It approached. Well, as much as the end can be said to approach, as opposed to us approaching it. The great beast, that stalking horse of the apocalypse, with massive paws that looked like human hands, a lion's head with a mane of fire, and the body of a wolf.

The great hunter Talianto was selected from all people to confront this end. Of all people her spear flew the straightest, her blade cut sharpest and cleanest. If there was any hope of defeating such a monstrosity, of doomsday that moved in shadow and swished a spiked tail clearing all...

He set the plate before her. It steamed, smells of carmelized meat and cinnamon wafted up to her nose. "This is my lust."

He still spoke with inflection, they had not dined upon his theatricality, his sense of timing, his desire to surprise. There was an order to these things, and while he still had that order, he would continue. The assembled guests mumbled their appreciation, though Dowager Harriet was still chewing through the last bites of his shame.

When the Boddhisatva-to-be had announced this meal, the good and great had tittered that he had finally lost his mind. Spent...

Kenya. She said her name was Kenya.

And then she laughed. I couldn't hear it, not over the music in the bar, not over the shouting of everyone around us. But I saw the laugh, starting in her stomach, and traveling up and out of her mouth.

She leaned closer and said that her parents had grown up with Black Power and Africa awareness, and decided to name her Kenya. That they had grounded her the first time she straightened her hair.

Her voice, the part of her voice I could hear, had a huskiness to it that really appealed...

The Moon would never be the same again. Not after the things I saw, the things I knew that were hiding there. I could never again look up at night without a shudder, without averting my eyes from the horror of it.

The Moon's sickly light, reflected sunlight turned mocking and wrong, crept in through my shuttered windows. I had taken to taping them up, afraid to go out at night, afraid of what might be there.

They walked down on moonbeams, those horrible things with too many angles, walked down and fed. I remember the first time I saw...

The water was clear. "I cannot be stopped, I shall continue."

The stone was implacable. "I am stone, I have been here for millions of years, not some come by night dribble. And I shall not be moved.

But the water was clear, the water would be moved, eventually. Through ten seasons and ten seasons more, the water made it's argument, and every drip, every gush, every freeze, its argument was stronger, and one season, the water continued, and the stone was nothing more than ten thousand grains of sand, each with its own mind, no longer implacable. The stone...

"So you can sell me anything I want?"

"No, no, you misunderstand me." He smiled a bit too broadly, his teeth white and sharp, his voice bearing an unplaceable foreign accent, slight but there just at the edges of his words. "I am a salesman of want." And with this, he hefted his large case onto the counter.

It was not without effort that he strained it up. Not that his face would betray this, but Jane could see the muscles straining under his beautiful black suit, perfectly tailored, at least to her untrained eye. The case seemed heavy, but...

The sheep were at pasture. They stood, milling, queuing, just waiting for someone to wake them up. To show them their own cage, to let them know that they didn't have to be sheep anymore.

Were there even sheep cages? Pens, it was pens, sheep were kept in pens. Pens writing the manifesto, no typing, that would have been too simple. Ideas should be dragged from your mind, panicked and screaming.

He shook his head. Sometimes it was hard to think straight, to keep everything in order in his head. That was the price to be paid for thinking with...

They gathered in the woods. In ones and twos, hiding in lengthening shadows. None walked there proudly, none stood tall, with their eyes blazing. No. This was a gathering of shame, a coven of the embarrassed and beaten.

It was probably Malachai who spoke first, that devil of lovely hair who had seduced women away from their husbands for centuries. "I think it is long past time that we declare failure." There were many murmurs of agreement, along with a few shouts of disapproval.

Barbastos came next, his red skin oiled and beautiful. He was known for his ability to...

The floorboard creaked. The house came alive and... walked.

It did not walk as people walk, as things designed to move would move. No, a house is not meant to ambulate, not meant to be in a place different from the place it had always been. That was the first trial, overcoming years of inactivity, millenia of tradition.

But the house was determined to leave its lot, after its lot in life had fallen. All around it, other houses had fallen, eaten away by neglect, time, disuse. And while this house had not had resident or human inhabitant for far...

"2070. 2071. 2072..."

Abe sighed, noting down the number and position so that he could start again later. He couldn't imagine starting again later, picking up the count, forcing himself to mouth the numbers, let the numbers run through his mind and out of his mouth.

But it would happen. Eventually. But at the moment, he could take a break, relax in a place where the numbers had no meaning.

Sometimes, he felt like the numbers he was counting were his own regrets and mistakes. 148, that he never asked out Jenny Mare three years ago, that he watched her...