Bits of Fiction
Here is a collection of short bits of fiction that I've been writing for the last few years, with some of them read by either me or my friends.
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Forgotten. Lingering
Lorn chased eclipses. This life, of getting up to travel, of hoping the eclipse's totality was reachable, was frustrating. She wanted to stop the chase, but at least for now, continued.
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Corrupted friends
He was asked to come to the temple to record their beliefs, to ensure their truth would be remembered and shared.
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Liberated Dissonance
Plants grow from between the tiles. Their little stalks have broken through the grouting and sprouted, looking like a rainforest of moss and tree in miniature.
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Doorways
Occasionally, when walking through the passages, one of the doors she would try might be locked. The next, though — that would open.
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Passages
Night. Quiet roads. Rain. Street lights reflect in puddles. A small food store remains open and mostly empty.
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The Bone Orchard
When she was 13, her parents walked her out of the valley and into the forested hills. The monastery that stood there was already old.
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Blue
Your last day before retirement is a relief. Work friends have organised evening drinks at a bar down the road from the office.
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Red
Red. The colour of blood. The colour of an open wound, of pain.
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Yellow
You sit at your desk. It’s been four hours since you’ve arrived at work. When you have to, you answer emails. Otherwise you sit at your desk.
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My Hollow Heart
It was early spring and the flyer recommended starting with potatoes — they were easy to care for and difficult to hurt.
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Scented
7:00 am and the sun was up! Summer months were easy months for Kim to climb out of bed, and her little dachshund, Leila, agreed. Leila jumped into the bed as soon as she noticed Kim moving, and the two would greet one another a good morning.
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Liminal
My team travelled by ski and sled, pulled by dogs bred for cold and snow and the eternal, blasted light that meant we all struggled to sleep.
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Possibility of the Coffee Machine
The pawnshop was cluttered. Its dark windows were stacked with guitars (acoustic; electric), vacuum cleaners (bagless; mite sized; huge beasts), keyboards (casio; apple), heaters, picture frames that still showed photos of their last owners.
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Ice-Cream
He is a merchant of joy and ice-cream is his product.
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Thinking
The apartment block was pet-friendly and cats roamed its walkways and passages.
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Ars Fatuous
There is no centre. There is a sign on the street that suggests a centre: Department of People.
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Legio
Our favourite crowds: small cafés. You people who have time and money, eating your rolls with cream cheese and almond milk flat whites.
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Dark Places
A place is not entirely alive. A person can point at another person and name them: “Person.” They understand their existence as an individual.
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Wilder
My skin blistered and cracked. The cracks were open wounds, chasms, seeping liquids then drying out. They formed webwork, dividing me into irregular tiles of pustules and bruises.
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Surprise
It's winter. It’s cold, but the car is warm.
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Fewer
In her 20s she gave her friends advice.
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Cryptic
Frustration and pain and love linger. They gather in hearts and minds and memories. They gather in shadows and crevices.
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Lingua
It didn’t begin as a job. It began because of people.
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The Library of Kept Things
The Library of Kept Things: a looming, brutalist block of concrete and indecipherable crenelations.
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Time to Leave
Everything that I write comes true. Everything about people.
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To the Forest
She had a fantasy as a child: an empty city, a world of abandoned skyscrapers where she was free to live in solitude.
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Chains
It was easier when I was a child. Everyone reached the floating islands, everyone could throw up their chains, climb, and look into a world that was someone’s mental formations made manifest.
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Diorama
We used to talk about your bonsai. They were young trees, and we’d talk about your dreams of what they would be.
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Cassandra
I eventually named her Cassandra. At first she was small enough to be that spider in the corner, the one with black widow vibes.
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Protector
Horror’s warning came in the stream’s reflection while Protector bathed.
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Esper
There is just us two. I read your mind using tools.
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Transparent
You discover that going to university is both better and worse than invisibility. It improves your parents: they are cities away and out of your life — but, unfortunately, there are other people you have to interact with.
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Backup
Ilsa packed two suitcases: the first for her clothes, the second for her journals.
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Moving on
An early change was going freelance: I could slowly shift my work to evenings and nights, to the sunless time.
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Movable Type
The Nobleman was intrigued by news of mechanical printing, so it pleased Henry to offer a tour of his workshop.
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Raised
Leonard knew that things were worse when the rats screeched in their cage and rattled the bars.
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Memories
Her sister’s call to help pack up the old family house meant that Hanna had to take a two hour flight to come “home”.
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Life Lost
My therapist says, “Don’t hold on so tight.” By this she means to my memories of you.
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The Librarian
It was understood that the Librarian was still alive.
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Lost
This is how you leave a place.
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A Witch's Sorrow
It’s been 40 years since I was last here at your grave.
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At the Fountain's Verge
At the ball, Gwendoline eventually found Gennifer, who was dressed in a Corvid’s mask, but her voice and manner still gave her away.
