FEATURED STORY
RECENT STORIES
STORIES BY TOPIC
NEWS
TRANSPORTER
Take me to a...
SEARCH
Enter any portion of the author name or story title:
For more options, try our:
SUBSCRIBE
Sign up for free daily sci-fi!
your email will be kept private
TIDBITS
Get a copy of Not Just Rockets and Robots: Daily Science Fiction Year One. 260 adventures into new worlds, fantastical and science fictional. Rocket Dragons Ignite: the anthology for year two, is also available!
SUBMIT
Publish your stories or art on Daily Science Fiction:
If you've already submitted a story, you may check its:
DAILY SCI-FI
Not just rockets & robots...
"Science Fiction" means—to us—everything found in the science fiction section of a bookstore, or at a science fiction convention, or amongst the winners of the Hugo awards given by the World Science Fiction Society. This includes the genres of science fiction (or sci-fi), fantasy, slipstream, alternative history, and even stories with lighter speculative elements. We hope you enjoy the broad range that SF has to offer.






My Uncle's Legacy

Krishan Coupland is a graduate from the University of East Anglia MA Creative Writing programme. He writes, makes games, runs a small press, and sometimes busks with a typewriter. He has won the Manchester Fiction Prize, and the Bare Fiction Prize. He is unduly preoccupied with service stations. His website is: krishancoupland.co.uk.

My uncle made butterflies for a living. Other custom creatures too, if the commission was high enough, but butterflies were his speciality. They would unfurl from their cocoons and shake out wet wings to reveal the most intricate patterns imaginable. A perfectly-rendered dollar bill print. Tube maps. Family photographs. Intricate leaves complete with veins.
He was an artist, but not everybody recognized him as such. Daily there were protests outside the lab. Frankenstein, they called him, as though he were crafting something monstrous rather than beautiful. The eco-radicals claimed he was playing god, meddling with nature. They called his work an abomination. And, eventually, they killed him.
It was a bomb that did it. Placed outside his house in the dead of night. It detonated when he opened his front door, and blew away the whole front half of the building. Until that moment nobody realized that my uncle had been taking his work home with him. From the shattered ruins a thousand butterflies arose, drifting away on the wind. Released from captivity, they spread like fire.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, December 31st, 2020


Author Comments

This story started with the image of a bomb going off... but giving rise to a cloud of butterflies rather than shrapnel and fire. It was an image that stuck with me for a while, but I could never find a home for it until I paired it with the idea of a brilliant scientist working on a secret project.

- Krishan Coupland
Become a Member!

We hope you're enjoying My Uncle's Legacy by Krishan Coupland.

Please support Daily Science Fiction by becoming a member.

Daily Science Fiction is not accepting memberships or donations at this time.

Rate This Story
Please click to rate this story from 1 (ho-hum) to 7 (excellent!):

Please don't read too much into these ratings. For many reasons, a superior story may not get a superior score.

4.7 Rocket Dragons Average
Share This Story
Join Mailing list
Please join our mailing list and receive free daily sci-fi (your email address will be kept 100% private):