Category Archive

They strapped a man to the ceiling today. I know him. His name is Wasari Ichimura. I tried to talk to him afterwards but he wasn’t interested, and I was too tired to give chase. Most days now, my muscles don’t stop shaking ’til past midnight. You’d think you’d get used to it. Even now, my last desk job 12 years distant, my frame swelled by 50 or so pounds, I still shake through the night. My wife thinks it’s funny. Thought it was funny. Now it just scares us both. Wasari is younger than me. I don’t think he …

I started talking out loud around 3, I think. It’s a sweltering day, but that’s no excuse. It’s more to do with the height, I think. The wind rushing in my ears and I couldn’t hear a damn thing I was thinking. What was I saying? Oh. I started saying things like this. “I really want a tuna sandwich, I don’t know if I can do this without a tuna sandwich, I think I really need one. perhaps I should call the vets and make an appointment for Barney the goldfish. I want a sandwich. The knife is digging into …

I’m working the deep 7 run again. Last time I was out here, must’ve been pre-schism. Before the split, and opinion divided the universe. -Blah blah. That’s what my mistress says, when I try to discuss politics. -All I can hear is blah blah. I suppose she reckons I don’t know more than anybody else, but maybe that’s not true anymore. I move in high places now. I deal with leaders of worlds. I see their colonies, their technologies, their lives, as part of the whole. I can still see the Empire, in the echoes, while all they see is …

I’m standing at the Way-station Hub. Everybody around me is dead. I’m holding the blue chipset in my hand and I’m willing it to work. Over my head the sky is swirling. It’s a purple vortex. I’m waiting for it all to end. Outside the Way-station the desert winds blow hard. There are scraggle-lined black creatures dancing in the sand-storms. They flit from shimmer to shade and I can never quite see them clearly. The Thing stomped here. The desert was leveled. Everybody died. The Way-station survived. And I, because I have the chipset, because I am what I am, …

The giant robot stalked the empty world, looking for its lost arm. It had fought in many wars, from the beginning to the end. In ancient Thrace it had brought down the gates of Thermopylae. In Samarkand it had crushed the Czar’s men underfoot. On the fields of the Somme it had walked the no-man’s land and razed the flags of the Third Reich. Towards the end had been the lasers. The large bombs; the A-bomb, and the B-bomb that followed it. Artillery that could shred its skin, and tanks that could push it over. Then there had been the …

This is a short story set to music with visuals. It’s called ‘The Tower’. The visuals are from Sports World and the Negishi Grandstand. The music is by ‘A Silver Mt. Zion’- ‘Stumble and Rise on some Awkward Morning.’ To comment or see a larger version, click more.