The daring were punished. They had been aware of the risks their actions might have, both to themselves and their loved ones.
Golem's Bridge over the Tankard River was never meant to be tread on by anything but golden-shoed royal feet.
The daring waited until the guard at the gate had dozed off. The four of them climbed over the iron bars, hauling their cigar-shaped package behind them. They reached the middle of the bridge and unfurled, freeing the drab fabric and coils of rope.
They worked quickly, tying ropes to each other's wrists and ankles, threading it through the...
The gate closed behind them. That was the last time they would see the outside world for a long time. They had to make a new life for themselves. It would be limited, of course, but you can get used to anything if you have to. Well, it's either that or give up. Josie asked her mother, 'Why are they doing this?' Her mother didn't know the answer. It was just as well. That knowledge would have been enough to turn her very soul black. It would never be suitable for an 8 year old child to hear. They went...
They gathered in the woods. The darkness entwined itself around everything it touched. Filling every hole, every space it could claim.
It was not the darkness that was so frightening, it was that which hide inside. Using it as a clever camouflage.
Something hid, something stalked and watched and he could feel it. It was looking at him, watching and waiting. Its gaze crawling across his skin like tiny spiders.
He hid within himself not wanting to accept it. He built up the layers to keep the darkness out. He would not fear the thing in the dark. he would...
He was no more than a barely-significant piece of a gargantuan puzzle. His ambitions, he was told, shouldn't have been as high as they were.
But, anyway, who did they think they were to tell him that?
Their opinions weren't going to stop him. Who cared if someone told him it wasn't possible, he knew he'd make it, as all obstacles can be overcome with the right amount of will.
He had but one obstacle, the Russian feline who lived mere meters away from him, and wanted nothing other than having his taste buds touch his insides. Oh he'd get...
The Moon would never be the same again. She'd never be able to look at it in the same way, never be able to go back.
Nothing would, actually. Nothing would go back to being the way it was. It had all changed, in ways she didn't fully understand - she never would understand, didn't expect to.
She'd presumed that some things in life were constant. That you could rely on them - tides, stars, earth, and her elder brother.
The tides were changing, sea levels rising. The stars had shifted without her noticing. The earth was meant to be...
"I shot my butler, but I did not shoot the chauffeur" Mrs. Kensington said. "I don't know who could have done such a thing. That poor old man."
"The butler or the chauffeur," the detective asked.
Mrs. Kensington coughed with polite outrage.
"The chauffeur, of course," she said. "The butler can rot in a thousand hells as far as I'm concerned."
The detective flipped back a few pages in his notebook.
"You say the butler had been stealing from you," he asked, scratching his nose. "Did you have any proof?"
"Proof is in the pudding, as the maid would say."...
Light. It was painful to look at; my hangover was tremendous. My hair was matted to the side of my face, and my pillowcase had collected all of the eyeliner I had on from the night before.
It was December 4th. I was 18. I had no idea how I got back into my bed from the previous night. I had lost my keys. I was spitting out blood. I was supposed to go to Toronto on a shopping trip that day.
I went. I felt dead. I caught pneumonia from being outside in December with hardly any clothes on....
I'm in love with a robot. She doesn't have a physical presence, she's not some pile of servos shipped from Japan. She's an AI, the product of decades of research and development -- using tens of millions of online conversations as a template for her personality.
I know people tell me that she just scours all my emails in an effort to become what I like, and I know people tell me that she's nothing more than a neural network backed by a huge database. But is that so different from a human brain?
My feet ached, but it was well worth it. Not only that, I was starving. Twenty-six point two miles. It was a stupid decision, but I'm glad I made it. A marathon isn't the sort of thing most people do on the spur of the moment. I mean, I'd thought about it before. But I'd never trained for it. I just wanted to do something that I would remember. Something that would make me feel alive. I wasn't even sure I would do it until this morning. I wasn't sure I'd go along with it even at the start line....
They were listening.
She couldn't believe it. They were actually listening. She looked around the room at the audience. They had come here to listen to her and she had found the right tone, the rigth words and they were listening.
She took a deep breath and scanned her notes. She looked up again and focused on a man five rows back, in a heavy gray sweater.
After her presentation was over she sat down and tried to relax. There was one more presentation to be made and then the floor was opened for a short panel discussion. She looked...