His wife had gone, he had stayed, neither by choice.
I watched him walk toward a place only he could see, more distant each day.
Photos fade before dimming eyes, music falls flat to distant ears. Further he walked.
Today he followed as she took his hand across the horizon.
Mike Keyser writes microfiction while working on his novel.
They announced: “The world ends on Thursday.”
In denial, we raged against shadowed figures with secret agendas.
Angry streets battered abandoned stone monoliths of authority.
Bargains offered to our gods and devils; contracts returned unsigned.
Depression discarded our fairies and magical endings.
With fate accepted, in peace, our stars faded.
Mike Keyser has survived myriad dystopian futures from the safe distance of speculative fiction.
Driving home, work remains my passenger.
Time slows, and sound hollows. Glass floats before my eyes. What’s happening?
Another car striking mine.
Goodbye, my gentle daughter… another cup of tea, please.
Goodbye, my playful son… one more game of catch.
Thank you, my loving wife; this morning’s kiss still lingers.
Mike explores the fluidity between what was, what is, and what might be through speculative fiction.
He, born to dirt, smoke, and blood-stained rocks, watched his clan diminish in this harsh environment.
Now alone, longing to share his fire, he searched empty horizons.
His journey is inscribed in etchings and ochre on cave walls.
The Neanderthal’s light dimmed, never knowing his distant spark would reach us.
Mike (and his 3.2% Neanderthal DNA) uses speculative fiction to explore the boundaries between what was, what is, and what could be.
After decades of research, rewrites, and rejections, sleepless nights, and crippling self-doubt, my novel releases tomorrow.
As doors unlock, signing pen in hand… a gamma-ray burst—life on Earth, gone.
Behind now-wide-open doors, through which no human will pass, rests my book: The Universe Hates Me.
Mike Keyser hails from Wisconsin, where past and future share a beer. A seeker of alien abduction—and receiver of none—he feeds his off-world appetite through speculative fiction.