Interview with Craig Smith (C.K. Smith) author of What's in a Name, EAT-ME and DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Today it gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview Craig Smith (C.K. Smith), author of award-winning short story What's in a Name? and much more.

First of all, tell us how you came to be a winner of the George Floyd Short Story Competition with your story What’s in a Name? which appears in Earth 2.0: A Nottingham Writers' Studio Anthology, published by Big White Shed.

Following the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police in 2020, Nottingham Writers’ Studio launched the ‘George Floyd Short Story Competition’. For the last competition, they received over 150 excellent entries with the very best 27 being chosen for the anthology. My story blends environmental prophecy and the American civil rights movement, so I guess that it ticked all the boxes for the competition brief! I always wanted to write a civil rights piece, so I am glad that it was my first story committed to traditional paper publishing and not an e-book. 

Tell us about What’s in a Name? the title and the story’s plot or theme.

This ‘day in the life’ story is set in a mid-future Louisiana where two Black men struggle to eke out a living in the last days of capitalism, against a backdrop of environmental disaster. It was written in memory of the prominent civil rights pioneers Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and Medgar Evers, and the victim of a fatal race crime, Emmett Till. The Shakespearean title was inspired by the fact that as far back as the 40s, studies indicated that the names we are given can significantly affect how we perform later in life. Given the right social stimulus, I hope that another ‘Stokely’ and ‘Medgar’ will rise again in the future and take up their forefathers’ struggles.

Why was it important to you to write about environmental issues and what can you tell us about the anthology as a whole?

Writing about environmental issues is not easy, but it’s extremely important. Ultimately, it should educate people about the dangers we are facing and inspire people to act and make changes to their lives. It’s easy to talk about the problems and restate the statistics, but providing solutions is where speculative writers can make the biggest impact. By imagining and sharing stories of new, creative environmental initiatives and practices, we should be able to motivate readers to get involved and make a difference in their own communities. Writing can inspire great change – that’s why it’s still such a fantastically dangerous medium! 

The Earth 2.0 anthology provides a wide range of speculative visions of the future. It’s particularly pleasing that the stories cover mid to distant future time periods, which stimulate a lot of questions about humanity’s survival on this planet. I have also been working on an environmental children’s book with a talented illustrator called Chloe McNeill for the last year. It was written to empower primary school children to enjoy nature, and to be instrumental in protecting the environment. We can’t build the next generation of eco-warriors too soon! The book will be launched later this year through our fledgling company, Little Sprout Publishing. 

All profits from Earth 2.0 will be donated to WaterAid. Please tell us about the charity and what it means to you as a writer.

We live in a world of plenty, where enough food is produced to feed everyone on the planet, and enough fresh water exists to sustain us all. WaterAid delivers clean water, toilets, and good hygiene to some of the poorest places in the world. Together with the World Food Programme, which is tackling starvation in over 123 countries, these two charities are trying to ensure that people have the basics for life on this planet – food and water. Not-for-profit writing can help to ease this suffering. Half of my Amazon bookshelf profits are pledged to charities. It’s important to give something back.    

Who are the Nottingham Writers’ Studio and how did they start out?

NWS was established in 2007 with one clear goal: to be a home for all writers.
Housed in a one-of-a-kind venue in the heart of the Midlands, Nottingham Writers’ Studio is a place for people to come together; meet like-minded individuals, develop new skills, and become the best writer you can be. They share a building with designers, illustrators, and photographers, which works great for collaborations. I would like to thank Adam O’Connell at NWS for all his help and support. I would also like to thank my long suffering editor, Elizabeth Woodhouse, for all her help and support.

In your bio, you say that you write “in a Victorian house stuffed with dog-eared sci-fi paperbacks, poster art, cats, and curios.” Is your home the perfect space for a writer?

Probably not, but it works for me! I have been an avid collector of old paperbacks and music posters for years. I find something comforting and inspiring in being amidst organised clutter with cats climbing on my keyboard. My office looks like Hunter Thomson’s eclectic home in Colorado, minus the guns! I generally write to music, so having some vinyl stimulus on the deck also works for me.   

Have you always loved speculative fiction and how did you first discover it?

Yes, I remember as a kid always loving sci-fi films like Mad Max, Soylent Green, Logan’s Run, and Rollerball, which all portrayed terrifying visions of plausible futures. I was lucky enough to live close to a cinema where the elderly ladies that ran it did not care about 18 classifications, or X rated as it was known in the day. If you were enthusiastic, they would let you in! These films struck a chord in me and steered me toward writers like H.G Wells, George Orwell, J. G. Ballard, Nevil Shute, and Nigel Kneale, particularly his Quatermass stories. I was hooked on the genre from that point and have hoovered up as much as I can find to this day.

You worked in the Fuel Cell industry in marketing and engineering, plus 20 years as a development engineer. How has that technical and scientific background informed your writing?

It has fundamentally brought insight and rigor to my writing. Unfortunately, good ideas don’t become the next big thing because they should be. Fantastic concepts that could change our lives immeasurably sit collecting dust. The more something challenges the status quo, the more likely it is to be buried unless those making big money continue to make big money. It helps to understand these market dynamics if you want to predict when/if/how something will impact humanity. Writing white papers and technical magazine articles also helped build my writing muscles and ensure that my work is well researched. 

For a writer of speculative fiction set in the future, or near future, does it help to have knowledge of the real dangers of climate change and tech, such as AI?

You need a solid baseline if you want to predict anything accurately. Since I was at school, I have always read New Scientist magazine and had a general interest in new technology and climate issues. It is important to read as much as you can, generally trying to stick to professional journals rather than the popular press. Knowledge of key industry periodicals is critical to establishing new trends and directions, particularly with emerging technologies like AI.    

Tell us about some of your other works, beginning with EAT ME, a dystopian tale of the food industry and its future.

This was my first piece of published work and I still love the story concept. It’s based on a well-funded technology where you can grow a reactor full of meat from a simple biopsy sample from a host animal. Today, it’s possible to grow human meat in the lab as easily as it is to grow fish, pork, or beef. It is not hard to imagine celebrities, like the Kardashian family, selling a range of prime cuts to their fans that are literally made from them. EAT ME provides a chilling vision into the bioethics behind this technology and predicts how an industry selling human meat could easily become corrupted by big business. In essence, EAT ME is a fast-paced, speculative adventure story set in the mid-term future.  

What about JANKER, a vision of future Britain where criminals are tagged in a new way? What inspired you to write this story and do you foresee it in our future?

In the UK, around 116 thousand people are tagged each year. If you are 15 minutes late home, then you can be arrested by the police for breaching your order. The Ministry of Justice has failed to achieve value for money in the management of the TAG scheme, which is where the inspiration for the story was born. In Janker, the criminal is fitted with an internal charge that will explode if it is not exposed to a light bed at a set time, which is installed at their home. These dire consequences ensure that Jankers do not breach their orders and do as they are told, saving money and time for the Ministry. The story follows the plight of Billie Nord, a Janker whose light box has failed and who is desperately trying to find a donor unit. 

There is currently an epidemic of violent crime in the UK. It’s easy to imagine the government voting for explosive tagging or public hanging as a last-ditch response to gaining civic order, or to support a draconian, ‘Make England Great Again’, campaign.   

How important is it for you to confront radical and challenging themes?

Unfortunately, we live in a time where radical and challenging themes are commonplace. The scope includes the failure of legacy political and social movements, AI ethics, environmental activism, Black and Indigenous rights and power, and Women's rights, to name but a few. I think it is important that we confront these issues through fiction writing, where themes can be expanded to their final nightmarish conclusion, giving people the chance to see what could happen if the current trends are left unchecked. Authors can raise awareness through their writing – I love words and all they can achieve – so let’s put them to good use!  

In DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE you go off-planet and imagine the future of humanity following the Artemis program. What can you tell us about the story and the link to Alice in Wonderland?

This is my attempt at an Asimov-style story that embraces his unembellished style of writing. In essence, it is a vision of how your environment shapes you over time. In this case, the inhabitants of a lunar base are long forgotten by the world for 800 years, while war and environmental disasters ravage Earth. The inhabitants are physically mutated and have no idea that anything exists outside of their cave until the failure of their life support systems drives two brave souls back to their ancestor’s home world. This short sci-fi story takes you from the depths of the Moon to the sprawling Australian Outback, on the land of the Yolngu people, now a mixed collection of Aboriginal Australians who inhabit north-eastern Arnhem Land. “Down the rabbit hole” is a trope that refers to ending up somewhere strange, or a journey that is particularly problematic or unusual, as used in the novel, Alice in Wonderland. I love Lewis Carroll and the nonsense world he created. The title for EAT ME unwittingly came from the same origin.   

TURN LEFT OR GET SHOT looks at a more idealised future. Do you approach this theme with scepticism or hope (or both?)

The title of this story has its origins in a photograph of a handmade sign in front of a police barricade during the Watts race riots in Los Angeles (1965). It’s a last-chance warning, just like the one that we currently face environmentally. In this story, an AI entity has taken over from our conventional leaders and nations to wholistically solve our problems and save humanity. Unfortunately, this transition from a selfish world to a sharing world is not for everyone! Humanity is great at reacting in the end times when our backs are against the wall, but forward planning and self-sacrifice are not prominent in our makeup. AI is hopefully free of our self-interest and can provide a positive catalyst for change. This is an optimistic and hopeful vision of how AI could save us from ourselves. For example, if an AI avatar popped up on all our computers today and asked if we wanted it to take over, end war and famine, and make things better, rather than sticking with the old political parties that have left us in fear for years - would you vote yes, or no? 

In the fourth quarter of the year, you have a new book coming out, about “the Royal Family in dire straits and gender inequality”. Tell us more about this and the importance of humour in your writing.

Every story I have written has been a specific writing challenge, so I thought it was time to try my hand at satire. I enjoyed writing dark comedy with the Johnny Vega – Satan’s Bartender stories, but I wanted to use humour to expose the current issues in contemporary politics and the monarchy; to make a serious point. The story hinges on the hunt for a new monarch, which exposes the current weaknesses in the system and questions what we want from the Royal Family. I always liked the idea that the King or Queen could be much more than a highly decorated ornamental effigy, designed to entertain and amuse the watching masses. This story explores an alternative future for them and us. In writing comedy, someone must be the butt of the joke, or the joke must contain an element of truth. This is what makes writing comedy so difficult and rewarding. I have great respect for the late Sue Townsend, who did a wonderful job of satirizing British life for decades. Hopefully, my story will be entertaining for the reader and highly uncomfortable for those people currently in power.   

Amazon 

About Craig Smith:

C.K. SMITH is a Kindle author living in Nottingham, England. He writes in a Victorian house stuffed with dog-eared sci-fi paperbacks, poster art, cats, and curios. SMITH is a recent winner of the George Floyd Short Story Competition & was published in 'Earth 2.0: A Nottingham Writers' Studio Anthology'. His story ‘What’s in a Name?’ takes us to mid-future Louisiana where two Black men struggle to eke out a living in the last days of capitalism - ‘Smith’s tongue-in-cheek observation “What does colour have to do with anythin’ when we’re all bound for Hell?” could be a tagline for the whole competition!’ 

Amazon Author Page

Interview with Patricia Ricketts, author of Speed of Dark

Today it gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview Patricia Ricketts, whose novel Speed of Dark is released on May 3.

Tell us something about Speed of Dark. This is your debut novel; what led you to write it?

Wow…well, I’ve been writing all my life—poetry, short stories and my first novel—Even, After All the Years—many years ago. [Unfortunately, that novel was lost in a move, pre-computer, before I could pitch it to publishers.] Nonetheless, I love, love, love the act of writing. Bringing a character alive with real-life conflicts fascinates me, lets me understand what I think about the way of the world and the soul of another. Working on a good storyline sparks my creativity and sends me into the flow of something larger than I am.

Your main character, Mary Em Phillips, is in a dark place at the start of the novel. What brings her there and how does she begin to escape? 

Mary Em Phillips has lost everything: her grandmother Mamie who raised her, her husband Jack, and her only child Petey. Dark enough? So, I wanted to see what a woman would do with all that loss, surrounded by nothing but apparent darkness. Speed of Dark explores what Mary Em does with her sorrows and flashes back to where she’s been as she journeys through grief. Not all is dark as the novel progresses, however; the light comes in at the most amazing junctures. Some of which will surprise you. 

And, oh yeah…there’s even humor in Speed of Dark. 

Amazon lists the novel under the heading of Magical Realism. What does that mean to you? 

Magical Realism is the propensity for the mythical and spiritual to exist in real form in the everyday life of a novel. In many other cultures,  however, magic is as real as a coffee pot. Not always so for those of us who live in the west. Consequently, we give it a term—magical realism. Having said that, Lake Michigan, Mishigami in Speed of Dark, is an actual character with a voice, a personality, a past, present and future—and oh, so many worries. He will touch your heart. He certainly touches mine.

As well as Mary Em, your story has two other voices or narrators: Mosley Albright and Mishigami. Can you tell us something about these characters and the part they play in the story? 

I fell in love with Mosely Albright from the moment he walked onto my computer screen. He has heart, soul and troubles in his own life, just like Mary Em. He brings her something she needs, and unintentionally, she brings him something too. Mishigami’s issues are different. He needs a champion and he’s set his eyes, and his heart, on an unsuspecting Mary Em.

Mishigami is the spirit of Lake Michigan, named by The Ojibwe tribe. Are there elements of Native American myth in the story, as well as ecological concerns? 

I’ve included a beautiful Ojibwe “creation” story in Speed of Dark, and mention of the Ojibwe settlements on Mishigami’s northern shores centuries earlier. A subtle comparison is made between the Ojibwe’s cohabiting with nature, and contemporary people’s abuses of it. Many ecological concerns come through Mishigami, also, as he explains his concerns about our cavalier habits and practices as they relate to the earth. My dedication at the beginning of Speed of Dark reads: “Considering both the vastness of this planet’s beneficence and the finiteness of its precious resources, I dedicate this novel to Lake Michigan, our Mishigami, without whom we could not survive.”

To what extent is grief and recovery from grief an important theme in the story? 

Recovery from grief is a seminal theme in Speed of Dark. And isn’t grief and grief recovery a universal struggle for most of us? Dark and light wrestle in my characters’ experiences—past and present—as they wend their way through their individual griefs.

How far has writing and reading played an important part in your life? 

Writing for me is essential to my well-being. The cool thing about writing is it allows me to explore my own personal issues: you know, like psychotherapy without the fee. That goes for journaling, or writing poetry, or blogs, or novels, too. Writing allows me to explore my own beliefs and fears. For me, that’s centering. 

Reading, too, is essential. I fell in love with reading with a book my mother suggested back in fifth grade: Marshall Saunders’ Beautiful Joe. From there it was off to the races for me with the likes of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, John Irving’s The World According to Garp, John Fowles’ The Magus, Toni Morrison’s Beloved…oh I could go on and on. I believe a book breaks open the heart so that love—and shock and grief and growth—start to pour inside. Like hands clasped tight-to-the-chest in prayer, are novels. Fuel for something to ignite us, grander and brighter than anything we ever thought we could be. 

You were awarded a scholarship for creative writing from the University of Edinburgh. How did it come about and what impact did the experience have on you as a writer? 

While teaching high school AP English, I was encouraged to apply for this scholarship, which I did. What an incredible experience it was at the University of Edinburgh: I got to hear Scottish writers lecture on stylistics, Welsh poets read their poetry and Scottish authors conduct fabulous workshops on creative writing. And, as luck would have it, during that time, Fringe and the International Book Fair were taking place in Edinburgh, so I got to see live theatre, watch stand-up comics and street musicians perform, and attend live interviews with the likes of authors Neil Gaiman and Audrey Niffenegger. Each experience stoked the fires of my writing passion.

You have had short stories published in New Directions, Slate, Meta, Blue Hour, Realize Magazines, and on NPR’s “This I Believe” website. What can you tell us about your short fiction? Does it have a specific focus or theme? 

I am a sucker for a writing prompt. They don’t even have to be good ones to get me started. Someone could suggest a word, like “umbrella,” or a situation like “getting stoned” and I will write a poem, or a song [yes, I’m a singer-songwriter, too], or a novel to the power of its suggestion. So I’m not stuck on any one theme. I’ve written short stories about a father’s feelings on the morning of his son’s wedding, a crippled man playing his violin for the swallows under a viaduct, a little girl stealing her big sister’s imaginary horse, a woman apologizing during a pedicure to a Vietnamese man for all the harm Americans did to his country. I’m all over the place and love every minute of it. 

What made you decide to write a novel as opposed to a short story? 

I’ve written many short stories. And completed two novels. Short stories are harder because they are spare; novels are harder because they are expansive. In the end, writing is a creative venture into characters and plotlines and themes using the cadence and imagery language provides. I like both forms.

You are working on a second novel, tentatively titled The End of June. What can you tell us about this book? 

Set during 2020, in the thick of the pandemic, this novel tells the story of June Toole Byrne, who decides she needs to breathe—away from the stifling nature of the virus, from the concrete confines of Chicago, from the patriarchies which still rule the day. So she heads off on a cross-country trek to camp in a ‘82 VW Vanagon with her dog, Henri, as companion. It’s an odyssey of experiences which climax in a dramatic confrontation with a brown bear in the wilds of Wyoming. [Coincidentally, June is recently divorced from an ex whose name is Dwayne Behr.]

Your website includes autobiographical extracts as well as poetry and short fiction. The stories of your childhood are particularly vivid and show detailed recall. How far do you think childhood experience shapes the style and personality of a writer, and of you in particular? 

In a word, immensely. While writing fiction is not autobiographical per se, our childhoods are instrumental in shaping attitudes, providing agar for the petri dish of our characters and storylines, and—in my case coming from an artistic and literary home—nurturing creative tendencies. Further, I’m mostly Irish and was raised Catholic in a family with five loud, talented, and fun/funny siblings. That has influenced me, too.

What authors do you love to read, now and in past years? Are there any particular influences? 

Throughout the years, many books have swept me into the wonder of something eternal. Books like Abraham Verghese’s Cutting For Stone, Barbara Kingsolvers’ Poisonwood Bible, John Fowles’ The Magus, Joyce Carol Oates’ We Were the Mulvaneys, Brian Doyles’ Mink River, Richard Powers’ The Overstory, John Irvings’ Prayer for Owen Meany, Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Oh, I could go on and on. But I would be remiss if I didn’t specifically talk about Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides as something which swept me away, whose Prologue itself is so moving, that I used to read it to my AP English classes once a year. “Come in. Sit down and get comfortable. I’m going to read you something that will shuffle you off this mortal coil…and give you pause,” I’d say. Conroy’s artful yet truthful use of language, his tales of savior tigers, of fraternity fails, of grandparent idiosyncrasies make me howl with both laughter and pain. Every time I read it, Prince of Tides carries me, body and soul, into both the salt flats of South Carolina’s Low Country and to the city of Manhattan where the hubris of the north clashes with the tattered soul of the south—in love, in perspective, and in abuses through Tom Wingo’s troubled soul. Which, I came to find out, was a part of Conroy’s own. Further testimony that one’s childhood fuels a writer’s fiction. 

What do you like to do in your spare time? 

I’m a busy person. I love to paint—using both watercolors and oils—and draw. I love to play my guitar and sing, usually my own songs. Occasionally, Peter and I host open mic concerts. I love to golf and, even though I am not terribly good, I love the sound of my club connecting with a really solid drive or watching a twelve-foot putt slide into the cup. I love Lake Michigan—summer, autumn, winter spring—and am drawn to its sides no matter the weather. I swim, loving the expansiveness that occurs when I dive inside it, and I collect beach glass on its shores when swimming isn’t possible.

Amazon

About Patricia Ricketts:

PATRICIA RICKETTS received a lifelong love of music, the written word, the visual arts, and healthy arguing around the family dining room table, leading to an undergrad degree in English Literature and a Master in Written Composition. She penned various essays, short stories, poems, and novels during her 30-year career as a high school English teacher. However, her passion really took off when she received a scholarship to the University of Edinburgh for Creative Writing. Since then, she has had short stories published in New Directions literary magazine, Realize Magazine, The Slate, Meta Magazine, The Blue Hour, on the Storied Stuff website, and in NPR’s* “This I Believe” segment. She is currently working on her next novel, The End of June. Ricketts currently resides in Chicago with her

Partner.

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Last Breath (Atmospheric Pressure, Book 3) by Aaron Frale

 Release date: July 14, 2021

Subgenre: Dystopian, Post-apocalyptic

About Last Breath:

 

Olson returns to the Union to discover he can breathe the noxious outside air. However, he soon finds out that he isn’t the only one involved in the sinister plan Erik is hatching. Both of the cities that weathered the apocalypse now depend on Olson unraveling what Erik has in store.

Meanwhile, a small community not too far from these cities sees the buildings burning from Erik’s coup of the government. They possess a nuclear warhead from the forgotten world and send a small team to see what is happening.

In the St. Paul Collective, Natalie is pregnant with Olson’s offspring. She finds out that her unborn child is wanted by the people in power for study because of Olson’s natural ability. She will do anything to protect her kid.

Find out how it all plays out in the third and final installment of the Atmospheric Pressure series.

Excerpt:

 

Kaz touched the obelisk that had been with her since she could form memories. The elation was brief as her arms and legs began to cramp. She was leaning too far forward to push herself back to safety. The only other option was tumbling into the abyss.

Just before her limbs gave out, a hand grabbed her by her oxygen backpack and pulled her to safety. Kaz stumbled back and fell to the ground. She could hear in L’s voice that her mentor was angry.

“What are you doing?!” L exclaimed. “You could have been killed!”

“I’m sorry—”

“That’s over one hundred feet down! If the fall didn’t kill you, the face plate shattering certainly would have!”

“I didn’t—”

“When I said you could come to look at it, I thought you’d use your eyes! If you are going to do something stupid every time you get in an atmo-suit, then this isn’t for you.”

“Are you going to report me?”

“I—” L couldn’t finish her thought. There was a loud concussion, like a bomb had gone off in the compound. Kaz jumped to her feet and surveyed the scene. Nothing seemed damaged. However, there was an orange glow beyond Building 5. It was in the same direction that L had claimed there was a city. L didn’t say anything to Kaz. She ran toward a set of stairs they had used to get down into the concrete bowl. Kaz trailed behind her.

Eventually, they made it to the other side of Building 5. L was right. They could see that there were gargantuan buildings deep in the mist in the distance, and they were burning.

 

Amazon

About Aaron Frale:

Good times and hope for a better future. Maybe some fun time travel adventures or interdimensional travelers. A toddler stuck in a barbarian and his mom in a halfling. "Comedy and" is my jam. When not writing, I can be found teaching, podcasting Aaron's Horror Show, and screaming while playing guitar for the band Spiral (The Albuquerque one). Life has brought my wife, myself, and my son to Montana, where we reside at the moment.

 

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Carrie Anne's World: An Odyssey Through Space and Time by Mark Whiteway

Release date: April 21, 2021

Subgenre: Time Travel

 

About Carrie Anne's World:

 

Mike O'Keefe arrives on the paradise island of Koh Tao only to be caught up in a terrorist attack by a radical environmental group. In a recurring dream, he encounters a mysterious young girl on a beach who cannot remember her past. She writes a message in the sand, 6 = 3, and begs him to help her find the "Saelak". Dismissing the experience as the product of a fevered imagination, he settles into life on the island. But when the environmental threat ramps up and elements of his dream world begin bleeding into reality, Mike is propelled on a journey across time and space that must end in the destruction or salvation of Humanity.

 

Excerpt:

 

Prologue

 

I know nothing.

Who am I? Why am I here now, in this place? Did I come freely, or was I sent? What is my purpose?

I know nothing but my name. Carrie Anne. The name has a pretty sound that rolls around my tongue. I like it.

I sit on a grassy bluff. I am barefoot and clad in a knee-length sky-blue dress. I have been here a long time—I cannot remember a time when I was not here. The sun has risen and set many times. I have grown weary and succumbed to the darkness, yet when I awake, I am always here, on the cliff overlooking a vast sea.

Thunderheads embrace the sun. Wind buffets my cheeks, and fat raindrops splash against my forehead. I open my mouth wide to catch them, feeling their coolness slide down my throat.

All too soon, the sun burns away the upstart clouds, caressing my face and drying my dress. It casts off a robe of red, orange, and gold before slipping offstage beneath the horizon. Stars shine in silent applause. My eyelids grow heavy once more.

 

~

 

Some days, I wander the clifftop. Soft, wet grass sneaks between my toes, and spongy moss cushions my steps. On a rocky promontory, I stretch my arms out wide like a statue and close my eyes, revelling in the cool onshore breeze and the scent of salt. I watch the breakers turn to white foam as they rush up the beach before dashing back to the sea as if shocked by their audacity. My breathing slows to the rhythm of the waves until I am one with the sea.

Time—the space between one wave and the next or one sunrise and the next. I hear the words in my mind, but I am a circle. I always come back to where I was. Where I am now is where I shall be. If this thing called time exists, then it is meaningless.

~

I see them! Crawling out of the sea, with heads shaped like hourglasses and bodies like whips, six grey-green creatures gaze up at me with baleful eyes. My heart dances as I lean over the cliff edge, but they squirm back into the surf, and a wave washes them from view.

Part of me wants to descend the cliff and go after them, but I cannot because… because I am waiting for something. I blink at the revelation. What is it that I am waiting for? I hug my knees and frown with concentration but cannot squeeze out the memory.

I shake my head, brushing the auburn tresses from my cheeks. I find myself hoping the whiplike creatures will return. Either way, I now know one more thing: I am not alone in the world. An ember glows in my heart, and I smile for the first time.

 

~

 

Soon after sunrise, I spot a new pair of creatures near the crest of a hill. They are four-legged and graceful. One has a dainty pointed face, the other a crown of spreading antlers. They munch the sparse vegetation, seemingly oblivious to my presence.

A word enters my mind. Hunger. I try to fathom the meaning. All living creatures must consume food. That can’t be right. I have no such urge. Am I living? The voice within me answers a resounding Yes. Another conundrum, then. Another unsolved puzzle to toss on the growing pile.

My heart dances with the notion that they might descend to the clifftop and make my acquaintance, but they turn slowly and disappear over the hill as if disappointed.

I watch the sea in all its moods. Sunrise—golden, with sprites dancing on the wave caps. Morning—grey, reflecting clouds pregnant with rain. Afternoon—green swells whipped up by gales and hurled at the shoreline. And evening—red, with gentle ripples embracing one another, warm and satisfied.

I am content to wait until my purpose becomes clear. And if it does not become clear, I am still content.

 

~

 

Last night, images filled my head. The sea, growing greedy, came in and covered the land. I saw things floating in the water: broken pieces of wood, torn cloth, and stick figures face down, unmoving, and splayed out, reduced to mere objects.

It is called a dream, the voice in my mind says.

But what does it mean?

It is the end of all things.

The images haunt me. Is the dream a mirror of what is to come? If so, am I responsible for what I saw or merely powerless to prevent it?

Why am I here? What is my purpose? Am I destined to become like the things in the water?

The voice does not answer.

 

~

 

Each night, the dream returns. Each morning, I awake before dawn, shivering and in a cold sweat. I hug my body in a futile effort to still my sobbing and ward off the chills and the terror.

I have not seen the four-legged beasts or the whiplike creatures in many days. Are they floating somewhere, still and silent?

Desperately, I scour the sea and the land with salt-laden eyes, waiting for a sign. Something to show me the direction in which I must go. Something that will begin my story.

Amazon

 

About Mark Whiteway:

"Writing SciFi was a long held ambition of mine. As a kid, I read everything from Wells to Verne to Heinlein. At twelve years old, I wrote a novella. (I still have it, hand-written in a huge ledger). 

"Following that, life intervened, and it was only in April '09 that I determined to get back to writing. Several ideas had been running around in my head for some time, of which the Lodestone concept was the strongest. As I began to develop the story, it became clear that I was not going to be able to do justice to it in a single book, and so the Lodestone Series was born. The first trilogy was quite well received, which led to a second trilogy in the Lodestone universe and I then branched out into a new story which became The Arc of the Universe quartet of books. “Lockdown” enabled me to complete the epic Carrie Anne’s World and to start my next project. And on we go!         

Mark Whiteway lives in rural West Sussex, England.    

 

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