Fiction
Mr. Goop, published in African Writing, issue seven. Now available to read for the first time at the AW Magazine Online home.
"Tamuka hated Mr. Goop; it wasn't as if it was really his anyway. He had the unfortunate distinction of being one of those kids. The ones with poor parents, who could not afford to buy their children Geneforms of their own. Just this morning before class, in the translucent, dome-sealed playground, Tamuka had yet again been a victim. Well, at least he had not been alone this time: two younger kids and their inherited family Geneforms had also endured the playground circle of laughter and cruel taunts..." Full Story
'My name is Hamadziripi, the last of Homo sapiens sapiens, the last of the modern human species, as once we called ourselves. Even as I speak the Delphi are coming, they have my trail, and it won’t be long now. But perhaps in between postponing the inevitable I can broadcast this record, of the final days of man. To you who hear these words no matter how or who, I congratulate you. You have succeeded thus far, where we failed. To you I give this message of warning. Recognise the whole survives because of each part. Life, and that’s all biological life as we humans knew it, for we never managed to physically reach further, than our planets single moon. Life has long term plans. To late did we learn... Full Story
It's that day of year again, when he always remembers, it was her, it was always her, since he was sixteen it was her. But life conspired to keep them always apart, and even the close friendship they once had faded away, driven into nothing by time, distance, and her other men's arms. She was a glorious butterfly whose wings unfolded too soon, for his inexperienced fumbling hands to behold and protect. No, her wings took her into hands that tried to crush in their haste to capture her virginal soul, and make it their slave. But he knew, he knew who she was, he saw, he saw who she was, that bright and blinding inner core, which no force on this earth could ever touch. Full Story
'What are we now? Can we really call ourselves human any more? What of our souls, heaven, and hell?' -Emergency Online Transference FAQ's. Israel Sabula was a newly transferred and he did not like it. He had awoken from death in this white chair, to this white room and its barren smooth lines. A far cry from the bubbling and whirring room of machines wired into his dying body, which saw his lonely departure from that mortal coil. There was an utter silence in the room and even though he continued breathing from habit, there was no breath, no air, no sound, not even a deafening silence from real world ear feedback. He snapped his fingers and heard the click and then that weird silence. Full Story
The contents (sealed after these words of introduction), have been painstakingly pieced together from ancient data records. These records handed down the ages as inert sacred relics of another era, were preserved somewhat unwittingly, yet propitiously, by our order. After recognising that the relics were, in fact, ancient data storage devices, it has taken us fifty long years to reconstruct the technology, necessary to access them. Whilst the records are severely damaged, I do believe there is enough surviving, coherent content, to discern the nature of the events described.' Full Story
Harabladi was woken by the gentle massaging motion of his new bed; it hummed and vibrated in delicious ripples up and down his body. Before he even opened his eyes, he smiled and thought this is the life, and went on to wonder when was the last time, before the gold coin, that he had actually been happy when he had first woken up. Perhaps it had been the first morning of his second marriage; which he remembered being just like the feeling he had now, barely awake with his eyes still closed. Excepting that last time, the feeling lasted only as long as he kept his eyes closed. Full Story
When Harabladi disembarked from the gondola that evening, well staggered whilst Hacktar kept him upright by holding the scruff of his jacket, he felt nothing. Well not nothing, his body screamed at him all manner of abuse and his brain felt like a large bowl of pulsing cold porridge, but he felt not the beady red eyes of Grom, not even the merest twinge. For a moment, he wondered if perhaps that last heavy blow his skull endured from Hacktar was the one that finally shook something loose, permanently. Then he felt that familiar twinge, not like Grom, no that had its own unique suicidal butterflys kind of twinge, but definitely someone with ill intent towards him. Unable to deal, as he could barely see blearily, with any one or thing right now he chose the safest course of action. Hacktar barely paused as he felt Harabladi go limp and quickly whipped him up onto his giant-tortoise large shoulder. Full Story
Mrs Perkins, and her husband, Mr Perkins-Fiddle, were lying, snoring, in the shade of a large oak tree. They were halfway between the city of Darkly, and the village of Krep, which lay nearly three leagues south of the south gate of the city. They were thus at the four-mile marker, which itself lay in the shade of the large oak tree, a fact that made giving directions a hit-and-miss affair, since four-mile-markers were all there were, and the marker itself was nearly invisible in the shade. Full Story
The prince, in the meantime, went to his chambers for a lie down to recover from his meeting with his mother. Gelmernia, his manservant and best friend, awaited him with a cup of tea, and a cup of something else that glowed blue and occasionally released a bubble into the air of the expansive suite, where it would drift until encountering something solid like a wall or a window. After etching away part of the wall or the window, the bubble would pop and release an extremely noxious smell into the air. Full Story
The king was in his counting-house, counting out his money - well, he was watching Fittle, his oldest and most trusted servant, count out his money. And, to make things even clearer, they were only counting out the NEW money. The rest of the money had already been counted and stored on the shelves around them, which stretched into the darkness surrounding the King and Fittle where they sat at the counting table. They had encircled the counting tables with candles, lamps, and few roaring torches - ostensibly to see better, but really because, of all the rooms in the Royal Castle, this was the one the King liked the least. Full Story
The waning sunlight glimmered softly through tall ethereal gum trees that waved in zephyrs, crisp from snow capped mountains. A narrow red earth dirt strip road sliced languidly ahead into Fynbos foothills. A small blue sign fat nail hammered onto a termite mud encrusted crumbling pole, jutted out from the wild grasses roadside. Neatly painted in elegant white script it spelt out the name, 'Bloublommitijies Kloof', or Blue Flower Mountain. Full Story
No matter how many times he prayed, pleaded, begged and screamed, Thomas Church could not die. Desperate scrabbling fingers and toes early measured his kingdom of darkness - a coffin of rough pine that needled deep before it wore smooth. He rubbed the silky wood, tracing the grain, and almost missed the agony of a sliver pierced between fingernail and flesh. Thomas had no awareness of time. Instead, he nurtured memories of light. A time before the six-walled kingdom that laid his body flat beneath the earth. Sometimes he laughed until the laughter took control and battered him against the silent boards. Full Story
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