The Word Worker

Tag: Fiction

  • Floating

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    I was living the dream. Traveling the world, seeing all the wonders, all while never leaving my house… it was my whole bucket list. Of course, I hadn’t actually meant never literally. It was three years to the day since I woke up to find my cabin floating on its tiny plot of land high…

  • The Girl

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    She was there every day the sun shone, sitting against the big oak in the park with her guitar. No one ever saw her come or go, but when she played anyone nearby stopped what they were doing. They gravitated to her, faces suddenly pensive, often tearful as if their deepest longings surfaced. She always…

  • Apocalypse

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    The bomb hit at sunrise. Shards of glass melted into the asphalt, like black ice waiting to land me on the flat of my back. Twisted metal beams hung overhead, barely visible in the greenish haze that should have been sky. I couldn’t breathe. Debris filled my vision, the emptiness overwhelming. The whining creak of…

  • Book Review: Silk Peony, Parade Dragon

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    The mandarin needs a dragon to lead the emperor’s New Year’s parade. Mrs. Ming has seven dragons, but the only Silk Peony is able to parade. She has beautiful scales and many virtuous qualities, but she is a lady dragon and doesn’t have a beard to impress the emperor with her wisdom. The mandarin is…

  • Empty

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    The blast zone was eerily quiet. Sophie walked slowly over the dead ground, footfalls crunchy in the charcoaled remains of the world she had known. Her heart thudded, as loud as the sobbing breath heaving in and out of her lungs. Already long shadows fingered the valley, shades of glory made barren. The time between…

  • The Lens

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
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    Savannah groaned. Here she was, supposed to be photographing this society fundraiser, and the camera lens was dirty. Again. She reached in her bag for the lens cloth. After a meticulous wipe that covered every square millimeter of glass, she nodded with satisfaction and lifted the camera again. She snapped a candid of a bored…

  • Inside

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    “What is this place?” Dax blinked in the shaft of light streaming through the scrollwork of the single window high overhead. His head hurt; for some reason he couldn’t remember how he got here. Wherever here was. In the narrow fringes of light he could see walls covered with ornately designed panels, gold-leaf scrollwork glinting…

  • First Contact

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    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    Bluing was it’s favorite time of waking. The sand, brilliant white for so many matings, took on the hue of Aurora for only three. Others avoided the surface during bluing, fearing the overling would walk the sands with her obliterating heat. R’ik knew better; so many matings it had spent alone in the beauty. It…

  • Wormhole

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    She could still see the town below as if through a pea soup fog, street lights shining incongruous against the blue sky. It was near midnight when she had walked out of the glare of those lights into the darkness of the hills. She hadn’t expected the night to be so dense, nor for it…

  • Green

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    by

    wordworkerrussell
    in ,

    It was June’s favorite spot at Maggie’s. The little antique shop on the square held everything from forgotten toys to glassware odds and ends, and the collection changed almost daily. Surrounded as it was by designer stores and expensive restaurants, Maggie’s was an unlikely success, but the window display stopped traffic every time. She asked…