Happy Friday, folks! Today’s post marks a slight change from my usual fare. I’ve already uploaded a number of works of fiction to this site (you can peruse them here), but going forward I’m going to add a new category: fiction snapshots. These will be little snippets of my writing, rather than complete stories. About 1,200 words, tops. You’ll get a variety of brisk, low-commitment reads, and I, for my part, will have the chance to throw my wilder, more experimental work before an audience.
If certain ideas resonate with people, I have no compunctions about finishing some of these. Some may even get the serialization treatment, continuing the story from one post to another, posting chapters as I write them. Much remains to be seen. Frankly, I’m playing it by ear.
For today: I present you the orphaned first scene of an old novel, “Triumph and Terror,” which would have peered beyond the shocks of climate change into a strange and brutal future.
Rain fell on the hot, swampy shores of what had once been Germany. Little knowledge survived of the ancient world, and of that knowledge Sovya Samneth knew littler still, but she believed she was somewhere south of the city of Berlin, which had been underwater for the past six hundred years. All that remained were a few islands, and metal and plastic artifacts dredged up from the bottom of the sea. Some of the local settlements made good money selling them.
With a rifle in hand, she trod through the muck by the riverbank. As General of the Armies of Eurasia, she had campaigned in this region before, reducing the rebellious city of Stibnitz to rubble. It was a nasty little part of the world—hot and humid, wet and swampy, teeming with leeches and biting insects. An incubator of disease. Nevertheless, this gods-forsaken jungle was His Majesty’s preferred place to hunt. She and the rest of the royal court had no choice but to accompany him on his expeditions here, and applaud his slaughter of defenseless animals.
Crack!
Birds squawked and took flight from their perches. His Majesty laughed.
Crack! Crack!
Samneth couldn’t see it—she was on the other side of a forested hillock—but she knew that was His Majesty trying out his latest toy, a heavy rifle that the Eurasian Army usually used to punch through tanks. Never mind that it was wasted on deer; it made a satisfying sound, and left a mess.
She trudged on. Tall boots only kept out most of the mud. If she’d had a choice, she would be positioned up on the hillock, but that spot had already been claimed by Jor Targad, Minister of the Treasury, and it would have been a breach of etiquette for her to stray too close to him. Instead she made for the sea. Thick trees gave way to an expanse of tidal flats, broken by mounds that might have been the foundations of ancient buildings, though winds and waves had long since eroded them beyond recognition. Beyond that, there was only gray water. Gray sky. A murky horizon between them.
His Majesty and his escorts emerged from a tangle of low, mossy trees, stepping out onto the shoreline perhaps thirty meters away. He, like Samteth, wore boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and long sleeves; the only marks of royalty were a mud-splattered cape and a filthy crimson sash. His face was narrow, his nose prominent. A pair of servants behind him hefted the anti-tank gun, while his bodyguards, sporting long beards and heavy armor, brandished their own, smaller rifles.
The Emperor glanced her way, then surveyed the tidal flats. Aside from a few coastal birds, maybe a stray animal from inland, there would be little to hunt out here, so she expected him to turn back towards the forest. He stayed, however. He gestured for his servants to bring the tank-killer, which they set down on its bipod atop a relatively solid patch of ground. His Majesty lay supine beside it—perhaps undignified, for the Emperor of the entire world—and lined up a shot at nothing in particular.
Crack! The weapon fired again. A hundred meters away, a bullet splashed into the water, sending a plume of droplets upward and tall ripples outward. It brought to mind a nuclear shockwave. Samneth had witnessed five such detonations in her lifetime: three had been practice runs, in the scorching deserts of India; one had leveled the proud city of Wellington, in Zealand; and one had destroyed Koias, in Machurat, at the end of a long and grueling campaign. At Wellington she had been merely an observer. At Koias, she had played a more direct role. Both times, of course, the ultimate decision had rested with His Majesty, who could wipe any city from the face of the Earth, and annihilate entire populations with a word.
Awesome and terrifying power, that. Placed in the hands of a man whose favorite pastime was shooting things with an anti-tank rifle, just to hear the boom it made.
Crack! Another splash, farther out to sea, and the Emperor cackled.
Someone tapped Samneth on the shoulder. She jumped—but it was only Addash Amashur, Minister of Science, standing on the shore beside her.
That’s all I’ve got, for now. Liked it? Hated it? Wish I would actually turn this into a book? Drop any feedback in the comments below, or shoot me an email at nicq98@gmail.com. I hope it was an intriguing read, at the very least.
I’ll be going on a mini-hiatus while I ram through the next draft of my novel. Won’t be gone too long!
Note: The cover image for this post is AI-generated.
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