Short stories and flash fiction from writer Simon John Cox.
It was their third week outside the city, and from their watchtower on the wall they looked out upon the Great Grey Waste and waited for the first of the day’s migrants to arrive. A pale feather of dust rose from the far edge of the plain. Benef lifted the binoculars to her eyes. “An hour, I reckon,” she said.
It is not long dawn when the man comes. You see him before he sees you, but the light is dirty and weak and when you spot him he has already come too close for you to prepare. The boy is around on the other side of the refinery, so you call him to you.… Continue reading Still
Storgy has published my short story "The Town Of Birds And Pebbles".
My short story The Town Of Birds And Pebbles has been accepted for publication in Storgy Magazine. More to come once publication goes ahead.
Looking at the apartment block made me feel colder than the wind did. It was a grim cube of concrete and steel, designed by a communist architect during an age that knew no joy, and the low winter sky leached the life from it like a sponge.
Anatoly Meliakoff was the greatest magician of his age. Crowds would flock from miles around to see him, trudge through mud and rain and snow to see him, and when a theatre booked him for a show word of his coming would race before him like fire until all the hotels were full and the whole town was ablaze with anticipation. They queued around the block to buy tickets before the theatre even opened, huddled inside their coats beneath woollen hats and scarves, stamped their feet to drive out the cold as the lucky ones ran from the box office like lottery winners, holding aloft bright orange tickets, waving them at the gleeful crowd before hurrying off into the wind or the rain or the whirling snow. He arrived out of nowhere. Just walked into Budapest one fierce summer noon, him and that dwarf of his, both of them dressed in bow tie and tails, dust on their shoes and sweat clouding their high, starched collars. He walked straight to the theatre and asked to be allowed to perform there that very evening, as though nothing could have seemed more natural.
One man's obsession with the restoration of a near-mythical car is thrown into sharp perspective following the death of his wife. "A beautifully crafted story and well worth the read."
One day, long ago, when the Earth was younger and the heavens held fewer stars, the great god Ehu brought forth two sons. One he named Isham, and to him he gave dominion over the world of the living, and the other he named Azamat, and to him he gave dominion over the world of… Continue reading The Pélissier Scroll
Three short stories that speculate about the distant machines that may or may not influence mankind's future. Perks Of The Job Two detectives investigate a death caused by excessive genetic enhancement. Where do we draw the line when our bodies can be changed at will? Still In a post-apocalyptic world a man and his son… Continue reading Distant Machines
The technology behind the TV show Quantum Leap is real, a black project run by the Pentagon in the 1980s to embed its spies directly into the minds of America's enemies. Shut down due to test subjects going out of control when inhabiting other bodies, the technology has been stolen by North Korea and the… Continue reading A Quantum Leap
Simon John Cox 