On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 164, of 240 so far.

Prayer Room

The air smelled ever so slightly sweet in the little chamber that served as a multi-denominational meditation area and quiet space.

There was fake stained glass, and some benches, and an electronic candle at the front, and there were padded areas on one part of the floor for kneeling, as well as a few benches. The ceiling was an artificial cloudscape against a blue sky.

Covers most of the options, Ren thought, taking a seat on one of the benches and bowing her head for a moment.

She wasn’t actually praying or meditating, because that wasn’t her way, but she enjoyed the calm of these places, and the fact that they were almost always empty. A sign of the times.

Her wristwatch sent a subtle haptic through her forearm, and she sighed, then opened her eyes to glance at the device.

You in the prayer room again? the message said, and Ren smiled.

It was from her sister, waiting for her at home. It wouldn’t be too long now until they were reunited. Just the flight to get over with, and then when she landed her sister would be in the terminal waiting for her.

Ren looked down at her compact carry-on luggage. The tag attached to it had truncated her name in the usual way that these things did; Two-Feathers, displayed as if it was a surname, rather than a gift to her from her mother and father.

She went by Ren because it was a childhood nickname, and also because her true name was too difficult for most people or most computer systems to grasp. It meant looking up at the sky, but it wasn’t easy to pronounce properly. She preferred that people didn’t try, rather than mangling it in the attempt.

Soon she would be back home, at her family’s place in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and there would be food and laughter and stories, and all the rest of it. Ren was going to be staying there for three weeks, before her next business trip.

She was a structural engineer, specialising in the use of unusual materials to capitalise on local resources and thus minimise transport, and also cutting-edge synthetics to reduce weight, or increase bearing capacity, or enhance resilience to seismic activity or other threats. It was challenging and complex work, requiring almost constant adaption and learning, and she loved every moment of it. The downside was that she was almost always away from home — indeed, she had no permanent residence of her own, relying on provided accommodation and medium-term rentals until each job was done.

It was tiring at times, and it was lonely at times, but that was what the trips back home for extended stays with her family were about. A period to recharge, and reconnect, and re-ground herself. Every time, by the third week she’d be both melancholy about leaving but also raring to go. Family time was best enjoyed responsibly, after all, and in small doses.

Another haptic registered in the nerves of her forearm, this one with a different pattern, and she easily recognised it as a reminder alarm. She sighed again, then reluctantly stood up and slung her carry-on bag over her shoulder. Ren looked over at the door she’d come through to enter the quiet area, not relishing her re-entry into the somehow airless and fatiguing departures terminal; all glass and steel and illuminated signage, functionally identical to any number of other places like it.

She didn’t enjoy flying, which was strange for someone who did as much of it as she did. A non-trivial percentage of her working life had been spent in transit, and that would continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. Her clients paid for a very good standard of travel, too, with plenty of luxuries. She certainly couldn’t complain. But the fact remained that she spent huge swathes of time in transition, between one place and another, far from solid ground, and entrusting her life to incredibly complex machines and the clever people who had been trained to pilot them.

It wasn’t that she was frightened, but more that the journeys made her temporarily feel like a background character in someone else’s story. A letter and a number; just the person occupying a space for the duration of the trip. It didn’t sit well with her; that was all.

She went out into the wide spaces of the terminal, seeing the people milling around, and the people hurrying, and the people just arriving. Departures wasn’t a pleasant place to be; even its name was a reminder that its only function was to facilitate the very thing it seemed to thwart: leaving.

Ren walked over to the curved and reinforced glass, looking out. It was late, and the sky was black and studded with stars. Below, large machines and small machines, some in motion and some not, were everywhere. Even though it was all made by humans, there was little humanity to it.

Home soon, she thought, reminding herself and also steeling herself for the journey ahead. As if on cue, she felt another haptic, and she knew it was time to head towards her assigned gate.

She turned away from the glass without regret, making her way between rows of unoccupied seats, then paused only briefly to check the departures board that shimmered above her. There weren’t many flights left today, and she easily found her own, noting that it would be leaving on time.

“Gate 56F,” she said to herself, adjusting her bag. She took one last look at the information, allowing her gaze to flick across to the destination that was her only focus now.

Earth.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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