Malcolm Roach

Joined June 2022

20 stories

Stories (20)

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One Day Off
The smell of exhaust and fumes itch my nose. It always smells worse when it's cold. It's my one day off this week, and I know exactly what I plan to do: Nothing.
By Malcolm Roachabout a year ago in Futurism
One Early Morning's Work
Think of this as the "Before" photo. I never did manage to get an "After." I took this photo eight years ago. As a Lot Tech for a car dealership, one of our jobs was to come in early on snow-days, to help clear the lot. Our job was shuffling whole rows of cars back and forth so the plows and Bobcats could reach all of the snow. Depending on how intense the snowfall was, the other Lot Techs and I would have to come in several hours before opening, sometimes as early as 3am!
By Malcolm Roachabout a year ago in Photography
Igloo
¶ It's dark by the time I finally get off of work, and blistering cold to boot. The snow is coming down in sheets, and of course, I'd forgotten to put the windshield cover on my car. I open the door, brush off the snow that the door deluged onto my seat, and hop in, teeth chattering.
By Malcolm Roachabout a year ago in Families
Summer's End
¶ The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished. It was the one good thing that happened that day. The leaf-shaped boat was tossed in the spray, pulled backwards up waterfalls and rapids. Puck held on for dear life, swinging the oar to and fro. He avoided rocks and rounded bends that seemed MUCH sharper going the wrong way. The spray drenched his green travelling cloak, and he hunched over the fragile little bundle wrapped against his chest, desperate to keep it dry. He sung soft nonsense words, too distracted with surviving to think up a proper lullaby. He hushed and crooned, trying to sooth the baby as it wailed shrilly enough to shame a banshee! He heaved on the oar as he saw another inverted waterfall up ahead, and desperately tried to shield the baby from the spray!
By Malcolm Roachabout a year ago in Fiction
Forgiven
¶ She watched, as traffic sped below her. She had been watching the news, reading the forums. She knew that the bridge over the river was going to collapse. No one else understood. No one listened.
By Malcolm Roachabout a year ago in Fiction
A Whole Day
¶ The clock above the door read 10:02. ¶ As Mr. Sorin, the geography teacher, rambled on about some tristate area half a country away, Jake stared at the blackboard, trying to make sense of the map. The teacher, in his brilliance, had drawn the map sideways, with the compass to North pointing lazilily off to the right. Indeed, the teacher had gone the extra mile to turn the N into a Z, to match the orientation.
By Malcolm Roach2 years ago in Fiction
Apricity
The thin sheet of snow pops beneath the toes of my boots. There is a single streak of blue cracking the grey sky. And through that crack, the sun peeks.
By Malcolm Roach2 years ago in Fiction
Waiting
¶ She had always hated the smell of hospitals. The way it plugged your nose, cloying in its sterility. There was no smell of life in hospitals. Only death.
By Malcolm Roach2 years ago in Criminal
Clone Agent: The Story that convinced me to write.
The first story I remember writing was from back when I was 9 or 10. It was a very well thought out and invested piece, with carefully crafted characters and settings... that I'd "borrowed" from other pieces of ficiton.
By Malcolm Roach2 years ago in Writers
Chapter 5: Different
Middle School wasn't anything like Waldorf. In Waldorf, each grade had its own room. Other than gym or recess, it was the teachers who would come to the classrooms to teach! There was no crowded halls, no madcap scramble.
By Malcolm Roach2 years ago in Chapters
Sometimes, Good Guys Lose
When I was a teen, I got into the Pendragon series, by D.J. MacHale. Spoilers below, you've been warned. The series follows Bobby Pendragon, a teenage boy who is uprooted from his idyllic life to travel with his "Uncle" to different worlds, solving issues and thwarting plots by the evil Saint Dane. While it's not lighthearted, it starts off as a simple episodic journey, where the good guys thwart the villain, and follow him to his next scheme. But as the series progresses, the themes slowly get darker and darker.
By Malcolm Roach2 years ago in BookClub
Ugly as a Goose
Once upon a time, there was a little pond. And in that pond, swans would come and roost, and all their grey little cygnets would swim about.
By Malcolm Roach2 years ago in Fiction