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To Get and to Give
Chesarai lay on her bed, sweat making her skin shine and dampening her clothes. She was still breathing but it was irregular and fitful. Most families in the village had lost someone to the sickness that had struck their community little over a week ago. As Hesh looked on her mother she knew it wouldn’t…
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Acceptance and Defiance
It was cold. The wind whipped through the air, tugging at Djai’s clothes and snapping his hair back and forth. He could smell salt and decaying plants, leading him to suspect that he was close to the sea. The ground all around him was sandy but he stood in a low depression preventing him from…
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Playing to the Pantheon
The stone halls of the Divine Spire were silent. The bright sunlight outside filtered through glass windows, passed through hanging strips of thin, colored fabric, and then finally reached Torek on the floor below. He was supposed to be playing his little harp but the music never seemed right to him, never sounded good enough…
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Some Place, Some Time, For Us
There was something unsettling about the infrequent lights that were still on in the long hallway creating sporadic pools of light, separating the wider swaths of darkness. Within each pool of light stood solid metal doors. No windows looked in on any of the rooms beyond the hallway. The only hint of what occurred within…
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Leaving in the Rain
There was a whole lifetime of regret staring Pat in the face. Behind him was everything that had ever brought him really joy. Yet he couldn’t turn away, couldn’t turn back. For as long as he could remember he’d felt the tug at his soul to keep on moving, never staying in any one place…
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Spending Time
The year was 2021 and the number of down and out folks and problems in the world was all anybody ever seemed capable of talking about. Everybody, that is, except for Huw Gittins. That scrappy twig of a man didn’t care whether it was raining or shining, whether he was winning or losing. He was…
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The Offer
There was a stillness to the house that people instinctively recognize yet can never fully define. Although the stillness held no threat, it was nonetheless a stillness that made most people uneasy. It was the stillness of a place where someone was about to die. Cadence was old. She was also sick and weary but…
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Visiting Hours
The second hand on the clock sliced the crawling time in silent ticks. It was odd to see the motion without hearing anything. Most clocks with a second hand made at least some ticking sound. This clock was an exception. There were other sounds, of course. Muffled voices sometimes drifted in from outside the room,…
Bridge of Broken Glass
Stories from my mind that won't be quiet
