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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Author: Ekaterina Tretiakova
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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Fiction: ‘A Tale of Avarice – Part 3’
A favourable wind drew their ship across the clear blue sea, its hull slicing through the waves. As it entered the harbour, a sudden storm descended. The Woman gripped the railing as the deck rocked beneath her, rejoicing in the violence and fury of the tempest, but when Nicolas found her, he forced her back ...
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Fiction: ‘A Tale of Avarice – Part 2’
One unremarkable night, a gentleman of the city was travelling to a neighbouring town on business. Worn from his journey and finding the hour late, Nicolas came upon a field in which to rest. He unsaddled his horse and looked around at the serene night. He’d rarely seen the stars so bright. He thought about ...
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Fiction: ‘A Tale of Avarice – Part 1’
In a certain village few have heard of, upon a landscape unlike any we have here, lived a woman whom the villagers still refuse to speak of to this day. Even to say her name is thought to bring ill luck. So, for the purposes of this story, I will only refer to her as ... Continue reading Fiction: ‘A Tale of Avarice – Part 1’
Fiction: ‘Beats and Breaks’
The bass pumps from the sound system, filling the balcony with the full-bodied rhythm of hip-hop. No-one’s really listening. And yet when the chorus comes in everyone mouths the lyrics. He sits at the table, his fingertips drumming on the splintered edge. He smiles when everyone else does. He laughs when he’s meant to. Sometimes ...
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