Thoughts From A Fool: A collection of stories

By Eric D.E. Mason

Short stories and flash fiction ranging from surreal horror to domestic slice-of-life, this is a collection of fast reads that hope to delight and unnerve. Meant to be read in very little time, this is a good book for someone who needs a quick fix of fiction or who likes to form their own ideas for what might have happened next. Each piece was written with a wide audience in mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eric D.E. Mason
• Release date: Jan 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463306192

Eric D.E. Mason

Hello! I'm new to the publishing game, but I've been writing for ten years. I hope to one day publish a full novel, but for now, I will stick with these short ideas.

Book preview

Thoughts From A Fool:

A collection of short stories

Written by Eric D.E. Mason

Contents:

The Nothing

The Cavern

The Mitzvah

Strange Down Here

The Cycle

The Golden Star

Thanks to my sister, for supporting me though ten years of self-doubt; to my friends, for helping with research, editing, and sensitivity; and to my mother, who told me not to give up.

The Nothing

Wren wraps her hands around the rail and peers down at the docking bay below.

Nobody stops to ask what a ten-year-old is doing on the walkway above the bay. She isn’t near the airlock, and she isn’t in the way, so the workers pass her without a thought. She presses her forehead against the rail and watches the ships being emptied of cargo. Someone will eventually shoo her back to the repair room, where Finnus the mechanic will fuss over her bionic leg and her outdated hand, and Cranky the hamster will try to bite her. Eventually, Finnus will remember that, while cyborgs don’t eat, human children do, and he will send Wren to the mess hall. She’s hungry right now anyway; she might as well go now.

But she doesn’t want to. She wants to watch the crates of supplies slide across the floors, the gleaming ships releasing their precious cargo to the varied people of the starship Vengeance. Wren watches dispassionately as the slaves are led off the ship Angler Fish. She knows in the back of her head that other systems think slavery is wrong, but she hasn’t quite connected the atrocities she’s heard of with the things she’s seen for herself. And anyway, all the slaves are ugly, scaly and bony and covered in scars. Ugly people are bad, aren’t they? That’s what Papa said.

Then again, Papa has called Wren both an adorable little pigeon and a hideous fucking rat, so his opinions probably don’t count.

Her eyes slide from the slaves to the cargo boxes to the airlock. She’s always wondered about the airlock. It’s forbidden to her; she may be allowed on the walkways, but she’s never allowed anywhere near the airlock. There are no windows except on the command deck, where she isn’t allowed, but there are projectors, and the sights they show her are breathtaking.

What’s it like? What’s it like to step out of the safe confines of the ship into nothingness? What’s it like to float in the nothing, the endless void where humans die in agony? What’s it like to be so close to stars and comets and space debris? They sailed through a