OISIN O'CONNELL
Short Fiction
A collection of some of my favourite short stories, if you feel like reading :)
The First Storm
When the gravity storm hit, three crew members broke their spines right away. Kent was thrown halfway down the ship so hard he snapped over backwards. I was lucky, I got my tether on in time.
Then the alarm rang, wailing metal horns throughout the ship. I got to the bridge as fast as I could. When I got there, the captain and navigator were screaming at each other. I just stood there gawking, then they stopped.
“Lad!” The captain said to me, “the engine has stalled! Get down and wind the gears or clear the blockage so as we can escape this judgement!”
The navigator suddenly spoke up; “that'll do no good and you know it! You must-”
There was a flash of red outside and we were lifted off our feet, then sent sprawling on the ground.
“Do not question your captain!” He yelled back. The navigator shut up and I ran out of the room toward the back of the ship, to the Difference Engine. I stumbled past Kent, him wailing weakly, but I could not stop.
I ran through the pipes room, with its gas boilers and jumping meters. It was full of panic; one crew member was frantically making the sign of the weaver with each crank of a wheel, another was babbling prayers into a dark corner, everyone was screaming and yelling above the shaking of the ship. Except for Maw, his massive arms and face covered in tattoos, he cranked and pumped and shovelled away just as ever.
I threw open the door at the other end and slammed it shut behind me, sealing off the smoke and dirt from the small antechamber. The air began to purge and filter all the soot, and then the gravity threw me again, but I wasn't tethered. I slammed into the wall and felt my right forearm snap and screamed so loud in that small room. I staggered to the door and strained against the massive wheel with one hand. I saw bone poking through the skin of the other.
Finally, the ship lurching, the giant door swung open and I saw the clockwork heart of the ship before me. Beyond a set of dials, levers and meters, behind a window of thick glass, spun the Difference Engine. Interlocking spheres and rings of metal that swung the ship through the red and black sky. But the meters told me it wasn't swinging fast enough.
I set amongst the innumerable levers and wheels. I had been shown many times before, I had to be able to do it. I tweaked, I pulled, I checked figures and wound. And the engine sped up, the meters swung to the green, and the air hummed with that static that came when reality slipped sideways.
And then the storm threw me again. I strained against my tether, blood from my arm dripping up into my eyes. I didn't understand, why were we not out of the storm?
I stumbled back out, but the pipes room was empty and I heard a clamour coming from the galley down the hall. I cradled my arm and peeked in; the captain was trying to calm the crew.
“We must just fly, as fast as we can! Like any storm it can be outrun, and it will not last forever.”
The men shouted at the captain and each other, the Navigator at the front:
“This storm is YOUR fault! You are a MURDERER, and the Weaver has judged you for one!”
He turned to the rest of the crew:
“This man, our captain, murdered his wife! His children! He is a coward and a villain, and the weaver has condemned him, with or without us!”
There was an uproar from the crew: they had been betrayed, for murder was bad luck. They swarmed forward and reached for the captain: there was a loud BANG and PING as something whizzed through the air. The captain was holding a smoking gun, the crew backed away from him immediately.
“The next one to say “murderer” will be shot. We will outrun this storm, we will pull into port, and we will leave wealthy men. I give you my word.”
“Did you give your wife your word?”
The captain swung the gun to the navigator and fired, dropping him dead. But before he could raise it again, a hand reached out from the crowd behind him and grabbed the Pistol, covered in tattoos. Maw loomed over the captain, his eyes glaring between the 10 legs of the Weaver tattooed on his face. He ripped the gun from the captain's grip, and the crew was on him in an instant.
They dragged him down the corridor as he begged and screamed, towards the Airlock, the ship shaking all the time. He was flung in and when they slammed the door he beat and screamed against it with wide eyes, but we couldn't hear a word. And then the door opened and tore him out into the black ether mid-scream. He was gone from sight in seconds.
Then the ship stopped shaking. The red flashes around the ship slowed, the groans and noise stopped, we could stand steady. The storm was gone.
Some shipmates muttered “murder’s bad luck” and “thank the Weaver it's over” as they walked back to their work, to figure out how to return to port with no navigator or captain. But I couldn't look away from the Airlock. Through the narrow round window, I could see the black of the sky. And I felt that I was being watched back.
On the Hills, Across Town
Since I was a child, I had sat at my window in the sun, and watched the leaves turn brown. The park across the street was nothing special, but it was in front of my window, the old town on the other side, and further away the hills on the outskirts of town. I could see people through the gaps in the branches. I would watch people walking their dogs, holding hands, or lying on the ground kissing for the first time. A couple times I saw a homeless man fall asleep, or young men stumbling home from the pub.
After I met Hector, the first thing I did was watch him walk away through that window. We had stumbled along those same drunken paths, laughing the whole way as he walked me home. And at my door, I had decided to kiss him, which took him by surprise. I told him I’d see him again, and then went up and watched him walk away. He looked almost giddy, strutting and turning under the trees and streetlights, and I was almost giddy as well as I watched him disappear under the branches, the leaves just beginning to turn brown.
Then, from my window, I saw on one of the hills across town, something that wasn’t there before.
I heard people say that they were building something, on the hills across town. Something new, something that used a lot of long words and was very hard to explain, but something important. Very important, which would let us do great things in this town, and would lead to us having more money, and “Status” and “Prestige”. I never understood how but I assumed they knew what they were doing, so I just watched the thing get built.
By the time the leaves were gone, it had stretched up higher than I thought a building ever could. It was so large, from my window I could make out the vast wheels and spines, in bright silver, stretching up to the sky like a twisted hand. And one day, it was turned on.
I heard a vast, wide crack, as though it had come from all the sky at once. As I looked over the leafless trees, the stretching spines flashed blue, then after a moment, I heard the crack again and now a low hum that my fingers could feel on the windowsill. The wheels, slowly, slowly started spinning, and a soft blue glow flickered up the spines and stayed there. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I remember new, tiny leaves were just coming in on the trees.
Almost overnight, the machine on the hill brought everything people said it would. The lights in my park were on all night, and people walked through it at all hours, under the wide green leaves. All sorts of “scholarly” types and “educated” people came to town, to discuss the machine, or to give money to the people who owned it. I heard many of them say they wished to build one in their own town, and even in the big cities. These people all wore silk and velvet and smoked fine cigars, and had more money and “status” than anyone in town had ever seen. All day and night, they would discuss what the machine was, what our town could gain from it, how much it could help people, how much better things were now that it was here. And underneath all of it, you could hear the humming of the machine, never stopping, day or night. I could barely sleep, the hum always in my ears and the faint blue glow shining through my window.
Then today the machine died. A sudden thick, sharp buzzing jerked me awake, so loud that I could feel it in my ear like some horrible burrowing insect that my hands could not shut out. Then I heard the town sirens crying out, barely audible underneath the strange electronic sound. I looked out of my window, and the machine was flickering with blue light, so bright I could barely look at it and the buzzing grew louder and louder and I heard Hector yelling behind me but I was still looking at the machine because I was so frightened and the buzzing was louder than my thoughts and then there was a flash from the machine but red, redder than blood and a loud bang that left my ears ringing and I felt the heat of fire on my face and I was thrown back from the window as it shattered and I rolled to the door of the room, and then everything went black.
Hector shook me awake, and I opened my eyes, and I saw a bright blue mark, burned into my eyes, where the machine had been. My face and forearms burned, like I had lain in the sun too long. Hector’s face was bright red, and he asked if I was okay and I said I thought so. And I suddenly remembered what had happened, and I ran to my window.
Atop its hill, the machine stood gnarled, its silver fingers twisted and blackened, and glowing red, with black smoke rising from it and filling the sky, turning the sky so dark it could not be seen and the sun was blocked out, so that all down our street people were turning their lights on. And something was falling from the sky. Something fine, like snow, drifting and settling down. I held out my arm from my window, and flecks of inky black settled on it, spotting my arm with a thousand tiny dark dots that immediately began to itch. And I pulled my arm in and looked at my park, with its full leaves that should be turning brown soon. But the sky had drifted down onto them too, dusting them with the dead blood of the machine, and they had already turned black.
Tough Break
At about 6pm, Larry walked into the bar on his way home from work, shaking off the rain from outside. In his left hand he held a bunch of roses and some chocolates. His right hand was gone, blood staining the cuff of his brown coat. He put the items down on the bar, shrugged off his coat and sat down.
The Bartender noticed Larry's missing hand. With a cheeky smile, he walked over and said;
“Howdy Larry. Rough day at the office?”
“Hey Bill. Yeah a little.”
“Looks fresh, what, about an hour?”
“Right before quitting time.”
“Tough break buddy. Not even sent home early.”
As he spoke, the Bartender put a glass of frothy golden beer in front of Larry, and left him to it. Larry reached for it with his missing hand, paused, then grabbed it with the hand he still had, and took a big sip. His hand was beginning to heal now. It wasn't bleeding anymore, and new skin was starting to grow. By the time he got home he should be fine.
It had happened on the warehouse floor. Which he had no business being in, he was in Logistics Delivery Engineering. But Chuck, the Logistics Delivery Manager, had told Larry to handle a problem down on the floor, so that Chuck could make his important 4:15 golf tee with the boys from Logistics Development. So, Larry had gone down to help the interns. And at some point someone had hit the wrong button on a machine and a pallet of stainless steel had come down on his right hand. It was incredibly inconvenient, because it turned out to be such a pain to drive a car with only one hand.
Larry thought about this as he sipped his beer. It was always him solving these problems and not Chuck. Larry had worked at his company for nearly 214 years and Chuck had always been his boss, and if Larry was completely honest, he didn’t like Chuck very much.
Larry had been hoping for a promotion for a few decades, but hadn’t heard anything from management. Eventually Chuck would leave, or Larry would leave, but now that Larry was thinking about it and was missing a hand, he thought that he might be unhappy, working at his company with Chuck. He was suddenly so sure of it, but he wasn't sure if that was his fault, or Chuck's fault or nobody's in particular, and didn't really know what to do about it. So he took another sip of beer. Maybe he should do what Chuck was always doing, and do something for himself. But what could he do? It was a terribly difficult question.
And then, quite out of nowhere, Larry thought it would be fun to play an instrument. He had never tried it before, but surely that shouldn't matter. What might matter is which one. Larry thought of all the instruments he could, until one stood out to him: The Hurdy Gurdy. A wooden box with a crank handle and keys. He thought he had even seen one the other week, in a music shop near his favourite bagel store. He had heard that his grandfather had played one. God that must have been . . . 7000 years ago. And now his grandfather was dead. Larry stopped and thought about this for a moment. But, he remembered, people didn't die anymore.
He took his half-grown hand away from his beer glass. Little fingers with translucent skin were poking up from his wrist, slowly growing. In a few more minutes he’d be able to make a fist.
The card on the roses said “372 years married, and you haven't killed me yet. Thanks for that!”. It was a bit of a risk, there had never been a joke about killing him before and he wasn't sure if Julie would like it, she hated the idea of him even getting hurt. And the chocolates were different this year too, and the roses were white instead of red. God, he must have been in just a daredevil mood.
About twice as slow as normal, Larry took out his wallet, and slid out the photo of him and Julie as teenagers. Since he had realised he was unhappy, he wanted to look at it for a moment. She still had her braces, he was wearing his high school baseball jersey. Larry loved this photo, because he couldn't remember this day. It was 394 years ago, and had long faded from his memory. The earliest memory of Julie he could manage was . . . 174 years ago, when she was wishing him a good day at work. Possibly on a Tuesday. He certainly couldn't remember their first anniversary.
In fact, could he even be certain that today was their anniversary? If he forgot, would Julie even notice? Larry loved Julie very much, and hated the thought of upsetting her, so he was always careful to get the chocolates he knew she liked and to always remember their anniversary, but maybe it wasn’t that important after a while. Sure, anniversaries were more important than most days, but maybe they were less important after 300 of them? Larry decided that he didn’t think they were all that important after 300, but he probably shouldn’t ignore them. Or maybe, maybe, he could make them important. And maybe he could even start with this one! He had started already with the wild new chocolates and roses, why not do more?
But Larry didn’t know how to make it really special. And it was a terribly difficult question.
And he clearly had a lot on his mind from work, being unhappy and all. He had a year to think about how to make the next anniversary special and maybe he shouldn't rush it. He could take his time and really think about it, for years if he wanted.
He took another sip of beer. The glass was empty.
*
At about 8pm, Larry walked through the door to his house and went straight to the living room, where he knew Julie would be watching the television, with his hands behind his back.
Julie got up from the couch and gave him a hug. “How was work dear?”
“Oh, not too bad thanks. Here, happy anniversary.” And Larry held out the roses and chocolates and gave them to Julie.
Julie looked down at the gifts in her hands. “Oh, these roses are white. And the chocolates are nougat.” Larry’s heart stopped for a moment as he waited. Julie looked back up and smiled.
“How exciting! I love praline, but I haven’t had nougat in so long! And these roses will look lovely by that photo in the hallway!”
Larry breathed a sigh of relief.
“I have another gift for you, a very special one. Well, it’s actually for both of us, but it’s going to take some time.”
And then with a very big smile, Larry pulled out his brand new Hurdy Gurdy in his brand new hand from behind his back, and said:
“I'm going to learn to play this. And I'm going to write a song for you, Julie.”
Black Rainbows
As soon as I get home, I know something is wrong. On the 8th floor at this time of day, the sun shoots right through my window and across my living room, into the kitchen, as always, and it’s silent, as is normal. But something’s up, somewhere.
It takes me all evening to spot it. The couch has been moved. Just a little, a bit out from the wall. Once I realise that, the rest was obvious; the chairs are pulled out from the table, a drawer was half open. My bed was on the opposite side of the room. I wonder if I had called anyone, an exterminator, an interior decorator. There’s nothing in my planner, but someone has been in here.
In the morning the sun comes from the opposite side, through the kitchen into the living room. It’s so damn bright, I never would have bought this place if I’d known it would glare so much. Whirrrrr, blublublub, coffee is ready from the machine. It’s oily, thick. There are rainbows on the surface like crude oil.
The phone rings and scares the shit out of me. I get up to answer it.
“Hello? Bill Williams.”
“Hello, is this the tall blue building on East 57th?”
“Uh, no”
“Sorry, wrong number” - BZZT - BEEEEEEEEEEEEP
That fucking sun! I get up and close the blinds. I look back to my coffee, and I stop. It looks evil. It’s oily and shiny like a black rainbow, ready to burn and eat through my insides and eat and eat and never stop.
Someone has poisoned it. That’s why the furniture had moved. I grab the coffee bag and smell it. It’s different, completely different. The coffee all goes down the sink.
I change the locks on my doors and add three more. I buy new coffee, instant, in sealed individual packets. Sealed cups of ramen, tins of food, bottles of water.
Carrying my groceries through the halls of my apartment building, it’s completely silent. There’s the slightest buzz, probably from the lights. Was it there before? Has something broken somewhere in the building? There’s a second pair of footsteps behind me
WHO IS THAT
I turn around. Nobody’s there, the lights continue buzzing down the hallway to the elevator. A ding rings out, the floor numbers light up: 5 . . . 6 . . . 7 . . . 8, ding, the doors crack open and I run, I fucking sprint down to my door at the end of the hallway. I slam the door and lock it all five times, I can hear them sprinting up to it on the other side, then the footsteps slow and stop, right there, right next to it. I listen and wait. I don’t hear anything, and I slowly back away, as quietly as I can.
A whisper: “That was a close one”. From behind me.
I spin around: the apartment is still and empty. Ramen cups pile up on the coffee table. Stained mugs lie on the chairs and floor. The ashtray overflows onto the bench. It’s evening, the golden sunlight hitting the curtains and splitting into a rainbow. Nobody is there.
“Over here.” So quiet I can barely hear it. From the couch.
I step closer. “That’s it, now look up here..”
I look up the wall. At eye height, a small house spider is sitting on the wall. All its eyes are fixed on me.
“Hello Williams.”
Its mandibles move with each whispered word.
“Who are you?”
“Keep your voice down! My name is Rameirez. And I’m here to warn you . . .”
He leans in. “. . . about the Feds.”
I lean in closer. “The Feds?”
“That’s who’s doing this to you. They’re still outside your door. They’re the ones who keep calling.”
“How do I make them stop?”
“It’s too late for that Williams. Your environment has been successfully subverted. There’s no escape. The best thing for you to do, is to go along with it.”
“Wait, why?”
“Subversions are either productive, or end up . . . consolidated. And once a subversion is complete, escape is a distant impossibility.”
“Well, what do they want from me?”
“ . . .Death, Williams. They want to see bright, blinding, kaleidoscopic death.”
I say nothing. The silence drags on, then Rameirez speaks.
“They’re about to call again. If you want proof, look out of the window.”
The phone rang behind me. “You’d better answer that”. I turned around, the phone is screaming at me to answer, crying out in pain. I pick up the phone, it almost sliding out of my grip.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this the tall blue building on 57th street?”
“No.”
“Sorry, wrong number” - BZZT - BEEEEEEEEEP
Rameirez is gone, and the sun is dancing a greasy rainbow behind the curtains. What did he mean, look out of the window?
I slowly approach, without touching, and peek through. The morning sun is shining on the buildings across the street, but I look closer. There’s nobody in the windows. No cars on the street. There’s a . . . flicker. And a buzzing, a buzzing like the lights in the hallway. It all looks flat.
It’s a screen.
Don’t touch it, don’t let them know you know. Slowly back away from the window and act like nothing’s wrong. Nothing is wrong.
Everything’s so fine and dandy, I’ll go for a walk.
Shoes, jacket, the ZZZZZZZ of the lights, the MMMMMMMM of the elevator. I’m outside in the calm, still night. The space is open, there’s no roof, I can breathe. There’s a coffee shop at the end of the street. The clear air worms through my nose, my lungs, my veins, and into my head. Surely the bug can’t have been right. The bug could even be working for them. They might have gotten to my apartment, but not to my street. They couldn’t have.
It’s quiet inside, A tired woman and a businessman with a briefcase. I sit down at the bench, looking for any sign of subversion. The bench looks just like it always has. The chairs are in the same place. Did the businessman just look at me? No, he’s punching numbers into a mobile phone. My coffee arrives. I look in the mug, and see a greasy black rainbow, rippling and squirming and evil. Behind me,
“Sorry, wrong number”.
The bug was right. They’re all around me. I can’t escape. I have to go with it, and I know where I have to go.
The world around me is bright and buzzing, whirring with the color from the inside of my eyelids. But the way forward clears and clarifies as I step along my rainbow road of transparency. The tall blue building at 57th street. There is already a knife in my hand as I open the door, hidden behind my back. The boy at the desk has no idea he has to die and asks if I have an appointment. The carpet started screaming “FEED ME WILLIAMS! FEED ME BLOOD!” and my knife went into the side of the boys face and the carpet slurped it up hungrily and there was screaming all around me and I kept
stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and stabbing until
A voice says behind me “That’ll do Williams, you’ve done very well.”
I wipe the blood out of my eyes, and turn around.
Behind me, a security camera hangs on the wall, pointed straight at me, its little red light blinking. An inky black rainbow sits over its lens, and a voice comes out of its side.
“I’m sure you have some questions for us.”
I’m out of breath. I think my arm is broken. “Who are you?”
A pause.
“I’m here to take care of you.”
A ding down the hallway. The elevator doors open, the arrow pointing down.
“Come with me and I’ll explain everything.”
I look around. The lights buzz around me, people lie dead in doorways and in their chairs.
“There’s no need to worry. They weren’t real people.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Just part of your environmental subversion. We would never want you to kill real people.”
The doorway gapes at me, inviting. Pleading for me to walk into it.
“What do you want me to do?”
“We want you to do great things, Williams.” The elevator doors shut behind me. I feel it sinking down into the earth.
“We have the most grand plans for you.”
Can't Let the Moon In
“The moon is cursed” they say. What pathetic nonsense. “The light will change you” they say, and hide from it like mice. When this village became gripped by such superstition I don't know, but it has gripped it tight, such that these cretins would never want to see truth again.
So gripped are these country folk, they ring a hideous bell when the sun touches the horizon. When I first came here, it disturbed me so greatly I could not sleep. They shutter their windows as for a storm each evening, and stuff rags under all their doors. “Can’t let the moon in” said the innkeeper when I asked after the custom. They even shelter animals for fear they should become lame or crazed. But none could tell me what change it would bring. The innkeeper said madness, the blacksmith said deformity, the children said it would turn you into a frog. And when I voiced my doubts, they called me delusional. They even began to mistrust me, so I elected to keep my questions to myself.
One can hardly blame them, but one can blame that preacher of theirs. She tells them to paint that sun on their doors, to keep them safe. She gathers them around the sundial each morning to collect “Offerings”, so that the sun may rise again. She tells them to make the sign of the sun over their heart. She has built for herself the grandest house in the village, for “The glory of the sun”. She has them wrapped around her little finger, thinking that the sun should care if they worship it. She fills their ears with lies, but not mine. I know better than to trust her.
The moon is not cursed. The moon is blessed. I have seen it.
Through a crack in my wall one night, the light filled my mind with truth and my eyes and my body and my soul and now I know truly what the moon is. I have seen that its beauty eclipses the sun. I know what is coming. And these fools cannot be allowed to ignore it.
This door. This door belongs to the preacher. The mocking, hateful, blinding golden sun on the front staring at me. In the morning this door will open and the lies will continue, but they needn’t. All I need do is show her, let the light into her home, and she will spread the truth instead, carefully disguised, like all truth should be. A crack is all that is needed, a crack just here, in the back wall, to let the truth spill in as she sleeps.
Rejoice villagers, you shall understand soon enough.