by Michael Kingswood The shell landed three feet away from me. I was crouched—really pressed prone into the dirt with my hands thrown over my head—in my pitiful attempt at a foxhole, but we’d had so little time to get on station and then prepare to repel the oncoming attack that I’d only been able…
Category: Short Story
Sacred Vows
by Michael Kingswood The fabric of his cassock was heavy brown wool, and even through the Underarmor long-sleeved t-shirt he wore beneath it, Gregory could still feel the itching want to break out all over his torso. Every timed he donned it, he wondered at the endurance of his brothers back in medieval times, wearing…
Liquor Coolers
by Michael Kingswood It was a Thursday night, and the crowd in The Golden Harp was almost non-existent. Just Tim down at the corner of the bar farthest from the door, dressed as usual in plaid flannel and jeans and leaning over his half-full mug of beer like it held some deep dark secret, and…
The Eternal Ride Of Brom Bones
by Michael Kingswood The sun was still shining when Brom emerged from his lair, wherever that was. The brightness of it flared across his vision, whiting the world out and rendering him able to perceive only the faintest of shadows as he took halting steps forward. Vague shapes—the trunks of trees, he thought—loomed all around,…
Terra Infirma
by Michael Kingswood It was Sunday afternoon, and I was sitting under a peach tree atop a hill overlooking the bay. The sun bathed the land in a warm radiance, unblocked by all but a few tiny puffs of clouds that hung in the sky, moving lazily if at all. A gentle breeze carried in…
Wolves On Cornell Street
by Michael Kingswood The wolves were howling on Cornell Street, again. But this time it wasn’t a false alarm. That fact was not immediately apparent to Humbert, though. When the ululating howl that started with a single voice but quickly got picked up by, apparently, an entire pack roused him from sleep, his first thought…
On The Road To Hopefell
by Michael Kingswood The sun rose slowly, gradually sending the night’s shadows scampering away like hoodlums fleeing the sound of the constable’s approach. As the hours passed, the few lingering shadows shrank, pushed back against the burned-out or simply decayed frames that cast them as though to make way for the the clouds of dust…
Sowing Seed, Bearing Fruits – A Modern Parable, Part II
Sowing Seed, Bearing Fruits A Modern Parable by Silent Draco A time to Reap This fellow seemed to be banned, thrown out, or walked away. He was frenetic, composed, had coarse jokes and delicate, beautiful music, and talked freely about being unauthorized. There was some codename network, with people called “bears.” They’d heard the provocative…
Sowing Seed, Bearing Fruits – A Modern Parable, Part I
Sowing Seed, Bearing Fruits A Modern Parable by Silent Draco A time to Sow Let us begin with the Everymen, the common, run-of-the-mill, kind of not-leftist office workers. Stuck in a small room or cubicle for long days, he grew pale, withdrawn, and enervated from soul-smashing drudgery and menial tasks. In his heart and soul,…
Warden’s Trial
by Michael Kingswood The humid air seemed to drag and flail, resisting being inhaled, as Patros made his way from his little cell in the trainees barracks and across the carefully-trimmed field of grass toward the testing ring. Five years he’d been here, at the martial academy. Five years of running and jumping and study…