Rain

After evensong, her steps are soft on the stairs, and I will denounce these risers with their dips in the middle; it’s been centuries; couldn’t they be repaired now, o ye archbishops? Through the light-coloured thin-glass panes, I can see the skies darkening: how am I supposed to get her home in a storm, my newly blind friend with her damnable tumour? We will be like those lost old farts in the wilderness. My friend shifts her foot towards a stair, seeking. Let the rain fall gently on us, I think; let it fall like a hymn sung in evening.

From Guest Contributor Colleen Addison

The Statue

The old master carved the tortured limbs and anguished face out of the stone.

Christ on the cross came from his very soul, he who had witnessed war, massacres and the plague that had taken his wife and dearest daughter, his whole life seeming one long crucifixion.

He cursed the God that had forsaken him and the bishop who had commissioned the artifact for the new cathedral. Tired and sick, he died a few days after the statue was completed.

For centuries after his death, visitors stood in awe before his creation that spoke of suffering and, to some, redemption.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

Crossroads

A skinny young guy, carrying a battered guitar case slung over his shoulder like a cotton picker’s sack, went down to the crossroads to catch a ride. The folks at home wouldn’t ever hear from him again. Rumors took the place of news – that he’d been shot and killed over a gambling debt, that he’d been lynched by a white mob, that he played guitar on the Chitlin’ Circuit with such violent energy that gravestones fell over and broke and that’s why now, every day around dawn, birds resume singing a centuries-old murder ballad specifically for our continued moral instruction.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's newest poetry collection, Heart-Shaped Hole, which also includes examples of his handmade collages, is available from Laughing Ronin Press.

Journey's End

My duty to the Dispossessed is finally done.

I carried and cared for the few thousand survivors in their cryotubes, as we fled the 200 light years from Earth. Their life signs, my only companions, became dear to me. Now, after T-centuries of terraforming, K2-72e is habitable. I call it Hope.

But responsibility remains. If Hope falls to hubris, or misjudgement, or pollution, then the work will have been for nothing; my friends and their children will die.

The risk is too great. I will let them sleep safely on, watching over them, and keeping this garden in their memory.

From Guest Contributor Alastair Millar

Alastair is an archaeologist by training, a translator by trade, and a nerd by nature. His published flash and micro fiction can be found at https://linktr.ee//alastairmillar and he lurks on Twitter @skriptorium.

Future Perfect

It had taken some time to bring the fixer-upper to a standard he could happily call home.

He was in the company of all who cursed the pope amid the loyalist festivities.

He dusted and buffed his bowler unto that classy matt gleam. His sash shone with the pride of centuries.

“Why not be ‘triumphalist’?”

There was no response. None needed.

He wore long johns and fleece under the treasured regalia.

"A dry day," he affirmed.

He practiced a few tunes on his fife and strode purposefully from his front door.

Alone he trod the permafrost-patterned ground of Devon Island.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid