Missy’s Last Day Out
Jerome and Missy stood in the derelict Museum of Mankind.
Beyond, terraformed terrain rolled away as featureless as the controlled weather the lizards loved.
Missy peered into the exhibition cabinet: Christmas cards: c.2013
‘Will it snow this Christmas, daddy?’
Her dimming eyes searched his for fragments of hope; fragments that over time coalesced into faith.
‘Yes.’
This lie haunted him at her funeral until something cold wet his nose.
Not a tear.
A snowflake.
Hard Light
Poor kid, I had to do something about Jess’s nightmares.
Nothing makes darkness flee like the light.
You don’t mortgage your life on an MIT education just for fun. You use it.
And…fringe science pays.
Thus: coherent light.
But I didn’t reckon on its counterpart: solid darkness.
Or Jess, upstairs, making hand shadow puppets on the wall…
Howling harmonics from a scream no earthly creature could make roll down the stairs like a tsunami.