In our dreams, we've started seeing the phantoms planted beneath our floorboards—and we fear that ... [+]
Kilmeny MacMichael's "The Waiting" is published in Short Edition's ongoing series, The Current, having originally been published in Issue 5 of Whatever Keeps the Lights On. Kilmeny writes from Canada's Okanagan Valley and has over a dozen stories published, including with Cirque, antilang and Arachne Press.
Originally published in Issue 5 of Whatever Keeps The Lights On
Near Paulo's home, in the rich deep earth, dark eggs lay. They waited for decades, to be brought to hatch. When they hatched, they hatched death, or dismemberment, bursting forth with all the energy that lurked within. These eggs were born in lands far away, and were placed by angry hands. Once, their placements were carefully plotted. Now those maps are long gone, that knowledge forgotten or unspoken in silent grudging vengeance. The eggs would wait a century to hatch if they must, as they slowly turned to rust. In other lands, these eggs were known to elephants, who taught and rumbled warn