Kzine Issue 8 by Graeme Hurry et al

Author:Graeme Hurry et al. [al., Graeme Hurry et]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: genre, Fiction, Crime, Fantasy, Horror, kzine, short, story, SF, kindle
Goodreads: 22918867
Publisher: Kimota Publishing
Published: 2014-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

THE ANGEL IN THE HOURGLASS

by Douglas Sterling

I swirl in my daughter’s closet spectral and thin. I peer through the door’s slats with discarnate eyes. Standing outside is the woman I used to be before the collapse. She is confident with youth. She leans over Christiana and damps her tears with the hem of her apron, promising her that what she saw was only a trick of the light.

“Only lightning, baby. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Christiana pulls the down comforter to her nose. A battalion of stuffed animals keeps watch behind her: moth-eaten teddy bears with dangling eyes, crocheted clowns hemorrhaging stuffing.

“But mommy,” says Christiana, “This lightning had a face.”

I’ve gone to a time in our lives when we had no idea the event was looming, waiting for us over the horizon. But I wasn’t careful enough. I wandered a little too close and my daughter caught a glimpse of my diminished manifestation.

My former self sits on the bed and taps the tip of Christiana’s nose. She says, “Sometimes the things we see aren’t really there. It’s just our minds playing games, calling up things from our imaginations.”

It’s torment watching this perfect replay of a life I’ve already lived - it fills me with self-loathing and jealousy all at the same time. I want so badly to touch Christiana, to be near her again - but more than that, I want to give her the life she deserves, a life unspoiled by the collapse.

“But what if it comes back?” asks Christiana.

“The secret to making sure it doesn’t,” says my former self, “is to think about something else.”

I used to read to my daughter from books full of poetry, hoping to soothe her with patterns. I told her that words beautify life, infusing the meaningless avalanche with music. I said that words left unattended on pages are asleep, that they need to be called to life. To set them loose you need lips and teeth, you need sibilant slicing and consonant crashing, all working in accord. And then the symbols lift into the air, and they become music. And life becomes bearable.

My daughter’s eyelids dip. My former self stands, brushing her hand over the light switch as she heads for the door.

“Now go back to sleep, my brave little fighter,” she whispers. “You know I’ll never let anything happen. I’ll always be here to protect you.”

But she is an unwitting liar. She doesn’t know that she’s the one that ruins everything, the one that lets everything happen - after all, she’s yet to commit the crime.

I cannot bring myself to interfere. I would only bring chaos and terror in my ghostly state. I need to leave before Christiana’s eyes readjust and she notices the glow coming from inside her closet.

So I let go. I fall out of time.

The stream opens beneath me like a chute, sending my spirit whisking across the years, crossing centuries of civilization in a single second, gliding over the gray precipitous stretch, through the cobalt flash, and into the ochre wasteland beyond.

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