Out, Brief Candle! by Matthew Reed (best novel books to read txt) 📕

Our Monsters


His shield glittered in the dark cave. He caught sight of her and her beauty stunned him into immobility. He went to her, took her, laid with her. He was strong and she was alone.
Staring down at her ravaged body, his shame overwhelmed him. In a rage he slew her. He took her head, smearing it with mud, fixing her dead gaze into something inhuman to hide the evidence of his passion. He killed snakes from the forest outside and braided them into her hair.
He carried her head home and called her a monster; he called her Medusa.


He Came

He came from space wreathed in flame, riding a blue-white fire that burned without consuming its source, cold-fusion.
He showed us how to make and use this fire. He gave us the stars. We traveled the cosmos searching for his source, his planet, his knowledge.
We found it. We took their technology and they didn’t resist us, bound by their customs and laws.
Returning years later we found they had created new sciences. We stole those too.
We began returning every decade, harvesting their works. Chained to the rock of their beliefs, they remained, silent and unresisting, for an eternity.


In the Darkness, Sound

He could draw music from anything. He played leaves like the wind, oceans like the moon, and the sky like wind whistling over stones. And women, he played women too. All except one.
She was deaf and his symphonic seductions had no effect on her. And he loved her for it, and she him.
When she died he played his sorrow until the earth swallowed him. He found her, in darkness, in death, and played to lead her out. She tried to follow his music, but dying did not return her hearing. She was lost, and he lost her, forever.

Publication Date: 08-18-2010

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