A writer daydreams of outlandish worlds, in which man can fly: in which space is no longer off-limits.

Then, having signed another imaginative story, he slowly gets to his feet, snuffs out his candle, and lays down his quill, while the sound of a horse-drawn carriage fades into the distance.

Maico Morellini was born in 1977. In 2010 he won the Urania Award with the sci-fi novel “Il re nero”, published in 2011 by Mondadori. In 2014, for Delos Digital, he penned the sci-fi series “I Necronauti”. In May 2016 he published his second sci-fi novel, “La terza memoria”, out from Mondadori. In December 2016, his sci-fi anthology “Voci della Polis” was published by Vincent Book Editore. His novel Il diario dell’estinzione (Watson Edizioni, November 2018) won this year’s prestigious Premio Italia for best Fantasy novel. His Sci-Fi, Horror, and Weird short stories have featured in numerous anthologies.

This story was translated from Italian by Sarah Jane Webb.