SFF story
Terce—Three Hours after Dawn Sister Alice was glad of the rain. A steady patter of raindrops displayed a landscape to her sensitive ears and helped her find a path. Without hesitation, her feet followed a line of paving stones across mossy grass inside the courtyard. It was so early that the sun had not cleared the high monastery walls. The air smelled of damp stone and new wool and brown bread. Around her, she sensed…
Emptiness. A vast, frozen void, stretching out in all directions, extending to the infinite. Like a colossal blank canvas, it was mammoth in scope, yet almost entirely devoid of life, thought, or purpose. The probe was an exception. Easing its way slowly but surely between the solar systems, it glided determinedly forth. In the immense cosmic scale of things, it was nothing; just a slim metal construct a couple of metres across, utterly insignificant in…
The sun is just bellying up above the skyline and light filters through the world. I turn Star away from the Deadlands, where there aren’t any trees or shrubs and the sun has scorched the ground into big puzzle pieces. A long time ago, there used to be fertile land here, like our farm a mile down the road, but Nobody happened and now nothing grows. Nobody’s story is sort of like The Nightmare Man,…
Reynard aux Chatillon delivers a gryphon foal the morning Lucia Camoreux comes to visit. It comes out squealing, eyes shut and wings folded, sticky with placenta. Within an hour its wings open, beating softly, as it stands to take food from its mother’s beak. Reynard sees Lucia as he returns from leading the foal and mare into a paddock isolated from the pasture. The mare cannot be kept from flying, of course, but she will…
Markus stood on the rocky hill in front of his house, neck aching as he craned it toward the sky. He’d been waiting for hours. He’d snuck early out of bed, slinking his way through the house and slipping outside into the muggy morning air. He’d climbed the hill, using his hands to steady himself as the ground slipped and slid beneath him, until he reached the highest point in the village. When the light…
From: gruntbuggly54@gmail.com To: shanover@fnal.gov Subject: Water temperature Dear Dr. Hanover, I am writing on behalf of the Octopus bimaculoides in your office aquarium whom you call Suzy. The water is too warm. Please reduce the temperature to 18℃. She would greatly appreciate it. Sincerely, Suzy’s Friend From: shanover@fnal.gov To: gruntbuggly54@gmail.com Subject: Re: Water temperature I don’t know who you are, and this is obviously some kind…
