It was a king tide morning on a
beach south of Rio when the very
first train came out of the sea.
Isabel saw it from a swing in the
playground, and she told the
teacher, but no-one believed her
till the train reached the freeway
and the eight am rush.
When it rains on the water moon, I sip my aqua vitae and watch the droplets trickle down the acrylic. Sometimes I wonder what the wood ducks are up to, or whether I should feed the cat, or whether anything exists at all beyond the plastic.
If not, the tins of salmon in the pantry must be for me.
Marginally more seriously, Charles Payseur of Quick Sip Reviews fame writes shortish reviews of speculative fiction short stories. They’re very handy for busy humans and water fowl, like the wood ducks and I, and he’s just done Fantasy Scroll Magazine Issue 11 including a review of my story The Water Moon.
Issue 2 of Shoreline of Infinity with my moderately apocalyptic sci fi piece Reliquaries is now in print.
‘Lighter than Claire’ has appeared in the summer (north of the equator) edition of the Colored Lens and is available at Amazon. It’s also freely available online. The story has various sources—a plate of pasta, ‘Mambo Italiano’ by Flabby and Carla Boni (playing while I was writing), Philip K. Dick’s “A Scanner Darkly,” and the evolution of the species, at least the way it works in my imagination.¹ Continue reading
‘Reliquaries’ has appeared in the second issue of Shoreline of Infinity, a new sf magazine from Scotland,¹ and it’s available at Amazon. It’s a great name for an sf mag, and they’re looking for inspiring stories with a vision of the future, whatever direction that might take. With ‘Reliquaries’ it’s pretty much a downhill ride.
I can’t identify any one source for this story, although it does borrow a broad concept from an earlier piece of mine. It also owes something to an unusual museum I once visited in the south of Chile. Continue reading
‘Soft Machines’ is a poemette that has appeared in The Stray Branch magazine. As well as poetry, each issue features diverse artwork and fiction with a dark theme.
From the Editor, Debbie Berk—This is the religious, political, pretty poetry free zone. Here the words bleed.
I originally started this blog for anyone who wanted to find out a little more about my fiction. However, as Simon Petrie pointed out in his preamble to Cynthia Mershark’s mysterious works, poetry is allowed to be inscrutable, so I’m not going to give any background to ‘Soft Machines.’
‘Beaches’ (flash fiction, 900 words) appeared in IF11 from Isotropic Fiction. The site has reviews, opinion pieces and background. Thanks to a dynamic publishing team possibly led by a stock broker, they’re producing some exciting stuff.
What is ‘Beaches’ about? Think of sand, surf, and summer fun. If you like.
I have written a little far-fetched material about organisms being created by the sea, as they are in the story.