JAMES STEIMLE
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Letters from Beyond ...
Don’t touch that!
Sorry. The coals, you see. They can do more than burn you.
I turn them with this stick because with each motion, I see a new glow. Each glow acts like a spark in my mind. I see a planet swarming with microbiological entities that can move en masse like a murder of crows—except the number of them is so huge, it is far beyond measure, especially while they dart hither and yon! The most sophisticated computer, in the future, might be able to sense the presence of this mountainous swarm—but it would need to be a machine that could see nanites or one that would watch for the changes that such living organisms as these, flying through the air, might make upon the environment. And not just see what they might do to a group of explorers from Earth.
I turn another coal. What’s this? A boy and his carnival, blown away and poised to make the boy give chase.
Another coal. There, a skeleton in a glass case, a kid on a field trip gasping at the lipless mouth gasping back, a father at home with bad news, shared misery between the boy and the father, who have just lost their mother, then the bad news, and their race to return to the sea … ah!
I see a computer program created by a writer, a program that can not only create outstanding characters, beautiful plot lines, logical and impressive twists and turns, but—given enough details from the writer—predict the end-story, even in the real world.
I see another writer on the run, desperate to live a normal life beyond the searching eyes of his fans. There’s a vampire in
These stories are mine. Look at how many coals wait for me to inspect them for heat?
Interesting! Amazing! Fascinating!
Send an e-mail to shadowletters@steimle. , and I’ll let you know whenever I flick over a coal.
There is so much to tell.
And you are a part of the story now ...