Fantasy
Yep, you guessed it. Fantasy has occupied the human mind from time immemorial. Not all of it will fit into neat little cubby holes, no matter how many we define. Here's what didn't fit elsewhere.
Yes, it was an obsession. I can date its inception quite precisely: the evening of 15th May 2010, when my latest work was premiered by the Quadrivium Ensemble to critical incomprehension. This soon became, in the prose of those stunted creatures, bile. When even Mario Zucotta, the ensemble's leader, came to me and suggested certain changes to make the work more accessible, I realized that what I was doing was beyond even the most advanced musical intelligences. The only person who could appreciate my work was me. But the flowering of genius requires an audience outside itself. So, I withdrew.
That was when I became obsessed with the Voynich Manuscript. I'd been interested in it ever since I learned of this 16th-century text, composed in a script no one understood, interspersed with obscure drawings and diagrams. The author was unknown and, despite the attentions of the greatest cryptographers in history, its meaning had never been deciphered.
Akorsa lurked beyond the reach of the firelight, where darkness swallowed the bold pounding of the villagers' drums. Like the drunken young men who gorged themselves on hunks of meat torn from the harvest festival's spitted lamb, Akorsa watched the unwed women dancing around the bonfire, searching for one who would satisfy the hunger throbbing inside her. But the women passed in a blur, blond hair flaming into red, tanned skin fading to pale, curved hips thinning until svelte--all the same to Akorsa. After a thousand years of roaming the earth, she had tasted every kind of song these women had to offer.
A lifetime ago, villagers like these would have welcomed her to their celebration and extolled her name: Akorsa, immortal oracle to Inamis, goddess of the moon and femininity. Akorsa would have shared the songs of Inamis and filled the people with new knowledge, and they in turn would have offered Akorsa her fill of food and drink and shelter for the night. But in those days of old, the people grew greedy for more than they should know, and the oracles began demanding exorbitant recompense for such songs.
"And that will make her love me?"
Illness skulked about the village, hiding in the alley fish-rot and grasping at coats in the fog. The sea misted up and smothered the houses, as if already holding the island in its embrace was not enough.
People coughed and hacked and died in their sleep. My father found one elder staring out to the dawn from his bed, one hand reaching toward the window. They buried him and all the rest under the perimeter of church bells, ringing out the chill.
Ariana's heartbeat echoed the last word of the spell: dub-dub. The tugging began, as though invisible gremlins had grabbed her arm. Yara's shriek made Ariana swivel her head. Yara was being pulled in the opposite direction.
Cloth ripped as the single dress with two necks was tugged with the girls. Her pulse grew louder.
"There are no railways on Ceftanaloña," Isabella the tour guide insisted, cutting the conversation dead.
Rob wondered why her sullen monotone had suddenly erupted into vehemence. "This area is for Transport Museum staff only." She motioned him away from the workshop full of agricultural machinery, a lorry chassis, half-complete cars, even a ship's propeller. A mechanic looked up from the engine he was working on. She pointed to a sign saying "No visitors beyond this point" in English, Spanish, and local dialect.
When the shaman was done tying his ribbon around the middle of our pig, my father stood and watched the old man doddering off down the lane for a long time. A few months ago I would have expected my father, the notary of our little town, to have berated the old man, but now I was not surprised when he did no such thing. He only leaned on the slats of our fence, pensively watching the shaman depart, uttering not one word: We could neither feed nor water the pig now until the shaman was done with whatever spell it was he had been casting these last few weeks.
"I didn't like the way he tipped his hat to me," my father muttered as he strode past me and back to the house. "That's all." I watched him go into the house, knowing he would be ascending the stairs one last time, before he left for his office, to see to mother.
In the beginning of the world, the gods considered all those things which did not have their own gods, to decide who would have responsibility and rulership.
"I will rule all flowers that are sky-blue in colour," said the Sky-Father.
"I really hate my job." Arlen stretched his arms and tried to loosen his stiff neck.
"That's nice. I hate my stinking job too." Every "s" the guard spoke came out as a hiss.
As far as cloaks went, Rall had to admit that Verenisse's were good ones. She had fooled him more than once, and he expected her to walk abroad under guises. One time she'd crept up to him as a barely adolescent boy, all shaggy dark hair and bright curious eyes, and he'd talked with the child for half an hour before realizing that it was her. Verenisse had the talent of bending her voice and her words and her manner to the role she took on. Cloaks tricked the eyes, but there was more to concealment than what people could see or could not see.
And that was the problem right there in a spoonful of words: a cloak did nothing to change a user's smell, or taste. Neither did practice in altering one's voice or stance. She was human, and anything that was not human would be able to smell that, and the Rat Folk in particular had very keen noses. "Don't go," he said. "Please. I'm afraid."
Emmett saw a small head hovering where darkness met sunlight filtering through leaves, caught glimpses of pale hands and feet shifting in shadow. He thought these hints of feminine body were simply light itself, figments of his own desires for a world outside of woodsheds and sanding and the lathe. But as he pushed further down the woodland path, further from his father's demands to pound more pine pegs for legs, varnish maple tabletops stretching vast as frozen lakes, a whole girl appeared in front of him, barefoot and wearing a wooden dress.
He blinked, blinked again, and, as the wind changed, saw a girl wearing a dress of the woods itself. When she moved towards him the woods moved with her, yet she was more girl than wood.
Now that they have come for me, banging on the trapdoor above us, there are many things I want to tell you, Son.
"Miss Linderman," said the voice--it sounded like the principal's secretary--"there's been an accident. Two of our students were killed driving home from a haunted house. Cathy Jackson and Melinda Cranford."
Miss Linderman held the phone tight in the dark room. On the dresser, her clock's red letters glowed 2:59. "If you think you'll need a substitute, I can arrange one for you."
Fantasy
Yep, you guessed it. Fantasy has occupied the human mind from time immemorial. Not all of it will fit into neat little cubby holes, no matter how many we define. Here's what didn't fit elsewhere.
by Rigel Ailur
Sisters, they sat across the table from each other. Sendell, younger, meticulous, wise and quietly implacable. Danzor, instinctive, impetuous and charismatic. Lost concentration meant death, the victor winning the queendom of Azencer—and the man.
Their hands on the square table top, they watched a knife hover in mid air equidistant between them. Inseparable from childhood, they'd long since become bitter enemies. Their telekinesis focused on the gleaming blade, each woman trying to thrust it into the other. Neither had suggested a non-lethal contest. Neither would have accepted.
Published on Sep 16, 2010
by Edoardo Albert
Published on Jan 17, 2011
by Barbara A. Barnett
Published on Jan 14, 2011
by David G. Blake
Published on Mar 8, 2011
by Dan Campbell
Published on Oct 4, 2011
by T D Carroll
“Just how old are you, Mrs. O’Malley?”
May gave Jason a hard look because it was the only kind she had. He was a good kid for all that he died his hair blonde and punched metal through his skin. Most kids that made it out to college didn’t come back for summer break, let alone winter break. They didn’t come back at all. May strongly suspected that Jason loved the mountain and was planning on wasting his life being the town doctor. That meant that he needed a lot of straightening out.
Published on Nov 15, 2010
by Marie Croke
On the first day of building her Sand-child, Abi took grains from the Jurida Desert, breathing joy into their tiny souls. On the second day of building her Sand-child, Abi found grains at the base of the Nieradka Range, breathing anger. On the third day, Abi drained silt from the bottom of the Enmdi River, breathing love.
And so it went, with breaths for kindness and shame, for calmness and hate, for all that which made a person a person, until Abi stood back to admire her child. Perfection, he was not, but to her he was beautiful. He would be the happiest child of the village. Contented with the creation of long hard months of work, Abi called her husband to see their Sand-child.
Published on Nov 25, 2011
by Erin M. Hartshorn
Published on Dec 7, 2010
by Colin Harvey
Published on Dec 23, 2011
by S.J. Hirons
Published on Feb 15, 2011
by James Hutchings
Published on Jun 30, 2011
by Wakefield Mahon
Published on Sep 1, 2011
by Patricia Russo
Published on May 27, 2011
by Angela Rydell
Published on Aug 4, 2011
by Leah Thomas
Published on Apr 12, 2011
by James Van Pelt
Published on Jan 13, 2011
