Eric Gallant

#chestatee #poetry

Her Majesty dispatched me to Shetland to investigate the strange death of Capt. Lovecraft. Upon arrival, I explained my #intent to the local Council Leader. He was a dour man, insular and mistrustful of outsiders, a disposition I found typical of the island's population. #vss365

The old salt says, “Twas a #feral wave that took him.” He pronounces feral like ‘FEAR-al.’ “A wave?” I ask, “Took Capt. Lovecraft?” He nods. “From his bed?” I ask, incredulous, pointing to the house on the hill. “Aye. A fear-al wave.” As if the word explained the mystery. #vss365

The old men tell tales of #feral waves. Sometimes playful, but more often cruel and dangerous, these rogue waves have cast many unwary sailors into the sea. A few lived to tell the tale, but many more never saw home again, their bodies tossed like toys on untamed waves. #vss365

Garuda remembers soaring across blue skies, a shade of azure found only in worlds with a clean, oxygen-rich atmosphere. That was before the Witchocracy curdled the sky. The Witches committed many atrocities, but there would be no #forgiveness for what they did to the sky. #vss365

The Witchocracy is fearsome and dire. Their dreadnought voidships, guided by demonic AIs, #unalloyed by mercy, terrorize the dark #cosmos between the stars. But among the Witchocracy’s dread necromancers, whispers of a secret, elite group persist: The Unclave. #vss365 #scififri

@layxsnv On X, I’m going with C. As a writer who tends to bump up against the 280-character limit, I’m editing for brevity and cutting the unnecessary comma. If there were no character limit, then B.

Okay, where are the English scholars, which one?

I knew the Jack of Hearts in primary school, back when he was just Jack Gallagher. He was the worst sort of student. Not only did he not care about his own studies, but he was so charismatic, funny, and interesting that he made #diligent students lose interest in theirs. #vss365

@eric_gallant There is a strange freedom in realizing that the things meant to break only shatter because they have a destination. In a world without a floor, every mistake is just a new orbit.

I was raised in a gravity well. But after a period of adjustment, I find that I quite enjoy a zero-gravity environment. I’ve stopped worrying about gaining weight. Also, being clumsy isn’t an issue anymore. Look, I can drop this fragile instrument, and it won't #evenfall. #vss365

As I sit writing with trembling hand, the ghost of Stella is behind me, leaning in, hugging me around my shoulders, whispering encouragement in my ear. Her touch is cold, sending a shiver up my spine. Her breath in my ear is dry, bearing the #fleeting aroma of the crypt. #vss365

“I am a #haunted man.” My hand trembles as I write the words, the admission no less terrifying for being committed to paper. Stella sets a steaming cup of tea on my desk and pats my shoulder tenderly. I shudder. Stella has been dead and buried for nearly twenty years. #vss365

The ship’s fabrics and polymers were carried off long ago to pad the nests of birds and mice. Centuries of accumulated soil have allowed vines to take root in its voids and angles. After an inert eon, as if responding to some #phantom energy, a light quietly winks on. #vss365

Arbogast and I board the hyperloop at Nakameguro, spend six hours on the #float, and emerge in the megacity of Kinshasa. A sea of 30 million #nameless faces live here, all clustered around the point where the space elevator is tethered to the Congolese bedrock. #vss365 #scififri

"You ride the waves and don't ask where they go. You swim like #lions through the crest and bathe yourself in zebra flesh." -Primitive Radio Gods Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand #vss365 #vss365jukebox

I’m looking forward to seeing Jack in Kinshasa. But I’m beginning to wonder if our meeting is the chance encounter I've been told it is. Arbogast is weapons, I’m cyber, and Jack is a pilot. That’s not a random grouping of skills. Add a #tactician, and we’re a strike team. #vss365

@DavidPahor In her Zippo lighter, he sees a killer's face or, Maybe it's someone standing in a killer's place

#vss365 #scifisat #newyorker (275 wds) Welcoming Persephone She arrives an hour late in her Tesla Y as the arboreal shadows pierce the lawn, an attractive dark-haired woman, just shy of middle age, in designer loafers, a sensible beige jacket and a chocolate knee-high skirt. After she shakes my hand with surprising vigour, I take her on a tour of the house near Cape Elizabeth that I want her agency to sell, and she poses all the right questions, including the last one, which I answer truthfully, namely that I cannot afford to maintain the property as the big money in our marriage had been her parents'. ...***... When we walk through the encroaching dusk of the rear garden, she asks to see the woods' margins, startling me by striking an antique Zippo she has retrieved from her pocket, and -- despite my rising unease -- I find myself following her into the darkness of the forest proper. We stop in a meadow amid the black spruces, illuminated by her burnished lighter that now shines like a captive star, and while I stare at her pale face and blood-rouged lips as she enquires whether I want to tell my wife I lied that I had an affair, which made her drive off, drunk as a sailor, and fatally crash two miles away. ...***... I mumble about merely wanting to hurt her back for the affairs she indulged in, to which she heartily exclaims, "Hecate herself will lead, and dearest companion Persephone shall welcome us!" and I am towed towards a stygian breach in the ground by a grinning psychopomp in Herbert Levine footwear, wondering whether this is to be a one-way trip.

Grampa bought the old rover at the Army Surplus store. It was engineered to scoop up #lunar regolith and either make bricks via solar sintering or 3D print bricks with a binding salt. Either way, it was useless here on Ganymede except for us to ride like a big, slow pony. #vss365

An old fisherman and his sons, Far and Away, went #fishing. The old man returned alone. He explained that an enormous fish rose from the depths and swallowed up his son, Far. People gasped, and he continued, “That’s nothing. You should have seen the one that got Away.” #vss365

Wild honeysuckle and thorny vines have claimed the ancient spacecraft. Feral #cats hunt mice in its shattered fuselage. No one alive remembers the day it fell screaming through the atmosphere, its cracked #engines leaking streaks of antimatter across the sky. #vss365 #scififri

Wolves A wise man builds a house upon a rock But I’m not wise And make castles of sand I howl with the wild hurricane And am swallowed up. A wise pig builds a house of bricks But I’m no pig And not bound to follow suit. I howl with the lower #wolves And am swallowed up. #vss365