“The monsters win when you look away,” he said soothingly to her as she lay softly crying on her bed, her eyes tightly closed and her face buried in her pillow. Outside, rain steadily fell as dark grey skies stretched forever, “You cannot look away. You must be strong and[…]
Read moreCategory: General Fiction
A miscellaneous collection of general writing, stories and flash fiction pieces.
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[…]
Read moreThe Quest
For the last time, he checked his own pack, the pack on his horse, his horse and even his armour and sword. Everything was ready but him. “You will be just fine, my dear,” his wife cooed to him, kissing him gently on his lips, “Don’t worry about it, it[…]
Read moreBlack Hole Theory
Norman liked space. It was a cold, distant infinity beyond our minor planetary shores; like a great, cosmic ocean with us as passengers clinging to a random twig of driftwood. The cosmos did not care nor judge, nor even consider such brief, inconsequential things like the lives of humans, let[…]
Read moreThe Age of Leaves
This is not a tale of doom or despair, nor is it one of pain and misery. Much like life, this tale does indeed have despair and misery along the way, but those aspects do not define it. Likewise, this tale also has much pain and a creeping doom. But–as[…]
Read moreHell
Goddammit but I need this, he thought suddenly realizing that he could not remember beginning the massage. The thoughts were soon pushed out of his mind as his shoulders ached and his neck felt like it had daggers sticking into it. The music in the Thai spa was soft but[…]
Read moreThe Pixelation of Daphne
They woke Daphne up with the third wave of Original Cryo’s. It was 2153. About a decade after they had perfected cryogenic stasis–or, more accurately, surviving cryogenic stasis–and all the legal loopholes had been plugged for its full and unrepentant commercial use. The first wave had been all the celebrities[…]
Read moreSnowflake
“You just don’t understand real stress until it is owning you,” he said in between puffs of his e-cigarette, it was blueberry flavored, “it is a thousand-ton weight pressing down on you. It flattens you. Squeezes out parts of you that you didn’t know existed. Bad parts. Ugly and alien[…]
Read moreMy Tail
Afterwards, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. I wanted it to be stars but it was just a ceiling. For a while, she lay there too with her head nestled in the crook of my neck and our tails entwined. We lay in silence as the rain came[…]
Read moreUndying Love
“Michael, can I have my pen back?” the lady politely asked, her hand outstretched. Her pointed, polished nails blood-red against her pale skin. The room paused. The air-con was cool in here and, if you really listened, you could hear it breathing through the hidden ceiling fans like some ethereal[…]
Read moreThe Passage of Virtue
“Well met, brother,” a dull, blue-eyed man says as he squats down by the fire, a drink in his hand, “What have we learnt?” Barbarians are screaming around them. Somewhere a woman is climaxing loudly, and the fire is chasing its sparks up into the twinkling cosmos, ever-watching and eternal.[…]
Read moreA Sleepless Fog
I wish I could recall the detail. Any detail, really. But, all too soon, the darkness shuffles and I am alone again. I stand up, grab a smoke from next to my bed and light it. The world pauses while I inhale and she leaves. The door clicks as she[…]
Read moreUrsla’s Longing
He first heard it when he was a child. A rusty, old tune on his mother’s old radio in their one-bedroom apartment on the fringes of the colorful Latin Quarters in Paris. He had been home alone a lot when he was very young. His mother worked in the nights.[…]
Read moreThe Ghost Car
He got out of the car. It softly chimed at him, reminding him to close the door behind him. He did so and barely noticed the empty, self-driving vehicle roll away into the vast city night. “Welcome, welcome,” the man at the front door gushed, a hint of red wine[…]
Read moreBeast of Burden
The back of his throat tasted bitter and his mouth was dry. His head throbbed. He rolled over and grabbed his last cigarette, an empty bottle from last night clinking as it rolled away. The cigarette had been hidden behind his ear and was only slightly bent. Lighting the fragile[…]
Read moreManufacturing Stars
There were so many lights flashing that it looked like a cosmic event. Haloes exploded over her as she walked down the red carpet-lined corridor, smiling at the flashing lights and the soft roar of fame. Hers was not a vocal fame and few opinions she shared publicly, so questions[…]
Read moreThe Benjamin Tree
“Oh, the tree comes with the apartment,” the Estate Agent mentioned waving at it as they moved through the lounge area, “The previous owner considers it part of 307’s furnishings.” The tree was small–head-height–and had a trunk that was made up of what looked like thick, gray, twirling vines that[…]
Read moreThe Waiting Room
“Does she know where she is? What is she waiting for?” asked one of the men staring intently through the one-sided glass. On the other side of the glass was a single, white room with a single bench and a single girl sitting patiently on it staring at her feet.[…]
Read moreCold Lights
“What gets me about the Lights is how they are silent,” he said, lying back in the snow and sighing at the beauty overhead. Above them, as it had done since the dawn of man, the magical aurora borealis danced through the Finnish night skies. Green and white light flowed[…]
Read moreWhat You See
“What you see?” the caveman asked the other, who grunted back at him, “Yes, yes, see death. But what you real-real see?” They were standing in the mouth of a large cave down the southern part of what millions of years from now would be called Africa. Through the cavern’s[…]
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