It’s four in the morning at the end of June, and I find myself lying awake and listening to the words you used to say when we were younger. You called me your angel, and I never knew why, but your blue eyes used to shine so brightly every time you said those words. I …
Author Archives: Ekaterina Tretiakova
Fiction: ‘The Ripple Effect’
He sits in the park, slumped against a tree with a half-empty cask of wine in his lap. There’s a cigarette stained with hair gel behind his ear. The warm afternoon sun makes him sleepy. He picks up the wine, brings the plastic nozzle to his lips and guzzles down several mouthfuls. People start to …
Review: ‘Norse Mythology’ by Neil Gaiman
The Norse gods are unlike any other gods. They are not invincible, indestructible, or all-knowing. They are not without their insecurities and weaknesses. The gods are not flawless. They can be rash and headstrong; they are easily fooled and surprisingly petty; they are vain, competitive to a fault, moody, and jealous. They drink too much …
Fiction: ‘Perpetual Motion’
I can hear it ticking, amplified by the silence of the room. Tick Tick Tick.
Every hour, on the hour, the tempo increases and it ticks a little faster. Tick Tick Tick. It sounds so much louder at night as all the fleshy valves and gears move inside my body, almost buzzing as my heart …
Fiction: ‘Transformation’
In a forest of bamboo, you can actually hear the trees growing. At first you’re not sure what it was that you heard. A rustle. A scraping noise like wood against stone. A stirring as leaves unfurl into crisp, sharp points. Bamboo can grow up to ninety-one centimetres in a single day, which is about …
Fiction: ‘Message From a Loved One’
Your heart has wings. Just about everyone should know this about themselves, yet so few do. Your heart has the capacity to soar beyond the sky and into the outer reaches of the atmosphere, where the temperatures drop to below freezing and Noctilucent clouds drift across the planet. It can also drop from these heights …
The storyteller who fell into her own web of lies…
There’s no excuse for lying. Unless, of course, you happen to have a very good reason for it. I mean, if you had to lie in order to save a man’s life, who could possibly judge you for that? Or if your lie rescues an innocent person, it must be okay, right? You can lie …
Fiction: ‘Molly’
She reaches down into the well, grasping the rope tightly with both hands. Every thread of the rope has turned brown and stiff with age. Inch by inch, new segments of rope come into view from the echoing depths, until finally a bucket mottled with rust appears over the edge of the well. She lifts …
Fiction: ‘Conversations with the Devil’
She sits in her car, looking out at the empty field and milky blue sky, but not really seeing them. Her eyes find some point on the hillside. They linger there for many minutes, staring blankly at that invisible spot in the serene hills, while something behind her eyes moves with the strength of a …
Fiction: ‘Embers’
Embers streak across the sky before exploding in a shower of colours. Rockets whir through the air. They glide passed each other like brilliant firebirds until finally colliding in a blinding flash which lights up the night. The blast sends shockwaves through the crowd. My ears are ringing afterwards with that inaudible note which persists …
Writing on Tangents 