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THE HOUSE OF DROUGHT

A HAUNTED HOUSE FOR THE CLIMATE CHANGE ERA. On the island of Sri Lanka, at a colonial mansion between the forest and the paddy fields, a caretaker arrives with four children in tow after pledging to keep them safe. When violent thugs storm the house demanding that Ushu repay his debt, young Jasmit and the…
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THE FOURTH FUNDAMENTAL FORCE

“School was closed today, and the children went home early. They ran along the streets underneath broken windows and drainpipes, stopping as they reached the supermarket. Esma found milk powder on one of the shelves, Niles placed a coin on the checkout desk. Even in daylight, they could already see the enormous moon looming over…
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THE BASTION OF MIDNIGHT BELLS

“The bastion rose from the evening shadows, and Hiroki paused on the mountain path. A crevice separated the buildings from the rest of the peak, and only a narrow bridge led up to their entrance. Fog drifted through the windows and over the battlements, easing into the scars and pockmarks of a long-forgotten onslaught. This…
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DESCENT INTO THE ARCHIVES (Podcast)

“We require the Tirani correspondence from the archives. Do not open it. Do not read it. Bring it to us.” The instruction came from the fax machine line by line, accompanied by toneless buzzing. M. watched the paper, searching for a way to escape this assignment, but there was none. The instruction was in writing,…
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THE ISLAND OF MASKS

“The sea spits a man onto the shores of an island. Every wave hurls his blood against the cliffs and drops fragments of broken bone. The storm roars like white noise inside a conch shell. And yet, the man opening his eyes is whole.” Published in: Exterus, Vol. 1, March 2021
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KAIROI

“Outside the hotel, European flags flapped in the breeze. The man crossed the hall, suit on his shoulders and shoes banging on marble. He knew he could always adopt the easy arrogance of privilege, the confident stride of the white western male. The woman sat in the lobby corner, her nails clicking away on the…
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ITERATION 571

“Snow drifted through the hallways of the floating temple, and Tlachoatl shivered. His body was bloated from the fetuses inside it, his faith implants bristled with zeal. Iteration 569 was going well. Tlachoatl scanned the corridor and swung the hungry wood in his hands. The handle chafed his skin, and its obsidian eyes blinking darkly.…
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THE HOUSE OF THE DARK WHALE

“At the House of the Dark Whale, we rang the bell before a mahogany door. Concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its convicts in their broken voices seemed to stare at us out of the glass panel.” Published as a Kindle ebook, January 2021
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THE CANDLEWOOD TRAIL

“Lashkina was going home. She took a deep breath of the candleworld’s resinous atmosphere and allowed a smile to pass over her lips. She was going home. The serfs hauled the last crates aboard the space carriage and tightened the ropes. They had cut a good yield of candlewood and filled the carriage’s storerooms to…
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PHOBOSTEUS

“The curtain rose, and the first act began. Falb stood in one of the claustrophobic hallways of the cruiser, surrounded by other soldiers. The projection screens in the walls had come alive and commanded everyone’s attention. Falb took a deep breath and clenched his teeth. Until a moment ago, the screens had only shown star-speckled…
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THE KINGDOM OF VOICES

“A man called Sefu marches along a rural trail. He carries a sword on his back, and when he sees his shadow, he remembers its age. Impatience pulses in his step, a barely contained force like a spring that is wound up too tight. Mineshafts burrow through the earth beneath shanties towns, somewhere in the…
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WEAPONS OF MASS ENTANGLEMENT

“One day, Panduranga Mohan found a strange plant growing next to her door. It hadn’t been there when she went to sleep, but it was already waist-high, with a big, closed bud at its top. Panduranga shrugged and drove to work in the tourist town. When she returned in the evening, the bud had grown…
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HALLS OF SILT AND SEAWATER (Podcast)

“At night, Ben dreamt of the waves pushing him up, making him feel weightless for a moment and crashing down with him again, a constant up and down, just a feeling of movement that enveloped him in his sleep. When he swallowed, he tasted salt, even though he had eaten, drank and brushed his teeth,…
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WHYRWOL

“1. The entrance to whyrwol has nothing to do with keys and gates. There is no system of pulleys and no room full of ropes. Caves and caverns slope downward into the limestone hills around Oornampur town, and they are filled with calcium carbonate. Dripping is a central phenomenon inside the caves and accompanies cavers…
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UN COMMUNICADOR CON OBJETOS ANIMADOS (A COMMUNICATOR WITH ANIMATE OBJECTS)

“Pocas personas han hecho todo el viaje desde la Tierra en aquellos días, desde la superficie a través de la atmósfera y directamente al espacio: por el precio correcto, Hakon Ambrose era uno de ellos.” Published in: El futuro del ayer, hoy, Año 3, Número 1 (July 2020)
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LEMURA

“Aleksandra!” The path snaked up the hill, vanishing into the treeline some distance above them. Clouds diluted the waning moon and rendered Aleksandra’s flashlight clearly visible to Petko. “Wait! Where are you going?” Petko could hear Aleksandra’s laughter and saw her light dancing further along the path, as if she wanted to lead him somewhere.…
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DESCENT INTO THE ARCHIVES

“We require the Tirani correspondence from the archives. Do not open it. Do not read it. Bring it to us.” The instruction came from the fax machine line by line, accompanied by toneless buzzing. M. watched the paper, searching for a way to escape this assignment, but there was none. The instruction was in writing,…
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ELDER GLASS

“Shadows rushed along the sewer walls and turned them into a kaleidoscope of black. ‘I saw my future in a shard of glass.” The scavenger slogged through the runoff, his ghost-light hovering before him. “Follow me, and I shall lead you to safety.'” Published in: Fantasy Shorts, June  2020
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THE DOMINION OF FLIES

“Three men met on the street to the city, and they all came from nowhere. The street was abandoned, littered with car wrecks over which the wind threw yellow dust. Desert sand, carried here from the south to cover the city’s cadaver like a shroud.” Published in: Kyanite Press, Vol. 2, Issue 3 (May 2020)
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DESCENT INTO THE ARCHIVES

“We require the Tirani correspondence from the archives. Do not open it. Do not read it. Bring it to us.” The instruction came from the fax machine line by line, accompanied by toneless buzzing. M. watched the paper, searching for a way to escape this assignment, but there was none. The instruction was in writing,…
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WORDS OF STONE AND STRAW

“Absence of light played over life-sized strawmen and creaking shelves. A door flew open, a fugitive rushed in from the street, candles flickered violently. ‘You must help me!’ The shopkeeper looked up behind her counter: ‘Must I?'” Published in: Fantasy Shorts (April 2020)  
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THREE EXPEDITIONS

“The Mountains of Oblivion grew higher at the horizon with every passing hour, and ironically, they might have been the only thing that one couldn’t forget in this desert made of snow. / The leaves and branches slapped him, scratching his skin with raw nails and, where he was covered with oiled leather or rusting…
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THE CARNIVAL OF HUMAN NATURE

“Welcome to the carnival city, most extraordinary of visitors, our highly distinguished patrons.” The words reverberated from the house walls in a chorus of echoes, emanating from the gills of somber gargoyles and from murmuring water pipes. The city was a maze of fog and bridges, gondolas drifting over canals, their punting poles stirring up…
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THE MELODIC TRAVELS OF A MAN SELLING LIVES

“Marcus smiled when he was happy and also when he was sad–he smiled when he made people laugh and when he made them cry. Every day at work, he changed people’s lives with a smile: when he sold them new costumes to slip into, consisting not of seams and fabric but of intangible concepts, of…
Mehr...

DESCENT INTO THE ARCHIVES

“We require the Tirani correspondence from the archives. Do not open it. Do not read it. Bring it to us.” The instruction came from the fax machine line by line, accompanied by toneless buzzing. M. watched the paper, searching for a way to escape this assignment, but there was none. The instruction was in writing,…
Mehr...

THE BEDFOLK

“an empty bottle blinks from the canal small people dwell in the murky water   at night they mend sandals and wash laundry gut fish and string up their scales they scrub the washrooms and pull the towels leave little gifts on the doorstep a bowl of milk for the disappeared rice and sambol for…
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THE GARBAGE MANDALA

“Irakov’s breath condensed in the air, barely visible in the traces of brightness that trickled down from the streetlights. The hours before dawn always seemed to be the coldest, perhaps because they were furthest from the sun, perhaps because the men themselves were still at their most vulnerable. “It’s some kind of mechanical device, like…
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ABERRANT FOLIATION

“The train stopped. Sanesh awoke with a start. His own reflection stared at him from the window. Blackest night reigned outside, and the jungle brushed against the carriage.“ Published in: Dark Moments, Black Hare Press, June 2019
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PHOBOSTEUS

“The curtain rose, and the first act began. Falb stood in one of the claustrophobic hallways of the cruiser, surrounded by other soldiers. The projection screens in the walls had come alive and commanded everyone’s attention. Falb took a deep breath and clenched his teeth. Until a moment ago, the screens had only shown star-speckled…
Mehr...

APPSTREAM FOREST SONG

“the wechat bubbles over xings and xangas snapfish migrate appstream qqs waddle along the riverside stumbleupon myspaces and foursquares” Published in: The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts (March 2019)
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THE DUST BATHYNAUT

“The rift divides the land in two halves, but neither of them is interesting. It is the rift itself that calls to people, entices them with its siren’s call from worlds away: only a dozen meters wide, with steep cliffs of grey rock and a bottom that can never be seen. Shine a light into…
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GENRE-EXPERIMENTE: CORDWAINER SMITH

“Cordwainer Smith entwirft in seiner Science-Fiction eine eigentümliche und faszinierende Zukunftsvision, die an Fremdartigkeit kaum zu überbieten ist: eine Zukunftsvision, die nicht hauptsächlich technologischer, sondern sozio- und psychologischer Natur ist, und in deren Zentrum die Wiederentdeckung der Menschheit steht. Smiths Erzählungen sind bemerkenswert in ihrem Schreibstil, ihrer Struktur und ihren Inhalten, und wie sein eigenes…
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THE MOON-SEALED MUREX

“The moon-sealed murex had been right in front of Lokala, so close she felt its radiation ripple over her skin, transforming it in gentle waves.
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THROUGH TILED SPACES

“Their work done, Phalendra and her people gathered for the trek home, to their old lives and waiting families. None of them had seen the sky unfiltered for a long time, only through glass ceilings or high windows, and they longed for fresh air, without the stench of chlorine and disinfectants. They had stayed in…
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FROM WITHIN MIRRORS

“”A being of another … state. A thirster. A greeder. A leecher. A needer. A left-over from the White Table. A being that craves what it doesn’t have anymore, what it remembers vaguely, what it can no longer feel: life.” The mystic rummaged with slender fingers through the satchel she wore around her shoulder, then produced…
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A FEAR OF FALLING (Podcast)

Narrated by Tatiana Grey. “The shuttle bay opened, and the automated voice of the ship reminded them to debark quickly and orderly, to not leave anything or anyone behind. “Stay close, join your hands.” Jenarah tried to keep her family together–grandfather, the four cousins, her younger brother, her older brother, uncle Yobdan–and stepped out on…
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THE FUTURE IS ALWAYS PERFECT

“Don’t you wish you would never make a wrong decision? With FuturePreviewTM, you never do – because you always know what the future brings. Daryl owned a FuturePreviewTM, and he used it every day. Just the basic version, not one of those new models that displayed all the numbers: percentage of happiness gained, expected income,…
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THE WAY UP, THE WAY DOWN

“Unlike most people, Charlie had a job. He lived on Earth and worked in space, and for his daily commute, he took the elevator. It went right up to Icarus Station on the orbital ring, 132 minutes for one trip, only a few hundred kilometers above the planet. Whenever one cage left from the Beehive…
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THE FEASTING DREAM

“The steppe grass swayed in its ancestral patterns like flaxen hair, and the rider dreamt of his lost sister. He had traveled on horseback for many days, but all the slight pains of his body didn’t worry him, nothing more than a distant whispering in his mind. The dreams were important, the face of his…
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BELOW THE CUBICLE SEA

“Deep in the building, behind corridors & empty offices & pipe-wormed basements, Oleska has found a door. The stairs leading down are carpeted, her steps hushed to a whisper, the walls naked. She descends.” Published in: The Kyanite Press, Volume 1, Issue 2 (November/December 2018)   Paperback Pricing: $8,85 eBook Pricing: $5,85
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KOKYTOS SHORE

“licorice bleeds into lime bleeds into dust / skeletal rickshaws & ghostly sirens / tuk-tuk axles greased with human fat” Published in: Lonesome October Lit, Halloween Issue (October 2018)  
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THE EIDOLIC VOID

“The transport touched down inside the bunker complex, and Fenton got off with the other recruits. The halls and corridors were endless, only stretches of them outfitted with lights and ventilation, isolated from the planet’s wastelands by gates that had been welded shut.” Published in: Bewildering Stories, Issue 783, October 2018
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ROACHLING

Gihan straightened as his tuk-tuk sputtered and fell silent. The moon rose over the paddies as he tried to restart the engine. “Whoever helps me shall live in my house and eat my curries.” Published in: Page & Spine, Crumbs, September 2018  
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THE STREETS TURNED BLUE AND GREEN

“The whole neighborhood is abandoned.” Aleyah adjusted her hijab and grinned at her two friends. “Literally.” They dangled their legs from the edge of the floating school. At this time of day, the great Neo-Mahaweli River surged through Colombo, its tides raised by the drainage canals and influx from the mangrove belt.
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THE GLASS-TOOTHED WOLF

“When it rained, only dust fell from the sky. The preformed people were out on the streets, fighting their little wars, but not much else moved under the suffocating heat.
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A PASSAGE OF TIME

“Oleska wakes up, and she immediately knows that her city has drowned. Dark currents flow through the corridors of empty offices, wash around cubicles and swell on the shores of ascending staircases. Cataracts plunge down elevator shafts into gargling blackness, feeding sub-basement oceans and crawl-space rivers. There are fish swimming here, a whole swarm, flamboyantly…
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A LOT LIKE EARTH

“They touch down on the planet and make camp near an estuary. The captain sends an expedition: a mercenary, a botanist, two geologists.“ Published in: Chronos, Shacklebound Books, August 2018 Paperback ISBN: 978-1719854207 Pages: 105 pages Pricing: $9.99 Kindle Pages: 114 pages Pricing: $4.05
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APPARITION

“Kutter Saine pressed his cheek against the hull of the station, and the metal’s coldness numbed his skin. He felt the void outside, the emptiness that stretched from their position lights into immeasurable distance.
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AM LIDRAND

“A hole into which light vanishes Ciliary fibers fan out through a mudland Rivers & rivulets meander from the sclera Tectonics writhe, a waste land of waves   And civilization moves Below   Reaching from the continental shelves (caves & elevators & tunnel networks  antennae listen into the vast blue  ferries surface along the coast…
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THE GOOD FORTUNE REMOVALIST

Once in a 100 years, the good fortune removalist comes to town.
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TENEBRIS BOREALIS

“Where is everyone?” Ayako and Sulawak exited the car. The forest shrouded the camp in shadow and blocked out the sky. A generator hummed, cables snaked between bright lamps. No bodies.
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DER PILGER STEIGT IN EIN TIEFES TAL HINAB

“Der Pilger steigt in ein tiefes Tal hinab. Metaphysisch gesprochen, natürlich. Das Tal ist in realitas ein Teil der städtischen Entwässerungs- und Abwasserbeseitigungsanlagen, also der Kanalisation. Kilometer von Betonrohren und Schmutzwasserfällen, Pumpwerken und Sammelbecken. Eingekrustete Dunkelheit, Gestank, schattenbeschwörende Notleuchten. Irgendwo dort unten, das hat man dem Pilger gesagt, haust ein Erleuchteter. Ein Weiser. Ein Orakel…
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THE TYRANT AND THE FOG

“A thick and heavy fog was hanging over the street, a theater curtain possessed by unnatural life. If the Castaway extended his arm, the fog swallowed his hand, transmuted it into something strange, a black claw or a hovering insect. The Castaway looked around, searching for some point of reference, something familiar. The fog ebbed…
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幽灵船

Falb and his brother wandered through the wilderness, surrounded on all sides by the trees of a dark forest. Their steps were noiseless on the soft soil, following a well-trodden path, the only path. Even though these woods were dangerous, the brothers felt no fear, for they had crossed them many times before, and would…
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URBAN ECHOES

“The streets are glass The skies like Unstacked shelves Blindenlicht Trembling over the city” Published in: The Rush, Issue 3 (February 2018)
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A COMMUNICATOR WITH ANIMATE OBJECTS

“Few people made the entire journey up from Earth in those days, from surface through atmosphere and right into space: for the right prize, Hakon Ambrose was one of them. He had started from one of the unelevated piers, quickly passed through the coruscating flash-flurry of the arcologies and their ever rising solar panels, then…
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NOWHERIAN FUNERAL

“The house was said to have been ravaged by a storm that had yet to reach the rest of the town, and that its occupants had abandoned it after that future night. It was the very last house of town and beyond it stretched only vast fields, where the Gespernbauern didn’t sow or reap, but…
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THE WATERPARK TRILEMMA

“Skalep rested, his hands and legs braced against the smooth wetness of the walls. The waterpark slide was covered with curved plexiglass, high enough to stand upright, but too milky to make out details on the other side. There were intricate gold emblems embedded in regular intervals, and a slow trickle of water ran toward…
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KOKYTOS SHORE

“licorice bleeds into lime bleeds into dust / skeletal rickshaws & ghostly sirens / tuk-tuk axles greased with human fat” Published in: A Beautiful Resistance 4: The Crossing (November 2017)   Specifications: 8.5x11in, full color, perfect bound, matte finish, 100 pages. Single Issue: $22.50 US
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IN THE FESTIVAL TENT

“The tent begins to open like a blossoming flower, reaching out with its ropes and tarpaulins like straggling masses of tentacles. Mouths open, tongues roll out, and a multitude of eyes watch the spectacle of the congregated town. As always, there is hesitation, a long pause while the men and women muster their courage. Yunrum…
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GENRE-EXPERIMENTE: HUGH COOK

“Hugh Cooks »Chronicles of an Age of Darkness« sind ein zehnbändiger Fantasy-Zyklus, der mit literarischem Einfallsreichtum und experimentellen Techniken gegen klassische Genre-Grenzen anrennt und diese weit hinter sich lässt. Neben einer vielfältigen, oft bizarren Welt und der präzise-schwarzhumorigen Wiedergabe menschlicher Realitäten drückt sich die Experimentierfreudigkeit des Autors in einer Vielzahl von Stimmen und Blickwinkeln aus:…
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THE FESTIVAL OF DISSOLUTION

“The Festival of Dissolution is coming to town, and just like in previous years, Franok is still too young to go. He and his friends know very little about the festival, only that it is in a clearing deep in the forest, only adults are allowed visit it, and there is a great tent in…
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THE BREEDING DUST (Podcast)

Narrated by Cheyenne Wright. “Silent, angular houses with white plaster, a sand-suffocated well and a couple of stunted palms huddled together on the low ground, a once bustling city that only the ghostly desert wind inhabited now. The sun gleamed down without mercy, hanging in the sky as a swirling ball that made the air…
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DAS MASKENHANDWERK

  “Es war, als wäre er in einem Alptraum aus Matsch und glitschigen Steinen gefangen, stets mit einem Ziel vor Augen, das er niemals erreichen konnte. In einer Höhle liegt ein Tempel, in einem Hügel liegt eine Höhle, in einer weglosen Wildnis liegt ein Hügel … war es zu sehr eine Legende, um wahr zu…
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DAS PROBLEM MIT GEWITTERN

“Es donnerte in der Ferne, und ein hauchfeiner Schleier aus Betonstaub rieselte von der Decke. Die Menschen, die in der U-Bahn Zuflucht vor dem Unwetter gesucht hatten, zuckten zusammen, und ihr Murmeln ersetzte das Prasseln der kleinen Regentropfen, die man hier unten nicht hören konnte. Leros sah sich um, blickte in fremde Augen, in denen…
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A PASSAGE OF TIME

“Oleska wakes up, and she immediately knows that her city has drowned. Dark currents flow through the corridors of empty offices, wash around cubicles and swell on the shores of ascending staircases. Cataracts plunge down elevator shafts into gargling blackness, feeding sub-basement oceans and crawl-space rivers. There are fish swimming here, a whole swarm, flamboyantly…
Mehr...

UPPUMISE TUNNE (THE SENSATION OF DROWNING)

Translated into Estonian by Kristjan Sander “Ühel planeedil – maailmas – rändasid inimesed tasandikke mööda ringi, küttides ja söödavat otsides. Mõni neist leidis kohti, kuhu paikselt elama jääda, maad harida, jõgesid ümber suunata ja impeeriumeid rajada. Nende külakesed kasvavad linnadeks, nende linnad linnastuteks; ja aja jooksul sulab üha rohkem ja rohkem neist asustuskeskustest ühte.” Published…
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THOKMAY

“The mountain path led them around a formation of jagged rocks, icicles hanging down in frozen candelabra. The monastery had gotten out of sight again, but it couldn’t be far now, not according to the villagers’ description. They had told them that a stranger with two albino yaks had passed through, packsaddles laden with scrolls…
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A THOUSAND TWINKLING EYES

“They swim in the mulled wine, burrow through the gingerbread, jump along the garlands, drip from the mistletoes. The stars are their masters, palm twigs their hands – this is the only safe place.” Published in: The Cafe Irreal, Issue #61 (February 2017)
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NOWHERIAN FUNERAL

“The house was said to have been ravaged by a storm that had yet to reach the rest of the town, and that its occupants had abandoned it after that future night. It was the very last house of town and beyond it stretched only vast fields, where the Gespernbauern didn’t sow or reap, but…
Mehr...

OCEANIC HARMONY

“Slimy algae crept up the fake pillars in virescent veins, glistening with wetness like a monsoon forest. Newspaper pages drifted in the dirty streams across the floor, and there was the sound of dripping water everywhere, as if the darkened glass ceiling was about to crack under the ocean’s weight.” Published in: Fantastic Stories of…
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THE WAY UP, THE WAY DOWN

“Unlike most people, Charlie had a job. He lived on Earth and worked in space, and for his daily commute, he took the elevator. It went right up to Icarus Station on the orbital ring, 132 minutes for one trip, only a few hundred kilometers above the planet. Whenever one cage left from the Beehive…
Mehr...

TOLMUTUUKER (THE DUST BATHYNAUT)

Translated into Estonian by Lee Kärner “Lõhe on maa kaheks jaotanud, kuid kumbki pool ei paku huvi. See, mis inimesi enda juurde kutsub, oma ebamaise sireenihüüdega meelitab, on lõhe ise: ainult tosin meetrit lai, hallide järsakute ja nähtamatu põhjaga. Heida valgusvihk järsakusse, öeldakse, ning see vaid põgeneb tagasi su juurde – hüppa sisse ning valgust…
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THE MELODIC TRAVELS OF A MAN SELLING LIVES

“Marcus smiled when he was happy and also when he was sad–he smiled when he made people laugh and when he made them cry. Every day at work, he changed people’s lives with a smile: when he sold them new costumes to slip into, consisting not of seams and fabric but of intangible concepts, of…
Mehr...

THE DESERT OF FORGOTTEN THINGS

“The night was dark and empty in the Desert of Forgotten Things, no moon floating over the ragged hills, not even stars; no bird calls, no crickets, no wind. The traveler’s lantern was a lonely bastion of light against the blackness that towered around him, and his steps made the only sound for miles.” Published…
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THE PROBLEM WITH THUNDERSTORMS

“It is the duty of every citizen not to be overwhelmed, tortured or killed by the enemy; it is equally his duty not to be crucified, burnt or stoned; if someone hangs on the cross, it has to be in service of the cause. A good citizen is a citizen whose eyes are empty and…
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HALLS OF SILT AND SEAWATER

“At night, Ben dreamt of the waves pushing him up, making him feel weightless for a moment and crashing down with him again, a constant up and down, just a feeling of movement that enveloped him in his sleep. When he swallowed, he tasted salt, even though he had eaten, drank and brushed his teeth,…
Mehr...

FROM WITHIN MIRRORS

“”A being of another … state. A thirster. A greeder. A leecher. A needer. A left-over from the White Table. A being that craves what it doesn’t have anymore, what it remembers vaguely, what it can no longer feel: life.” The mystic rummaged with slender fingers through the satchel she wore around her shoulder, then produced…
Mehr...

THE GARBAGE MANDALA

“Irakov’s breath condensed in the air, barely visible in the traces of brightness that trickled down from the streetlights. The hours before dawn always seemed to be the coldest, perhaps because they were furthest from the sun, perhaps because the men themselves were still at their most vulnerable. “It’s some kind of mechanical device, like…
Mehr...

THE FESTIVAL OF DISSOLUTION

“The Festival of Dissolution is coming to town, and just like in previous years, Franok is still too young to go. He and his friends know very little about the festival, only that it is in a clearing deep in the forest, only adults are allowed visit it, and there is a great tent in…
Mehr...

DANIEL ABLEEV: INTERVIEW-NONSENSE MIT THOMAS LIGOTTI

Translation of: “Daniel Ableev: Interview-Nonsense mit Thomas Ligotti (2009)” “Alle Schriftsteller, die ich je bewundert habe, haben immer wieder dieselbe Geschichte geschrieben. Man kann ein Thema niemals tief genug ergründen. Die andere Art von Schriftstellern, zu denen Leute wie Shakespeare gehören, sind Beobachter des Lebens, Protokollanten der Conditio humana. Sie wenden sich abwechselnd Tragödien, Komödien,…
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THE BREEDING DUST

“Silent, angular houses with white plaster, a sand-suffocated well and a couple of stunted palms huddled together on the low ground, a once bustling city that only the ghostly desert wind inhabited now. The sun gleamed down without mercy, hanging in the sky as a swirling ball that made the air flicker, and the small…
Mehr...

ERTRINKEN

“Ich weiß gar nicht, woher mir klar war, dass die weiß verputzten Wände und die Holz-dielen zu einem Theater gehörten, die schummrig beleuchteten Korridore und Treppenfluchten … es muss wohl irgendeinen Hinweis gegeben haben, den ich unbewusst aufgeschnappt habe. (Der PATIENT sieht durch den SPEZIALISTEN hindurch, und sein Blick wird mit jedem Wort abwesender.) In diesem…
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A COMMUNICATOR WITH ANIMATE OBJECTS

“Few people made the entire journey up from Earth in those days, from surface through atmosphere and right into space: for the right prize, Hakon Ambrose was one of them. He had started from one of the unelevated piers, quickly passed through the coruscating flash-flurry of the arcologies and their ever rising solar panels, then…
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THE PLAGUE WELL

“Deep down in the forest, everything was black. Harubai’s und Tsubada’s flashlights turned the roots and branches into a twisted tunnel of shadows, following a path that had long been overgrown into obscurity. ‘Did we really need to come here at night?’ Tsubada was following his slightly older friend and nearly stumbled over some hidden…
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DAS BÜRO

“Die Nacht war still, und in der Stille hörte er ein Klimpern, das helle Geräusch von aneinanderschlagendem Metall. Es war das, was er gefürchtet hatte, der Moment, auf den er Tag und Nacht wartete: Die Frau mit den Ohrringen kam ins Büro. Sie verdächtigte ihn. Sie arbeitete zu viel und zu unregelmäßig, blieb lange im…
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MELTING GOLD AND ASHES

“We have gathered here because a man died, and because this man was not just any man: he was Tlamord Laygrin. He was there when the wars began, back in the lands of Solpforte; and he was there when they engulfed the world, when emperors toppled like dominoes and peoples scattered like leaves in the…
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