John shivered in the damp. It was July, but had been raining so long that the heat of any Summer sun was long forgotten. Every tree in the grey mist of the morning looked like the looming head of some giant figure, hauling itself across the landscape on its belly. The birdsong cut sideways through the glum, a cheery reminder of a season that should be happening. Was maybe happening elsewhere.
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Dirt.
The air was heavy; baked and left to cool, it smelled like the screen of an old television set. Her feet flexed inside her close-fitting shoes, grinding tight circles in the dust. She breathed in steadily, fighting the urge to cough, seeing in her mind the oxygen reddening her blood. The blood reddening her skin. She ran her hand over her bare arms, a nervous gesture, and shuddered in the heat.
A fond farewell
The schoolmaster was leaving the village and everybody seemed sorry. I assumed, in the way city people do about country life, that it was probably normal in a close community such as this.
Probably.
The Months – A Bestiary
January first, cold and hard. January is a killer, his sin is neglect; set to face the new year, pining for the old, he never looks down at those he freezes.
Everything is fine.
It started small, but fire has a tendency to spread. It crawled over desks and chairs, jumped gaps, dug its feet into sallow, stained carpets. Soon it filled much of the building. The alarm had been wailing ineffectually for a while, pulsing and bellowing as if the sheer volume of it could smother the flames.
"I’m not going to lie," he said, watching from across the street. "This wasn’t in the plan."
Falling
“So how long have you been falling?”
“TIME IS MEANINGLESS IN THE ETERNAL VOID! WHEEEEE!”
“So a while then?”
Continue reading Falling
After the fall
“I loved that house,” said Jack, staring at the ruined roof. At his feet, animals milled around in unknowing condolence.
Continue reading After the fall
A Little Hoarse
“Well?” he yelled from his spot on the village green (In truth more of a village brown, carpeted with crisped grass and churned mud). “Is it a crime? To be a horse? To be a horse head on a stick in a bin? Is it?”
To begin with.
“And there’s no way to appeal?” The figure shook its head. Marley fiddled with a lock, licked his dry lips. It had seemed, at the time, the sensible option. Christmas Eve, how many years ago? Too many to count now. Another dozen, another score of links on this chain. He could count them later.
Among friends
She had lived with the pigeons for so long now she had left behind all memory of her life as a human. All she knew now was the beat of wing on hot summer air, the nervous stuttering grab at abandoned food, the snug reek of the night’s roost. She tended her fellows’ gnarled and broken feet, smoothed their grease-ruffled feathers and reassured them in whatever jabbering language pigeons used.