B. Morris Allen's Blog, page 6
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.
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“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.
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“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?”
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“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.
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“Voter Fraught”
About the story: What happens when AIs allow for direct democracy?
June 24, 2019
Beginnings 085 – Revelation
Life isn’t so much about what you gain as what you lose. Enthusiasm, vigor, optimism, ideals fall by the wayside, replaced by poorer, flimsier, more practical substitutes. Life isn’t so much about what you find as what you choose to leave behind.
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“Revelation”
About the story: What if natural selection were a little more voluntary?
June 23, 2019
Beginnings 084 – Gods in Reduced Circumstances
They were out of bread. They were out of bread. Naturally. Who would have fetched it? Apollo, who sat in the parlor, misquoting Homer? Epimetheus, who celebrated his freedom from Pandora by relinquishing all material goods, except those that weren’t his? Cerberus, whom the Furies had left ‘just for an hour, and please take him for a walk if he gets antsy’, and who lay snoring on the hearth, one head each in the laps of Aphrodite, Hermes, and Eurydice?
Prometheus looked around the little kitc...
June 22, 2019
Beginnings 083 – Letters to Larry About Guns
Dear Larry,
I got in!
I’m a certified police recruit now, so watch yourself. Remember, I know all about your troubled past; I was in it.
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“Letters to Larry About Guns”
Disarm anthology
Published 30-Apr-2017
About the story: An outspoken epistolary story about gun control.
June 21, 2019
Beginnings 082 – A Conversion of Crows
It moved forward in a crawl, jagged angles flowing over soil and stone alike, dawn shaping shadow and sun into beaks and talons that moved relentless toward her boot and over it. With a touch of her finger, the fern curled in on itself, withdrawing crags and fangs into a soft ribbon of green and grey whose silhouette curled round her foot like a friendly snake.
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“A Conversion of Crows”
Metaphorosis
Published 01-Sep-2017
About the story: Searching for magic in a secondary world remarkably l...
June 20, 2019
Beginnings 081 – Outburst
Earthlight sends jags of shadow crawling across the floor of the viewing bay, intangible reminders of the blowout that took #7 Arc, sent its occupants out into the dark. Killed my friends. Killed my parents. Killed my brother. They were at an Earthview, back when it was still a sick curiosity. No one comes here now, not in the year since the accident.
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“Outburst”
Cast of Wonders
Published 29-May-2017
About the story: When all that’s left of humanity is a small orbital – and it’s breaking u...
