Thursday, September 26, 2013

Celebrating the Birth . . . Joey Comeau

Joey Comeau (born September 26, 1980)
    A horror and specultive fiction writer, "Comeau is "best known for writing the text of the webcomic A Softer World" (Wikipedia).  Four of his short stories are available for free reading at Strange Horizons.









Fiction
At Strange Horizons:
• "The Historian"
      "Mary sat up and groaned. Sometimes it was hard to think of a reason to get back up off the kitchen floor in the morning, but there were always more bills to pay. The phone was ringing and she felt a dull ache in her side. Her left hip had one of those bruises that kept rebruising and never got to heal. She smelled of burnt plastic."

• "Historians and Degenerates"
     "It has been six months since Marion disappeared on me. She left her journals, all of her belongings, some romance novels, a collection of ugly teddy bears, but nothing which indicates the kind of planning that you would need to successfully jump off the grid. We were married for sixteen years. She said she enjoyed sex with me, but sometimes she locked herself in the bathroom afterwards. That's the only thing that sticks out, when I think back."

• "The Machine"
      "A scientist (me) and a priest (David) walk into a bar, ten years before either of us are born, looking for a miracle. That's not really accurate. This is more of an airport lounge. There are booths and waitresses and food and an air hockey table. Children can eat here, as long as they're with their parents, as long as it's earlier than eight p.m. Ugly little hologram children, either old or dead now, remembered forever in the machine."

• "Tradition"
     "My heart closed for that half second while my mother's eyes were white and her arms were thrown up in the air. I lost track of her glass of wine. Then she landed on the broken table and slid to the side. Glass broke. Everything rushed."

No comments: