K. Marvin Bruce

  I’m taking a little break from The Space between Atoms this week to share some news.   I hasten to add that the “struggling” part of “blog of a struggling writer” doesn’t refer to the struggle to write.   It’s the struggle to get published.   The Space between Atoms is finished, just being unveiled slowly. The news involves overcoming, for a little while, the struggle of getting published.   My twenty-fourth story, “Planet Heaven,” has been accepted for publication.   It will appear in the next issue of Sein und Werden (“being and becoming,” roughly).   This particular story was finished ten years ago. I submitted it to a now defunct mag.   They didn’t like it.   It sometimes takes me awhile to recover from rejection.   I suffer from what one of my friends calls aporripsophobia, the fear of rejection. Then there was a publishing website—I forget its name—that had a call for submissions that was perfect for this story.   I submi...

  Fugitive or not, Terah felt the human urge to help someone in distress.   Adrenaline kicked in and he bounded up the stairs.   Past the two right angles, down the corridor into the central chamber.   The scream came again.   Upstairs.   The octagonal pyramid took him to the second level.   The sound was echoing wildly, so he had to use volume as his guide. When he’d found the couple up here earlier—was it only this morning?—he’d not paid attention to the layout.   The sex drive was strong that way.   You could ignore just about everything when the call of nature refused to be ignored.   Now he had to stand and await another report.   The echoey interior didn’t help to locate stray sounds but he was certain it was from this level.   Again!   From the other side of the octagon.   The central atrium was open here and he could see straight across into blinding sameness.   Keeping his eye out for detritus, he ran. ...

  Amazingly, even a small fire brought warmth back before too much time had passed.   Still, Terah’s stomach reminded him he needed to find Mich’s stash.   But long years in society urged him to lock the door first.   Besides, he needed to try to memorize the path.   He picked up Mich’s flashlight and tried to walk as silently as he could.   He hoped there were batteries in the kid’s stash.   Still relying on the red blazes he found the stairs and paused, as Mich did, at the top.   The smell of his own urine was strong.   He hadn’t asked Mich what he did about such things, but now that this was his house, Terah’d make up his own rules.   All was silent.   He followed the blazes to the central pyramid.   The clerestory window from this angle was closed.   Counting carefully, he found the main corridor and followed it passed the two ninety-degree turns to the front door.   Open, as he’d left it. Shoving it shut, he reje...

The fall wasn’t catastrophic, but the fear was.   Terah had slipped only a few inches as his foot found a more willing branch.   Frozen a few moments with terror, he realized that the window would still be two feet beyond his reach, even if he could stand on the thin branches nearest it.   If he gave in to his fears and scrambled down the tree he’d be no closer to gaining access to his pack.   He’d walked nearly the entire footprint of the asylum and had seen no sign of access anywhere.   Clutching this branch like a frightened kitten he was mere feet away from a feasible way in.   Provided he could reach it, open it, and find a way in that didn’t lead to a straight drop on the other side. While inside he’d not been able to make out any detail on the clerestory level.   He’d climbed to the second floor, but the windows were up yet one more level than that and how far above the floor he simply couldn’t tell.   His indecision would kill him. Terah h...

As Terah stood as still as a startled rabbit, his brain processed the sound.   It had been loud, but not like a gun.   He’d heard a sound like it before, but on television, long ago.   Following the sharp crack there’d been a concussion of heaviness.   A tree had fallen.   The weight of the snow had probably broken a large branch nearby.   Waiting for his heart to slow down, Terah felt the cold seeping into him.   He thought of Mich’s fire in the basement.   He had one more side to cover.   Around the corner he couldn’t believe his luck. It had been a falling tree.   That was plainly obvious now.   The trunk had been arrested in its fall by the poured concrete of this fortress.   Through its naked branches Terah could see a clerestory window.   This was his way back inside.   It would be, that is, if he climbed trees. Some kids he knew in his neighborhood scrambled up trees like squirrels.   Terah suffered acute ...