Roy Stevens
Bio
Just one bad apple can spoil a beautiful basket. The toxins seep throughout and...
Achievements (1)
Stories (70/0)
After the Apocalypse (3)
Cahya raced into a gap in the jungle wall which marked the start of a steep trail downhill toward the closest beach to the village. A flash of beige shirt in the distant dusky murk of the forest told her Susswan had waited for her to catch sight of him so she would be sure of the chase. She was fast, but of all the village children Susswan was fastest, she would need to be smartest to catch him. As she jumped over roots and through ferns whose lush green might hide holes or other obstacles, she clenched the smoothness of her bamboo swatch. When she caught the thief, a weapon would be useful. As she ducked beneath the limb of a young sandalwood tree, she heard a chittering like a monkey from ahead and below. She recognized Susswan’s monkey imitation and changed direction without losing her headstrong momentum by whiplashing herself around an almost vertical liana limb.
By Roy Stevensabout a year ago in Fiction
After the Apocalypse (2)
“Ah, Cahya, I wouldn’t have tripped if you hadn’t talked to me just then, I looked back at you and didn’t see the root.” As they returned to the Crone’s stall, they kept up a banter around mouthfuls of fruit. Normally, the village’s loosely organized gang of bully-children would have swooped on such a chance to mock the clumsy ‘Rock-Boy’ and harass his sister ‘The Ghost’ but they had already scattered to their various roosts for the day and were unavailable to play the vultures to Cahya and Gemi’s ‘carrion’.
By Roy Stevensabout a year ago in Fiction
After the Apocalypse
A very small boy, wary with being so small and having few resources on which to depend licked his stubby fingers furtively, though he looked temporarily satisfied after finding ripe vanilla fruit up a deer path he’d only just discovered. He looked perhaps five, though he was in fact older, malnutrition and the inevitable shyness of the little cared for having done their part in the stunting of yet another child.
By Roy Stevensabout a year ago in Fiction
Macree and Wharac (5)
Wharac bubbled a breath just to my right. The sleeping world surrounded my awareness as I pulled in a breath of my own. Silence swallowed me. The Mother’s Womb encircled my body, borne up by the safety of her fluid. Above the surface shimmer Her left Inner Eye closed and Her dimmer crescent right Inner Eye took over its quiet control of the night world. The Eternal Mother’s rays of light, cast from Her half-closed right Eye reached down through the membrane as we took our soft air from the outside. I floated on the perfect warmth of Her protective shroud.
By Roy Stevensabout a year ago in Fiction
Macree and Wharac (4)
I was knocked out of my dolphin pondering by a call from my mother, the Matriarch. “Mac, check on that surface blip at forty degrees will you.” I was on the pod’s extreme right and best placed to investigate the contact. It was several leagues out and I pinged at it regularly as I came closer. As a clearer shape came into hearing, I found myself slowing down, partially in surprise and partially, I confess, in fear. Sure, I’ve seen dead Killer Whales, they stop swimming from time-to-time, but I’d never before seen only a part of a Killer Whale!
By Roy Stevensabout a year ago in Fiction
Macree and Wharac (2)
I looked at Wharac and argued with myself about getting my cousin to consider her notions. Finally, I took the leap, “If you’re planning on being Top Mother, you’ll have to have a pile of babies over many long seasons, Barnacle. Do you really want to spend most of your fun years pregnant just so you can boss the big bullies around later in your life?” I pulled up melon-to-melon with her. She was visibly surprised with the idea of sharing a serious talk with me and the subject of mating and calves was not something we’d ever discussed before with any sort of sober tone. She’d seen enough of the process and often enough to have a pretty good idea of the price pod mothers paid, even if the mothers hadn’t lectured her about it yet.
By Roy Stevensabout a year ago in Fiction