Category Archives: Igneous Range
The Water Project
One hot day in early 4465, just before Cindy entered kindergarten, a new canal was completed that would bring water to the west side of the Sink. It was a great day for farming the Sink; a historic day. Garegin Adroushan, being a history teacher, was quite aware of the significance of the event. On [...]
Ignition
When she was about age five, Cindy began to grow visibly uncomfortable indoors. The whole thing started somewhat innocuously with a minor burn. At the time, her parents were amused at how well she learned the lesson of the stovetop. Her brother Armen, they’d recalled, had forgotten the lesson by suppertime; in fact, they weren’t [...]
Home
The white cones of Ararat and Little Ararat cut into a blue Armenian sky, suspended in time on the wall above Cindy Adroushan’s bed. There she lay silent and warm under her grandmother’s coverlet of Armenian lace and her mother’s shadow, the soft light from the hallway drawn out in a folded and warped ribbon [...]
Barren Island
Our world has long been regarded as two; one named East and the other named West. Between these worlds is a narrow passage that consists of two channels, called Bosporus and Dardanelles, where Constantine’s ancient fortress of Istanbul guards the narrow gap between the two realms. This, too, is the site of Troy, and also [...]
The Prodigy
The Aegean Sea churned silently, while the little island lay under a dusting of snow. The sky was clear and dark. The only light was the dim, ambient glow of the cold stars reflecting off the fresh, porous snow that muffled all sound, even the moaning of the barren sea. A woman’s cry sprang from [...]
The Leash
When all the world failed Sam, there was always Buck. While Sam did his chores around the farm, when Sam bolted from a nightmare, or when Sam got home from school, Buck was his anchor. One day, Buck went missing. Sam came home to silence. He looked around the house, then all around the dairy. [...]
Ditching
Though the modern world betrays no doubt of its own sphericity, to the denizens of the Sink the world is unquestionably flat. Having no regular outflow, erosion isn’t given an opportunity to sculpt or slope the land. This leaves gravity—the great leveler—unchecked. Sediment is carried by runoff to the lowest places until the lowest places [...]
Reunions
Every day after school, Sam braced himself as he got off the bus, in anticipation of the daily ambush that awaited him a couple hundred yards down the road. Buck would come tearing out from behind the broad, low ranch house, barking jubilantly as he ran. Upon reaching Sam, Buck would shrink down with his [...]
Harvest and Renewal
Sam was anxious about September, and the Dorahs confirmed his fears by telling him they’d have to send him to school. He didn’t pout or complain. He attended school as directed. He got on the bus every weekday morning and kept to his best behavior. As summer ages, the mood of the Sink relaxes into [...]
The Dairyman’s Apprentice
I came here looking for something I couldn’t find anywhere else Sam started with household chores, and he was soon assigned to milking cows and feeding calves, and he helped clean the stalls and the equipment. There was plenty to do around the farm. Sometimes he’d join Mr. Dorah on his John Deere out on [...]