Free Stories

Visiting Father has always taken effort, but this time around it required a quest of almost epic proportions. Last time I went to see him, some seven years ago, I had to traverse the Bone Maze; the journey that lies behind me was worse. He has taken up residence, or what passes for residence in his loose and convoluted life, in the east tower of the abandoned and crumbling Castle of the Four Winds. I know the place from Father’s stories, of course. The stepped curtain walls lend the fortress a huddled, hermetic appearance, its four square corner towers thrust up in defiance like stubby limbs.

Dearest daughter, his invitation read. Come celebrate my thousandth birthday. Bring stories. RSVP. Your Loving Father.

I recognize the hissing. Full, almost guttural, like he really wants to growl. No tom hissed quite like Jones. The sound lurks at the edge of my hearing, somewhere inside the apartment, maybe even outside, taunting me to come look, to see what vapors and megrims have raised his hackles this time.

I pause the HBO episode I’m not really watching. Setting my tumbler on the coffee table, I note the warmth spreading through my belly, the love flooding my heart. I begin to rise.

Ridiculous, of course. Jones has been dead ten years today.

Dear Mr. Ghruoxavazr,

Please accept this letter as formal notification of my resignation from Maec Lhyabr Co.

I wish I could claim that the commute is my main motivation for quitting. In fact, the commute itself is no problem at all. As promised by your head-hunting drone in my second interview, travel from Earth to Khylom is near-instantaneous. However, every night I’ve returned home from work over the last few days, civilizations have risen and fallen, continents have shifted, and at least one extinction-level event has occurred. I am sure you will counter that prospective employees are expected to work out the parameters of their travel arrangements for themselves, but as I am far from conversant with relativity theory, the changes on my home planet came as somewhat of a shock.

The tracks on her cheeks could be rain. Shanylla would not cry, not this time. She watched with an icy heart as the flames licked the tiny body. The shroud caught easily, and yellow fire enveloped the empty, fever-ravaged shell of her daughter. The sonorous humming of the villagers gathered around the pyre intensified, grating on her nerves. Maire’s gentle touch on her arm might as well have been a lash.

No more, she whispered, please. But her words sounded only in her head. On the outside, she had joined the chant, adding her counterpoint to the swelling lament. Let my house crumble, let the village collapse into the sea. She would refuse the brick this time, she told herself. The price was too high. Nothing was worth losing her moon and stars, her Dara. Having lost her, Shanylla wanted only to turn away from it all.

The chanting voices danced up along the cliff, mingling with the rush of the sea, the pounding of the waves far below. The wind sang along the lines tethering their fishing nets to the village rim. A stew of sound swirled, whipping the pyre into incandescent frenzy, blowing a plume of sparks into the night sky.

“What color are your M&Ms?”

The woman’s arrival might have gone unnoticed, but I happened to be staring over the low wall bordering the oval meadow, gazing through the slow snow of pale pink petals drifting from the cherry trees. I stand stunned into silent immobility, her question baffling me almost as much as her sudden appearance.

Did she just step through the Thin Place?

I reach for my phone to text Jake, and for the thousandth time, the realization rips through me.

Translator Floris Kleijne was available on extremely short notice and able to deliver the translations we needed within 24 hourts. The English source text, a combination of commercial, technical, and scientific texts, was converted into naturally flowing Dutch; the translated texts were immediately useable in our investment proposal.

dr Rens Vandeberg, program director NanoLabNL

A good crowd today. Not the suffocating masses of a holiday, nor the unnerving quiet of a Tuesday morning in February. An art student is earnestly sketching. A group of Japanese tourists take turns posing with me, fingers forked in an incomprehensible gesture that sometimes even hides me from the lens. An elderly couple stands quietly, arms entwined, contemplating me with identical mournful gazes. Behind them, the south hallway of the Denon wing stretches. As always, I am pleased to note that no one walks by without making the turn into my room. Perhaps as many as three dozen pairs of eyes stare at me, mesmerized.

And none of them know who I am.

I shouldn’t look so smug.

But I can’t help myself.

Please.

I’ve done what you have asked of me, Ava. I’ve done everything.

Please talk to me again.

#

I’ve kept you hidden, just like you asked. Not a word has passed my lips about you since you came. When colleagues remarked on my sudden cheer, I answered in vague generalities. When Mom asked me if there was a woman in my life, I lied. Though maybe it wasn’t really a lie, was it? You have all the parts, but you are no more a woman than my iPad, are you? I kept silent, against Company policy, risking a pink slip or much worse. I kept you hidden, though I wanted to shout my bliss from the rooftops, update my mood to Ecstatic, change my Relationship Status to… whatever it is we have.

Had?

Please, not had.

Ik voel geen kap op mijn hoofd.

Ik voel mijn hoofd niet.

En als ik naar mijn hoofd reik, gebeurt er niets.

Ik heb geen handen.

Onwillekeurig kijk ik naar beneden, maar hoewel mijn blikveld gehoorzaamt aan mijn mentale commando, voel ik van mijn ogen noch mijn hoofd enige beweging.

En hoewel ik de gebogen glazen wanden en micromanipulators in de hermetische cabine herken, lijkt mijn zicht onscherp, alsof ik door een soepige mist kijk. Een duizeling overvalt me, die nog verdubbelt als ik me realiseer dat het bodemloze gevoel geen maag heeft om zich in op te houden.

De waarheid dringt zich aan me op…

“Okay, here we go.” A hand reached past the camera and hit Enter. An app started up and filled the computer screen with a single grey window. The outline of a playing card was drawn, but left blank. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, almost simultaneously, the girl spoke and a card appeared.

“Jack of clubs,” she said, and on the computer appeared a J and the black club symbol. “Six of clubs.” The card outline blanked to white and the six of clubs appeared. She was right again. “Six of diamonds. Ten of hearts.” She kept on naming cards, one after another, with hardly a pause, and every card she named appeared on-screen half a second later. I discovered my mouth was hanging open, and it seemed I had forgotten to breathe for a while. There she was, this exquisitely gangly creature, reeling off the future.

Getting out of her cell is child’s play. Noria worries the lock with the steel fork she shouldn’t have, poking and twisting and turning until it makes a crackling sound. No handle on the door, but her palms provide enough friction to slide it into its recess. A moment later, she is in the corridor.

To her left, cell block B curves up and out of sight, a murky tube of concave steel panels and pale cell doors. Nothing for her there.

To her right, the first step to freedom.

Corridor B ends on a microwave force field. Beyond the faint blue haze of the field, the guard station at the junction of detainment wheel and transfer spoke lies deserted. The guards have gathered in Comms with Warden Kiori, eagerly awaiting their messages from home. Comms is forty-three seconds from this junction. It should be enough.

Dear Emily, Andros, Bryan, Carlos, Gaudi, Jair, Jhon, Julio, Melissa, Soledad, Ulises, Taylor, Stephanie and whoever else is listening in on the party line,

Thanks, I suppose, for your stubborn willingness to keep providing me with answers, however meaningless, useless, and frequently untrue.

Of all the things I could choose to say to this latest I-Parcel communiqué, I select the two below. But before I get into the details, let me provide you with this preamble:

PLEASE READ WHAT I WRITE AND RESPOND TO THE THINGS I ACTUALLY SAY TO YOU. (Yes, I am shouting. You never know, perhaps that will get me heard.)

One: I have told you on many occasions now that the package we’ve been so pleasantly discussing came from EG&J Press, not from Amazon. (Unless, as I’ve previously suggested, you know more about it than I do. In which case, as I have also previously said on several occasions, I invite you to enlighten me.) And as I’ve also told you several times, the shipment contains author copies, for which no refund is in order. Canned responses like yours, that have no relevance to the issue under discussion, infuriate me to no end.

Two: You have lied to me about the causes for the failed delivery at least twice. Now you’re either lying to me again, or you have previously lied to me at least four more times. You just told me in your latest message that my package was returned on 3/10. However, I was told by your tracking page on 2/14, and in three previous messages on 2/21, 3/1, and 3/8, that my package had already been returned.

So either you are all prescient, or it’s a lie that the package was returned on 3/10, or the previous statements about the returned package were all lies. And guess what: I don’t believe in prescience.

Now, all that said, I kindly request you to please connect me to someone who has the authority and wherewithal to provide me with honest and accurate answers. These answers will unfortunately need to include a full listing of the various lies and inaccuracies in previous correspondence, and an admission of both guilt and ineptness.

In the meantime, I will continue to regale my readers with new episodes in this growing catalogue of lies and Kafkaesque absurdities, and I will only cease to do so after this matter has been resolved to my satisfaction. (And here’s a hint: my satisfaction can by now only be achieved through humble apologies, expressed in more than just words.)

Have a nice day.

Floris Kleijne

You should have seen this, Rowan.

From the observation platform on the converted oil rig, I watch the giant conveyor lift the chunks out of the ocean, see them climb to the coastal plain, see the freeway width of the belt disappear over the horizon, and feel like a Lego figurine in a life-sized industrial zone.

The solid wall of noise makes me sweat as much as the heat does. The shouting, the mechanical roar of the conveyor, the screaming crunch of the ice, and the shattering splashes of the chunks crashing back into the ocean make it hard to think. So I don’t think, but let the memory of you pervade me, a bittersweet sensation I love and dread.

I don’t feel a cap on my head.

I don’t feel my head.

And when I reach for my head, nothing happens.

I don’t have hands.

Involuntarily, I glance down, but while my field of vision obeys my mental command, I feel movement neither of my head nor my eyes.

And though I recognize the glass walls and micromanipulators inside the containment silo, my sight seems blurred, as if through a murky haze. Vertigo assails me, doubling when I realize the sinking feeling doesn’t have a stomach to accommodate it.

It dawns on me…

The raiding party piled out of the tunnel in a cacophony of heavy breathing, weaponry, and increasingly exasperated hushing noises. I dragged myself from my slumber atop the highest mound in my hoard to sniff out their scent.

Dwarves. Who else.

Sighing, I reached for the bottle of lamp oil, and mentally prepared my pilot light spell. The dwarves had extinguished their torches, probably in a vain attempt to hide their approach, and stumbled around cursing in the pitch darkness. Mumbling the spell, I took a large mouthful of oil.

Then I exhaled over the flame in my palm, and sent a tongue of bright fire twelve yards long towards them.

The twist sequence instructions are based on the six directions of the cube as shown in the diagram below, and the possibilities of quarter-twists clockwise (+) or counterclockwise (-), and 180 degree (2) twists.

So a sequence like F+ U- R2 means: twist the front face a quarter-turn clockwise, the upper face a quarter-turn counterclockwise, and the right face a full half-turn.

Clockwise and counterclockwise rotation are intended to be interpreted as if the face is in front of you. So B+ means twist the back face clockwise if it were facing you, which is the same direction as F- (front face counterclockwise).

De draaireeksen in de instructies zijn gebaseerd op de zes richtingen van de kubus zoals in het diagram hieronder getoond, en de mogelijkheden van kwart-slagen met de klok mee (+), tegen de klok in (-) en halve slagen (2).

Dus een reeks als V+ B- R2 betekent: draai de voorkant een kwartslag met de klok mee, de bovenkant een kwartslag tegen de klok in en de rechterkant een halve slag.

Met de klok mee en tegen de klok in moeten worden geïnterpreteerd alsof je de betreffende kant voor je hebt. Dus A+ betekent dat je de achterkant met de klok mee moet draaien alsof je ernaar kijkt, wat dus dezelfde richting is als V- (voorkant tegen de klok in).

On the plane, between cauliflower clouds and the stars that lit them from above, flying towards the island that would grant him eternal life, Jim met his Angel of Death. She was petite and blonde, bright and compassionate, not at all as he expected an Angel of Death to be. In a cabin full of chilled air, dimmed lights, and snores, they seemed to be the only two people awake. The only two people alive, he amended, for that was how it felt: a giant, vibrating hearse, flying towards a mass burial with 170 snoring corpses, and him buried alive. His Angel, of course, had every right to be there.

He was reading the Origin, and across the aisle she was writing letters, one by one, closely scrawled sheets that she slid into an envelope as soon as she’d signed her name, not even waiting for the wet spots to dry, addressing and stamping the envelopes with ruthless efficiency. Her magazine net already held a dozen of them; if she kept up her pace, she would soon have to remove the inflight magazine and the safety instructions to accommodate her outpouring.

Four-year-old Mira was coming towards our house like the wrath of God.

As she came closer it seemed that there was something profoundly wrong with her. Her hands, her bare arms, her clothes were black with dirt. I couldn’t see her eyes, but her brows were set in a tight frown of rage, and rage showed in the tense set of her frame, her strides, her balled fists.

Then my wife slapped her hand over her mouth and gasped through her fingers:

“Ohjesusitsblood.”

And I saw that it was.

Mira stopped at our house, raised her head and looked into our kitchen window. Straight into my eyes. I felt her gaze stab my pupils, my heart, my stomach. I wanted to close my eyes but I couldn’t even blink. For an endless moment, I knew nothing, remembered nothing, had no feelings but a deep visceral desire to kill, maim, destroy. The moment stretched and the feeling churned in my guts. Only the fact that neither of us moved could have told me time stood still, but I had no capacity for such observations.

The kid’s gone evil, I thought, but little kids aren’t evil, and I don’t even believe in evil; she’s just mad at your daughter, you’re crazy to think anything else, get a grip, Sam; but the blood, and that look, and her voice, Sam; something is wrong, Sam, something is wrong with Mira, and rationality be damned, I’m not letting her near my kids, not now, not like that.

She stepped in front of the mirror, adjusted her hair, checked around her eyes for wrinkles. Downstairs, the door clicked. She could see her eyes widen and face pale in the mirror.

Shit! She’d forgotten to lock the front door. She stood frozen, her face still inches from the mirror surface, breathing shallowly, listening for more sounds. But she heard nothing for what felt like minutes.

Then something screeched. Downstairs. Jane took an involuntary step back. Her calves hit the toilet seat and she sat down heavily, creating a terrible racket in the silent house. The skin on her back crawled and her shoulders were locked, freezing her posture like a statue of terror.

It was a cat, she told herself, repeating it over and over. It was a cat. Only a puss in heat makes a sound like that. Or a peacock, but there weren’t many of those in the neighborhood, were there? It must have been a cat.

Jane forced herself to stand up, get out of the bathroom, go down the stairs. Halfway down the steps, she could see the front door ajar. There was no movement outside or in. Trying to look in every direction at once, she descended the final steps. When she stepped towards the front door to close it, she saw the object on the threshold.

It was a severed cat’s tail.

“Ex… cuse me?”

David whirled towards the female voice. The girl brandished her Gen4 as if fending off an impending attack. She gave him a hesitant smile.

First he was struck by her eyes, the reddish brown of pine bark, and sparkling with life and intelligence even in their current startled mode. Then he took in her hair, windblown and strawberry. His belly lurched with the sudden realization that she was, in fact, absolutely stunning to his eyes. A second later he also realized that his frustration had almost evaporated, giving ground to a giddy feeling he remembered last feeling in his senior year.

He gave her a quick smile that felt all too goofy on his face.

“Can I help you?” he said, and mentally slapped his forehead. Lame!

Still hesitant, she answered:

“I was wondering… I couldn’t help overhearing…” And then, all in a rush, “If you’re going to Orakl, I’d like to come with.”

He blinked, not just at a loss for words, but apparently without language at all. Kicking himself in the ankle, he got his tongue back into gear, but when he opened his mouth he wasn’t sure what would come out.

“Yeah. Er, sure. Why not?” And, after some thought, “How come?”

She brandished her Gen4 again. She was still holding his eyes with hers, and it felt like they were in a bubble together, that not so much excluded as was created by the noises and scurrying around them.

Zo snel kan het gebeuren, dacht ik willekeurig in dat ene, tijdloze, bevroren moment. Ik voelde elke gewaarwording inbranden in mijn geheugen: de geur van uitlaatgassen en afval en hotdogs, de geluiden van verkeer en winkelende mensen, Sara’s stijve, geschokte vorm tegen me aan gedrukt, het zonlicht verspreid over mijn goedkope zonnebril. Ik wilde Sara omhelzen en wegkijken, of naar de zwerver reiken om hem terug te trekken, of wegrennen. Maar natuurlijk was er geen tijd, dus ik keek alleen toe.

De zwerver hervond zijn evenwicht halverwege de rechter rijstrook. Hij rechtte zich en draaide naar mij toe, maar maakte geen aanstalten om zich in veiligheid te brengen. Hij stond daar maar en riep vloekend uit alle macht een vreemd woord—of misschien een ongebruikelijke naam. Hij stond stokstijf stil.

En net voordat de Prius zijn rechterbeen brak, tegen de voorruit wiep en over het dak, zodat hij als een leeg pak op het asfalt smakte; seconden voordat de auto achter de Prius over zijn bewegingloze lichaam hobbelde en tot stilstand kwam; minuten voordat de broeders zijn bloedende lichaam in de ambulance rolden en ik Sara meetrok naar de achterdeuren en instapte om met hem mee te rijden naar de Eerste Hulp; voor de wachtkamer, en de met bloed bevlekte, grimmige chirurg, en de tranen en de intimiteit en alles wat volgde, stond de zwerver in de rechterbaan en keek me in de ogen, en begreep ik het, en zag ik dat hij het ook begreep.

Hij betaalde een verschrikkelijke prijs.

“Eh… Pardon?”

David draaide fel in de richting van de vrouwenstem. Het meisje hield haar Gen4 omhoog alsof ze een aanval afweerde. Ze gaf hem een aarzelende glimlach. Eerst werd hij getroffen door haar ogen, het roodbruin van dennebast, en zelfs nu ze geschokken opengesperd waren nog sprankelend van leven en intelligentie. Toen zag hij haar haar, verwaaid en roodblond. Zijn maag trok samen toen hij zich realiseerde dat ze feitelijk bloedmooi was in zijn ogen. Een seconde later realiseerde hij zich bovendien dat zijn frustratie bijna volledig was verdampt, plaats makend voor een duizelig gevoel dat hij zich sinds zijn afstuderen niet meer kon herinneren. Hij gaf haar een snelle glimlach die al te leip voelde op zijn gezicht.

“Kan ik iets voor je doen?” zei hij, en sloeg zich in gedachten voor het voorhoofd. Sukkel!

Nog steeds aarzelend antwoordde ze: “Ik vroeg me af… Ik hoorde je toevallig…” En toen, haastig achter elkaar: “Als je naar Orakl gaat, zou ik graag mee willen.”

Hij knipperde, niet zozeer omdat hij niet uit zijn woorden kon komen, maar meer omdat hij even helemaal zonder taal zat. Hij schopte zichzelf tegen zijn enkel om zijn tong weer aan de praat te krijgen, maar toen hij zijn mond opende wist hij nog niet wat hij ging zeggen.

“Ja. Eh, tuurlijk. Waarom niet.” En na wat denkwerk: “Hoezo?”

Ze hield haar Gen4 weer omhoog. Ze hield zijn ogen nog steeds gevangen in haar blik, en het voelde alsof ze samen in een bel stonden, die niet zozeer de drukte en lawaai om hen heen uitsloot als daardoor werd gevormd.

Toen de Vluchtleiding ons privileges toekende, hadden ze waarschijnlijk niet verwacht dat ik espresso in het centrifugaal-gemak zou zetten. Maar het gewicht van de espressomachine viel ruimschoots binnen de overeengekomen limiet, net als mijn dagelijks gebruik van een half litertje zoet water en een fractie van de energievoorraad van het schip, dus ze konden er feitelijk niets van zeggen of aan doen. Privileges zijn privileges, en als het doel was om ons beiden iets te geven om ons zoet te houden, had het bij mij succes. Mijn ochtendritueel met de espresso hield me op het rechte pad. Ik keek er elke dag naar uit.

Helaas was Richard niet zo tolerant als de Vluchtleiding.

De gigantische golvende diamantvorm van de mantawalvis dreef langzaam mijn gezichtsveld binnen. Haar lijf had de vorm van een zeppelin, met twee gelijkzijdig driehoekige vleugels die naar beide zijden uitstaken en golfden om zichzelf voort te bewegen. Haar staart droeg twee walvisachtige staartvinnen die kennelijk dienden om te sturen, en ze had twee rijen lange lage rugvinnen waarvan ik het doel niet snapte. Er was een soort beweeglijk rasterpatroon op haar rug getekend, en kleine wezentjes krioelden chaotisch langs dit raster terwijl de mantawalvis langzaam tegen de stroming in door de trog zwom.

Pas toen de mantawalvis onder het parende koppel van zo-even doorzwom, besefte ik hoe groot ze was. De twee potvisachtigen pasten makkelijk op de rug van de mantawalvis. Toen kreeg ik de mantawalvis pas echt goed in het vizier en ik herkende het rasterpatroon. Het was een van de gigantische netten die ik in de centrale bedrijfsgrot had gezien. De netten waren vastgemaakt aan de rugvinnen en gaven houvast voor de handen en voeten van de diamanthaaien. Maar dat betekende dat de nietige wezens die ik had gezien collega-diamanthaaien moesten zijn.

Het prachtige, majestueuze zeemonster dat ik beneden mij zag drijven was groter dan het ruimteschip dat me naar Oceana had gebracht.

There is a great rent in the plaster where her portrait hung. You hurl denials at the ceiling while I smile at your defiance. Suddenly becalmed, riddled with tears, you take in the ruin of the parlor, where she held pride of place. You sink to your knees and gather the fragments of frame to you. The task is hopeless, but you set to it with desperate abandon.

Next, you harvest the myriad shards, arranging them in a mockery of glass pane within the ruins of the frame. With lacerated fingertips, you puzzle the shreds of the portrait together, but your blood smears across the oil paint.

The irony delights me.

“You shouldn’t have bothered with the glass,” I whisper.

Or would have, if I could.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…” Father Zio sighed. “It’s been thirteen years since my last IRL confession.”

Behind the lattice, Bishop Otis shifted in his seat.

“But—” the Bishop said. He paused before continuing: “And how long has it been since your last online confession?”

“A week, Father. But it’s not the same. It’s not.”

“Go on, my son.”

“I have harbored unkind thoughts at times, about members of my flock. I have had lustful thoughts at times.” Father Zio smiled quietly to himself. Mr. Dooley’s dramatic antics of feigned ecstasy at every Mass were enough to bring unkind thoughts to the holiest of minds, never mind his own flawed, rehabilitated soul. As for Mrs. Ocura’s cleavage… Let’s just say some things were worth a couple of Hail-Mary’s.

“Go on, my son.”

The Bishop’s prompt made him realize he was marking time with these minor sins, postponing the inevitable, while he knew exactly what he should be confessing instead. Father Zio believed in confession, needed the cleansing of his soul. But it was unfortunate, to say the least, that Bishop Otis was the one taking it. No matter. No sense delaying any longer.

“I have been prideful. I have defied the wishes of the Holy Church.” There. That would put an end to any doubt Bishop Otis might still have had. “I have defied… you, Father.”

From behind the lattice came the sound of indrawn breath, followed by a long silence. Then:

“How so, my son?”

Dankzij Floris van ITeach bleek het mogelijk in bijzonder korte tijd een daadwerkelijke vertaling te krijgen op het moeilijke vlak van Vertalen en ICT. Deze vertaling diende van uitzonderlijke kwaliteit te zijn vanwege het internationaal beschikbaar stellen van ons product.

Floris heeft ervoor gezorgd dat we in no-time en met een gerust hart ons product beschikbaar kunnen stellen voor onze internationale gebruikers.

Stefan de Jonge, MindsUnlimited

Thanks to ITeach translator Floris, it turned out to be possible to obtain an actual translation on very short notice in the difficult domain of ICT. This translation needed to be of exceptional quality because of the international launch of our product.

Floris made a confident launch of our our product possible for our international user base, in a very short time.

Stefan de Jonge, MindsUnlimited

Vertaler Floris Kleijne was op zeer korte termijn beschikbaar en in staat om de benodigde vertaling binnen 24 uur op te leveren. De Engelse brontekst, een combinatie van wervende, commerciële, technische en wetenschappelijke tekstfragmenten, werd omgezet naar natuurlijk, goed lopend Nederlands dat direct bruikbaar was in ons investeringsvoorstel.

dr Rens Vandeberg, programmadirecteur NanoLabNL

In my dream, for the thousandth time, the house looms over me. Like an out-of-body experience, I see myself move reluctantly toward it. I see my hand reaching for the screen door, hesitating when I notice the dented frame, the torn mesh. I see the muddy footmark next to the doorknob, the shattered doorframe, and I see my upper body jerk as my heart misses a beat. Then, with no sense of how I got there, I am in the kitchen.

Two chairs are toppled over. A shattered milk bottle has made a lake of white and glass under the open refrigerator door; steaming hot water in the sink; soap suds blow in the draft from the open back door. Splashes of red. Deep red. Suddenly, the smell of blood assails me.

In reality, I dialed 911. The dream doesn’t allow for outside help.

Something splashes up above. Running up the stairs, impossibly slow, icily cold, as if wading uphill through four feet of snow. The smell growing stronger. Thick, sweet, metallic. But ever so faintly, like a false note heard in the distance, that perfume.

As he got up and grabbed his sheathed sword Tomaz was laughing. He seemed off guard and had his back to me. I jumped off the haystack, one hand around my scabbard, the other on my hilt, unsheathing the blade as I landed. This time, at last, I almost beat Tomaz to the draw. But he wasn’t Swordmaster of the Keep for nothing.

With incredible speed and dexterity, he dodged without looking around, correctly predicting the direction of my attack, and drew his own sword in time to parry my second attack. Locking my blade under his for a second, he looked me in the eyes and grinned.

“Not bad, young Master, not bad at all!”

I flicked my wrist, freeing my blade, and our exercise resumed under Father’s approving eye. After another hour, Tomaz’ greater experience and endurance began to tell. I signaled end-of-training and withdrew to one of the embrasures in the curtain wall to watch Tomaz work with the guard, demonstrating some techniques for fending off multiple attackers at once.

Then the breakpoint came, and nothing was ever the same again.

When Flight Control assigned us utility privileges, I don’t think they expected me to brew espresso in the centrifugal head. But the weight of the espresso machine was well within the parameters they’d set, as was my use of a couple of ounces of fresh water and a fraction of the ship’s power supply each day, so there was nothing, really, they could say or do about it. Privileges are privileges, and if the purpose was to give both of us something to keep us happy, it worked for me. My morning espresso ritual kept me sane. I looked forward to it every day.

Richard, however, wasn’t quite as tolerant as Flight Control.

This is how fast it can happen, I thought randomly in that one timeless, frozen instant. I felt every sensation being imprinted on my memory: the smell of exhaust and garbage and hot dogs, the noises of traffic and shopping, Sarah’s stiff, shocked form squeezed against me, the sunlight blurred by my cheap shades. I wanted to hug Sarah and avert her eyes, or reach out to the tramp and pull him back, or run away. But of course, there was no time, so I just looked on.

The tramp recovered his balance halfway into the first lane. He straightened and turned around, looking at me, but made no move to get back to safety. He just stood there, shouting a foreign word – or maybe an unusual name – at the top of his lungs, cursing. He didn’t move.

And just before the Buick snapped his right leg, threw him into the fragmenting windshield and over the roof until he crashed to the asphalt like an empty suit; seconds before the car behind the Buick bumped over his inert body and stopped; minutes before the paramedics rolled his bleeding body into the ambulance and I dragged Sarah to the back doors and got in to ride with him to the Emergency Room; before the waiting room, and the blood-splattered grave-looking surgeon, and the tears and the closeness and all that followed, the tramp stood in the right lane and looked me in the eyes, and I understood, and I saw that he understood as well.

It was a terrible price to pay.

The giant undulating diamond shape of the manta whale drifted slowly into my field of vision. Its body was shaped like a zeppelin, with two equilateral triangular wings extending to either side that it used to propel itself. Its tail end supported two whale-like flukes that served to steer as far as I could tell, and it had two rows of long low fins on its back that I couldn’t begin to guess the purpose of.

There was some kind of shifting grid pattern etched onto its back, and tiny creatures crawled chaotically along this grid as the manta whale made its slow way against the trench current.

It was only when the manta whale swam under the mating couple I had spotted that I realized the sheer size of the creature. The two whale-sized creatures fitted easily onto the manta whale’s back. Then the manta whale came into proper focus and I recognized the grid pattern. It was one of the giant nets I had seen in the central company cave. The nets were attached to the dorsal fins and provided hand- and footholds for the diamond sharks. But that meant that the tiny creatures I’d seen were fellow diamond sharks.

The beautiful, majestic sea monster I saw floating beneath me was larger than the space ship that had brought me to Oceana.

Toby walked to where he’d pinned his Big Chart against the wall and slid his new Trophy from his overall. He was right: it was an important piece. He laughed aloud when he saw where it went: it was a thigh! He’d carried a thigh in his thigh! It was a bit smaller than his own thigh though; it didn’t come all the way down to his knee.

Holding the flashlight closer, he could just make out the name on the Big Chart. ‘F-E-M-U-R’ he read, but it wasn’t like any other word he knew, so it would be hard to remember.

As carefully as he could, he put the thigh with the other Trophies, right where it belonged. Stepping back, he shone his flashlight over the whole collection. His favorite part, the skull, was right at his feet.

Little Donny was on the floor near the fast food pile, wrapped in some kind of blanket, between two of the… Goblins, she admitted to herself. They had to be Goblins. They were facing away from her, and seemed to be in a heated discussion with another Goblin, larger than the rest, wearing more and better clothing, as well as a weird kind of crown.

A faint childhood memory surfaced, of a teenage girl in some movie mumbling, “You’re him, aren’t you? The Goblin King.”

Fury rose in her. Ignoring everything else, she strode towards the three Goblins surrounding her baby. She’d crossed half the distance when the creature she’d dubbed the Goblin King noticed her. He silenced the two others with a gesture. They turned around and watched her approach.

A few feet away, she stopped. Ignoring the other two, she faced the King. Half-remembered ritual words bubbled from her lips.

“Give me the child! Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered…”

Startling her, the King spoke. His voice rattled and squeaked.

“Oh, rubbish! Don’t come to me with your movie nonsense!”