Free short story with pre orders of Open Your Eyes
A limited number of people are getting a free short story when they pre-order Open Your Eyes. We have two more to give away- and then that’s it, no more. This story is not slotted for publication anywhere else, and the only place you’ll be able to get it is by pre-ordering.
The title of the story is, “A Dissected Heart, Displayed Under Glass”. Here is a short example of what you’ll find inside:
Darkness here, constant darkness, and then an assault of colors in the shadows, and I think I can feel again. That I can be real again. I don’t know how long I’ve been drifting. Don’t know how much longer I have. But still, still. I’ve survived. That’s more than I could say for my wife, for my mother, for all the others on the port behind me.
Will they let me back into orbit again, back onto planet again? Ah, to sink my feet into terraformed soil, to breathe the air built from a hundred nanomachines wheezing, that is life, that is love. That is dirt in my hand and under my nails, and that is manufactured sky over my head, swimming in my lungs.
Will they let me back in? After all I had seen? Probably not.
I float. Coffin on the black waves of space. I am like Perseus and his mother, cast into the ocean coffin bound, left for dead from prophecies, portents, signs in animal entrails, whispered in mountain paths and inhaled from craters of lore.
Like them, I survive. Maybe someday, returning to destiny. Returning to live and love again. I hope I am not infected. I hope I am not dying. Death, death. Who would’ve thought such a thing would last at the end of time, who would’ve thought we would still fear it, coming for us in a milky white splendor, devouring who we are, transforming who we are?
The words they spoke were not our words. Their patuek have been devoured.
How much longer do I have? I transmit my thoughts, my souls across wires. Across wireless stations hung in the void between planets, relaying signals across the stars. I dream in flashes of color. I dream of stars eating me, loving me, devouring me. Father stars swallow, succumb, I am taken in whole to be reborn when vomited up.
Stars are time. Stars are sky. Death is the hand of my father, winding the watch of my resurrection. These hands are watch hands, brittle hands. My hands. There is death out there, waiting for us. A death we’d all thought to have escaped. Father death. Howling mad. Giant death. With hands around my neck, my legs dangling, kicking out of his mouth. Come for me. Unwind me, break the alphabet inside of me. Take me apart with scissors, scalpels, the voice of language that grows hollow and distant inside of me.
Heh, I failed to be space opera-ey enough in the ARC contest, so pre-order in.
So, this special story probably does not apply to me, given the circumstances of acquiring my copy of OPEN YOUR EYES, or will I be extra lucky?
Actually, I think it might have had more to do with the number of people following R. S. Devin on Twitter, hehehe
And thank you!
R. S. Devin-
No, it’s not being sent to you. It’s to inspire people to pre-order, duh
Wait, are you telling me I’m not popular? Is it my thighs? Or the warts?
Naw, I’m just saying he’s more popular. That doesn’t mean your not popular, just not as.
And ask him, he’s the popular one.
Aren’t I a charmer?
Devin, how do I become as popular as you? Do I need to tweeze my eyebrows and use mouthwash more than once a month? I am hoping to avoid these but still be loved by the masses…
I think he has psychic cockroaches he puts in people’s ears, that command them to do as he says.
But that’s just a hunch.
Devin hates me and doesn’t want to share his secrets. I am more unpopular than ever. It must be because I ate his psychic cockroach instead of putting it in my ear.
*cries*
I did not know I was popular. I think it is a lie
Stop hiding the truth. We know about the cockroaches.
“Actually, I think it might have had more to do with the number of people following R. S. Devin on Twitter, hehehe”
Hey, what are you saying? Is this a dis? I only won due to popularity?
(Joking)
Oh, the psyroaches I use for dominion and mind control came from Axacellan.
Haha, yeah well, isn’t all voting contests popularity contests?
Kind of a moot question since I just prodered OYE, but in what format will the short story appear? Printer paper? A leather-bound chapbook with archival quality pages? Scratchings on the inside of a molted Axacellan carapace? Telepathy?
Think indie magazine style chapbook.
Like LCRW.
Jesse,
I am not sure how I feel about Paul being able to transmit fiction straight into our minds via telepathy. He’s an excellent author and all, but…