"Obtain the marionettes!" Fox's tone was commanding.

'Obtain', thought Fred. That was just like Fox: always using a big word when a small word would do. He could have said 'get' instead of 'obtain'. But then, again, Fred's mother had told him 'get' was a terrible word and it should be avoided.

"Are you listening? Did you hear me?" Fox bellowed.

"Sorry. Yes," said Fred. "Get the marionettes."

"Use force if so required."

'Hit the bastards if you need to,' Fred translated to himself. He pummeled his right fist into his left palm to show Fox that he'd understood.

He...

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”Beware the Bwgan Fawr.” the old Vicar sighed. “Every chapel has to have its ‘Ysbryd capel’…”

“Its chapel ghost?” the younger clergyman replied. His pronunciation was still more ‘gog’, more Northern, than the man he was replacing felt comfortable with. Too… foreign. If such a phrase could be used for a fellow Welshman.

A shame, his body was found the morning after his first Midnight Mass. Just outside the chapel door, lying as if it had carried a great weight across the threshold, and then collapsed with the release of his burden. A heart attack, they said. Strange in someone...

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"I feel boxed in," she said.

"I'm sorry?" he replied, not quite understanding.

"Well, the basic thing is this: the image is quite boring, and the color scheme is obnoxious, a weird, misguided attempt at the painterly surrealism that Richard Linklater's Waking Life first presented in film. Add to that two gigantic butterflies, and the whole thing just falls apart. But despite the silliness of the painting, however, there's really no room for absurdity. Characters can't wave pistols around or smoke cigars or get hit in the forehead with boards. I'm boxed in. I have nowhere to go. It's too...

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I'd been tumbling in the corner of the market square. Its what I do. People give me money. They throw it in my upturned cap. I did three somersaults and landed square on my feet. No one clapped. What do they want of me? I followed up with a twist in the air and a front roll, but still no-one applauded. I'm not sure they even saw.

The dog was watching though. His eyes curious, his mouth in a doggy sort of smile. I saw him emulate my somersault as he trotted off towards his owner, who was pink and...

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Marchiel? is that a boy's name

Dunno, it is French I think

French, right so we are looking for a possibly French possibly male or possibly female person?

Sums it up

Boned

Yep

Tell me again what were Francis's exact words?

Find me Marchiel, find me the black rose

Nothing else?

He was yelling, you know how he gets

Yeah, shit look do you think we oughta just blow. Because it aint looking like we are gonna be making Francis too happy anytime soon.

Let's ask some questions first

I suppose

Boned?

Yep

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'It's the largest ship I've ever seen.'

"It's the only ship you've ever seen."

"This is why I don't watch movies with you."

"Oh, look at her, look at her pandering to the camera - "

"She's an actress, it's her job."

'This is the beginning of such an adventure!'

"This is the beginning of such an awful film. Why are we watching this?"

"Because I like this film, and you're my sister, you're meant to at least try to like things that I like."

"Surely, as your sister, I am meant to pull your hair, steal your clothes, make...

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Sasha stretched as she woke, the cold early morning air stinging her skin. Looking around, it took a moment to figure out where she was. The woodland near the playing fields. She had never come out this far before. She should hurry back before anyone realised she was missing. There was no way she was going back to see Dr Williams again. He gave her the creeps. There wasn't anything wrong with her anyway. She knew her parents despaired at her stories, but they weren't just stories. Why couldn't they see that? They were every bit as real as she...

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The contours of her form were clear under the light shining through my window. She was laying there nude on my couch as I drew her. My eyes, flicking back and forth from the paper to her. My hand, gliding wildly across the paper in motions similar to a snake whipping it's way across a desert. I had asked her to model for me. Not because I have a crush on her. Not because I'm trying to date her. But because her body is so gorgeous. It flows with every move she makes, twisting and bending and flowing. She lays...

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I'd had so many plans, just before I went back. I was prepared to an insane degree. I'd spent days camping in the wilderness, gathering enough iron to create a goddamned magnet. I'd memorized the fundamentals of aviation, chemistry, nuclear physics. I knew all there was to know about rebuilding civilization.

And it had all slipped away, one memory after another, fading into a blur, after I'd fallen through the time vortex.

So here I am, trying to explain to some neolithic ignoramus how to make gunpowder. The most I can remember is that it requires a mixture of sulfur,...

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"When I was 12, I went to sea."

I looked up blankly. "Went to see what?"

"No. The sea. Big blue wet thing. You may know it as an ocean."

"No need for sarcasm." I muttered. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you go to sea? Especially at 12. Other people go to the zoo. Or to the pictures. Or they go and visit the sea, they do not - unless that's what you mean? I'm going to start telling people I went to sea at 7. I'm sure I did. Probably got sunburnt or almost drowned or got eaten by...

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