Life was hard on the stairs leading into the pit. But the screams below were worse, and the light above was frightening, so he made do as best he could. He gathered water to drink when it fell and the… Continue reading

It had been easier, once, to just lie about having a wife. Better than trying to explain why he didn’t. Or ask why he should. More and more, the people around him seemed to just assume it, like a wife… Continue reading

Would it be better if he just stopped breathing? He tried sometimes, in the still of the night, but it was as hard as just choosing to stop should be. His head hummed, his vision swarmed with something like black… Continue reading

We made camp just over a thousand metres down. At least, according to the instruments, but I think Paul is the only one who believes those anymore. Just over halfway down, he announced as he polished all their already-gleaming glass… Continue reading

I am one of six children. None of us were born to the same mothers or abandoned by the same fathers, but we are family nonetheless. I am the oldest. The cottage was dusty and cold and empty when she… Continue reading

“So just…” “Just catch a few of them in the net, right? Then into the jar, and we’re out of here. Just that easy.” It looked like it might be, and that was what worried Piri. When he’d heard the… Continue reading

No one stood waiting on the platform to see him off. The rocket might have been the only pillar separating the grey concrete and sky. Once he removed it, there would be no coming back. No one stood waiting to… Continue reading

The man had wandered into the village two days before. None knew how he had survived the wilds to make it so far, or how he had found it at all, what with the profusion of flowers growing from where… Continue reading

The train passed by only at night, when those still awake were becoming desperate for sleep and those asleep were looking about the dark, lost halls of their strangest dreams. Only when the only business to go about on was… Continue reading

No one alive could say how long the city had been turning, or if it might be possible to stop it. Certainly there were those who had tried. Couldn’t it be as simple as descending to where the great, flat… Continue reading