Author Archives: ssbb-admin

17
Dec

freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

It was sunset, and Stellan Gunvor was standing in the desert. He was looking at the brand new fortress of a building that housed what Anson had called ‘the Wilderness.’ The Director, however, had jokingly named the whole structure ‘Area 42’ shortly after the swamp sprang up suddenly in the middle of nowhere. The building had a high, steel-supported glass dome that let the blooming moonlight filter down into the swampy jungle.

Since its first appearance, Stellan had realized that Area 42 held the answers to his problems. He couldn’t get to Anson’s Wilderness, but through some twist of fate, the Wilderness had come to him. Stellan wanted to be inside, so he simply was.

17
Dec

The Gray Fox

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

The full moon illuminated the expanse of virgin snow and the single set of tracks that bisected it. The fox that left them ran, heedless of his own exposure, as though something were calling him, urging him away from the village he had left behind, pulling him toward the wilds.

Some miles passed under the fox’s paws before he slowed. He was a handsome animal, with a gray back and red trimming his ears and snout, sleek and healthy despite his long run. His silver-gray eyes seemed to reflect the moonlight. But to an observer – had anyone observed him beyond the stars, the moon, or the bare black arms of the trees – he might have seemed disoriented. Whatever urge had pulled him here was fading, and now he felt only his heart hammering in his narrow ribcage. He sniffed the ground without understanding what he was looking for. Thirsty, he gulped a mouthful of snow. Eventually fatigue overtook him. He crawled beneath the low-hanging branches of a pine tree, curled up on a blanket of dry, dead needles, and fell asleep.

As the days passed the fox grew used to his surroundings. He survived off voles and rabbits, avoided the few other foxes he encountered, and every night bedded down under a pine tree. Nearly a week after his arrival, the man came.

17
Dec

The Eye and the Eye

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

London, 1867

There was a peach tree growing at the crossroads of Church Lane near Northey Street. It had not been there yesterday. Dao Chen stopped in his steps and gaped, all the while carts of goods and passers-by swept past him in hues of burnt grey and brown. This was Limehouse on the East End, Limehouse of the wharves, and peach trees did not grow here, their roots tangling through the surface of dirty city avenues.

Someone jostled him, and Dao Chen did his best imitation of a stunned brick, never taking his eyes off the peach tree. “Oy, watch where you’re goin’!” his unfortunate new friend said. Dao Chen made a sound in his throat that was meant to be an apology but came out more as continued awe. Not towards the labourer who had just budged him from the road, of course, though Dao Chen was certain that the man, as every working man trying to feed his family, possessed some small talent that deserved awe. No, his reverence was reserved for the pink-hued tree with its soft delicate petals, blossoms spouting from its branches like little poems.

The man who had crashed into him took another look at Dao Chen’s face, and disgust seeped into his voice like sewage. “Chinaman,” he said, a single word that was definition, judgement, and insult.

17
Dec

Greensinger

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged ,

He gets to the top of the dune and falls down.

The sand is in his nose and hair and clothes and mouth and he wants to spit it out but his mouth is so dry so he swallows despite the way it claws down his throat. Everything is grit and heat and pain and a sky that pushes him down, oppressively blue.

Blue is not his color. Nor is the orange-yellow of the sand or the burning white of the sun. He’s known them too long, days and days bleeding together. Hateful colors.

He remembers green. He doesn’t remember what it was, but it must have been nice. Green is a nice color. Green is from before. Probably.

“Get up.”

17
Dec

Robin, after the apocalypse

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

Robin heard the cart as it rattled down the lane, horses’ hooves striking hollowly against the hard-baked August ground. From his sideline gaze out the window, he recognized the cart, and the horses, and the broad man holding the reins. He didn’t stir from his place until Negi dismounted, stepped in front of the horses, and gave the signal to what, for all he must have known, might have been an empty house.

Negi didn’t move until Robin unbolted the door, stepped clear of the threshold, and gave the return signal.

17
Dec

I Think You’ll Understand

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

Walking into the halls of Martin Luther King High School was like coming home, and that wasn’t really a good thing. Home was full of reasons I didn’t want to be there, and school wasn’t any different. This was supposed to be better, even though I knew that was a load of shit my mom told me to get me to pack up my stuff and leave in Dad’s beat-up old Corolla. It was Dad’s house, Dad’s rules, Dad’s decisions, or it was military school. At first I thought my mom was full of shit with that threat. You see that on TV; it doesn’t really happen. But there were fucking brochures on the dining room table the last time I came home with bruised knuckles and a black eye, and if she was bluffing then she was better at it than I thought. She called Dad the same night.

Their divorce had been bad and I probably made it worse, but I didn’t care. Their bullshit had been hell to deal with for years and they had no idea how much they stuck me in the middle. How much they used me and never even listened to me. How much they didn’t even know me and worse, didn’t even try. So fine. I took my shit and left my mom’s house. It couldn’t be any worse at Dad’s.

I was wrong. He had rules, strict curfews, and a big fist. He hit me once and I hit him back, made him remember I was as big as him now and I wasn’t Mom. I could have called someone, maybe, but CPS likes to skip past our neighborhood. So we handle things our own way.

17
Dec

Tantantara! Tzing! Boom!

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged ,

There were three windows open on Freddie’s computer screen. He would classify them as unsatisfactory, terrifying, and baffling, respectively. The first was the spreadsheet where he recorded all the finances of the Woodcross Gilbert and Sullivan Society. The second was an email from his father’s colleague Dudley Baxter, which he had flagged and banished to the depths of his email inbox some days previous. The third was another email, from the Honourable Robin Lionel Coffrey Montgomery-Wells, asking if there was a time when Freddie would be free to have lunch.

Robin Montgomery-Wells. It had been a long time since that name had popped up in his inbox. He clicked the window and dragged it around the screen before dropping it back roughly where it started. The email had been sent to the generic inbox Freddie used for matters relating to the Woodcross Gilbert and Sullivan Society. Well, it had been six years since they last spoke. How was Robin to know Freddie still checked his old Hotmail account?

17
Dec

The White Palace

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged ,

Fard walked in the house, hung up his cloak and scarf by the door, and flopped face-down on the couch with such dramatic force that he felt a cord or two pop under his weight. Daanil didn’t even look up from his paper. “Went well, hm.” It was only a question by the most technical of definitions.

“I hate everything,” said Fard, though the sentiment was muffled through couch cushions that smelled like they’d had all manner of horrors spilled on them, which they had. They tasted even worse. He sat up. “I hate damned everything,” he said again, just in case it hadn’t come across the first time.

“Is that so,” said Daanil. Once upon a time Fard had mistaken Daanil’s unflappable tone for serenity, before he’d learned to recognize sarcasm for what it really was.

Fard blew a raspberry at the ceiling, then stopped when he saw the little drops of spittle fall back and dot his glasses; he tugged them off and wiped them with the tail of his shirt, shutting his eyes against the blurry world for the duration of the cleaning. “If I hear ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ one more time, I may scream and set the place on fire with my mind.”

17
Dec

Forever Closing

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 40, Text | Tagged

In retrospect, I guess it would be kind of hard to get it on when your grandmother’s ghost is watching.

29
Oct

The Eye of Nechemyyeh

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 39, Text | Tagged ,

121 And if a mother should bear two children in the same labor, then let it be known that the two are one flesh and one mind divided into two within the mother’s flesh;
122 and they will be granted surpassing powers over the invisible world, as in its division into two bodies their power will be honed, as though they were light and a lens.
123 And the birth of two from one womb will bring calamity on the People of the Book, for the gods themselves will envy their power, and desire to retrieve it to its source, and have the two for their possessions.
124 And so it is that of the two, one should be put to the sword in the year of their coming of age; so that the gods may be pleased with the offering and the People of the Book spared their judgment.
125 And when two are so born, the first to emerge from the mother will be called “the first known to the world,”
126 and the second will be called “the one who follows,” and be given the rights due to the eldest child. And let it be known that the second follows behind because he is the most beloved of the gods, and they have clung to him throughout his journey into the world, and not allowed him to come before the other.
127 Thus, to best please the gods, it is the second of the two who must be put to the sword;
128 and it is the first who will receive his share of the power of both in one, and become a prophet of great wisdom, who will surely lead the People of the Book to good fortune.

29
Oct

A Divinis

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 39, Text | Tagged

Florence, June 1633.

The night had already fallen when Professor Leandro Lazzaro left the university to go home. He had been staying late to work on a new theory every evening this week and today was not different. He was hoping to finish a new book about the relation between the moon’s phases and one’s spell-power before the end of the month – he would have finished it long ago if it weren’t for his current problems with the Church.

Leandro was a man in his mid-forties, but looked a bit older, due to his hair’s having turned completely gray in the last few months. He was of average build and, if asked, he would say there was nothing noticeable about his appearance. If you asked the ladies, though, they would tell you about his kind hazel eyes, his charming smile, or his enchanting voice. Among themselves they would also whisper about his wealth, since an unmarried professor, with no children or living relatives, was an interesting party to say the least.

29
Oct

touch my mouth and hold my tongue

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 39, Text | Tagged

He strides forward, propelled entirely by determination. It feels like his staff weighs triple its usual weight. The chaos of corpses and soldiers hinders his movements, the stink of the newly dead thick in the air, carrion birds already gathering. There is a thrum pulsing through the scattered groups of people, relief that it’s finally over even creeping into the wails of the dying and the groans of the injured.

There, a leather-clad figure, yellow-white hair a beacon among his dark-haired companions, armour brown-bathed-red-turning-brown. Shem hikes up his robes and starts running, staff forgotten on the ground.

29
Oct

Hack and Slash

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 39, Text | Tagged ,

Brynn’s eyes idly tracked the wisps of fire in the chimney as they danced. He liked this: the warm light of a fire to keep any chills at bay, a room with walls that kept the wind and rain outside where it belonged, even a bed so that he could finally enjoy a solid night’s rest. That being said, he didn’t mind the nights spent on damp ground or hard floors, with a blanket to serve as his mattress and a coat the only thing to keep him warm, but he sure had a newfound appreciation for the comfort that a real mattress provided. Something soft to rest on while he enjoyed the loose feeling that had spread throughout his limbs after his bath—another luxury worth noting. There wasn’t much more he could think to add that would raise his feeling of overall contentment more than it currently….

Well, one thing maybe.

29
Oct

And I shall know you like the back of my hand

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 39, Text | Tagged

George whipped around on the path, sending up a little cloud of dust around his feet. “How long are you going to keep following me?”

The man walking just three paces behind him raised his eyebrows. “Well, I’d hardly call it following. It isn’t as if you don’t know I’m here.”

George frowned. “It’s been two months. Aren’t you, I don’t know, bored?”

“Bored?” His eyebrows hitched higher. A tremulous grin twitched up one side of his mouth higher than the other. “Why would I be bored? Just last week we were nearly killed by harpies. It was fantastic.”

29
Oct

Diplomacy

Posted by | Categories Bang*Bang no. 39, Text | Tagged ,

Cyril Beck was not familiar with Elves. He knew of them, of course; everyone who’d ever been to a music hall or to the pictures, or who’d read a novel, knew of Elves. They were either flippant and vain or tired and dull, steeped in meaningless tradition and singers of endless ballads. As the catchphrase from the wireless went: “Does this remind you of yet another song, Tafty?”

When it came to real Elves, however, Cyril had only met two. The first, he was assured by his mother, had been called Mr Brin, and had lived in the village Cyril had grown up in for as long as his mother could remember. “Oh,” she would say, “he was so good to everyone. And to see the way he used to bounce you on his knee!” Cyril had been too young to remember him, and all he had left were vague memories of golden hair, the smell of tobacco, and the feel of tuppence in his hand to go buy sweets from the local shop. That had been long ago. Mr Brin had enlisted in the army in 1916 when Cyril was only four years old; he had been killed in France a few months later and only a few weeks before Cyril’s father had gone the same way.