Category: shortstories

  • Random Walk

    Random Walk

    Dolphin Square. Everything was where Jack had left it. When we leave a place it ceases to exist. The hologram knits itself around us as we make our way through the return to timelessness. Jack could feel the hologram. Everything glowed. May’s deep blue light exploded the veins of every tender leaf into high contrast. […]

  • The End Of Reincarnation

    The End Of Reincarnation

    Lying on a recliner at the foot of the infinity pool, in the courtyard of the Montecito Ventura Inn, Jack’s attention flitted to a frog, having jumped out of the vines and onto the tiles with a wet slap. They shared a one-eyed stare. Silence, except for the soft breeze that crumpled in the California […]

  • Saru Mo Ki Kara Ochiru

    Saru Mo Ki Kara Ochiru

    Jack’s uncle sat at his usual table like a stuffed toad, motionless except his eyes as he watched the waiter seat a young couple next to him. He leaned in through the couple’s fervent giggles. “The world …is soon to END.” They both turned to him, his reptile gaze skewering all four of their eyes like […]

  • Shift, Incoming

    Shift, Incoming

    Saturday morning. Dolphin Square. Not a cloud in the autumn London sky. No smog, no chemtrails, just blue bathed by the clean glare of the rising sun behind an Easterly apartment block. Not a sound, save for the water fountain in the middle of the square. Jack’s bright morning eyes fell on the underlit cast […]

  • Penninia

    Jack looked down from the top of the Pennines, East, towards Newcastle. It was sunrise at the retreat. He knew that soon the water would be coming in. He knew it was coming, but he couldn’t quite believe it. Everything he’d worked for, everything he’d given up; his jobs, his girlfriends, the things he could […]

  • The Art School Of The Future

    “Day 1: a teenager excitedly enters the large, white D-Room. It is pristine white, round, featureless, with bright strip lighting. Nothing is made here. The only function of the D-room is show-and-tell (D doesn’t stand for anything in particular, but it sounds like it could). The Newbie (the official name for incoming students) must present […]

  • Monologue

    I remember the day they told me I could go home. I’d been there so long I couldn’t remember how to get there, or what it looked like. When I walk, there’s always the sound of metal in my Mac pocket. It’s a piece of serrated metal. I know it has something to do with […]