Novelista

Toxic Vision by Patrick Loafman Clouds, steel gray as the sides of salmon, brushed themselves against the swollen bellies of mountains, and the full moon fell into the river and sizzled. Then I was hiking somewhere upriver to where bearded old men become spruce trees, until everything became too vivid and I collapsed, falling to the skin of the earth, my head rattling the bells of chocolate lilies, their tongues oozing nectar into my ear. Beneath the bitter umbrellas of oxalis, I could see stardust and red mites. Moss braided itself into a green rope, and I climbed further down this toxic vision, turning glistening pages of liverworts, shattered wings of cicadas, searching the undersides of the smallest leaves for a window or a mirror. I kept descending down this green rope into smaller and smaller forests, into the gray tangle of mycelia. Maybe, I imagined, this is death’s journey, to enter the earth’s pores like water. Patrick Loafman is an author, wildlife b...

Characterization exercise for my work-in-progress space opera , Where Pirates Go to Die . Mom, I don't know if you'll ever read this.  Had to write anyway.  Seems like something a good son should do. I'm sure you're wondering how good of a son I actually am.  I know I disappointed you and Dad, and for that I am terribly sorry. You never got to hear my side of the story.  The one where I claim my innocence.  Flyers ripped me from the interplanetary transport.  Without warning was the way they wanted it. They wouldn't let me correspond while I was incarcerated.  Not that being on this ship is any less of a prison.  But, at least I have some sort of future.  It's not the future you and dad wanted for me.  I'll never be able to go back to that life. There are a lot of things I will never be able to do again.  I have accepted that fact.  That doesn't mean that I don't miss you or my work, however trivial i...