Hugh J. O'Donnell

“I hear you’re working on a self-portrait.”
The sculpture looked momentarily embarrassed, then composed himself. “Yes, would you like to see it?”
We walked to the studio and he uncovered the piece. It was carved from a single piece of stone, and was a body with two torsos, like a figure on a playing card. The top bust was posing with hands joined above its head, while the bottom figure held a chisel to its chest. Both faces were a strikingly accurate likeness.
“I call it ‘Vision and Vanity.”
“I see you’ve given yourself rock-hard abs there.”
He shrugged. “Naturally.”

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She climbed the steps in the dark. Once, it had been a grand temple. All that remained were a few crumbling steps and a platform open to the stars.
As the sky lightened, she set down a golden bowl, filled it with water, and chanted. She felt exposed and afraid.
The first rays of sunlight hit the bowl, filling it with an unearthly glow. The reflection that stared back wasn’t her own, but it smiled warmly at her. She was filled with a sense of peace.
The invaders had torn down the temple, but the old gods hadn’t been forgotten.

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She stood on the beach and stuck one delicate foot out towards the approaching tide.
She braced for the icy shock of the cold water rushing over her toes.
It never came. She moved closer, her heels sinking into the wet sand, and tried again.
She heard the rush of the water all around her, and yet, she was dry. The water parted for her.
She stood, fascinated, as the sea flowed around her.
She took another step forward, and the water retreated, bending away from her like a bowstring. She kept walking, and the sea never closed over her.

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The Elves were leaving. They marched to their graceful ships, slowly and gracefully, the last remnants of a fallen age. They would soon sail west, never to return.
As they marched, they spoke among themselves about how gloomy the land had become, now that their time was over. They mourned the passing of Light and Beauty, and wept for the Old Days that Would Never Come Again.
The Dwarves tossed rocks after them to hurry them along. They remembered how the Elves had forced their ancestors underground, long ago. They were eager to reclaim their homeland once and for all.

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The escape pod crashed on a strange planet. He was in one piece, but all of the pod’s systems were offline. He couldn’t pull up telemetry, navigation, or external sensors.
Even the craft’s single porthole come to rest face down, so he couldn’t even look out and see where the environment. He didn’t know where he was, how long he’d been in suspension, or if the area he’d landed in was even habitable. All he had to go by was the pull of gravity and the faint howl of the wind.
He took a breath, and popped open the hatch.

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The station was breaking apart around him. The enemy Walkers had fired rails inside the habitable zone, and now there was a shuttle-sized holes in the walls.
He couldn’t see any other survivors of the initial assault. The station was locking down. He wouldn’t make it to an evacuation point. That left… The prototype Walker lay on its base like a broken toy. Its hatch was open. Maybe it was still functional, or at least more sheltered.
But he had to move before the enemy robots came back for it. He dashed out of cover. This was his one chance.

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When the Royal Engineer was arrested, the King insisted she be allowed no visitors, paper, or tools. He knew her cleverness, and was certain she would try to escape.
Nonetheless, when the guards came, she was finishing construction on an exquisite, life-sized dragonfly made from trash found in her cell. Despite the materials, it was perfect, down to its iridescent wings. “Just something to occupy my mind,” she said with a smirk.
The guards hurried to unlock the cell door as she wound the mechanism and released it through the high, small dungeon window. But they were already too late.

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