Umwelt: Darkness Flows Like a River Episode 4: Little Lost Things

Sucked from the incoherent roar of the streets, the steamy interior of Randall’s is quiet as breath, enfolds Moe gently as arms. The musky scent of books is a balm to soothe the pounding of his heart, to ease the tension from his shoulders and back. Either side of his spine are the faint, smouldering […]

Episode 15: Umwelt: Sweating Bullets.

The formation of nuns sweeps in low. Behind them the storm gathers, a bridal train of dark fury. The seven Sisters circle the bandits and a sweeping veil of storm traps them, like flies in a bottle, a funnel of insane black to lock them into place. Steam engines die to silence and the bandits […]

Episode 14: Umwelt: Symphony of Destruction

Bandits roar down the hillside, spew dust out behind, a yellow smog. Choke leans forward over the handlebars, grins around the stub of his stogie. The charm from the gypsy bangs against the brawn visible in the vee of his grimy shirt. ‘C’mawn get it, sum bitch,’ he mutters at the mad whirl of the […]

Episode 13: Umwelt: Countdown to Extinction

Rolf dips and sways to the music, plots extravagant orbits about the floor. A dizzying display. Twirls the foul creature in his arms. Tries not to look through the gauzy purple of her veil. She revolts him. Sickens him. Mother Immortal emanates such purity of evil he can feel it sinking cold tendrils into the […]

Episode 12: Umwelt: Double Jeopardy

Margo stares out into the maelstrom, it churns lunatic waltzes in the cat green glow of her eyes. Grainy black teeth gnash against the glass of the porthole. She gnashes back at them. Pearly teeth chomping with decided relish. The teeth on the glass explode in a shiver of dark sand and Margo chuckles to […]

Episode 11: Umwelt: Prelude to a Cat fight

Eyes black and shiny as a corvid’s, Rolf scans the bustling hold. Sifts memories from minds like wheat from chaff. They flood through him, fill him to brimming with whispers, fragments, images. A thousand thousand memories, all carrying their own scents, tastes, their own emotions. Treacherous deeps these, so many minds; a myriad thoughts, all […]

Umwelt: Episode 10: Pretty Kitty

Peggy Dunne’s horn blows thrice, a warning of imminent departure. In the waning sunlight it ripples mournful as an eagle’s cry about the platform. Petulant, slender as a quill, Sebus Grimm leans upon the platform rail beside the bluff breadth of SlipMaster Elder Cambian. Sebus folds one long hand into the pocket of his waistcoat, […]

Episode 9: Umwelt: Bum Banditos

Beady eye peeks sneaky, subtle. Shines through the slim gap between door and wall, bright as a bauble. Rolls to and fro, scanning the slew of bodies strutting on the street. Meg skip hops from one spindle-heel shod foot to the other. Leek leans across, peers over the top of her head. ‘What’s cookin’ Meg? […]

Episode 8: Umwelt: Two Bit Whore

Rinky dink jaunt of a piano plucked honky-tonk tune spills out to the street. High kicked as a can-can leg it rips into tender ears. Minnie raises full skirts, booted feet. Larks in a circle around grinning Slimm. Flashes garters, teeth and sparkles, happy as a pig on acid. Turns a figure eight. Careens round […]

Episode 7: Umwelt: Consumed.

Consumed. Mouth of boiling dust. Within the tumult of stinging sand it becomes a grey torrent, yellow lips given way to dark throat. Methodical violence concealed by chaos. Darkness like thunderheads sunk to ground level boils across the sand, driven by calculated malice. Forbidding billows of jagged iron grey, sharp and savage as fangs. Scrape. […]