My story “The Beautiful Horizon” in The Purpose of Reality: Solar has been shortlisted for the 2022 Aurealis Awards in the Fantasy Short Story Category. Info about The Purpose of Reality collections below.
They’ve built a block of apartments
across the street, all the way along.
My neighbors over there had to vacate,
but I heard a little wailing
beneath the motors’ roar
when the night machines
ground their houses to gravel.
Previously on Blade Walker: the earth is inhabited by extraterrestrials, who are minding the planet after humans failed in their duty of care. Blade Walker (human) and Alícia (alien) are having coffee at one of the Café Économique franchises. The first episode is here.
It was all the usual at the Café:
an earthenware urn of tired umbrellas,
sprouting branches and plastic flowers,
tattered pigeons hoping for a snack;
at the other tables, Saurons sipping bluegas,
the odd Solarian, naturally luminous,
and sentient crustacea on a break
from breaking crockery.
Three irreconcilable pieces.
I’ve spent a lifetime being who I’m not,
yet my stigmata cannot be disguised—
nervous mannerisms, and
a dash of desperation in the eyes.
To be consumed by her freezing flame,
hot as dry ice, an unrenounceable
illiterate desire that drove
my past and drives my future.
All I see, all I hear, all I touch,
all around me is the realm of Jaci.
The midday insects buzzed in the gum trees,
and invisible heat refracted distant waterfowl.
With the scenery out of the way,
I approached a stranger seated
at the water’s edge.
“I’ve come to warn you.
The river’s flow is orthogonal
between its shores,
and its cloudy blue is beyond
all that is natural.
The clock in the kitchen ticks
inexorably, until the battery’s flat,
undirected, purposeless in time.
Causality suspends us
at the neck
of our hourglass.