Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
My Witness Statement
As I looked around and saw the chaos, I felt hope drain away and I was suddenly refilled with adrenaline, my heart getting faster and faster, eyes burning, throat tight. Our boat was sinking and the life jackets were going to do fuck all because the water was burning through the ship, it was toxic and the screams all around told me swimming to safety was not an option, not that I could even swim that well. I thought how much I would rather drown right now than to be burnt by this acid water. I looked around at the strangers still aboard scrambling to save themselves, when the lady next me was struck by the mast, blood everywhere. I was suddenly envious, on second thought I said to myself I’ll take that option, a quick death, I never wanted anything more in my life. Actually, if I could have anything it would be for the world to have listened, to have paid attention when there was time, to have stopped destroying this world before it was too late. As the sun went down over the horizon I knew this would be my last day on Earth, May 8th 2099. I thought back on everything that got me to my last day. Had I done enough? Had I tried my best? Every day I worked to keep his legacy alive, to keep going even when there seemed like there was no hope. It happened just has he foretold. I read his work hundreds of times, watched hours of film, and he predicted it all. The world that I saw through his films seemed to me like something from a dream. I have never known an Earth so beautiful, so diverse. The animals so strange and wild, the forests a mesmerizing world of green, the oceans so alive. I wish I had been born earlier before everything was poisoned and suffocated. They say when the Amazon Rainforest dried out in 2037 there was surprisingly a small glimmer of hope as everyone started to pay attention to the destruction we humans were causing to this planet. The restrictions on food and fossil fuels helped for a while until the war, Climate Corruption as it is remembered. Those who did not care or maybe still did not believe in climate change fought hard against the changes, changes that may have helped pave the way to a sustainable future. The whole system came crumbling down and then the ecosystem had no chance. Fossil fuels burned once again and so did forests. The corrupt had their pockets fill with money as whole cities filled with the rising ocean. In 2045 when the permafrost thawed there was no going back. Then in 2050 the coral reefs became a thing of the past. Watching the films of him describing the beauty an abundance of the oceans always made me wonder how humans could destroy all of it. In 2069 when I was born food was incredibly scarce but my parents made do. They gave us everything they could so that we would have a chance to survive. The books and the films meant the most to me, to be able to see what had been, to know what this beautiful Earth once was. To watch him describe it all and show how amazing this world was filled me with hope that it will one day return to it’s former beauty once humans are gone. I wish I had known him. He spent a lifetime trying to save our beautiful Earth and it wasn’t enough. As I looked down at my heart-shaped locket I took one more look inside and saw his face looking back, my great, great, great grandfather. The inscription read David Frederick Attenborough - 8 May 1926. Then as the last of the screams disappeared into the thick atmosphere I looked up and saw No Life on Our Planet.
By Yelena Adams5 years ago in Fiction
Artificial
At the top of the northwest ruins was her favorite spot to climb and think. The long walk away from town, the nervous feeling in her gut when she got within sight of the ruins, the abandonment of her inhibitions as she scrambled, clawed and climbed to the top of the tallest accessible spire -- these were all unwritten but indispensable parts of a ritual. Even thinking about and sometimes touching her heart-shaped locket while perched upon this once regal column was a regular part of this cleansing ritual.
By L.T. 'syreal' Jones5 years ago in Fiction
The Attainment of Despair
A heart-shaped locket lay on the crumbling asphalt amid the long-decayed remains of the child who had been wearing it when the end of her kind came. The thin chain which had held the pendant around her neck was still intact – her bones were not.
By Billy Davis5 years ago in Fiction
Cracking Neighbours
Cracking Neighbours. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen Paul is helping young Simon with his maths homework, explaining, although not too convincingly, why the internal angles of any triangle always add up to 180 degrees. Seeing Simon isn’t convinced, Paul thinks about using that two-word phrase that he dislikes anyone using. A phrase Socrates would surely have abhorred. That lazy cop out. But Paul has somewhere to go, the golf course awaits and it’s nearly 10am.
By Winstopn Furlong5 years ago in Fiction
I'll Meet You There
Well babe, I made it. I can’t breathe for dust, and there are spiders everywhere, but that’s a good sign. The cupboards all look full and there’s plenty of bottled water to keep us going. The mattress has seen better days, but I’m not complaining.
By Oliver Josiah5 years ago in Fiction
The Fire & The Fishers
Throat-scratching heat permeated through room even though it wasn’t yet dawn. The sound of trees creaking under the hot wind’s pressure outside, almost like a voice whispering out of the darkness. A nearby cane toad croaked out its usual rolling call, waking Eira from her uneasy sleep.
By Sara Ralphs5 years ago in Fiction
Joe's Night of Terror
He found himself thinking about the safest place to relocate his scant, precious possessions, always on the move reminiscing about his old life before the mutated Covid-19 virus pandemic struck, coupled with the rapid increase in global warming ending life as it once was. Joe Baker was a popular Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, until the day everything changed. He had moved to California to take up the academic post from New York City with its oppressively hot summers and bitterly cold winters, where it would sometimes snow, and loved the warm, carefree lifestyle of San Francisco with its sunny beaches and friendly cafes, restaurants, and nightclubs that offered such promising opportunities for socialising. Oh, how he had relished his new life here! The collapse of the central stock exchange had led to an end of world trade, and despite the central banks all over the world flooding their economies with money, it led to a rise in inflation. And now money was worthless, as governments around the world struggled to feed their populations, world trade ceased to exist. It really had become “every man for himself” as governments completely collapsed. The first institutions to go were public services, and so a gang mentality quickly formed, displacing the mass populous, with the elderly neglected and even cast aside, as drugs becoming the currency of the day.
By Belinda Mckeown5 years ago in Fiction
