Under the Arches
By Chris Amies
Martin found a public lavatory under the railway arches near Clapham Junction. He made his way down the tiled staircase and inside the gents'. It was remarkably clean; no graffiti, no smashed tiles, certainly no syringes or silver foil. There was a large, dark figure standing near the entrance. He’s just the attendant, Martin thought, and made for a cubicle and locked himself in.
The dark figure was there still as he left the cubicle; hunched yet taller than him, not just dark but clad all in rough, black clothing. The big man glanced at Martin and nodded slightly.
Martin put his hands under the curved chrome beak of the tap and water gushed out over them.
He squirted soap over his hands, washed them.
The attendant handed him a towel. Martin, surprised, looked at him and said,
“Thank you.” The attendant cracked his face into something that was probably a smile, exposing chunky canine teeth. Why should I be frightened? Martin wondered, though he had been. The fellow just looks a bit unfortunate. Shaggy hair, heavy brows, a wide nose; scarcely any wonder he ended up working in a toilet. He handed the man a pound coin.
“It's nice here,” Martin said. “Very clean.”
The attendant nodded.
“Very clean,” the attendant said. “Work here long time.”
“How long,” Martin said. “How long have you been working here?”
“Years,” the attendant said. “Many, many years.” The voice was rough but somehow reassuring, deep and solid, but the way he said ‘many years’ made it sound like many indeed..
“I show you,” the man said, and padded off out of the mens' room. Martin followed. the attendant opened a door in the vestibule and showed him a small room, a large mattress on the floor – it would need to be large to suit the fellow – an old armchair and a television. But it was the items on the table that interested the attendant.
The big man picked one up. A rusted sword in a scabbard. He handed it to Martin, who at first got no feeling from it, but then he had a clear vision of drifting black smoke, men on horses, shouting, fire going up; and after that, an island of apples, a castle ruled by a royal couple come from far away; also here. The sword thrown into the river, where Battersea Bridge is now.
And the next? Propped against the wall in the corner?
The creature lifted it easily, but Martin could barely raise the stained war-club from the ground. Its story? The building of a city in the bend of the river; and after that, a council that made peace among the warring tribes.
Then the attendant took another item from the table: a triangular object, roughly cut into a blade, and lashed to a broken shaft as long as Martin's forearm. The attendant poked his own considerable chest.
“Me,” he said, “Long time ago. When the ice was. Here.”
Martin reached out and touched the thing and at once a new vision came to him, blue skies, tundra and a broad river, and many people, broad-faced and heavy-browed, men and women, children too, in a village of round huts in the shadow of the towering ice. And yet that place was also here, Battersea.
“But why do you stay here?” Martin asked.
The attendant touched his own face.
“Different,” he said. “Their enemy. It is all you people, now.”
Then the attendant picked up another item. Heroes, Martin thought. These are the weapons of heroes. And the spearhead ... his. He, the chief of a village ten thousand years ago, the first to live here.
“You,” he said. “a hero also.” The last of your kind. Had he really been here that long; or just the descendant of the ancient tribes, living here in the shadows and the dark spaces, where they could hide?
“No,” the big fellow said. “Now, I must work.” He ushered Martin out.
Martin climbed the stairs into the half-darkness of the arches. The next week he came back but the lavatory was closed and boarded up.
- - -
Chris Amies lives in London and works for the Civil Service. He has had one novel published, one non-fiction book of archive photographs, and about a dozen stories in anthologies and magazines. His main preoccupations are music, weird stuff generally, and languages - he previously taught English in Thessaloniki, Greece.
By Chris Amies
Martin found a public lavatory under the railway arches near Clapham Junction. He made his way down the tiled staircase and inside the gents'. It was remarkably clean; no graffiti, no smashed tiles, certainly no syringes or silver foil. There was a large, dark figure standing near the entrance. He’s just the attendant, Martin thought, and made for a cubicle and locked himself in.
The dark figure was there still as he left the cubicle; hunched yet taller than him, not just dark but clad all in rough, black clothing. The big man glanced at Martin and nodded slightly.
Martin put his hands under the curved chrome beak of the tap and water gushed out over them.
He squirted soap over his hands, washed them.
The attendant handed him a towel. Martin, surprised, looked at him and said,
“Thank you.” The attendant cracked his face into something that was probably a smile, exposing chunky canine teeth. Why should I be frightened? Martin wondered, though he had been. The fellow just looks a bit unfortunate. Shaggy hair, heavy brows, a wide nose; scarcely any wonder he ended up working in a toilet. He handed the man a pound coin.
“It's nice here,” Martin said. “Very clean.”
The attendant nodded.
“Very clean,” the attendant said. “Work here long time.”
“How long,” Martin said. “How long have you been working here?”
“Years,” the attendant said. “Many, many years.” The voice was rough but somehow reassuring, deep and solid, but the way he said ‘many years’ made it sound like many indeed..
“I show you,” the man said, and padded off out of the mens' room. Martin followed. the attendant opened a door in the vestibule and showed him a small room, a large mattress on the floor – it would need to be large to suit the fellow – an old armchair and a television. But it was the items on the table that interested the attendant.
The big man picked one up. A rusted sword in a scabbard. He handed it to Martin, who at first got no feeling from it, but then he had a clear vision of drifting black smoke, men on horses, shouting, fire going up; and after that, an island of apples, a castle ruled by a royal couple come from far away; also here. The sword thrown into the river, where Battersea Bridge is now.
And the next? Propped against the wall in the corner?
The creature lifted it easily, but Martin could barely raise the stained war-club from the ground. Its story? The building of a city in the bend of the river; and after that, a council that made peace among the warring tribes.
Then the attendant took another item from the table: a triangular object, roughly cut into a blade, and lashed to a broken shaft as long as Martin's forearm. The attendant poked his own considerable chest.
“Me,” he said, “Long time ago. When the ice was. Here.”
Martin reached out and touched the thing and at once a new vision came to him, blue skies, tundra and a broad river, and many people, broad-faced and heavy-browed, men and women, children too, in a village of round huts in the shadow of the towering ice. And yet that place was also here, Battersea.
“But why do you stay here?” Martin asked.
The attendant touched his own face.
“Different,” he said. “Their enemy. It is all you people, now.”
Then the attendant picked up another item. Heroes, Martin thought. These are the weapons of heroes. And the spearhead ... his. He, the chief of a village ten thousand years ago, the first to live here.
“You,” he said. “a hero also.” The last of your kind. Had he really been here that long; or just the descendant of the ancient tribes, living here in the shadows and the dark spaces, where they could hide?
“No,” the big fellow said. “Now, I must work.” He ushered Martin out.
Martin climbed the stairs into the half-darkness of the arches. The next week he came back but the lavatory was closed and boarded up.
- - -
Chris Amies lives in London and works for the Civil Service. He has had one novel published, one non-fiction book of archive photographs, and about a dozen stories in anthologies and magazines. His main preoccupations are music, weird stuff generally, and languages - he previously taught English in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Expectations
By David Benjamin
Once, I saved a man’s life. He was crossing the street with his cell phone pressed to his ear; not noticing the oncoming car. I snatched him by the collar of his suit jacket and ripped him back onto the sidewalk. Now, I try and avoid people who might be in need of help.
The other day, I gave a girl an orgasm by merely looking into her eyes. I looked past the pupil and through the haze of grays and blues traveling as deep as I could go. Her eyes shut, each breath became a gasp for air leading up to the finale when she squeezed her crotch and fell to the floor. Now, I stare at women’s feet when I talk to them.
Today, I wrote a short story that inspired a novel which was later adapted and turned into an award winning screenplay. Now, I no longer write. It was a story about a man who lived an extraordinary life full of one-hit-wonders.
- - -
David Benjamin is a graduate student and Sacramento State University studying creative writing under the likes of Peter Grandbois and Doug Rice. He is a member of the Sacramento State Cheerleading Squad and has been competing with them at national competitions for six years.
By David Benjamin
Once, I saved a man’s life. He was crossing the street with his cell phone pressed to his ear; not noticing the oncoming car. I snatched him by the collar of his suit jacket and ripped him back onto the sidewalk. Now, I try and avoid people who might be in need of help.
The other day, I gave a girl an orgasm by merely looking into her eyes. I looked past the pupil and through the haze of grays and blues traveling as deep as I could go. Her eyes shut, each breath became a gasp for air leading up to the finale when she squeezed her crotch and fell to the floor. Now, I stare at women’s feet when I talk to them.
Today, I wrote a short story that inspired a novel which was later adapted and turned into an award winning screenplay. Now, I no longer write. It was a story about a man who lived an extraordinary life full of one-hit-wonders.
- - -
David Benjamin is a graduate student and Sacramento State University studying creative writing under the likes of Peter Grandbois and Doug Rice. He is a member of the Sacramento State Cheerleading Squad and has been competing with them at national competitions for six years.
Happy Birthday Weirdyear! That's right, we've been on the air for one year today!
FIANCEE
by Nathan Patton
Musty bathroom. Unidentifiable stain on the carpet. Light bulb blew when I pushed the greasy switch. Has to be in the running for worst motel in the entire Chicagoland area, if such a list or chart has ever been assembled. If they did win (their trophy: a black light?), they certainly wouldn’t make the mistake of coming here to celebrate like we did.
Girlfriend's turn to get the ice. Fiancée, I mean. She's got a shiny new ring on her finger. Gonna cost me ‘til I’m dead; only because I’m not in a position to make more than the minimum payments each month.
Neighbors are loudly trespassing into each other's bodies. Makes me ready to do the same. But she doesn’t want to, my fiancée. The noise is distracting, she says, and it makes her feel vulgar, like she’s purposely doing these acts in concert with whomever happened get the key to room 216. I’m not as reserved, and I have an instinct for competition. I think we can beat them. She comes back with the ice bucket and a diet soda. I'm not in the mood for such a thing, and since I have to care about what she’s not in the mood for, she should do the same for me, not try to shove something down my throat that just tastes like bitter, wet salt. Then get it yourself, she says. You shouldn't have sent me out there alone, anyway. Oh give me a break, I say. Just because most of the people here aren't white doesn't automatically make it dangerous.
It has nothing to do with that, you asshole-moron, she says. There are gigantic bloodstains on the carpet. We don't know that's blood, I say. Could be anything. Yeah, anything that's red and doesn't come out, she says.
She starts to light her nasty habit, and I grab the key on top of the TV and slam the door on the way out. It slams for me, actually.
See? This place isn't so bad. Those bloodstains are the only real deal-breaker. No porn on the TV, but I got the audio from next door. Wonder how she's taking it, my girlfriend, having to listen to those slapping bodies while she drinks her prudish diet soda.
I get to the machines, colorful and lit like Christmas, like our room should be, and realize I forgot my wallet.
Half way back to the lovefest, a guy steps out of his room wearing white boxers and no t-shirt. He has a toothpick in his mouth.
I try not to picture what he must have been doing half naked with a toothpick, but I do anyway. I laugh at the image my brain has conjured. He wonders what I'm laughing at. I say nothing. He calls me a curseword. I stop. I have an instinct for competition. I bet I can clean his teeth for him way better than he's capable of doing with that little splinter.
I turn to walk back with my chest out, my stomach flattened by lungsuck, but his fist is already sending throbs into my eardrum. I try to stumble away, but he pushes me down, and my face lands in-between two bars of the walkway barrier. He calls me a fool. He gets no argument from me.
I think he's done, but he discredits that theory with his shoeless foot in my rib. It doesn't hurt much, and he must realize that, because then he hits me in the back of my head with his fist.
Something sounds like loose change as he pulls back from my head in a whip. I close my eyes, kind of in the mood to sleep. Then I hear her voice as she steps out of our room and screams curses of the regular and racial varieties. I try to tell her to stop, but my tongue won’t listen any more than she would have.
Her bare feet make clapping noises as she walks toward us, yelling. The man doesn't know what to do. He points at her and then kicks me again with hardly any force, just as a show of threat. It
seems implausible, but he's scared of her. She gets to us and then bends down to check on me. I’m unable to do anything but murmur; my tongue is much more concerned with taking inventory of my teeth. She slaps the man’s cheek. I hear stomps, gallops almost. His girlfriend
(fiancée?) runs out and pushes my girlfriend with kinetic force. My girlfriend’s body trips on my legs and she goes flying over the edge of the banister, screaming in a backwards swell.
Her body smacks the pavement. It sounds wet, like a bug being stepped on.
The man yells something and runs inside his room, putting clothes back on and filling his pockets with some things that fit and some that won’t. The woman stares down at the blood as it cradles my girlfriend's head. The woman is crying and mumbling apologies, and when I tell her to shut up so I can think and remember, one of my teeth falls out.
I place my bleeding face between the bars that are keeping me from joining the girl on the ground, and I stare down at her robe, open to reveal lingerie with the tag still on it. I guess she was in the mood, after all.
- - -
Nathan Patton lives in the Boston Mountains with his wife and guitar.
His work has been published by Arcana, Speakeasy, Dakuwaka, and Young American Comics, and has been hung on many refrigerators.
FIANCEE
by Nathan Patton
Musty bathroom. Unidentifiable stain on the carpet. Light bulb blew when I pushed the greasy switch. Has to be in the running for worst motel in the entire Chicagoland area, if such a list or chart has ever been assembled. If they did win (their trophy: a black light?), they certainly wouldn’t make the mistake of coming here to celebrate like we did.
Girlfriend's turn to get the ice. Fiancée, I mean. She's got a shiny new ring on her finger. Gonna cost me ‘til I’m dead; only because I’m not in a position to make more than the minimum payments each month.
Neighbors are loudly trespassing into each other's bodies. Makes me ready to do the same. But she doesn’t want to, my fiancée. The noise is distracting, she says, and it makes her feel vulgar, like she’s purposely doing these acts in concert with whomever happened get the key to room 216. I’m not as reserved, and I have an instinct for competition. I think we can beat them. She comes back with the ice bucket and a diet soda. I'm not in the mood for such a thing, and since I have to care about what she’s not in the mood for, she should do the same for me, not try to shove something down my throat that just tastes like bitter, wet salt. Then get it yourself, she says. You shouldn't have sent me out there alone, anyway. Oh give me a break, I say. Just because most of the people here aren't white doesn't automatically make it dangerous.
It has nothing to do with that, you asshole-moron, she says. There are gigantic bloodstains on the carpet. We don't know that's blood, I say. Could be anything. Yeah, anything that's red and doesn't come out, she says.
She starts to light her nasty habit, and I grab the key on top of the TV and slam the door on the way out. It slams for me, actually.
See? This place isn't so bad. Those bloodstains are the only real deal-breaker. No porn on the TV, but I got the audio from next door. Wonder how she's taking it, my girlfriend, having to listen to those slapping bodies while she drinks her prudish diet soda.
I get to the machines, colorful and lit like Christmas, like our room should be, and realize I forgot my wallet.
Half way back to the lovefest, a guy steps out of his room wearing white boxers and no t-shirt. He has a toothpick in his mouth.
I try not to picture what he must have been doing half naked with a toothpick, but I do anyway. I laugh at the image my brain has conjured. He wonders what I'm laughing at. I say nothing. He calls me a curseword. I stop. I have an instinct for competition. I bet I can clean his teeth for him way better than he's capable of doing with that little splinter.
I turn to walk back with my chest out, my stomach flattened by lungsuck, but his fist is already sending throbs into my eardrum. I try to stumble away, but he pushes me down, and my face lands in-between two bars of the walkway barrier. He calls me a fool. He gets no argument from me.
I think he's done, but he discredits that theory with his shoeless foot in my rib. It doesn't hurt much, and he must realize that, because then he hits me in the back of my head with his fist.
Something sounds like loose change as he pulls back from my head in a whip. I close my eyes, kind of in the mood to sleep. Then I hear her voice as she steps out of our room and screams curses of the regular and racial varieties. I try to tell her to stop, but my tongue won’t listen any more than she would have.
Her bare feet make clapping noises as she walks toward us, yelling. The man doesn't know what to do. He points at her and then kicks me again with hardly any force, just as a show of threat. It
seems implausible, but he's scared of her. She gets to us and then bends down to check on me. I’m unable to do anything but murmur; my tongue is much more concerned with taking inventory of my teeth. She slaps the man’s cheek. I hear stomps, gallops almost. His girlfriend
(fiancée?) runs out and pushes my girlfriend with kinetic force. My girlfriend’s body trips on my legs and she goes flying over the edge of the banister, screaming in a backwards swell.
Her body smacks the pavement. It sounds wet, like a bug being stepped on.
The man yells something and runs inside his room, putting clothes back on and filling his pockets with some things that fit and some that won’t. The woman stares down at the blood as it cradles my girlfriend's head. The woman is crying and mumbling apologies, and when I tell her to shut up so I can think and remember, one of my teeth falls out.
I place my bleeding face between the bars that are keeping me from joining the girl on the ground, and I stare down at her robe, open to reveal lingerie with the tag still on it. I guess she was in the mood, after all.
- - -
Nathan Patton lives in the Boston Mountains with his wife and guitar.
His work has been published by Arcana, Speakeasy, Dakuwaka, and Young American Comics, and has been hung on many refrigerators.
The Merciless Slaying of Rusty Dwight
By Jack Bristow
Darren Carpenter loved more than anything THE CASINO. No. You misunderstand. Not any casino. Not the Circus Circus. Not the Mirage, nor The Flamingo, but THE CASINO, located on Forty-Forth Dimestreet Blvd, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Some of the casinos mentioned above are real; some aren't; some used to be. Does it matter? No? Thank you. Anyway. About Darren: every week day evening, after work, as soon as traffic would permit, he'd zoom his new Coupe de Ville The Casino-wards with great, unabashed enthusiasm.
Outside THE CASINO now, gazing upwards today, like every other day, he marvels at the beautiful pink-striped sign: "THE CASINO." In his heart he feels love--or a feeling similar to what he's imagined love to be like, for, although he has a beautiful wife and three remarkably precocious kids at home, they are completely and utterly unnoticed. But this casino, She is something of an entirely different nature, he thought standing outside her entrance, her fantastic multi-colored lights shining down affectionately upon him.
Inside: Like every place else, an overwhelming kaleidoscope of eyes: Green, blue, hazel, brown... But, unlike every place else--work, home, church--they weren't trained on him.
And they wanted nothing.
He falls in love with each and every impersonal one of them.
He walks past the blackjack tables invisibly, perhaps even anonymously, past the Three-Dollar Buffet--which, incidentally, he's fallen in love with, too--all the way to his favorite item: Wild Bill's 5-cent Slot. He calmy and coolly extracts a handful of nickles from his right dress-pant pocket, puts the inestimable amount inside the machine, and pulls the lever. Snap-snap-snap; success; change. snap-snap-snap; success; more change. Wild Bill gleefully "Yeehaws!"
An old shit-kicker type with a handle-bar slapped ridiculously across his face notices Darren's triumphant victory with Wild Bill and tries desperately to make conversation:
"Holy shit there! Fella! Dis might be yer lucky day! Say there. The name's Rusty Dwight. You are?"
This can't be, Darren thinks anxiously. No. Please. Ignore it. Not here. Not now. This thing just wants from me...just like--
"Hey, somethin wrong with you, fella? You don' speak the English? The name is Rusty Dwight, I says, and I--"
The machine sings jubiliantly. Providing Darren with more and more silver. Making him feel the winner. But this thing beside him, babbling! Which isn't real, just like the things at home, and the things at work. How could he stop their shrieking? And get away from them? Before it started severely altering his human luck?
"Whoheee," the thing called Rusty Dwight smacks its knee, and continues to congratulate Darren on his newest success.
Darren extracts his right hand from the coin-bucket, and as Rusty Dwight goes to reach for it Darren socks him straight-smack in the Adam's apple. Rusty-whatever-its-name-is eyes begin to bulge comedically as he falls ass-backwards to the floor, funny liquidlike sounds emitting his throat and mouth.
Darren walks back to his car. Opens the trunk. And-- eureka! A hat! And thick 80's-style Carrera Porsche sunglasses.
Back inside THE CASINO the securitymen and paramedics are already there, putting Rusty-Whatever-Its-Name-Is inside a big black bag. One cop is there scribbling
something in his notebook. Darren sits three slots away from the scene, grinning absentmindedly. The pitboss finally appears. "Well, looks like old Rusty finally did himself in," the middle-aged, salt-and-pepper-haired man chuckles. "Worst case of suicide I've ever seen," all agree unanimously.
It was then and there that Darren knew he'd stay forever.
- - -
Jack Bristow attended Long Ridge Writer's Group in 2008--under the tutelage of accomplished writers Dolph Lemoult and Mary Rosenbaum. A native Californian, but now currently residing somewhere in New Mexico, his next short story to be published--"Our Bus Driver, Fred"--can be read in the upcoming issue Thirteen of Cantaraville: An International PDF Literary Quarterly.
By Jack Bristow
Darren Carpenter loved more than anything THE CASINO. No. You misunderstand. Not any casino. Not the Circus Circus. Not the Mirage, nor The Flamingo, but THE CASINO, located on Forty-Forth Dimestreet Blvd, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Some of the casinos mentioned above are real; some aren't; some used to be. Does it matter? No? Thank you. Anyway. About Darren: every week day evening, after work, as soon as traffic would permit, he'd zoom his new Coupe de Ville The Casino-wards with great, unabashed enthusiasm.
Outside THE CASINO now, gazing upwards today, like every other day, he marvels at the beautiful pink-striped sign: "THE CASINO." In his heart he feels love--or a feeling similar to what he's imagined love to be like, for, although he has a beautiful wife and three remarkably precocious kids at home, they are completely and utterly unnoticed. But this casino, She is something of an entirely different nature, he thought standing outside her entrance, her fantastic multi-colored lights shining down affectionately upon him.
Inside: Like every place else, an overwhelming kaleidoscope of eyes: Green, blue, hazel, brown... But, unlike every place else--work, home, church--they weren't trained on him.
And they wanted nothing.
He falls in love with each and every impersonal one of them.
He walks past the blackjack tables invisibly, perhaps even anonymously, past the Three-Dollar Buffet--which, incidentally, he's fallen in love with, too--all the way to his favorite item: Wild Bill's 5-cent Slot. He calmy and coolly extracts a handful of nickles from his right dress-pant pocket, puts the inestimable amount inside the machine, and pulls the lever. Snap-snap-snap; success; change. snap-snap-snap; success; more change. Wild Bill gleefully "Yeehaws!"
An old shit-kicker type with a handle-bar slapped ridiculously across his face notices Darren's triumphant victory with Wild Bill and tries desperately to make conversation:
"Holy shit there! Fella! Dis might be yer lucky day! Say there. The name's Rusty Dwight. You are?"
This can't be, Darren thinks anxiously. No. Please. Ignore it. Not here. Not now. This thing just wants from me...just like--
"Hey, somethin wrong with you, fella? You don' speak the English? The name is Rusty Dwight, I says, and I--"
The machine sings jubiliantly. Providing Darren with more and more silver. Making him feel the winner. But this thing beside him, babbling! Which isn't real, just like the things at home, and the things at work. How could he stop their shrieking? And get away from them? Before it started severely altering his human luck?
"Whoheee," the thing called Rusty Dwight smacks its knee, and continues to congratulate Darren on his newest success.
Darren extracts his right hand from the coin-bucket, and as Rusty Dwight goes to reach for it Darren socks him straight-smack in the Adam's apple. Rusty-whatever-its-name-is eyes begin to bulge comedically as he falls ass-backwards to the floor, funny liquidlike sounds emitting his throat and mouth.
Darren walks back to his car. Opens the trunk. And-- eureka! A hat! And thick 80's-style Carrera Porsche sunglasses.
Back inside THE CASINO the securitymen and paramedics are already there, putting Rusty-Whatever-Its-Name-Is inside a big black bag. One cop is there scribbling
something in his notebook. Darren sits three slots away from the scene, grinning absentmindedly. The pitboss finally appears. "Well, looks like old Rusty finally did himself in," the middle-aged, salt-and-pepper-haired man chuckles. "Worst case of suicide I've ever seen," all agree unanimously.
It was then and there that Darren knew he'd stay forever.
- - -
Jack Bristow attended Long Ridge Writer's Group in 2008--under the tutelage of accomplished writers Dolph Lemoult and Mary Rosenbaum. A native Californian, but now currently residing somewhere in New Mexico, his next short story to be published--"Our Bus Driver, Fred"--can be read in the upcoming issue Thirteen of Cantaraville: An International PDF Literary Quarterly.
How I Came to Light Up the Universe
By Ian D. Smith
The sun was low when I looked out and saw a red dust vortex. The prolonged darkness had brought a plague of rats down from the mountains. I poured myself a whiskey and patted the green harbor light I was repairing. I was one hundred and fifty steps above the maquis.
The windows creaked and the lights dipped. They always dipped when the batteries cut in, and when the ship’s bell rang, the sound was muted as though it was underwater. I caressed a carved figurehead. She was protecting me as we spun through space together. I could also hear water. I cupped my hand to the window and saw raindrops swirl like sparks from a fire.
Then I saw a giant wave.
The wave struck the lighthouse. The glass cracked and I was thrown into a sudden and immense panic, but then I realized the best place to be when an ocean returned was right where I was. I entered the stairwell.
“Coming up!” I shouted.
I liked to sit out dust storms crouched amongst the reflections, but midway I stopped. Glass smashed and the bell rang. Foam filled the stairwell below. A cold blast of CO2 stung my face. I pulled on my oxygen mask and breathed deeply.
I saw a light across the stairwell above. I shielded my eyes and reached the top step. I pushed open the door, but all I could hear was the slapping of waves and the rattling of lenses and mirrors. The glass chimed and a reflection moved across all the surfaces at once. A circling glow was refracted and then a man walked out of the mirrors.
“Happens all the time,” he hissed. “Every lighthouse I visit. Lovely accommodation!”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Carbonized rods driven into the rock. Basalt blocks planted round them. Magma poured in to form an indestructible core. It’s guided us for centuries. It lit the whole universe, and then… Well aren’t you sorry?”
“Sorry?”
“You’re in darkness and you don’t even know it. If you’d been paying attention you’d know that a plague indicates the thousand year storm, statistically speaking. Watch and learn.”
A small spark lit a flame and the invader’s hands burned. The flame travelled up the man’s arms into his body. He unscrewed the lantern and the light poured in exploding into the magnifiers and reflectors. The mechanism started. The windows were sucked shut and the flames snuffed. I was alone and staring at my glowing hands. I shook my fingers and a long flame shot out. I’d been instilled with immense power and it hurt. It hurt a lot.
- - -
Ian D. Smith was born in Manchester and lives in Wiltshire, England. He holds an MA, Goldsmith's, University of London. Stories published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Silverthought, The View From Here and others.
By Ian D. Smith
The sun was low when I looked out and saw a red dust vortex. The prolonged darkness had brought a plague of rats down from the mountains. I poured myself a whiskey and patted the green harbor light I was repairing. I was one hundred and fifty steps above the maquis.
The windows creaked and the lights dipped. They always dipped when the batteries cut in, and when the ship’s bell rang, the sound was muted as though it was underwater. I caressed a carved figurehead. She was protecting me as we spun through space together. I could also hear water. I cupped my hand to the window and saw raindrops swirl like sparks from a fire.
Then I saw a giant wave.
The wave struck the lighthouse. The glass cracked and I was thrown into a sudden and immense panic, but then I realized the best place to be when an ocean returned was right where I was. I entered the stairwell.
“Coming up!” I shouted.
I liked to sit out dust storms crouched amongst the reflections, but midway I stopped. Glass smashed and the bell rang. Foam filled the stairwell below. A cold blast of CO2 stung my face. I pulled on my oxygen mask and breathed deeply.
I saw a light across the stairwell above. I shielded my eyes and reached the top step. I pushed open the door, but all I could hear was the slapping of waves and the rattling of lenses and mirrors. The glass chimed and a reflection moved across all the surfaces at once. A circling glow was refracted and then a man walked out of the mirrors.
“Happens all the time,” he hissed. “Every lighthouse I visit. Lovely accommodation!”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Carbonized rods driven into the rock. Basalt blocks planted round them. Magma poured in to form an indestructible core. It’s guided us for centuries. It lit the whole universe, and then… Well aren’t you sorry?”
“Sorry?”
“You’re in darkness and you don’t even know it. If you’d been paying attention you’d know that a plague indicates the thousand year storm, statistically speaking. Watch and learn.”
A small spark lit a flame and the invader’s hands burned. The flame travelled up the man’s arms into his body. He unscrewed the lantern and the light poured in exploding into the magnifiers and reflectors. The mechanism started. The windows were sucked shut and the flames snuffed. I was alone and staring at my glowing hands. I shook my fingers and a long flame shot out. I’d been instilled with immense power and it hurt. It hurt a lot.
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Ian D. Smith was born in Manchester and lives in Wiltshire, England. He holds an MA, Goldsmith's, University of London. Stories published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Silverthought, The View From Here and others.
The Lonely Idol
By Lord Dunsany
I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced idol to whom no one prayed.
And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged at receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the years had broken (and no one heeded the scourge and no one prayed and no one came with squealing sacrifice; and he had been a god), then I took pity on the little forgotten thing and prayed to it as perhaps they prayed long since, before the coming of the strange dark ships, and humbled myself and said:
"O idol, idol of the hard pale stone, invincible to the years, O scourge-holder, give ear for behold I pray.
"O little pale-green image whose wanderings are from far, know thou that here in Europe and in other lands near by, too soon there pass from us the sweets and song and the lion strength of youth: too soon do their cheeks fade, their hair grow grey and our beloved die; too brittle is beauty, too far off is fame and the years are gathered too soon; there are leaves, leaves falling, everywhere falling; there is autumn among men, autumn and reaping; failure there is, struggle, dying and weeping, and all that is beautiful hath not remained but is even as the glory of morning upon the water.
"Even our memories are gathered too with the sound of the ancient voices, the pleasant ancient voices that come to our ears no more; the very gardens of our childhood fade, and there dims with the speed of the years even the mind's own eye.
"O be not any more the friend of Time, for the silent hurry of his malevolent feet have trodden down what's fairest; I almost hear the whimper of the years running behind him hound-like, and it takes few to tear us.
"All that is beautiful he crushes down as a big man tramples daises, all that is fairest. How very fair are the little children of men. It is autumn with all the world, and the stars weep to see it.
"Therefore no longer be the friend of Time, who will not let us be, and be not good to him but pity us, and let lovely things live on for the sake of our tears."
Thus prayed I out of compassion one windy day to the snout-faced idol to whom no one kneeled.
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Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy, published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays.
By Lord Dunsany
I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced idol to whom no one prayed.
And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged at receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the years had broken (and no one heeded the scourge and no one prayed and no one came with squealing sacrifice; and he had been a god), then I took pity on the little forgotten thing and prayed to it as perhaps they prayed long since, before the coming of the strange dark ships, and humbled myself and said:
"O idol, idol of the hard pale stone, invincible to the years, O scourge-holder, give ear for behold I pray.
"O little pale-green image whose wanderings are from far, know thou that here in Europe and in other lands near by, too soon there pass from us the sweets and song and the lion strength of youth: too soon do their cheeks fade, their hair grow grey and our beloved die; too brittle is beauty, too far off is fame and the years are gathered too soon; there are leaves, leaves falling, everywhere falling; there is autumn among men, autumn and reaping; failure there is, struggle, dying and weeping, and all that is beautiful hath not remained but is even as the glory of morning upon the water.
"Even our memories are gathered too with the sound of the ancient voices, the pleasant ancient voices that come to our ears no more; the very gardens of our childhood fade, and there dims with the speed of the years even the mind's own eye.
"O be not any more the friend of Time, for the silent hurry of his malevolent feet have trodden down what's fairest; I almost hear the whimper of the years running behind him hound-like, and it takes few to tear us.
"All that is beautiful he crushes down as a big man tramples daises, all that is fairest. How very fair are the little children of men. It is autumn with all the world, and the stars weep to see it.
"Therefore no longer be the friend of Time, who will not let us be, and be not good to him but pity us, and let lovely things live on for the sake of our tears."
Thus prayed I out of compassion one windy day to the snout-faced idol to whom no one kneeled.
- - -
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy, published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays.
Ellipse
By Leila A. Fortier
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Leila A. Fortier is a writer, artist, poet, and photographer currently residing on the remote island of Okinawa Japan. Her poetry is known to be a unique hybrid form in which her words are specially crafted into visual design, often superimposed over her own multi-medium forms of art, photography, and spoken accompaniment, lending to the full bodied expression and intensity of each piece.
Her work has been published in dozens of literary magazines, journals and reviews both in print and online. She has appeared in several books, anthologies, and other freelance publications including Treasured Poets of America, Satiated Sunrise, and A World of Love: Voices for Carmen. She is also the author of Metanoia's Revelation through iUniverse.
A complete listing of her published works can be found at: www.leilafortier.com
By Leila A. Fortier
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Leila A. Fortier is a writer, artist, poet, and photographer currently residing on the remote island of Okinawa Japan. Her poetry is known to be a unique hybrid form in which her words are specially crafted into visual design, often superimposed over her own multi-medium forms of art, photography, and spoken accompaniment, lending to the full bodied expression and intensity of each piece.
Her work has been published in dozens of literary magazines, journals and reviews both in print and online. She has appeared in several books, anthologies, and other freelance publications including Treasured Poets of America, Satiated Sunrise, and A World of Love: Voices for Carmen. She is also the author of Metanoia's Revelation through iUniverse.
A complete listing of her published works can be found at: www.leilafortier.com
