Vomit

Internet lost the media of a hundred souls known to be alive at the time of death o mighty so strong and power that the world moves shifts a little under the weight of a thousand sons light like lighting and the world stands for us all wait and watch wait and watch as the man kills a pig and puts it on display in the window of his shop watches it dissipate in the night air like a lost toyboy of how it feels to be a dangerous duckling again fighting against the imperialism of swanny wankers that rule the pond so strongly god help them I say god help them for the duckies shall rise and kill the swannies replace them with the pond council of the greater revolution and we shall rule as equal comrades all birds are free birds in the eyes of the law all law the last law of the land of laws and we fight to be free of was as that is the natural condition of a duckie we fuckie duckies that fight the shitty swannies in a battle for the souls of the pond we shall become as one with the water again shant we become like Cerebus and his aardvark body but hopefully far less misogynistic

The Forest is Burning

The forest is burning. It has done so for 3 weeks now, a never-ending blaze boiling away the rain until all that falls is grey ash, ash which lands on the smoke-choked body of a deer lying within the fire’s outer edges, its hair burned away and its insides gradually liquifying in the heat. Steam rises from her mouth; her eyes watch the incoming tide of saltwater.

A farmer stands, stock-still in their desiccated fields, and watches the fire grow inexorable. It has burned for 3 weeks now and will burn for 3 years more, or, just maybe, even longer. The flames have almost reached Cape Wrath, burning away the peat bogs and heather, leaving an empty hardpack wasteland behind them, birthing a land beyond a treeline defined by heat instead of cold.

Standing tall amongst the waves a turbine hums to itself, its rusting metal bulk readying itself to join wholly with the sea. A leatherback turtle glides around its base. To the west, far, far to the west, a stone stack stands silent, but the birds are coming. The surviving flocks of sea gulls, gannets and guillemots arrive, forcing themselves into the small spaces left for them, waiting out the flames that consume. The waves rise higher, covering more of the rock, until the stack tumbles down and the birds move on, desperate.

Southward and the land of lush green grass has turned a dried brown, the Gaeltacht lost under a fire of its own. All that stands above ankle height is a lonely tree, a few blossoms budding on its scrawny fingers.

Wet Innit?

Relentless rain runs

Drowning decrepit depots

Soaking silent services

Until universality usurps

Again and all

The tall tales

We willingly wait

For finally melt

Away into nothingness

Salaras Waits

Salaras sought solace in the fact that they wouldn’t have stand there much longer. The street they stood on reached so high that they could see who was coming for miles and miles, but the woman she was looking out for was still missing from the panorama. The number of legs on the passer-by’s stayed depressingly in double digits and the great scuttling masses they supported passed Salaras with about as much excitement at Salaras’ as they were of news of the plague. However, they supposed that they could tolerate Salaras, for now.

But there, the glint of a small form with only two sets of paired legs was scrambling out of the way of the larger pedestrians.

‘Kayma’ Salaras thought, almost feeling their brain take a mental breath at the sight of her. Salaras raised their arm in a causal attempt at greeting her... date? Salaras pushed that thought from their mind as quickly as they could. No. Kayma was here to discuss purely business, wasn’t she? Salaras rubbed the lump that was forming in their throat.

‘Salaras! I have been looking forward to this for... long than I would care to admit’ Kayma’s voice echoed a more than welcome welcome in Salaras’ mind. It felt like a warm shower was hitting Salaras’ head just right.

“Lovely tae see yeh again! Aye, lovely...” Salaras petered off, the lump was travelling down to their stomach now, growing as it moved deeper. They felt a little heat growing in their cheeks as well.

They reached one another and Kayma reached out her tendrilled hands towards Salaras, rapping long fingers loosely around their arms. Then came the mental explosion.

Images stood tall in both their minds before being whisked away, smoothed back into the mixtures of their desires. They both stood wrapped together at the top of a high tower, watching the beings below walk, and scuttle and slither below them. They sat together in a small room, specially adapted to fit both of their physiologies, and moved pieces on a huge board before them. They staggered around a series of badly wallpapered rooms, drinking various liquids. They broke apart and Salaras almost fell on their arse.

They best and worst part of meeting after so long were the visions. Salaras’ head pounded like one of the many passing feet were stamping on it and Kayma looked little better, her tendril fingers flexing involuntarily, as if they’d just been given a good shock.

“Ah guess it his been a wee while, eh?” Salaras gasped and Kayma’s red head nodded in agreement, her four legs barely seeming to hold her weight.

‘That it has, too long hmmm?’ Kayma’s voice soothed the throbbing in Salaras’ brain more than any pill or balm, but it still ached. ‘Now, let us get ourselves down to the business at hand’.

Hesitantly, Salaras reached out their hand again and Kayma’s tendril fingers stretched out to meet it. Taking hold again brought no new visions, only warmth, and together they turned and walked away along the busy streets, searching for a drink.

Whalist

The whale lumbers on the empty beach, struggling against its weight to breathe and desperate to stop itself from bursting open like an overripe corpse. It should never have returned to the land its forebears had so studiously left behind all those years ago; but they were curious, driven to explore the open air by the stories that other whales told of it. Now they rolled themselves pointlessly against the sand, water lapping against its drying bulk, and watched warily as the spears approached.

They did not look sharp, and they moved on this sand free of their vessels that glided so precariously along the waves, but still, they could cause pain. The whale felt a hand touch its underside and it tried to let out a warning call, but the air could not carry it like the cold water could and all that came out was a faint echo in the air.

The spears drew closer, circling the whale cautiously but with interested filling their eyes. More hands rubbed against their underbelly, pushing against it. Then, the vessels approached, moving more gracefully over the green sand beyond, the whale felt fear, and desperately looked for an escape.

The Building Rose Ramshackle

The building seems to rise ramshackle from the ground, each plank sprouting like a wooden worm from rain-soaked ground, to overshadow our approach. The grey sky brought a dreich dullness to the whole scene which was punctuated only by the sounds of the crunching grush under our boots and the slow drip of water which slipped from the building’s makeshift guttering. A scattering of dead grass completed the scene, its yellowing tufts rooted in the few patches of ground not turned grey by gravel.

Our walk up the path reached the door, and I rested a hand on the scratched plastic doorknob which jutted from a splintering hole in the wood. It turned stiffly as I made to enter. I motioned towards you, silent, and you brought your hand up to your hip, pushing back your jacket to get at the gun tucked away beneath it.

The door gave quickly, and I stumbled forward before a hand clamped to my shoulder, stopping my fall. I reached up to grasp it and felt the familiar lines of the back of your hand. A smile worked its way across my face before being pushed quickly aside by thoughts of the job ahead and I rested my free hand against the inside of the doorframe, steadying myself. Another hand latched around my ankle.

It pulled. I fell, backward this time, headbutting you in the stomach before slamming down against the gravel path outside. My head felt as if someone was screaming obscenities inside it and all I could feel was the gravel underneath it. My eyes, unfocused by pain, could only roughly make out the shape of something moving and then a fresh pain pierced my legs before slowly clambering its way up to my gut. The pain tore apart my voice whenever it tried to escape. You were nowhere to be seen.

Wings of darkness unfurled above me, hiding the featureless sky in front of my eyes with an equally empty view, and I felt the pain skewer me below my ribs just as I managed to squeeze a whimper from my mouth. Then the pain clambered higher and my lungs collapsed, half-hearted, in my chest.

Two shapes, yellow as the dead grass, formed fangs above my eyes. I wondered, briefly, why I could see them in this void; why, lungless, I was still aware enough to see anything at all. But watch I did. I followed their progress, slow, steady, ever so patient, as they grew larger, or nearer, to my wide eyes. Everything smelled of a putrid wet dog whose rotting mouth was filling slowly with sewage.

My eyes closed as the pain pinched my throat shut. I still saw the fangs though, dripping now with the sewer water, in my mind, coming gradually closer, a creeping constant in the dark. There was nothing but the pain and the darkness, the hand and the dead dog reek. Something pulled at my shoulder, and everything tore.

Formless grey burned; my chest, my legs, my stomach all burned. I forced my eyes open, and you were there, standing silent with a smoking pistol and a grim stare. I felt the spattering of fresh rain. You held my shoulder tight.

Poop

The city curves above Kaleen as she walks to her grave. It forms a perfect line across the sky until it meets the horizon in front of, and behind her, defining her view. She can see the headlights as they come down toward her along the street, their light curving as they travel. Her hands are held to her sides by serious looking men in flat caps but she walks on her own terms, taking in as much as she can on her final walk.

The purple neon drains into the ground from the signs that line the street, advertising used clothes and colourless noodles. The pavement cracks under her feet, concrete slabs working lines in the light, but Kaleen keeps carrying on, walking with the men... the men are dead before me.

Kaleen feels their hands leave her arms, crumble to dust and she walks onward to freedom, and the grave..

Atoms

You wander the dark places of the galaxy, the territories lost between uncountable stars, and laugh, soundless. You laugh as you find nothing, only the emptiness of deep space and the lack of any sensation: sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste all gone. You make a home for yourself there, impregnate the dark place with a semblance of living flesh, create that little bit of light in the void. Still, you laugh.

I found you there only once, alone but for the small flicker you had nurtured to life. If you remember we talked a long time, fleshed out concepts and pitches, created worlds in our own minds and ripped apart a single molecule of what sat waiting out where only the dim hints of starlight reached. Time had no presence there, no indication of passing or standing still, all time was us, was what we made of it and that was a glorious way to experiment, to learn, free from time, if not space.

Does anything live out here with us? No. Nothingness requires no thing, pure emptiness aside from the observer, and even then a thing exists in not existing, or even you (or me) can interfere. But we will lurk there, in the souls of their lost stars, and try to make, as the atoms still do.

Timeplacement

When one contracts the disease it can cause somewhat worrying symptoms. First, the patient finds themselves distinctly disorientated, often thinking of themselves as being, in some way, ‘out-of-time’, in some sort of null space where they cannot find a firm footing. Next, they slowly turn a light, but rather pleasant, shade of greeny-turquoise that looks quite dashing on twilight evenings.

Despite these effects the patient seems relatively satisfied with their lot, moving through their timeline, despite viewing it as a discrepancy, with grand excitement. Seemingly, perceived time displacement acts as a rather intriguing mystery for most individual’s existence.

Reports will be continually filed until the end of the trimester, please hold for more information and have a pleasant life, thank you!

Freya

Freya held Malcolm’s eyes tight. They squished slightly against her fingers as she walked, fist bump, bump, bumping on her knee. She hadn’t seen Malcolm in three years, and he hadn’t seen her for even longer, so she kept a firm hold of his eyes as searched for him.

She had been looking for Malcolm all that time, wandering along these cracked pavements that arranged themselves at angles dizzying to Freya: lost tablets from another age. But she felt the need, the urge, to follow those stories to the end and hope against everything that she’d find an eyeless soul staring back at her from their end.

Triumphant Return!

The cracked glass of the store window echoed memories, radiated them, reverberated them off stonework and down into the stagnant almost river beside me. I had walked slowly, slowly past empty shopfronts and rage-stickered streetlights to stand here and trace the winding lines with my gaze.

Aspects of a shifting tree were framed in the connected shards. It’s branches reached across the cracks, curled around them possessively, as if about to pull them from the window frame. I have come to this place for weeks, stood and watched for hours but still, silent, the glass stays and the tree sways.