Vignettes
These are short, standalone fiction pieces.
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Troubles
Though I am an old man now, ‘The Troubles’ is still my life. Derry is where I was born, and Derry is where I will die. Derry has bled enough for a lifetime. When my granddaughter last visited, I took her for a stroll around the city. She’s a curious thing, that girl, and already Continue reading
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Sediment
The town slept in a valley beneath a twinkling sky. The mountains stood stalwart and still, and only a single gust of wind blew down their rocky slopes, carrying the invisible blanket to swathe the night in silence. The crickets did not chirp, the frogs did not croak, the birds did not sing; the earth Continue reading
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Phantasms on the Shore
The child watched them, wide-eyed, saying nothing. Just as Sirris had said, they began to rise from the lake: translucent, amorphous creatures, as if life had been granted to the mist which gathered upon its surface on gray mornings. One by one, they drifted into the night sky, carried forth by some unseen, ordered wind Continue reading
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A Mother’s Love
She woke in a familiar stupor. The blankets which swaddled her body seemed also to envelop her mind in warmth, drawing her back to sleep, but though she was too tired to remember where she was, enough of her remained alert to sense an incongruity between her memory and the space she sensed beyond her Continue reading
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A Letter to Fritz
How long have I waited out here in the cold? How much longer must I endure the unseeing stares of my countrymen; the sneering of the Verisiennes? I am invisible and hated—a bum begging for change and an enemy who has received his due abasement. Do they not know that I want to vanish? Do Continue reading
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Ghosts and Glass
Ever since I was young, I have been told I possess a photographic memory. True enough, I do have an affinity toward remembering certain information—the names of animals, the definitions of words, the molar mass of common elements—but by no means does this imply I remember my experiences well. Here, my memory is frustrating unreliable. Continue reading
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Through My Shadow
Beneath a veil of golden light, the crowd swayed. The exchange of smiles and conversation was punctuated arrhythmically by the chime of laughter and wine glasses. It was unintelligible. Their bodies blurred together like the shadows of shifting leaves, and whatever words they shared were drowned amidst the simultaneous utterances of a dozen others. It Continue reading