The city’s engines were old. Decrepit, most people would call them. Miss Rebbecca Pannicot called them vintage. The engine room was her domain, a job passed down to her by her father and his father before him. The council had expressed a concern when she, at a bright young eight years of age, had shown […]

There was a jungle outside my front door this morning. Sorry if I don’t sound adequately phased by that. Believe me, I’ve been through all the relevant emotions. Disbelief, astonishment, confusion, despair, fear, anger. Even swearing. After today I’ve decided that swearing can be an emotion. If you’d been here you’d understand. I suppose I […]

The forest was full of secret places. A small clearing known only to a family of deer. A track hidden beneath brush that had been a favourite hunting trail of foxes for many summers past. A shallow depression in a cliff face that held an ancient nest, neat and tidy and never used. Aiko knew […]

Nearing the ocean, the freeway rose above the surrounding streets on massive concrete pylons, splitting and spreading in off-ramps and on-ramps and fly-overs and fly-unders like some parody of a river delta. Traffic was a constant crawl on the streets below, and at this time of night it began to clog up the ramps and […]