B. Morris Allen's Blog, page 6
July 4, 2019
Beginnings 095 – Roller
The track stretched out like a shadow, the long, narrow trace of some monumental tower fit for magic and sorcerors. She looked the other way, but there were no pillars, no turrets, no mages invoking the vanished Stone People. The dark granite track curved gently up into the hills, and past them to the mountain. Her own shadow lay across the smooth stone, pointing toward the south, and slightly east. That way lay the quarry, and salvation. Perhaps.
“You don’t need saving,” her brother had arg...
July 3, 2019
Beginnings 094 – Fatherhood
He had done his best. Had raised the girl as if she were his own, though she was not.
“You’re not my father,” she had said, flat and cold, as she left his house for the last time, left the bedroom full of music and makeup, the front room full of games they’d seldom played, the kitchen with the portrait of her mother. It was the last thing she’d said. An alien message she’d broadcast in the chopped Romanian of the city; the last cryptogram in a decade-long transmission of codes he’d never und...
July 2, 2019
Beginnings 093 – Shift
“I will catch the bus.” Jean Pierre spoke firmly, decision made.
“Don’t be foolish, Jean Pierre.” His wife Nicole made a point of restraining a sigh. “The bus comes only once per day. You will waste a day getting to Gitarama, and another getting back. That is two nights’ lodging you will need.”
…
“Shift”
About the story: The same story told at shifting levels of realit
July 1, 2019
Beginnings 092 – The Irrigation Ditch
She’d shifted a cottage-weight of stone, lifted uncounted shovelfuls of soil, dug her way with mattock and sweat and bruised fingers. Before her, beneath her, all she had was a hole. The same as when she’d lifted that first shovel load, the same as she’d have after countless more.
…
“The Irrigation Ditch”
Shards
Published 01-Oct-2018
About the story: Names have power. When does a hole turn into a ditch?
June 30, 2019
Beginnings 091 – Building on Sand
He had been ready; a small bag packed, boots oiled, axe sharpened. He had meant to go, but he had not gone.
He could remember the feel of it still, the sense of a burden lifted, of freedom at last in his grasp. It had felt … lonely, in a way; frightening. Before, he had had his task, his role, his definition. In that brief moment of independence, those certainties had gone, vanished like rain seeping into sand, leaving just a damp, irritating grit behind.
It rubbed now, between the thick cal...
June 29, 2019
Beginnings 090 – Furnace
A cry rang through the dark, echoing roughly in vats and tanks, stirring muted sympathies in plates of sheet metal and piles of rusted scrap. The dim glow of banked coals leaked slowly from furnace grates and chimneys, illuminating little.
…
“Furnace”
About the story: An odd collection of aliens wake up in a foundry. All selected for … what?
June 28, 2019
Beginnings 089 – Memory and Faded Ink
She liked to watch me sleeping. “I always remember you like this,” she would say. “Drowsing in a pool of sunlight, dawn pouring off you like gold. That is how I know you are rich.”
When she was young, rich to Tseleng was time enough to weed millet, and light enough to spot vipers. To me, it meant a roof that didn’t leak. When the Buyani arrived, it meant them, and suddenly the whole planet was poor.
…
“Memory and Faded Ink”
About the story: Alien drugs are different than ours are.
June 27, 2019
Beginnings 088 – Goatway Drug
I shouldn’t have taken it. Even Nelda said so, and she was as toasted as a crouton. What can I do? Some Cointreau, a couple of gin and tonics, and a Dr. Pepper, and my judgment goes all to hell.
So, when a stranger showed up in patchy little beard and a waistcoat full of little plastic packets, I didn’t say “Thanks, man, I’m clean,” the way the public service announcements would have it. I said “Watcha got, and will it make me fly?”
…
“Goatway Drug”
Hyperion and Theia: Saturnalia
Published...
June 26, 2019
Beginnings 087 – That Lonesome, Restless Feeling
Outside the house, a placard swung slightly in the twilight breeze. To and fro, to and fro, never making any progress as it moved in complex helices at hundreds of meters per second through the solar system, or hundreds of kilometers per second through the galaxy. Motion was a matter of perspective.
The house had never moved. It stood where it always had, where it had stood throughout their marriage. It would never move, until the great Northwest earthquake finally came and flung it toward t...
June 25, 2019
Beginnings 086 – Voter Fraught
“I wish you could vote for me, Botty.” The child looked across the park to where friends were playing.
“I do vote for you, Gret. You just have to tell me how to do it.” The AI’s voice was gentle through the little earplug in the child’s ear.
…
“Voter Fraught”
About the story: What happens when AIs allow for direct democracy?
