Some people, first hearing about the grand city of North Bearing, were surprised to be told that it had only one pier – privately owned, at that. Once they were told that North Bearing was completely and utterly land-locked, however,… Continue reading

Heaving gasps of steam and swaying over the snow, but in no danger of falling more than those few inches, and alive. Still alive, still moving, crawling towards the mouth of the cave. The angle of its mouth meant it… Continue reading

Her breath piled in white steam until a critical mass of it almost seemed to make the moon. Or maybe she had just been walking with her head down for much longer than she’d realized, and it had risen in… Continue reading

Her shadow stretched like a signal flare across the snow. The sun had set what she guessed to be half an hour ago, time kept by the numb pendulum swing of her trudging steps, but its light still echoed through… Continue reading

Some call it the logical conclusion of marriage. Some call it an abomination, but then, they’re probably the same sort of people who would have said that about the horseless carriage. Some try not to talk or think about it… Continue reading

Her mother might have been more horrified about the fact she was wasting food than the fact that food came from human veins. Twenty years since moss had started to grow on her mother’s gravestone, twenty three years since she… Continue reading

The soul spins in the chest like clay on a potter’s wheel. The warped sounds of its turning emerge as words and breath and spiral up into crooked thought. Time and the beating heart maintain its motion – tragedy briskly… Continue reading

The last and only thing she had asked was for him to plant the seed over her grave. Instead, he had tucked it in his pocket and taken the bus, ticket already booked before she’d breathed her last request, halfway… Continue reading

Children still played in the street. That seemed to be the only thing that hadn’t changed. The entire face of the neighbourhood had been torn away and rebuilt, maybe more than once. The optimistic patchwork of houses built with whatever… Continue reading