Bryan Beal
© Bryan Beal
It is one thing to dip your toes into the unknown, quite another to play silly buggers with it and expect that everything will be all milk and honey. At the best of times, Helliosophus was not one for being woken up early in the lunar cycle. The keening of summoning spells in the aether simply got him out on the wrong side. Like Kronos scything off his father's nether regions, Helliosophus tore into the soul of the creature that was suddenly before him.
© Bryan Beal
Amen to that came the cry. Funny thing was no one knew why. From the back escaped a bored sigh And a fly.
Hearts filled they sang To the air and bells that rang. Echoing old, rusty gongs go glang! Hell loses its fang.
Some ignorance. Some sin. Some let none of this stuff enter in. They need it like beer needs keratin. All good, entertained like Flynn.
It comes, snake or con Human nature never lets on Until it's too late to be easily gone It knows, it's see you later on.
© Bryan Beal
Star light should have been there. It should have been as bright as the one back home, if not even stronger. Drew looked about him and saw nothing but ending darkness and shadow all around. He was not panicked, so he did not bother turning on his lamps. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dimness that should not have been there. Even after twenty minutes or so, he could see no better than when he had arrived. Which was to say, nothing. The lamps went on.
© Bryan Beal
Raymond was perplexed. Not just confused, but “question-the-very-foundation-of-your-life” bamboozled. As much as he tried to wrap his mind around it, any rational explanation that ended in “You're not off your rocker” eluded him. It eluded him for centuries. Raymond was not your most sophisticated Orator for the Diet of the Gathered Void, but even he should have worked this out by now. He even suspected that some of his so-called “friends” were having a go behind his back.
© Bryan Beal
Lightning rolled across the gas giant's surface like a tsunami of the gods that had exploded into a teacup. Even from the safety of orbit, the ethereal shower of light, fire and power struck awe and fear into those watching it unfold thousands of kilometres below. They knew nothing of this place, this star or its single, massive planet that offered no refuge and no sanctuary to them.
Immediately, units fired up and ran models, searching for the real destination of their journey. They soon located a probably point in its orbit and blasted towards it. As their ship, some clunky piece of junk that they lifted from their former overlords on Earth, rounded the planet's atmosphere, their hopes coalesced into a single vision. Akama Prime. Their new home.
© Bryan Beal
Your mother ever tell you off for accepting a dare? You wouldn't be alone. Lillian was regretting a recent decision. She had been regretting it since she made it. Perhaps it was the hand floating past her helmet's visor that twigged her to the idea that this was a bad choice. Fortunately, it wasn't her hand. She checked. Four hands accounted for. Two organic and two cybernetic.
© Bryan Kēhua
2356 AD
Smoke wafted and drifted. Technically, it wasn't smoke, but a softer vapour, but what the hell? Who gives a crap, right? We saw images within the waves and striations that we could see in the moving clouds of Techno-Whizz high that slipped through our nervous systems. The whole vista resonated with the sounds of Elektric Mistress work their way through “Turn to Grey”. The journey into the nether regions of our minds just picked up pace as the vapours worked their way deeper into our sense of self.
© Bryan Beal
The resonating harmonies of All is Violent flowed from the stereo system that was worth three times as much as Greville's rusted, puke yellow 1974 Datsun 710. “Cartographers of Human Purpose” alternated between deep sonic wells and soaring highs of pulsating sound born on the fingers of master musicians. Greville drove the damp, glistening road, his headlights scintillating on the rough, black stone. His mind was divided between driving and watching his soul rise on the currents of meditative harmonies.
© Bryan Beal
Souls met. The sparks didn't fly. But they weren't that type of soul. Dom was right into her right from the beginning, her first words. She just asked a simple question.
How are you?
That was it. Dom was hooked. Her voice was perfect, that subtle blend of nuanced sexuality with a heavy dose of barely concealed smarts that every dude secretly wants. With that, Dom just dove straight in. Whatever concerns he might have had about her, as few as they were, went straight out the window. In some ways, Dom felt like a pioneer without really knowing why. Georgina was a wonderful woman with whom Dom could spend hours just talking to. And he did.
© Bryan Beal
The sand was hot under Reena's feet as she walked with her feet periodically washed by the incoming waves of the Pacific Ocean rolling up the beach. She let herself be lulled by the cooling touch of the salty liquid on her skin. The course massages of the grains under her feet delighted her and recalled times past, times lost in the mist of her own forgetfulness. She struggled to make out faces and sounds, more frustrated with the wasted effort to drag the details from the shadowed recesses of what she thought was there. No faces came forward. No voices called out to her.