Thud, Thud

Thud, thud. The beat of my heart. Thundering like a jackhammer, but still quite slow. 

Our eyes met across the vibrating dance floor, latching together like two swimmers caught in a whirlpool, desperately clinging together, each one trying to push the other down. I saw in his eyes a selfish, appallingly unhappy sort of need, toxic and capable of killing me, and knew that in my eyes was the same look; but we needed each other so badly, that we didn’t even care.

24th September 2013 - Cats Don't Lay Eggs

Source: Wikimedia Commons

They say that cats don’t lay eggs.

By ‘they’, I mean biologists, but you’ve probably already guessed that; you probably haven’t guessed, though, that by ‘don’t’, I mean ‘don’t normally, except for this one incredible time when my cat did’. I suppose it’s just one of those fundamental truths—that cats don’t lay eggs—that’s so blindingly obvious to all involved, that no one ever even considers the possibility of oviparous felines; as a consequence, no one ever thought to concoct a plan that could combat the horrors that occur when a cat’s normal biological processes become perverted by some, as yet undetermined, external or internal source.

18th September 2013 - Time Upon a Razor's Edge

Source: Wikimedia Commons

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. And then an axe cleaved it.

Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t just cleave my tongue; it cleaved my entire head. But I guess that’s the nature of an axe—to strike atwain and smash the brain, separate it from ivory skulls that try so hard to protect.

8th July 2013 - The Black Orchid Blossomed

Macbeth and the Three Witches

(Precursor to 'Fragments of Dreams')

The black orchid blossomed and the Red Witch cackled; her scarlet robes fluttered on the windy mountaintop as, head thrown back and throat exposed, she screeched with delight at Him trembling above. Vermillion hair cascaded across her heaving shoulders, blown asunder by the wind, and a solitary tear of joy trekked down her cheek to stain her robes.

2nd July 2013 - The Justices Speak (Chronicles of Trinist)

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Justice Bennett, Lady of the Upper Marshes and Chief Justice of the Trinist Supreme Court, sighed as she read the case summary in front of her; she paced up and down her chambers, her red robes swirling around her as she turned. Her brown hair, steely grey at the temples, was up in a tight bun, but the agitation of the past few hours had seen some stray hairs come loose; the light formed a corona around her head as it reflected off these strands.

28th June 2013 - The Arrest of Dame Gracet (The Chronicles of Trinist)

Source: Wikimedia Commons

“I shall bow before him on bended knee,

My fealty to give as long as I live,

Or ’till reign ends, as the gods may decree.”

The crowd finished singing the Hymn of Fealty, and the king screeched with hysterical joy, clapping his hands with delight at the thought of this entire assembly singing in his honour. King Samuel of Tix’chan had been crowned ruler of Trinist only a week ago, and still drew great pleasure from hearing vast auditoriums of people singing his honour. Throwing his head back on the ancient throne of the Tix’chan family, built from the bones of an ancient creature dug from the mountains centuries ago, Samuel laughed at the vaulted ceiling.

27th June 2013 - Fragments of Dreams

Source: Wikimedia Commons

The giant tosses feverishly in her sleep; a powerful virus is snaking through her bloodstream and approaching the agèd brain which controls the massive corpus that lies before me. The neural arcs that form the centre of this wondrous creature are ancient: formed so long ago, that they may as well be carved in stone.

Fitfully, the giant casts an arm out in her sleep, and the chains that tie her to the bed rattle rustily; catching a fistful of her tight-cropped red hair, she wrenches it out; with a bellow of pain, the giant awakes and casts her eyes about fearfully. Nothing moves in the room, and blood trickles slowly down the giant’s temples. Warily, she closes her eyes again and drifts off into a troubled reverie that straddles the gulf between waking and dreams.