Category: Fragments

I woke up on the floor of the tallest minaret in the citadel. Naked, fetal, confused, hugging my knees as if they were a friend I thought I’d lost. You found me there, staring out the window, looking up at the blue sky. And though you called my name, I did not want to answer….

I found myself walking in a wilderness where people had once lived. The road I was on, once proudly paved with cobblestones, was overgrown with weeds. It was raining lightly, just enough that I could smell the languid threat of lightning. At a place that seemed halfway between where I’d come from and where I…

From the window of the citadel, high above the trees, they could see the village below. There was the house they had lived in as a child. There was the chimney, a wisp of smoke idling out in the still of the springtime air. There was the roof they had climbed on as a child….

I found you naked in the citadel. You were sitting on the floor, hugging your knees, your back covered in scars from the leeches that had drained your spirit. I spoke in soft tones, saying what I thought was your name. But you did not even turn your head. So I stood there in the…

I was told to fear the darkness. I was never warned about the fog, but the fog is full of monsters waiting behind the wisps. The darkness has a name. It slips from beneath our feet and leaves us sliding down, into the abyss. The darkness tastes of anguish and smells of regret. We can…

Paper Jack had a secret: He lived on a piece of paper. You might have thought that was obvious from his name, but the truth is, his friends didn’t know. They thought his name was some sort of clever, hipster nickname. Like Two Fingers Tommy or Rick the Knife. Two Fingers Tommy didn’t really have…

“It might just seem like a pointless detail to you, but it’s a symbol, is what it is.” He leaned in close to me, so I could smell the garlic and cigarettes on his breath. “A symbol of who I am. A cog in the machine. But not just any cog, oh no. A rusty…

A day late, but not quite a dollar short: That was the story of his life, it seemed. Running behind but still somehow managing to eke out just enough to be considered a success. Or, at least, not a failure. He didn’t know how many times he’d been here before, sitting on the edge of…

There was a little girl who thought she’d challenge the world to change, to become the way she wanted it to be. She had grown tired of the angry way it had decided to march onward, day after day, and decided that it needed to learn to walk backwards, or at least sideways. She told…

On the fifth day at sea, I was set adrift in a rowboat and left to my own devices. In the boat, I had an oar, rations for three days, and an umbrella. There was no cell phone, which was just as well, because I was out of reach of any towers anyway. There was…