Rider

Rider sits in the dark and listens to the click-clack of the wheels, to the heaving of the engine. He was born here, with the rhythm of the rails in his soul.

The Last Boat

The fiddler played with a lifetime's worth of skill (perhaps more), but there was a coldness to his notes and to his eyes, buried in the shadow of his cap.

Is it Still Paranoia?

Wilfred peered out from behind the curtains, at the package on his doorstep. So innocuous. So innocent.

Mind Your Head

It's not the height you have to worry about when you pass through the gate, it's the angles. They aren't quite right (not euclidian enough, they say, though we have tried our best) and people have been known to go mad at the sight of them and at the glimpses of what lies beyond, outside...

Death Blooming

In the center of the plaza, Cara watched the glass flower flutter.It was the last of its kind. The last living thing from that world, gleaming and beautiful. Everything else had burned.

The Time Capsule

The old fridge lies on its side in the primordial jungle. It stinks of rotting meat and spoiled milk. Sauropods pass by, calls echoing shrill amongst endless trees. The doors open. Slowly. Hesitantly. A head pops out: battered, bruised, with wild hair. He laughs at the sight of trees dead eighty million years. He's done...

The Modern Prometheus

There is a man in the mountains who wanders by the roadside, picking up the pieces of cars that have fallen. He carries them gently back to his house and hangs them upon his wall. His wife calls him foolish but one day, he says, he'll have enough to make a whole car. This if...

An End to Solitude

It was midwinter and Ariella was shut in her new house by drifting snow. They should have been together, but he left her before the ink dried on the deed and she was alone amongst vast and empty rooms. At night she heard  old boards creaking. In the library she would find the fire lit...

Headstones Above the Silent Deep

The travelers look across the water by the shore and watch the waves come in. There was a village here, long ago before flood and fire: a village of stilt-houses upon the shore. Now there are only broken wooden pillars, rising like headstones above the silent deep. This is for Three Line Tales, Week 221. Thanks...

Gaslit

The chimes of the clock ring out over the fog. Shadows stretch from grey buildings over grey streets. The Thames winds under bridges and past docks, murky water seeping up the bank. The stink hangs over the city, a smell of people and industry and waste, a stench that worms its way into the bricks....