Bright Blessings

‘Not with a bang, but a whimper’. The words were almost a tangible presence in the still air. He found himself humming whilst forcing one foot before the other; ‘This is the end, my only friend, the end’. He battened down, drowning the lyric in the endless emptiness around him. He strained, concentrating every inch of his being on trying to hear any sound but the leaden thud of his feet. In the hollowness of isolation he walked on. The town was small, perhaps ten thousand souls, and the ghosts of those souls inhabited the houses and streets still. Washing fluttered on lines in yards, teasing clues to the personalities of households, families. Demonic prints on black tees, a moody teen with Goth pretensions. Work overalls streaked with oil, oil that probably never quite left the rims of fingernails, became ingrained in skin folds. Skimpy thongs caressed by stylish boxers, a new marriage which would never age. Snazzy sports numbers sat next to soccer mum cars on drives cr...

There was a rustle, an inquiring squeak and then the front of the doll house was opened. The young father, about to pop a surprise doll inside for his daughter, never stood a chance. 100 mice swarmed out, chewed him down to the bone and made off down the stairs, the first one holding his car keys in firm jaws. They piled up, balancing mouse after mouse, until they could swarm inside the overcoat and baseball cap hanging on the back of the garage door. It took them a few treacherous moments to get the co-ordination right but soon they were tottering over to the Jeep; a slightly drunken figure who perhaps ought not to be driving. Various wriggles and slinks got the remote pressed, the door open and a neat split into three groups. The first group clambered down to the pedals, taking a little time to work out how many were needed on each. The second scampered up to the steering wheel forming a neat circle and using their hamster wheel training to get it moving back and fo...

They’d been discovered on an iceberg, floating along, happily minding their own business. Claudette often wondered who was the first person to gaze upon the gargantuan snails and think ‘I wonder what would happen if I stuck my face in their trail?’ With a sad inevitability, someone had and discovered the incredible rejuvenating properties of those trails, glittering with ice crystals, just begging to be admired and collected. ‘Age at a snail’s pace’ had become the slogan on everyone’s lips. The inoffensive creatures, eight in all, each the size of a mountain, had been dragged unceremoniously on their iceberg and confined to a penned area. Gunboats patrolled constantly and only a handful of personnel were allowed onto the berg to gather the trails. There was also Claudette. She’d been tucked away in a basement office, collating information about the snails of the world. Like the enormous beasts, she’d wanted nothing more than to be left along, sailing along happily on ...

Nigel stared at his boss, naked terror in wringing hands and flaring eyes. “Do we tell them?” Professor Lingstrom flicked his eyes to the cameras blinking silently in the corners of the room. “They know.” “What about the people?” “The military will decide.” “Will they survive?” “I have no idea if any of us will.” They stared at the leaves in Petri dishes on the lab benches; leaves from across the globe, all telling the same story of extinction. **************************************** The first sinkhole had opened under New York, under the entirety of New York. It had taken 35 minutes for the metropolis to vanish into the depths. A few people survived; those on the outskirts who were able to run for safety. Many had watched husbands, children, and friends, incapable of resistance to the pull of the earth, sucked into the maw, unable to help or to look away.   Most were left deaf for days after, deadened by the sheer enormity of the sound of crack...

Wind sang through the branches of the willows lining the drive. It whistled through holes in crumbling brickwork and shattered, glass panes. It rattled doors in their frames, set rotting wood to creaking and popping, and yet Rachel felt she was coming home. Her measured pace took her up the weed-strewn gravel drive, allowed her a slow circle of the decrepit statue of the founder before she turned to face what remained of Willowbrook Girls School – Established 1875. The sign above the vast double entrance doors hung yet, albeit by a single nail, but it clung. Rachel rose slowly up the sweep of cracked steps and placed her hand on the ornate brass handle of the left door. Another sign, newer, of less presence, hung to the right, warning of the unsafe structure, of danger to life and limb. The words circled a stern hand, held up, palm out; Stop!   Smiling, she turned the handle and shoved. The door proved awkward, clearly undisturbed for many years. A heap of general d...