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....

Dirigible Racing is a Deadly Sport

There were two ways to win a dirigible race. One was to be the fastest. The other was to always have a sharp object handy. The Baron–simply the Baron, name and adjective-less to admirers and competitors alike–preferred the second way. He was quite thankful for the accident that took his left hand. Nobody tried to...

After the Crash

The crash left him gasping burning air, his head aching, scrabbling to tear himself free of the chair. Above, silhouettes gathered, their faces hidden in shadows. A flag waved overhead, but with the light behind it, he could not tell whether it was theirs or the enemy's. This is for Three Line Tales, Week 183....

The Old Man in the Small Town

Mr. Ulysses seemed an ordinary man pushing the far end of his fifties. He waved to his neighbours on his way to the grocer's, read his newspaper on the porch in the mornings, and fished in the afternoons. You could almost overlook the bullet holes in the door of the seaplane if you didn't know...