He sits on a branch, shifting from one foot to another as he puffs his feathers out against the cold. His beak, once a sharp point, is now blunt. Even his lovely charcoal feathers have lost their gloss and sit raggedly like an ill-fitting coat. He stretches out his tired old wings. For a moment ...
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Author: Ekaterina Tretiakova
Fiction: ‘The Physicist’
They say that time moves slower for the people down there upon the Earth. But only when compared with those that inhabit the space stations that orbit our planet. For the purpose of this research, I’ll be referring to them as ‘People of the Skies’, and ‘People of the Earth’. They were the opening lines ...
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Fiction: ‘House of Ash’
‘Welcome! Welcome everyone!’ he announces in his booming voice. It carries far over the heads of the gathered citizens who buzz with excitement at the bottom of the steps. There’s a flash of cameras from the crowd. For the first time in recent history, the reporters have all gone quiet. The house behind the man ...
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All my words were stolen by the wind…
I sit in a bare patch in my garden, covered in dirt, the scent of soil thick in the air. A drizzle covers everything in a fine veil. Wearing nothing but a thin waterproof coat and gumboots, I hold the notebook open in my lap, my fingertips drumming on the empty page. I can’t stop ...
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Fiction: ‘The Bookshop’
She pulls the thread taught down the crease between the pages and around the spine. The book creaks as it stretches wide. She ties the string in the centre of the spine and hangs it from a small hook on the ceiling. She does this over and over until the ceiling is covered with books ...
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Fiction: ‘Beats and Breaks Part 3’
The keys tap beneath my fingers with a constant rhythm. Data appears in the spreadsheet. I don’t have to think while I’m doing it, I just let my fingers walk across the keyboard and enter the figures. Downstairs I can hear the roar of machinery clanging through the factory, metal beating on metal. The joints ...
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Fiction: ‘Beats and Breaks – Part 2’
There’s a rhythm that runs beneath the clamour of life as strong and constant as a heartbeat. It strings all the noise together into coherence. But sometimes life’s tempo grows unsustainable; it gets faster and faster, racing out of control until the music becomes noise, and the beauty pure chaos. When you lose track of ...
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Fiction: ‘Needle and Thread’
All summer long he sat by the docks and sewed. Day after day his little fingers would work as he sewed together cloth to make sails for the local fishermen. For just a handful of pennies, the little boy would make sails as fine and strong as any man who called himself a sailmaker, but ...
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Fiction: ‘Fragments’
Faraway, on the edge of an emerald sea, is a city enclosed by walls that tower into the sky. These black stone walls are adorned with hideous gargoyles that leer from every corner. But hidden within is a city where all the buildings are carved from smooth white marble. Elaborate fountains spray the ...
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Fiction: ‘A Tale of Avarice – Part 4’
Sometimes a single decision can haunt us for the rest of our lives, however short a time that may be. It seems so innocent in the beginning. But then the effects transform from a tiny ripple into a gathering swell, and then finally into an all-consuming wave of destruction. As human nature dictates, we never ...
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