Chambers of the Heart: speculative stories

by B. Morris Allen, Bonnie Leeman

Synopsis

A heart that's a bulding, a dog that's a program, a woman who's sinking irretrievably - stories about love, loss, and movement. A collection of speculative stories from author and editor B. Morris Allen.

• Chambers of the Heart – when someone else's heart is your home
• Building on Sand – your own child or the child that needs you now?
• Blush – when everyone else wears a mask, what's it like to bare your face?
• Minstrel Boy Howling at the Moon – magic, music, and ... buffalo?
• Fetch – she may be a simulation, but out on the edge, she’s one man’s best friend
• The Humblebract Expedition – a play date for a dying child can only end in tragedy, right?
• When Dooryards First in the Lilac Bloomed – a doorway to opportunity and change, if only they can understand it
• Some Sun and Delilah – a sunny island, an abandoned temple, and … truth?
• Crying in the Salt House – the house is built from tears, or so they say
• Full of Stars – jar half empty, jar half full
• Memory and Faded Ink – the aliens are perfectly human ... and just as flawed
• Fountainhead – arranged pairings never work, especially with different species
• Adaptations to Coastal Erosion – what do you do when your spouse just sinks away, literally?
• Outburst – Earth is dead, and the one remaining orbital can’t be saved, can it?
• The Irrigation Ditch – they came to hide, but didn’t realize it was from each other
• Dragons I Have Slain – take hope where you find it

Cover art by Bonnie Leeman.

 

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Release date: April 16, 2022

Publisher: Plant Based Press

Print pages: 257

Sample

Despair and Ecstasy are the simplest. Ecstasy is the small and cozy room of a cottage that looks out on a broad meadow in the forest. In the spring, elk come to posture and to mate, and the wildflowers bloom on every side. In the fall, mist dances in silver swirls framed by gold and bronze and copper trees. It is always spring or fall.

Despair is a vast, dark hall of low ceilings and small windows. In winter, snowdrifts sometimes cover the windows so that they are only squares of gray against black stone. In the summer, shafts of hot, bright light do nothing to warm the room, and only blind us to the room's darkness, so that we must carry candles to the Master's hard throne. It is always winter or summer.

Ecstasy and Despair are the simplest chambers, and the worst, and they are where the Master spends his time.