Fiction

by James Harting AT AGE 37, Ubungu Rodriquez Goldstein Johnson was the oldest man in his village. He did not know that he was 37, for record keeping and numbers were not part of his people’s culture. The villagers only knew that he was old past all reckoning and they called him “Grandpa Ubi.” In truth, he…

by Lord Dunsany CHARON leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his weariness. It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was of a piece with Eternity.…

by Lord Dunsany GOING DOWN Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off — or so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their hands and wore corduroy trousers and that little leather band below the knee that goes by the astonishing name of “York-to-London.”…

by Lord Dunsany ONE’S SPIRIT goes further in dreams than it does by day. Wandering once by night from a factory city I came to the edge of Hell. The place was foul with cinders and cast-off things, and jagged, half-buried things with shapeless edges, and there was a huge angel with a hammer building…

by Lord Dunsany HE WAS ALL in black, but his friend was dressed in brown, members of two old families. “Is there any change in the way you build your houses?” said he in black. “No change,” said the other. “And you?” “We change not,” he said. A man went…

by Lord Flint’s Volunteer I WENT TO the track.
A good night out watching the greyhounds race and having a bet. The mechanical rabbit whizzed past.
Traps sprang open.
Dogs chased.
They ran full tilt.
Perfect canine athletes, they ran as if their lives depended on it.
Trying to catch a mechanical…

by William Shakespeare (submitted by John I. Johnson) Prophecy of the dying John of Gaunt in The Tragedy of King Richard II (1594), Act 2, Scene 1: Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell . . .: This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this…

by Lord Dunsany AS HE CRAWLED from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an angel. And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths and maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men heavy in their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far wars and warriors and walled…

by Lord Dunsany IT WAS THE VOICE of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going Greecewards. “The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over the beautiful…

by Lord Dunsany FAME, AS SHE walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her in the dirt of the road. “Who are you?” Fame said to her. “I am Fame,” said Notoriety. Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew…