I’ve now been writing for a long time, and it gets harder to manage each year. So, in an unusually technological step, ‘for me, anyway’, I’ve opened a ko-fi donation page. Every little helps to fuel the dream. I shall try my best to post some really good short stories and the like as a thank you.
Here is a short fiction about time and its passing.
Unnecessary Adjustments
Pain and anger. Neither holds sway. Every tick both antagonises and coagulates in equal measures.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I dissipate in perfectly well-measured moments. Not a one longer than the next, nor the last. Like the clacking Newton’s Cradle with its five silver balls, the one positioned exactly central on my wooden desk beneath the workshop window, they regulate my demise. I hope I aren’t the ball in the middle. I prefer the outside and a quicker escape.
Demise? A bit dramatic, I hope.
I know all these facts. There is nothing else to know, only this: Who regulates said demise? That’s what I want to know. Need to know. Have to know! I cast my mind back, but it comes back clueless.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The first few days are an adjustment. The rest of the week is an experience. Week two gathers the information listed above. Week three adds momentum. This isn’t because of things changing — they never change — just to my resolve hardening. If I’m going down, I’m taking my tormentor down with me. Big talk for a man who’s never thrown a punch in his life.
I count everything from the bird calls in the presumed morning to the chirping cicadas in the expected night. The minutes of each day become an exact science. Food and drink aren’t involved; I’ve had neither since my arrival. The spectral fog that fills the room as drips of moist mist intensify; it is the only thing that has changed. So, this is where I will have him, or them, whichever applies, and shall practise at least a degree of revenge.
The whitening light becomes my fixation, the semi-permanent darkness an ignored anomaly.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I tire. This is the truth of it. I have let my guard down just once.
She appears like an oncoming vehicle in a car’s fogging headlights. A smudge. A shape. Darkness where lightness has roamed. This is her entry into my nightmare. Not a man at all!
“Who…?”
“You know my name,” she breezes.
I freeze. I do know it. I just kind of hope she doesn’t know mine.
“Come,” she says.
“Must I?”
“You did well. Better than most. What others fail to accept, you have adapted to in carefully observed increments.”
“I ticked into death.”
“Ticked towards Death,” she corrects.
“How…?”
“Best you don’t ask. Just know I’ll take care of you. That’s all that matters at the end.”
End! I aren’t in total agreement with this, but what choice do I have?
So, I take her proffered, skeletal hand and allow her to lead me away from the light in a total reverse of all the presumed theories. It hurts not one bit.
The ticking stops.
The other side requires no adjustments. I roam free. I glide. Time and space and family and life and death, all such real-world things are pointless here. No adjustments required. No tweaks at all.
For a clockmaker, it is quite the revelation.
End
As always, thank you for reading, and for your continued support.
I’m delighted to have had my latest children’s fantasy, The Gemini Crystals, published by the amazing people at Starspun Lit. Below is a small sample of their mission statement and my reason for such delight.
Our mission is to provide fantastical stories to the youth of today and improve children’s literacy and comprehension of the larger world through our digital platform.
Our stories are also designed as a therapeutic tool for children with medical needs, including those with neurodevelopmental disorders so they may soar beyond reality. We are partnering with various hospitals and clinics to organize read-alouds so we may brighten their days with the magic of your storytelling.
As a strong believer in that every child should have access to good reading, I jumped at the chance to be a part of this wonderful narrative. My hope would be for many more such schemes to come.
Particular thanks go to Editor-In-Chief, Ramya Suresh, for her invaluable help and input with both the writing and artwork.
I hope you get a chance to recommend my story and all the other fabulous offerings at Starspun Lit to any child who might enjoy and benefit from them.
I’m delighted to announce that my dark fiction short story, Ripples, has been included in the newly released anthology: Wreckollections: Invasive Ideas of a Nightmare.
Evil will come and champions will fall, but Britannia shall reign eternal.
Every world has its heroes, and every hero has tales to tell. Britannia, Queen Victoria’s realm, is not the least of these, for its many heroes are varied and inextricably linked. If but one falters, then others might follow.
In a Victorian world off-kilter with our reality, a malevolent entity and an incarnation of past evil seek to overpower Britannia and its weakened queen. The disenchanted Sir Belvedere Magnanimous Wainthrop, the Lion of Britannia, will brave time and space to battle this unholy alliance and return glory to the empire. Others shall follow his lead, and destiny will test every ounce of their courage and resolve.
From a Himalayan Shangri-La to a subterranean London and the corridors of Buckingham Palace itself, this disparate group of individuals will battle the odds and come together to make the ultimate sacrifice. But will it be enough?
All three books in ‘The Eternals’, a series of gothic fantasy novels by Richard M. Ankers, now in one volume!
The Eternals: Born to immortality, Jean is the last Eternal lord and one of the last inhabitants of a dying Earth. In the face of the perishing sun, some have accepted their fate; others are ready to fight for their future. When Jean’s bite takes the life of Princess Chantelle, of The New Europa Alliance, his life changes. Now, he’s a man on the run, falling in love and rediscovering his humanity. With the sun’s clock ticking, Jean tries to reconcile his sordid past… but instead stumbles into age-old conspiracies and beyond.
Hunter Hunted: As soon as Jean stands in the sun’s ruby light, he and Princess Linka are drawn into a world of darkness. Journeying deep beneath the Arctic ice, the two find sanctuary. But all is not right, and soon Jean must solve the mystery of who is manipulating him, and the deepening saga of his parents’ deaths. Once again aided by the increasingly manic Merryweather and the mysterious beauty that is Princess Aurora, it seems like all directions point to the legendary city of Hvit, surrounded by the cloying, lavender stench of death, and the never-ending quest for blood.
Into Eternity: Leaving the Arctic ice behind, Jean and the others must reconcile with both current and past deaths, as they close in on the Baltic home of the hated Duke Gorgon. Here, their enemies gather and confrontation is inevitable. Under Merryweather’s frustrating tutelage, Jean marches from one infuriating revelation to another, but as the lies unravel and the truth unfurls, he discovers the Britannian is not the fool he’s taken him for. And at the end of all things, as the sun dies and Shangri-La falls, Jean will know what it means to step into eternity.
A big thank you to Editor Manuela Timofte for publishing my latest post to Gobblers and Masticadores. It’s always a pleasure to contribute to this wonderful magazine.
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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