Chronology of an Egg

By Peter Tieryas Liu

Peter Tieryas Liu’s Chronology of an Egg is a companion to his debut Watering Heaven, published in October 2012 by Signal 8 Press in Hong Kong. Chronology of an Egg is a mini-collection containing five short stories -- two from Watering Heaven (“Gradients” and the title story) and three others. Here we have the tale of the man who can fly, a baby about to be born with four arms, bank robbers who steal precious memories, and the end of the world coming in the form of a black hole. Liu’s fiction is a blend of the surreal and the fabulous, exploring the human condition in all its twisted glory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Signal 8 Press
• Release date: May 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9789881553942

Book preview

Chronology of an Egg

By Peter Tieryas Liu

Published by Signal 8 Press

An imprint of Typhoon Media Ltd

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Peter Tieryas Liu

eISBN: 978-988-15539-4-2

Typhoon Media Ltd: Signal 8 Press | BookCyclone

Hong Kong

www.typhoon-media.com

www.signal8press.com

www.bookcyclone.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for brief citation or review, without written permission from Typhoon Media Ltd.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

Cover image: Cristian Checcanin

Contents

Chronology of an Egg

The Bank Robbers

Inversion

Signals

Gradients

Publication Credits

Chronology of an Egg

March 6: I first meet Sarah Chao in Beijing over tequila shots after a game conference. I tell her I think she’s beautiful and she tells me she has an unusual genetic quirk that scares off most men.

Every time I have sex, I lay an egg.

I assume she’s joking, get her email address. She’ll be coming out to the States in a few months and we agree to hang out then.

July 8, 7:45 PM: Four months later, she’s in LA and I take her out to an exhibition about talented circus performers who’ve died in the act. We eat dinner at a ‘fusion’ restaurant on the Sunset strip, a motley of Asian and South American cuisines which end up tasting like neither.

8:04 PM: X-ray profiles: me, Ethan Zhou, game designer, grew up in San Francisco,