The Tower

"The Tower"

from Kingdom's Rise

Gary Baker, January 2013

(part of a longer project)

Hal'Ven dropped his gaze quickly as he strode up to the gathered men at the fire. Lithomir noted that he deferred to their new leader with much due respect.

"...and when she saw me, I-" Kudrov scowled as his audience glanced to Hal'Ven, then turned to face the youth with a mouthful of annoyance.

Lithomir expected Kudrov to demand the reason for an intrusion into the inner circle of affairs, but instead found the several bandits looking to him as though deferring to a lord's opinion and guidance. With a dismissive wave, he nodded to the boy. "Hal'Ven," the youth beamed at the sound of his name as though excited it had been remembered, "what is it?"

The Great Rest

"The Great Rest"

a short story

Gary Baker, November 2012

The razor slid across, leaving a deepening trail in it's wake.

Warm crimson began to cover Kimi's wrist, speckling her clenched jaw with flecks of gory mist. She then felt her fingers slack, as if released from taught cording that had them held from lazing too far into relaxation. She looked to the thin blade in the fingers of her right hand as a single drop of blood slowly tried to drip from the lowest corner.

Finally the gore reached the red towel from around her wrist, placed upon the white marble with a few others beneath as an extra barrier between her force of life and the maid having a mess to clean up later. Of course some matter of cleaning would be needed no matter what, but at least in this Kimi could be helpful in such a way that she could control most of it.

The Comet

"The Comet"

a short story

Gary Baker, January 2013

It was one of those moments when you had to look twice, with the afterglow of an explosive burst making rivulets in the wake of the event. The stars dimmed under tinted glass as Krio looked north along the blue lines of the programmed airway.

Ships moved along the X-axis parallel to the planetary orbit, the cargo freight along the Y-axis lifting people, foodstuffs, and debris up and out of the shrinking rock in space. It shone like a pearlescent green ball, held aloft in the oblivion of endless surreality as though tinged with an inner lighting mechanism generated by the far-distant sun.

Perfection

"Perfection"

a short narrative

Gary Baker, January 2013

"Welcome back, sir," the mechanical voice droned behind the display a fuzzy white viewscreen. "It seems you have awoken most unperturbed, and thus we may begin."

The sketchy white WakeVision screen snapped to empty blackness akin to the sky without stars. As my eyes adjusted to the new tone with the odd pang of irises stretching, a white theater mask appeared before me as if hovering, coming ever-closer without indication of ever quite reaching the edges of my vision. "As part of protocol," the machine-generated human voice went on, "I am required to be sure you know the consequences of receiving this message," the mask never moved, but the voice was definitely meant to be coming from the porceline lines of it's lips. "This message is a post-humane explanation as to what events in your life will now and forevermore beseech you."

Touched

"Touched"

a short narrative, part 1

Gary Baker, December 2012

My first experience with those that had been Touched was back when I lived in Gherglia, a small Germano-British outpost in the great city of Santa Carina. Until I moved there I had been under the impression that my life was a part of some greater scheme in the ways of how fate played out, and that if I tried too hard then the opposite might become more applicable in the coming future, as dictated by the push and pull of cosmic energies. It was only after I had met Lisa, however, that this notion truly hit home and made me realize just who and what was at stake by presuming such philanthropic ideals.

You see, it was when I was running on the boulevard in my attemptedly-habitual run, along the strait path of Columbus Boulevard at seven a.m., that my life was toppled into a whole new reality.

But first let me explain how I got there, how I found myself on the point of such beauty and grace that no one seems to see.