Once More Around the Zzzzingo!
Once More Around the Zzzzingo!
Jo smiled when Owen grabbed her hand, his fingers sticky from cotton candy and cold from his drink, and led her straight for the Zzzzingo! She remembered when he would have held her hand the whole way, pulling her along. Twelve now, Owen no longer held Mom’s hand in public. Not for long anyway. Once she was following, he dropped her hand and started to pull ahead. And away.
Just like Robert, his father.
“Wait up,” she said, smile gone, her voice sharper than she intended.
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Short Story Challenge 2008 – Story #1 Draft #3
Short Story Challenge 2008 – Story #1 Draft #3
GENRE – Fantasy
SUBJECT – Digging
Title: “Clankie”
by David Michael
The air of the trench always became thick just before the order came. From the arcane residue of the barrage roaring overhead, settling with the dust into the trench lines and dugouts, covering both men and forgéd. From the silence that underlay the noise of war.
From the fear? Like all of the forgéd warriors, Nin felt no fear. Forgéds felt nothing. They only waited, as still as statues of iron and wood and leather and bone, as if they would wait until the end of time.
How long would we wait? The thought surprised him. Nin wondered that he wondered. Of course they would wait. Time meant nothing to him. Time meant nothing to any of the forgéds. He and his brothers and sisters–his squadmates–his series and batch–other Nins or older Fearns or newer Getals–those created before him or with him or after him, one after the other in an oversized laboratory–would wait until the end of time, rusting and rotting as the magic of their crystalline cortexes ticked away one mote at a time, if the “standby” order were not rescinded nor followed by a new order.