B. Morris Allen's Blog, page 4
July 19, 2019
Beginnings 110 – Auld Lang Syne, Ch. 10
It’s Saturday. A day for sleeping in, for pretending I’ve successfully played sick and avoided school, for luxuriating in having nothing to do. The sun is shining through the window, flickering shadows of new green leaves over the carpet and the clothes I didn’t put away last night. There’s a cardinal singing outside the window.
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“Auld Lang Syne, Ch. 10”
NIAD 8
Published 26-Jan-2019
About the story: My latest entry in the Novel in a Day effort.
July 18, 2019
Beginnings 109 – The Humblebract Expedition
“He needs to have fun.” The guildmaster put his hand lovingly on the back of a pudgy adolescent boy about my age. “I want him to have fun.”
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“The Humblebract Expedition”
Score: an SFF symphony
Published 02-Mar-2019
About the story: Love and Fun for the Score anthology of emotions from Metaphorosis.
July 17, 2019
Beginnings 108 – Fountainhead
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. She had been staring out the window – a ‘phore’, they called it here – watching starbirds hover in their pastel stacks, like floating towers of origami. She wondered how they did it, and whether she it might be what she needed for her ‘Fountain’ piece. Or maybe ‘Fountainpiece’.
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“Fountainhead”
Score
Published 02-Mar-2019
About the story: Sorrow and Longing for the Score anthology from Metaphorosis.
July 16, 2019
Beginnings 107 – Minstrel Boy Howling at the Moon
The red dirt of the plains was baked into his hands, making rivers of the creases in his palm, flowing off the low hills into the grasslands of his wrist. A summer of post-setting had left his hands as hard as brick, and just as red.
“You’re an honorary red person,” Matt at the Lov’n’Stop had said, sarcastically. “I’m gonna call you Gomda from now on, ‘cause you’re gonna blow out of here like the wind.”
He didn’t though, and he wasn’t. He’d been born in the dust of La Fave, and he’d likely d...
July 15, 2019
Beginnings 106 – Start Wearing Purple, Ch. 8
It could have been an art installation – a dark sphere atop City Hall, a spray of scarlet thread, five hundred people frozen in place, eyes wide with pain and disbelief. That hadn’t been the start, of course. Only moments earlier, there’d been bustling, cheery chaos – marchers, vendors, dancers, celebrants of all kinds, from babes in papooses to nonagenarians in gaily decorated wheelchairs. And a bright sparkly ball on City Hall’s short spire. He’d noticed it himself, and made his way up the...
July 14, 2019
Beginnings 105 – Cinnamon Sticks
The slime had been a problem. “It’s not slime. It’s a podal lubricant and message deposition vehicle.” With some saliva mixed it. When you ate with your feet, it was hard not to leave a bit of drool around. Even in these sterile metal corridors. Even when your heart was broken. Irredeemably broken.
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“Cinnamon Sticks”
The Clan Chronicles: Tales from Plexis
Published 06-Dec-2018
About the story: Slugs in space!
Written specifically for a Julie Czerneda anthology.
July 13, 2019
Beginnings 104 – Adjectives of Annihilation
My parents could never describe it. The ravages of an increasingly stratified world, of bitter philosophical division, of a climate run amok. The devastation of war. The nightmare of departure.
“Nothing survived,” said my poet father.
“Probably nothing survived,” amended my mother, who’d been a particle physicist, and more comfortable with uncertainty.
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“Adjectives of Annihilation”
About the story: Settlers have to make the best of what they have.
Inspired by a Marillion song.
July 12, 2019
Beginnings 103 – 3 Ghosts, Ch. 12
Lucas could feel warm satin sweat against his cheek, and his fingers curled slightly, moving through slick stickiness to a little node of firmness. It was curiously cool, curiously crumbly. Crumbly? But… already it was gone, the details of the dream fading with the night. It had been so clear, so vivid – so real. And now nothing but a lingering feel that something important had happened, something life-changing.
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“3 Ghosts, Ch. 12”
NIAD 6
Published 17-Jun-2017
About the story: My secound r...
July 11, 2019
Beginnings 102 – Loose Change and Nothing to Say
“Hi. Is your food preservation device operative? Better go stop it.” Zorknord pulled both tentacles back into his tiffle, and let the input integrator fall to the console.
“Dude, your sperm-contributing lifestyle indoctrinator is going to be pissed.” Garlaw’s lesser dome pulsed with awe.
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“Loose Change and Nothing to Say”
About the story: Will humans get alien jokes?
Inspired by a Gillan/Glover song.
July 10, 2019
Beginnings 101 – Punctilio
The man moved doggedly onward, pushing ever toward the faintest of lights on the horizon, a light more sensed than seen, and which illuminated nothing. From behind came the sounds of laughter and conviviality, a bright chatter of conversation carrying with it the occasional lover’s murmur and the promise warmth and friendship and more. In the cold dark emptiness, he paid no heed, only pushing forward toward the faint suggestion of light ahead. Around it swirled the tantalizing odors of mushr...
