K.A. Ashcomb's Blog, page 39

Short Story: Guardian of Nothing

She stumped her cigarette to a tree she was leaning against. Watching out to the sea had become a tiresome task. She should never have taken it upon her. But the sea demanded that someone stood there, not forgetting the treacherous waters always in motion. Beyond it, the lands and people had disappeared. She often enough wondered what it would be like to be the last living human. Would it liberate her, or would she miss her cigarettes and wool clothes? But the ridiculous thoughts would be there ...

Short Story: Deserter

The sun shines through the spring leaves, and for a moment, I float. Gravity loses its meaning, and I’m as weightless as the light. Don’t ask me if that is in accordance with the laws of physics. For now, I chose to ignore any formulas I’m meant to follow. You might wonder how I have gotten to this point where I render the strings pulling me down and let my mind wander free. I can’t exactly tell you. All I know is that I have been running ever since I can remember. What was before is gone, and a...

Short Story: The Side View

As soon as I found out time is not what they show us it to be, I stopped surging through life as if I had to be somewhere. Occasionally the old nature fights back, and I am sure it highjacks my mind to convince me that running is the only way to exist. So I rebel. I lay very still and see as the light plays a game of tag with the dark bits on the ceiling. Yet, like the future, present, and past, the game is a conundrum, falling to its maddening logic, which has nothing to do with seeing the worl...

Short Story: Gunned Down

I think I’m losing my grip on reality. I lay on the floor; my cheek pressed hard against the wood. The thin cheap carpet softens nothing. I follow the path to the kitchen riddled with dirt, dirt from my cat’s litter box. I can’t be bothered by it. When I’m like the normal people, standing up like this ape body has morphed to be, I dance around the cat litter, trying to wipe it clean after it has stuck on my socks. But now, all I hear are the sirens and the howling cries thousands of miles away. ...

Short Story: Invisible

Her silence took over the entire room. It was the uncontrollable silence, where voice is completely lost in need of nonexistence. And the world where she was living in a big, booming, self-declaring voice was the only way to claim importance. So her silence was like a rebellion against all. But none saw it. None understood it as a rebellion, as when you think revolt it is aggression passive or the active kind in a visible form; not fading away. Her method was foolish, harmful, and in a way only ...

Mechanics of the Past Is Live!

My third book is finally out. It has been a long road to get it published under the weirdness our world experienced last year, but I’m so happy it is out and ready to be read by those who enjoy social satire about human nature and how odd it can be. Mechanics of the Past is a book about the industrial revolution and the complexities of family affairs.

Mechanics of the Past

“What he had done was pure science and mechanics — and necromancy, he regrettably had to admit.”

Levi, an alch...

Short Story: An Encounter

She was dusting the antiques and mending the shop while her grandfather was out when it happened. A midnight black cat waltzed into the shop through the open door. It blinked its eyes and stared at her. She let the feather duster drop by her side as she countered the stare. She had worked long enough with her grandfather to separate normal from abnormal. Her grandfather could bend stories and people’s lives through them, and she… she was learning the family trade.

She turned around and went b...

Short Story: Destinies and Stars

She watched out to the sea, seeing the edge of the world merging into space. There, beyond the atmosphere, were more worlds than she could count during her lifetime. She sat down, feeling the smooth, cold rock underneath her. The one which had formed before she or anyone else had come to be. She let her fingers ran against the surface, thinking the countless times the sea had smoothed the stone. And now, she would leave everything behind and venture out where the land was not part of her. The mi...

Short Stories: The Right Story

The chimes rang above the shop door. She lifted her head and saw a timid woman peer inside. She couldn’t blame the woman for having a scared and confused look on her face. This was a place for last straws, and the shop looked like it. Her grandfather had collected everything and anything he found interesting and put it on display. Sometimes uptown people came in and requested if they could buy the bizarre sculptures or forgotten books, but her grandfather sold none of them. They were his, and th...

Short Story: Anxiety

The drum of fingers burrowed deep into her thoughts as she hit against the phone’s plastic case. She heard all said of her despite blasting music loud through her headphones and with no one having to open their mouths. It was there how they looked at her when she passed them by on the street. She couldn’t scream at them. They were right. She was a piece of shit and didn’t deserve to live. She tried not to think about the dark hours between midnight and dawn. Nor about how selfish she was being, ...