Justice sat beneath the Tree of Fire and contemplated existence. Each leaf upon the tree was living tissue paper, so thin and delicate that the merest concentration or focus of the sun’s rays was enough to conflagrate the wispy leaves, turning them to brilliant ash.
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When the moon fell to earth
When the moon fell to earth many were surprised to find it no bigger than a garbage truck. It rotated slowly over Manhattan, emitting a dull, ominous hum, occasionally pausing over Central Park, or Fifth Avenue, seemingly intent on touring the entire city.
Continue readingVillage Daughter: Cup of Tea
Isa Kudo stood in the medicine hut and fumed. She had been called before Otako, great Medium of the village, who spoke for Artart.
Continue readingSidd’arak Learns to Breathe
One morning, as he sunned himself on his favourite rock, occasionally snapping at the bugs as they crawled along the roots of the mangrove trees, Sidd’arak realized that he was terribly, deathly bored.
Continue readingVillage Daughter
The people of the village often called Isa ‘willful’ and she took this as a mark of pride. To be willful was to be strong. But the villagers also meant it as a small jab towards Isa’s father, it was their way of suggesting he had been lax with her discipline.
Continue readingThe Waves
“When I was a child,” the Knight began, “that is—I used to live on an island, by the shore. Whenever a storm came, the ocean would churn and crash against the seawall, and from my tower, I would stare out the window and watch the waves come in. I remember—there was this old man, a crabber, who lived alone by the sea. Whenever a storm rolled in, which was often, he would go out to greet it.
Continue readingAfterword
And so our tale comes to an end, in so far as stories ever end.
SECRETS was originally written for the 2012 National Novel Writing Month. It then spent several years in editing, and then several more years languishing on my hard drive. After the modest success of Nin the Seeker (available to read on this very site), I thought it was about time to release SECRETS into the wild.
Continue readingChapter Eighteen: Happily Ever After
The Knight felt sick; his stomach quaked, his head swam—he blinked and blinked again but could not clear his eyes. He leaned against the trunk of a naked tree and waited. His mind was a war, filled with seemingly innumerable thoughts and feelings, all conflicting.
Continue readingChapter Seventeen: Fire in the Heavens
He raised his lantern to the night air. The forest was empty—only the bare skeletons of branch and bough remained, naked to the wind. Dead leaves littered the ground, paper thin and limp. The color had gone out of them, victims of the damp.
Continue readingChapter Sixteen: Thunderhorse
He had taken the little red table from the summer house—the one with the folding legs—and had set it up by the shore. The lake was calm, so he placed the table in the shallows, working the legs into the sand for support. Here they sat, the water lapping at their feet, lilac petals drifting by their heels like tiny, fragile boats.
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Crosstown Gate 