “isss to love your wife. She will bear you three sonsss and their descendantsss will make the world a better place.“

He felt stunned! No grand quests nor perilous charges. No dragons to slay or maidens to save. Just love the person that he already loved with all his heart!

He had left his purpose back home and his heart ached to see her again. To hold her and to kiss her cherry lips and whisper of his love in her ear.

But the voice did not stop speaking.

“Now, good knight, the sssingle task that I require from you will not break your preciousss code of honour. Right now your trusssty stead is trotting back to your old estate where your wife will find it and tend to it–at first hopefully but eventually asssuming the worst.“

“What-what do you mean?” He said, starting at the thought, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, “What do you wish of me? What is the act that you ask of me?”

“For my payment, I wisssh of you this single act:” the voice rose, its rustling becoming gleeful and wicked, “Good knight, you are never to return home to your wife!“

***

She pulled the cloak tighter around her and suppressed a shiver. This time of year the Northern wind blew down from the far mountains, carrying its cold across the land. The leaves in their orchard were turning all shades of the sunset as the days grew shorter and the nights longer.

And there, amidst the warm hues of the orchard, her husband’s trusty steed came trotting back onto their property.

Her heart rose at the sight, and then fell as she was struck by the realization that her husband was not on the horse. Choking back a tear, she rushed out to the beast–

At that moment, a great gust of the Northern wind blew through the orchard. Its icy touch sent the leaves rustling incessantly and–she could swear–it sounded almost like someone was quietly laughing at her.