The clouds hung low over the mountain, clutching at leaves and thickening in hollows. The sun had dipped below the tree-line and, although light still bloomed across the sky, the darkness too was starting to gather in the hidden spaces. It seemed to seep up out of cracks and roots and spread in pools.

Aiko sat, cross-legged, looking out at the mountain where it loomed beyond the edge of the village. The moon would soon rise, and she would pick up her sword and stalk the ways of the forest. She was out of time. The dragon must die. Tonight.

“It’s just unsettling, is all.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like there’s any alternative.”
“I know,” said Lucas, “but that’s the point, isn’t it? All the major governments and religions have signed off on it being morally sound, but if the only other option was the extinction of the human race what the hell else were they going to do?”
“You don’t believe it?” asked Sarah.
“Of course I don’t believe it. I don’t even believe that they believe it. Even discounting all that, I’m still uncomfortable with the fact that my refrigerator is excited when I come home.”
“Oh you’re such a prude, Lucas. They do good work. Besides, I’ve seen the appliance reserves: herds of exercise bikes roaming the plains, water coolers gathering around drinking holes, flocks of mobile phones texting in trees. They have a good life when they’re out of service.”
“Fine, fine,” Lucas sighed. “Just don’t come crying to me when your alarm clock starts watching you sleep.”

It had started to snow again, and the boat was soon lost to their view. They climbed in a snow-globe, just the two of them and a short stretch of ladder fading out above and below. The ladder had black rungs and white rungs, arranged seemingly at random, and Peter accepted unquestioningly the fact that he couldn’t grasp the black rungs with his hands nor stand on the white rungs with his feet. Half of his attention was on this problem, and most of what was left was trying to distract him so he didn’t accidentally (or purposely) look up and catch a glimpse under Alice’s skirt.
“So why didn’t I remember you yesterday?” he asked. The question had been on his mind for a while.
“I’m no expert, you know.”
“You just seem… I don’t know… more comfortable with all this, I suppose.”
“Well,” she said, “what did you dream about the night before last? The night before that?”
“Fair point. Did you remember me?”
“Not really. I remembered dreaming you, but not what the dream was about.”
At this, he did look up. “That didn’t seem weird to you?”
“No, not particularly,” replied Alice, looking down at him. “I noticed you in class a few times last week.”
“Oh,” said Peter, blushing.

“Have you heard about this new ‘red’ they came out with t’other week?”
“‘Redd’? No, what’s that then?”
“Our Karen’s new man bought a car on Friday, and it’s ‘red’!”
“Oh, it’s a car, then? I don’t hold with cars me’self. I’m all walkin’, me.”
“No, no, it’s not a car.”
“I thought you said it was a car.”
“No, I… Oh, I know how you’ll get it! You know how Sharon down the way’s husband David ‘as a car an’ it’s black?”
“Aye.”
“And you know the doctor from over Bimsbury…”
“Simon?”
“Aye, Simon.”
“He’s a lovely young man, he is.”
“Aye, he is, he is. Anyway, he has that van he does housecalls in, and it’s white.”
“Aye, it is. I saw him just last week for me corns. It’s all that walkin’.”
“Right, so Our Karen’s new man’s new car isn’t black, and it isn’t white! It’s ‘red’!”
“Oh I see what you mean now. You mean grey.”

At first, there was the drought. The first animals were arrayed over the vast plain, silent and still clay moulded and baking in the relentless sun. One day, before there even were days, Gecko opened its eyes to find itself alone amongst the lifeless masses. Nothing else stirred.

Lonely as only the first or last could be, it went on a great trek beyond the horizon and came back leading the first winds, but still nothing stirred.

It crawled many many miles into a crevice into the earth and came back leading the first fire and in an instant all the clay animals were hard as stone, but still nothing stirred.

Finally, it crawled into the sky and came falling back with the first rains. The other animals began to stir.

The room was huge, floored in black and white tiles and roofed in vaulting plasterwork dangled with glittering crystal chandeliers. Some of the pillared walls led to alcoves and other rooms, some were faced with mirrors polished to a perfect sheen. In the air hung the sound of a bubbling stream, and the smell and shadows of a forest glade. As most of the guests had descended the sweeping staircase to the floor they had gasped at the grandeur or remarked that there may have been tens of thousands of masqued dancers parading around the room. He did neither. The very moment he had passed through the doors he had seen her, and his eyes never left her as he descended to the floor and took her hand.

The fluorescent lighting and sterile linoleum of the fast food restaurant was neutral ground. They were a chain store, up and down the strip. Five hundred miles dotted liberally with the squat, square buildings selling sugar and fat and two hundred million people eager to stuff it down their throats. With replacement organs cheaper every day people were still fat, stupid and lazy, but it was harder and harder to die from those things and fast food was big business. Such big business that they had the best security of any public place, hence the neutral ground.

The fake vinyl seat was sticky as Falling Blossom slid into the booth. She was late; not late enough, it seemed, for she was still alone. The food in front of her nauseated her slightly, placing her squarely in a clear minority, but she busied herself with making a show of eating anyway, conscious of the domed cameras dotting the ceiling and not wanting to be forcefully ejected before her business here was done. She was so engrossed in her act for the cameras she did not notice the man walk in until she looked up from her color-a-dinosaur paper placemat. He saw her at the same moment, caught the grimace on her face, and adopted a haughty scowl as he sat down opposite her.

“You got some kind of a problem?” he growled.
“Only that I wanted to get through this without any problems and you show up here dressed like that.”
“Are you disrespecting my tribe?”
She slowly looked him up and down before answering, trying to decide whether there was any point in being tactful. In the end, she figured there wasn’t. “Pirate isn’t a tribe you fucking moron, learn some history. You couldn’t at least leave the parrot at home? Or the eyepatch?”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” He thumped his hands on the table and slid out of the booth. “You’re lucky there’s no way to get weapons into these places.”
“Actually,” she said, pushing the tray away and leaning back in the seat, her hands clearly visible, “you’re wrong. Across the board. I have three weapons on me right now and could cut you down before you take a step. More importantly, you do have to listen to this. Now sit the hell down.”

Out of the endless white and grey, a speck appeared. It blossomed into a line and steadily grew until it seemed to tower above them. Peter had begun to wonder if they would ever reach it when the boat stopped with a dull clang and unseated him. He flailed for purchase and found himself holding something thin and flat. Their boat had struck the line, no longer as distant as they had thought.
“What is it?” asked Alice, clearly excited.
Peter leaned carefully over the side of the boat and, now no longer seen from side-on, the line resolved itself into a ladder stretching up into the sky.
“It’s our stop, I think,” he said.
He held the boat steady while Alice clambered over him, gave him a stern glance he assumed pertained to the skirt she was wearing, grasped a rung, and began to climb.

“She was born for the theatre. To tread the boards, skirting the crisp edge of the spotlight; to take them to places they could not fathom without her. And, somehow, the green cellophane would fade into sunlight through the branches, and the painted backdrops would dissolve, leaving the haze of mountains in the distance and the hint of a deep, secret smell on the air.”

~while, off camera, the big bad wolf lurks, and the sounds of the orchestra float up from beneath~

~ the street. The silhouette of the neck of a double bass is just visible through the storm drain~

“I just say what I see. Though I think you may be the only one who realises that the stories are real.”

As the stones fall away you can just see their opacity fade until they are deep rich translucent shades of sapphire, emerald and ruby; then, in an instant, they are lost in the darkness.
(the only answer there is…)

“No need for thanks. I have to provide a script for my leading lady. “

“I wish these damn lights would change,” I muttered. Looking in either direction there was nothing on the road save the regular circles of light thrown from the street lamps. The red glow cast over the dash changed to green and I was on the accelerator like a shot.
“Traditionally, you get two more wishes,” smiled my passenger.
I laughed. “So where do you know Rebbecca from, anyway?”
“I work for her now in the antique store.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that like?”
“It is… different. Have you decided on your second wish?”
I laughed again. “Sure, why not. I wish I had a million dollars.”
There was a popping sound and a heavy duffel bag dropped into my lap. I jumped, swerving the car and nearly hitting a billboard proclaiming ‘Bargains! Bargains! Bargains!’.
“And your third wish?”
“Shit,” I said. “I wish I’d realised you were a genie.”