Short stories

Seasons

A collection of four character-driven short stories representing a broad range of speculative fiction.

  • You and Me, at the End of Our Time: In a faraway corner of the universe, a man who has lost everything finds love where he least expects it-only to lose it.
  • Gradations of Loss: In the modern world, a woman learns to live with her grief after she realises letting it go is impossible.
  • Your Heart, a Fire: A princess of a kingdom on its way to ruin braves her fear and goes on a quest, knowing its fulfilment means her death. A Polish version of this story, Płomień twego serca, has been released as part of Tęczowe i fantastyczne: antologia queerowej fantastyki by Grupa Wydawnicza Alpaka. You can download the ebook here.
  • It Burns: In the wake of her grandparents’ death, a woman scratches the surface of an ancient mystery in a world where old gods have never been forgotten.

Available for free/pay what you want at my Kofi.

Ningal’s Descent into the Underworld

Ningal, a private investigator, is hired to find the missing husband of the leader of a criminal underworld, and ends up unearthing much more than just marital problems.

A sci-fi spin on the myth of Ereshkigal and Nergal, sprinkled with the Epic of Gilgamesh, enough background wordlbuilding for at least a novella, and Ea-Nasir selling shitty electronics and NFTs. The story has been published in issue 4 of OFIC Magazine.

An excerpt:

Ningal patted a small dune off her clothes before going into the elevator.

Sabit’s room was just like she remembered it: walls the colour of bone, bedding blue like the deepest ocean. Sabit, too, hadn’t changed since the last time Ningal forced herself to visit. Still as a stone, surrounded by wires and tubes that kept her alive after her own body had failed to. Three years prior, she had been one of thousands caught in an orbital bombardment that razed the city of Babylon to the ground. Scant few survived, Sabit amongst them.

She had been investigating corruption in the government and found plans of a terrorist attack on Babylon instead. She warned people about it, that much Ningal knew. But Babylon fell anyway, and Ningal was left with a comatose sister, her two eccentric friends barging into her life, and enough misplaced guilt to last her an eternity.

They hadn’t even been close. Their conversations were rare, each time a fight, and the last one happened when Sabit called from the midst of cannons already firing and buildings crumbling like sand castles, and said, “We fucked up, didn’t we?” even if it came years too late.

To Err and Fall, To Lose It All

In a fit of frustration, a woman goes out on a drive in the mountains in a blizzard, unaware
what forgotten and dangerous beings roam.

A modern twist on the Slavic myth of a demon leading people astray and leaving them in the woods to die. An exploration of frustration, ire pushed down and ignored until it festers and explodes.

An excerpt:

Here’s Anka: a wife of one and a mother of none. And tonight, she dies.

She doesn’t know it yet. There are many things she doesn’t know. Like the calm that comes with satisfaction and fulfilment in life. Like the joy of today, of things small and insignificant yet painted tremendous by the rays of the setting sun. Like the unknowns of her land. What is lost can’t be found, only encountered anew, so she knows nothing of what hides in forests, lurks in rivers, and dwells in corners of infinitesimal spaces between houses and the ground they stand on. A flicker of white out in a field at noon in summer, she’d consider nothing but a play of light, not a hand outstretched, lips ready to spill a lure sweeter than honey, a demise waiting to happen. She’d never think twice before leaning over a stream overgrown with reeds, none the wiser that the tinkling laughter doesn’t come from birds and that the long strands swirling in the water aren’t plants. She doesn’t know what she hasn’t learnt and what prior generations were forced to forget, only to weave fairy tales out of cautionary horrors.

And she doesn’t see danger when her own thoughts have teeth.

You can read the story in the winter 2023 issue of A Coup of Owls.