The Engineers, Part 6

Hours later, just as the sun is starting to crack the sky open with an amber slit, I’m jostling Willie out of bed, my legs and arm aching, telling…


The Engineers, Part 5

That night, I dream for the first time I can recall in years, and it is an insanity. I’m sorting through old photos, those old Land camera types,…


The Engineers, Part 4

The following day is my day off and I squander it, as I usually do, by doing housework. I’m in the basement doing laundry and Willie is trying to…


The Engineers, Part 3

I get home, frazzled, relieved, and with shaking hands give the kid the cartons, and he seems happy about this. Thank you, he says. My hands won’t…


The Engineers, Part 2

He’s started to get rashes from sitting in pissy blankets and I’m going to have to bite the bullet and buy him some of those not-diapers. I grab my…


The Engineers, Part 1

“To choose ways of not acting was ever the concern and scruple of my life.” --- Fernando Pessoa I. When I returned home, the door was locked, exactly…


The Ambush, Part 10: The Changeling

The generals are now so terrified they won’t sit in on the director’s debriefing of Etienne; one was in fact so scared he fled the colony and is…


The Ambush, Part 9: Liebe + Romance

I’m fucking around at my desk again, idle, fuming that the lacerations from the one-sided gunfight aren’t enough for medical leave, entertaining the…


The Ambush, Part 8: The Ambush Predator

Etienne has hired a butcher to use his shop to conduct his interrogations, which are off to a very rough start. The first subject made his attackers…


The Ambush, Part 7: The Form and the Substance

I’m getting drowsy, so I dowse the lights and lie there, staring off into the slats of light cast against the walls. As I’m just about to doze off,…