deviant art

Deviant Login
Buy ArtBuy T-Shirts & Gear Buy adCast Buy Premium Membership
Shop		  Join deviantART for FREE Take the Tour
[x]
Nathan Turner Nathan Turner, aged thirty, was a modest earner, if nothing other. Son of no

father and a flighty mother, and raised in most part by troubled brothers, he was never

one to put his trust in those upon whom the dust of age had scarcely settled. For a time,

he had meddled, even peddled, looking for the light in his own eyes. But never enough was

it, just as well, in his own mind, for the brand of fire which he desired was the sort a

man might chase until he dies, and even at the gates of Hell, never find.

But one cool evening in July, he chanced to meet - just walking by - a woman with

an empty stroller. "Empty stroller?" he asked at on
The Importance of Gold FlecksHereditary.

       I learned the meaning of the word when I was young on a summer afternoon. Too hot to play outside, I was sitting with my dad on our blue couch with the small white polka dot fabric. In retrospect, it was probably a tacky piece of furniture, but love is unconditional when you are small, and I sure did love that couch. I remember my dad watching Winnie the Pooh with me every Saturday morning on its spotted cushions. That day, though, we had a conversation about eyes that I never forgot, and even then, its deeper meaning was not lost on me.

       "Daddy, your eyes are green like a cat's," I said.
He smiled, and told me t
The Finest Casket (Complete Story)The chandlers, grocers, butchers, clothiers, and every other merchant in Chantsville was yelling in the streets outside the shop where I was studiously working. Their ruckus combined with the bleats and squawks of livestock wandering underfoot, creating a bustling racket that would drive the unfamiliar ear to distraction.

I was used to the noise, however, and I was so engrossed in my work that I would have sworn the world was silent save for the sound of my chisel biting into the oak box before me. Delicate curls fell from my worktable, collecting in small drifts upon the dirt floor.

I stopped to wipe sweat from my face. The pause gave me a
A Name You Can Trust   Indignant? Disgruntled? Need an attorney who won't back down (no matter how many mafia hit men are on your trail)? Need to sue the smirk off that jerk who dared to diagnose you with anger issues? Tired of “justice” getting in the way of the benefits that you deserve? If you want passionate, aggressive, and ruthlessly persistent legal representation, it’s time you called Winier Trust, an attorney who will stop at nothing (nothing!) to insure you win your case.

           Winier Trust is more than just an attorney; he's your personal advocate. Trust works beside you not only as a legal representative, but as a close and c
The Price of Dying“I want to be interred after I die,” Mr. Peters said. He made that clear to his family while he was still lucid, before old age and illness rendered him unintelligible. Seventy wasn’t that old, but he recognized the symptoms that were creeping up on his ailing body – the aches, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness and despair. Despite his daughter’s attempts to assuage his concerns, he sensed his own mortality.
The worst part about dying, Mr. Peters thought, was what happened afterwards. Even since he was a small boy, he had been afraid of fire. He could never forget the scorching heat of the orange flames searing his skin, the dark billowing smoke entering his nostrils. The time that his house burned down, the fire almost took him with it. How ironic then, to escape the fire only to be fed into it after death.
So one day, he sat his son and daughter down after dinner. “I want to be buried whole,” he said, emphasizing the
I, BULBOUS: Page 1IT was a dark and stormy night.

Or rather: it is, at present, a dark and stormy night.

You open I, BULBOUS to page 1 and already, on page 1 of I, BULBOUS, you find yourself trapped in some sort of lair and, resisting your best readerly instincts to put the book down and do something better with your time, you keep reading, eyes scrolling across the page and down the paragraph, rolling like a twin pair of pinballs along the predetermined course of some great textual Rube Goldberg machine whose denouement, though as yet unimaginable to you, is - or so you imagine - crushingly unimpressive, and still you read, and the further you read, the low
preludesi.
blue rose into the city backdrop
like balloons, a million for the
morning sun prelude.

ii.
i've not slept a dream
but i have cried a salty face
and letters spilled like beans
into my moleskine,
almost as virgin as i once was
with few stories between my covers.

iii.
the kettle's belly boils
like my head upon a pillow.

iv.
i am guilty for rarely finishing my tea
even when i use the small mugs;
pour, rinse, repeat.

v.
perhaps today i will play dead.

vi.
perched behind my blinds
it dawns on me that i am surrounded
by walled neighbours, strangers,
they're just preludes to lovers
the way i am always
prelude to the one.
Never Told He thinks it's odd, sometimes, though he's not certain why.

A sense of dislocation, perhaps. Like cutting yourself on an unsharpened blade. He walks the immense aisles of the cathedral, footsteps echoing hollowly into the blue shadows of high vaulted ceilings and arches, stone figures watching him from above as he, in turn, watches dawn play across their carved and weathered faces. The grandeur of this place is oddly soothing in the solitude it affords him. A holy place, just hushed, here suspended in the silence after Mattins when most have shuffled out. It's a favorite moment of his, a favorite service to attend, and today it gives him p
GolemWe remember when you dug us from the riverbank, but we forgive you. The water was cold and the people had need of us.

We remember when you divided and shaped us, but we forgive you. We were without form and the people had need of us.

We remember when you put us in flames, but we forgive you. We were soft and the people had need of us.

We recall the day when you sent us against swords. This we forgive. The people had need of us: we would not desert them when foes were near.

We remember when you broke us with hammers. Even this we forgive. The battle was won, and the people had no more need of us.

But though shattered, we remained on the h
The Hungry SeasonThe Hungry Season
“The next season will be the hungry season.”
Moses M. Kolinmore

A stem, a leaf, a stem,
a stem again,

and the army of our bodies
hanging from the branches
of the Dahoma trees.

We come to this as moths
on Saharan winds

with no malice but the wings’
direction, our caterpillar mouths,
our waiting numbers

cocooned in dirt. We are
aching and glutted

but hungry still, even as
we strip the canopy bare of leaves
and foul each river black

with waste below us –
our gruesome chatter asking,

as we fall into the dirt
to reshape what we are,
can you imagine the hunger?

But of course you can; of c
They Also Serve Who Only Stand and WaitI don't know when we first went underground. I don't even know if it was one mass exodus, a swarm of mankind trickling through the earth's crust so vehement we carved our own caverns by the force of trampling feet, or whether it was a gradual process, perhaps even a repetitive one, a family here, a neighborhood there. For all I know, the echo of the damp subterranean machine has always reverberated off the cave walls, created long past by the Angels, who think of our well-being even while they shake their heads helplessly at our flaws.

They say that those who remained on the surface were raptured away in a great flash of light, like a millio
relearning          i. stardust scatters with the
direction of my pupils –
maybe secretly i am an
astrology teacher, waiting
for a sign to wink
happily at me.

         ii. excuse the rambling
nature of forgotten question
marks, but tell me:
would you like to be the
object of handwritten clichés
would you like to whisper
secrets in my palm
and would you
like to be the possibility

         iii. air brushes against my
skin like the torn petals
of a flower still standing.
[ hold your head up high, honey,
and tell tomorrow to wait just
a while,

         iv. so you can figure out
the difference between
patience and having all the
Apologies to LaoEach day is its own microstep--
since I woke from my mother's womb,
I longed to mimic new words, trammel
the sound until it blossomed

like a newborn, and oh how I birthed
stories--told them how I wanted
the author's sacrosanct title
once I've grown. But growing meant

learning the practice of citizens
and their due contribution: beast-slaying
nature of please, thank you,
an apology: sincere

or not. Then there is time--the first
breath of nine, exhalation
of five, the suffocating mandate
of overtime. You grow used to it:

the cyclical disappearance of parents,
pervasive need of sleep, a home-
cooked meal's gradual transmogrific
Ottumwa ShamanIn Iowa, weeping willows dream of
Tigers, born in pagan fog, their
Coat of stripes singing shaman
Songs; shrill symphonies of grief.
Heaven tilts, crashes, and we race
The dirt to get away. We drink the
Earth with bullets of air and grow
Dizzy, light-headed from breathing
Some far off flame. Perhaps a poet
Who braved the fog of Ottumwa, and
Caught fire. Every cowboy has his
Six chances before high noon, before
The fog forms wispy jackals to take
Them home again. Every son inherits
An empty gun, six voids to fill with
Answers, skimmed and guessed from the
Covers of books their fathers used
To read. There is no other way.
In s
Browse More Like This
more ▶

More from ~elGallifrey

i saw stars in your eyesi saw stars in your eyes:
and on your lips i found
the heavens, the
infinite expansion of
a cosmos in your lungs,
lush on your breath as it
trembled.

my blood in a spiral,
the grand clockwork of
the milky way -- alive
at your touch, at the
taste of your fingertips.

moving in rythym as  
the tide shaking an ocean of stars:
a wave crashing down on
the sands of neptune's far shore,
a comet aflame streaks across
the night sky -- sighing softly,
our arms entwined in wonder,
a salty sea on our tongues.

we held each other,
we felt a planet in
revolution around us:
a sun in supernova,
blazing, burning from a
million light-years
away.

Featured in Groups:

:iconwriters--club: #Writers--club
A group for all writers! :iconunseen-writers: #Unseen-Writers
For the writers and readers :iconwritersink: #WritersInk
What's your story? :iconcrliterature: #CRLiterature
CR hub for Literature Community! :iconsciencefictionfans: #ScienceFictionFans
We Love Science Fiction. :iconlove-literature: #Love-Literature
For The Love Of Literature! :iconliterallyunknown: #LiterallyUnknown
Here, nobody becomes somebody. :iconall-art-wanted: #All-Art-Wanted
Every ART accepted

Details

December 24, 2012
36.8 KB
Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 33
Favourites: 80 [who?]


Views: 1,913 (1 today)
Downloads: 20 (0 today)
[x]

~elGallifrey has limited the viewing of this artwork
to members of the deviantART community only.

You can log in or become a member for FREE!

:iconelgallifrey:
Featured in #WritersInk's Jan 14 2013 Weekly Round-Up [link] :love:
Add a Comment:
 
Preview   Add Comment

Daily Deviation

Given 2013-02-06
The Machine by ~elGallifrey The suggester writes, "A solid sci-fi yarn from a promising young author, with good pacing, strong world-building, and novel ideas." ( Suggested by #WritersInk and Featured by `thorns )
love 1 1 joy 1 1 wow 0 0 mad 0 0 sad 0 0 fear 0 0 neutral 0 0
:iconcordaicor:
Mood: Joy ~cordaicor Apr 4, 2013
A really excellent story =) Enjoyed reading it!
Reply
:iconelgallifrey:
~elGallifrey Apr 5, 2013  Student Writer
Thanks!
Reply
:iconvagabond24-7:
~Vagabond24-7 Feb 7, 2013
You have now kept me up waaaaaaaaaaaay past my bedtime. Darn you and your seriously awesome writing!
Reply
:iconsparrowwrightheart:
Mood: Love ~SparrowWrightheart Feb 6, 2013  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Loved this story. :D I could envision it in my mind like a movie. <3
Reply
:iconlostinthemorning:
~LostInTheMorning Feb 6, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
Fantastic piece. I was immediately sucked in. Congratulations on the very much deserved DD!
Reply
:iconlintu47:
`lintu47 Feb 6, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
Congrats on the well deserved DD! :dalove:
Have a nice day! :heart:
Reply
:iconnotanamewaster:
~NotaNameWaster Feb 6, 2013
Am I the only one extremely bothed by the fact that a Caelipsychus lives inside Merlin? It's parent showed up at the end, and didn't kill the humans. If they value life why the heck would they ruin one by leeching off a person? "Naturally, even after they are fully grown, they wait until the end of their host’s natural life span to separate.” What? Why? If they're fully grown and no longer need a host, leave it. Let the host finally live a normal life.
Bleh, humans took their home, and that was wrong. But Caelipsychus's seem like assholes to me.

That aside... this is a really good story. And it's nice to see a story that's a bit long for once rather than three paragraphs.
Reply
:iconsparrowwrightheart:
~SparrowWrightheart Feb 6, 2013  Hobbyist Digital Artist
I don't think they can leave the host without killing it. I thought the thing at the end was the larva after it grew-up.
Reply
:iconelgallifrey:
~elGallifrey Feb 6, 2013  Student Writer
They don't see their presence as a hindrance. Humans are not the native species to this planet, so more than likely they do not understand their inability to communicate empathically as they do.
Reply
:iconnotanamewaster:
~NotaNameWaster Feb 7, 2013
I see...
Reply
Add a Comment:
 
Preview   Add Comment
©2013 deviantART. All rights reserved
About Us | Contact Us | Developers | Careers | Site Tour | Help & FAQ Advertise | Premium Membership Etiquette | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Copyright Policy