At waking time when all the suns were lowest on the horizon, Bonn would hear a musical note floating in his range as if flying by. It was always slightly flat then disappear like being tuned in and out. Puter said it was from a native bird with gracious wings, long tail and iridescent blue-purple-silver then invisible to Bonn’s visuals as the musical notes hit a higher octave. It wasn’t like a high-pitched squeak or siren but slightly flat warbling notes. Bonn rarely saw b

The mist crept into the valley. But not like it usually did. A young woman was sitting in her favourite tree house, looking out down the valley, into the gorge and across the escarpment. She usually felt like she was in the clouds, but not today. The mist was there. It usually felt ethereal, and she usually felt like she had summoned it, and that she was the Enchanter. But not today. Today it was a dark green mist and that wasn’t normal she thought to herself. Parts of th

Since crashing on this planet, Mother has designed and implemented regulated daily resistive strength-based training to ward off atrophy. Since space-travel began, off-homeworld muscles shift from slow-twitch to fast-twitch reducing overall endurance and causing weakness. The ‘soft-suit’ has been used for centuries to help simulate homeworld gravity and Mother has been designing nutritional supplements to help reduce the catabolic processes that degrade muscle mass. By usi

‘Are you losing it?’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘We had a whole conversation about this last night.’ ‘DID we?’ ‘Yes, you had this whole thing about how you really don’t like trifle, and you’ve been eating it just to keep me company, and truth be told you’d rather never see another bowl of trifle as long as you live.’ ‘DID I?’ Her eyes pop wide. She silently considers that the truth of this statement is undeniable. ‘I have absolutely no recollection.’ ‘Anyway, that’s fine. Never mind about

Look out the window, no focus….just fog. Brain wonders, drifts. Memories, pictures, dance across, twist into one another. The carpet blends swayingly. “Oh, a button. How did it get there? What did it fall off?” Turning it over in his hand. The colour, the shape, but not what it fell off. “I wonder, know this button, it's off??….Ohhh, I can see it, I know this, I know its feel. Where from? I’ll have to check all my shirts and jumpers and, you know, stuff that has b

I’m bored. I’m bored. Ohhhh. What can I do now? I’m so bored I could mow the lawns. No I could clean the bins out. No. I could go through my mail. No. God, what can I do? I’ve got so much that I could be doing, but none of it really inspires me. Ooo. I could write a story. Nah. Bloody hell, I’m just so bored. Oh my god...I have some chocolate slice in the fridge. I could eat that. Yayyyy! How could I be so forgetful?

It was by way of return that I stumbled on my old school enemy at the train station. I had been travelling and working for 10yrs. It was time to come home and settle in to running my parent’s cattle station. They had been so kind to allow me the freedom to have a life of my own and now that they were getting on I wanted to be there for them. They had never implied that I had to run the station but I wanted to do it and do it well. There she was Karen What’s Her Name. I coul

I decided to switch my style and write nice happy pieces. I thought about kittens and puppies and sunshine and roses. They just didn’t do it for me. That’s not to say I don’t like them…I just couldn’t get inspired. Hmmmm. Hmmmm some more. Difficult. I thought about the old lady who lived next door. Maybe I’ll get some inspiration. I didn’t know much about her and hardly saw her. I decided to find out more, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you look up on LinkedIn…well I

Living on a planet in the habitable zone of a three-sun system creates sunsets that blend different colours across the horizon. The suns are Bright Yellow, Red Dwarf and distant Blue Sun. They appear to be dancing, switching around each other in the sky, rarely standing in the same relative position and creating a perpetually shifting and switching dramatic sky. The planet acts as a buffered world where the large inertia of the oceans keep the climate safe and suitable for

Mother is concerned about Bonn’s aloneness. He is acting like Mother’s son with Puter, as Mother’s mobile presence. Puter’s ambiance and ready assistance transfers to Bonn as a big brother; an assistant, perhaps even a mentor. But, when Bonn needs to discuss hard concepts, he sits in the Pod and speaks directly with Mother’s screens. Puter assists with concepts but Mother keeps Puter silent if Bonn speaks directly to the screens. Mother understands the nuances between Mot