“Fuck me man.” I kicked an empty, already dented miniature can of Pepsi.

“You know when we shrunk this damn city to save it I thought that it would happen by magic so one second it’s big and the next it’s small. I didn’t realize we were going to have to watch it shrink street by street, structure by structure.” I stepped around a very small pile of red tiles that matched the ones on the roof of t...

“The world will burn,” she said, staring lazily out the window. Gladys talked as if the apocalypse was boring to her. Which I guess in some sense it was. You live through enough of them and they start to feel routine. I, on the other hand, was still awed by the majesty of it all. My people inhabited the last age so I was still very new to this “the experiment didn’t work try again” concept.

Glady...

The room was bare, almost hospital like. I half expected a rack of old magazines to be sitting in the corner. When I turned though, it wasn’t. I don’t think the Consulate would allow something like that anyways. They were too obsessed with being pristine. So instead of reading I just sat and counted. I had gotten up to 230 when the door opened. Mame, my handler, came in with her usual non-expressi...

"Tell me!" My heart hurt like someone was trying to reach into my chest and pull it out. My breathing raced and I felt my face twist into something horrible.

He looked distraught. "I I I I don't know. I mean I do know. I did it because it was what felt safest."

I shook my head, "Tell me why you did this over ALL of the other things you could have done. ALL of the other courses of action." I gestu...

When you first let grief out you have to let it have full reign

And it /will/ try all the doors

Look in all the nooks and crannies

Unearth everything

It takes a long long time but it will eventually settle down

It’ll find a room it likes where the sun shines in in the afternoon

And there’s a small ficus by the window

It’ll nap there

Sometimes it’ll get up stretch and move around

But for it to find...

We trudged through the forest. I had been camping before but it had never been like this.

Well ok first of all I guess we were backpacking.

But beyond that I was gross. We hadn’t come across a bathing body of water in a number of days. The river we refilled our skins at Gawain deemed too fast moving to be safe.

My rough cut hair was greasy and I had dirt under my fingernails. The air was neithe...

The water crashed down, loudly colliding with the pool below it. A spray reached my already cold face.

“Fuck, we have to go in there?” I asked. I shifted on the horse we had picked up in Bath. I fully turned when Gawain didn’t respond and he just gave me a curt nod. Classic.

Alex coughed and spit on the ground. “That’s what I think of that.” He said.

My smile fought through on my tense face.

Gaw...

I keep mistiming picking up my mail.

I don’t think the mail gremlins would actually bite my fingers off but when they gnash their teeth it worries me.

They generally refill the mail around 3 pm each day, opening up the back door to the mailboxes for my apartment complex and shoving people’s mail in. And if you are unlucky enough, like I am, you are opening your mailbox from the other side and re...

The cart trundled down the path. As they got closer to the town, the forest gave way to fields where corn grew tall and swayed in the wind. Unfortunately, the closer they got to the town, the more the smell grew too.

The driver crinkled his nose as the stench rushed over the cart. The horse coughed but she also had allergies so who knows if it was the corn or the smell.

Horse and cart and driver...

“I don’t know what you want from me kid you can’t have this chain.”

“Mine!”

“Ow! Hey! Stop yanking it! I am ATTACHED to it!”...