Zlaw’s Echo

With a sigh of satisfaction, she slowly slipped into the steamy water of her rose-scented bath. Petals floated on the surface, among the soap bubbles. “Ah! I definitely needed this,” she told her partner, sprawled onto a sofa nearby, between her and the chimney. There was a roaring fire in the hearth, and the sound of crackling logs added to the cosy atmosphere of the big room in which they were alone. His eyes on a parchment, he however did not seem as relaxed as his travelling companion: “What? To simmer in your own warmed-up and liquefied filth for a while?” She kept her eyes closed and did not frown at his snarky comment. Evidently, she was quite used to his negativity. “Rest and recuperation, silly. This is really nice, you should try it; maybe it will get rid of those wrinkles on your forehead.” “Meh. Doubt it. I’m pretty sure I was born with them.” “Well, thank you again for agreeing to make this stop.” That expression of gratitude got half a smile out of him. “You’re ...

A couple of people are standing, facing the same way, in one of the exhibition halls of a museum. Various pieces of modern art are distributed here and there, each stranger than the next. Some of the visitors in the group have their head tilted, others their eyes narrowed, one even has his hand to his chin. They all seem very absorbed by what they are looking at. “I find it quite provocative,” a woman says eventually. “You do? I think it’s quite basic, actually. The red paint is very tacky. Too aggressive, without any nuance.” “Maybe that’s what’s so refreshing about it: how it goes back to the foundation of colour theory. Primary colours are underused, these days, and yet, red is eye-catching, brutal, transcendant.” “Besides, you can’t argue there is a multitude of layers to this piece, can you?” another woman adds to counter the man’s opinion. “Oh, please! This grotesque study of the human form? Round shapes for the female essence, long protuberances for the male one? It’s almo...

“Can I pet your bird, Sir?” The Rider, leaning against a wall next to his tall two-legged mount, looked down at the small child that had asked the question. He smirked. “I’m afraid not, kid. His feathers are razor sharp. That’s why I wear gloves like these.” He held out one of his hands, safely wrapped in the finest of chain mail, and wiggled his fingers. The same discreet protection was also on most of the outside of his long jacket, and covered the inside of his trouser legs. The child’s eyes widened. “What would a bird need feathers like that for?” “Well, see, my bird isn’t just any bird: he’s a War Bird. Legend has it that at one point they were given the choice between fight and flight, and they picked the former. They could have opted to soar high up in the skies, away from the world’s problem, but instead, they decided to stand tall on the ground against evil and injustice. They say that’s also why they’re so big.” The bird squawked and tilted its head, as if in agreement...

He had to say, despite the evident hardships they had encountered since crash-landing on this planet, it felt nice to get back to the basics of mechanical engineering, or, as he liked to call it in his mind: common sense-driven building. Back on Earth, so many people had become entirely reliant on electronics, and even worse, so called artificial intelligence (which was not actually intelligent in terms of logical thinking but rather in the fact that it had access to a lot of information, and that was about it), that very few would have survived on here for more than a day. Sadly, even with the elite crew they thought they had formed, they had still lost a couple of team members from other causes than injuries sustained during the crash itself. Entry into the atmosphere had fried pretty much all of their advanced sensors, and for some reason one of them hadn’t been able to compensate for their absence with his own senses. One had made a dreadful miscalculation and refused to acknowle...

Sam ne s’est pas rendu directement au commissariat après avoir confronté Jack. Il avait à réfléchir. Puis, se sentant doublement coupable, à la fois de perdre du temps et d’avoir un fois de plus menti à Iz, il a décidé de profiter d’être de sortie sans affaire qui l’attende pour faire le tour de sa liste de surveillances. Rien n’était cependant à signaler du côté des personnes rencontrées au cours de ses enquêtes et qu’ils avaient jugées à risque — c’est-à-dire aussi bien potentiellement dangereux qu’en danger. Néanmoins, l’exercice, en plus de mériter d’être fait de temps à autres, lui a un peu éclairci les idées. — Hey, il approche Iz alors qu’elle quitte l’îlot d’un duo d’inspecteurs. — Tiens. Te voilà, toi. T’étais où, ce matin ? elle lui demande, plus curieuse qu’au réveil, puisqu’elle ne pensait pas qu’il serait si long. — Je sais. Je m’excuserai auprès de Randers tout à l’heure. Est-ce qu’on peut parler ? il évite la question, puisque la réponse importe peu par rappo...

There should never have been any vertebrate lifeforms in this jungle. This was not supposed to happen. The artificial environment had been initiated from a sterile base, and kept hermetically closed off from the outside world the entire time of the experiment. At first, only vegetation had been introduced, and later very specific fungus. The most advanced animals they had agreed to let out in there were insects. No bird, reptile, or mammal had ever made it anywhere near the dome. They even had control over bacterial levels, for crying out loud! And besides, nobody and nothing ever entered without a thorough decontamination first. So how had this happened? It had all started as a routine inspection. The fast and luxurious development of the foliage had forced them quite early on to physically get in there to make observations, but that had never been a problem. They had expected to have to do this at some point, so they had prepared for it. And many such expeditions had gone on withou...

I’ve been called a Debbie Downer many times in my life, for the sole reason that I struggle to celebrate things. It’s not that I don’t know how, was never shown how when I was a child, or anything like that, it’s more that I have a hard time feeling like elation is well-deserved. In my book, one shouldn’t have to force oneself to be happy about something. You either are, or you’re not. To be fair, I am a generally happy person, and I am happy about good things happening, I just don’t jump up and down at the slightest positive outcome. Or lack of a negative outcome, for that matter. People will be coming back from a trip abroad, and I’m not sorry for not joining them in their exacerbated relief at their transport not being late or hijacked, they luggage not getting lost – read: most likely stolen –, them not getting their throat slit or worse in some dark alley. Those are things we shouldn’t even worry about. Those are all things that shouldn’t even be happening in the first place if...

“Hey! Lady!” She turned around slowly at the call, only to see a man she didn’t know trotting to catch up with her, waving and smiling. “‘Lady’? Is that what catcalling has come to, these days? Full circle?” she responded once he was within earshot. The stranger stopped in front of her, and put his hands on his hips. “First of all, that was NOT a catcall. Second of all, I’ve put a lot of thought into this wording, so I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed that it doesn’t seem to have landed quite right.” “You have, huh?” “Oh, yeah. I considered ‘Miss’ or ‘Ma’am’, but I wouldn’t want you to see me as a kid.” “Obviously,” she confirmed, nodding in amusement. “Obviously. There was also ‘girl’ in the running, but then I wouldn’t have just sounded childish but delinquent as well. ‘Woman’ would have made me rightfully come off as a Neanderthal, ‘Person’ is simply retarded, and I felt like ‘Hey! You!’ would have been entirely too personal. As of forgoing any formal interpellation alto...

Peu après que Jena et Markus se sont retrouvés au même endroit sans se concerter, ils ont réquisitionné Rob pour partir à la recherche de Daisy. Dès qu’il a été présumé qu’elle était au centre de la monumentale dispute de Siegfried et Vladas, son absence du travail a trouvé son explication. La bonne nouvelle, c’est qu’elle n’est pas en danger à cause de la situation générale de leur fine équipe. La moins bonne nouvelle, c’est qu’elle est suffisamment affectée par le conflit entre ses deux maris pour s’isoler. La trouver semblait donc à propos. Comme Caroline a refusé de se mêler à la situation à partir du moment où elle l’a constatée, son compagnon d’infortune a été la personne toute désignée pour localiser l’infirmière. Ça ne lui a pas pris longtemps, mais il a curieusement refusé de communiquer son emplacement lorsqu’il l’a déterminé. Il a même insisté pour être celui à l’approcher, comme parti neutre, ce à quoi personne n’avait rien pu dire. — Est-ce que ça va ? demande le jeun...

She cried when they found the chamber. They hadn’t actually been looking for it, or anything like it for that matter. They had lost hope for such a thing a while ago, or rather, it had been methodically and mercilessly ripped from them. There were days when they wondered why they even bothered continuing on, how they could ever possibly rebuild all that had been so thoroughly destroyed, especially with so few of them left. What did they even mean by ‘them’? They didn’t seem to have a common defining characteristic. Men and women, of various ages — except the very old and the very young, for which this whole ordeal had tragically been too much —, ethnicities, skill sets, backgrounds, even languages. They wished they could say they were just humans, but those who had put them in this situation were also, horrifically, technically human. When they had finally managed to push away the rock that was blocking the entrance to what they had assumed to be a rudimentary cave dwelling, that wa...

A man is sitting on a bench, in front of a fountain in the middle of a square surrounded by a couple of houses. He is facing away from one of them, from which a woman happens to be throwing clothes out of the highest window. Trousers, shirts, shoes, nothing appears to be spared. Many items are already scattered on the lawn, and more keep coming. “I never like zat jacket anyway!” she yells in a heavy French accent as she gets rid of said piece of clothing. The man does not seem disturbed by what is happening. He does not react every time he hears fabric landing on the grass. Every now and then, he does take out a coin out of his pocket, and lazily throws it into the fountain, but more to pass the time than anything else. “Hello, neighbour! You all right?” a gentleman, about 10 years his senior, suddenly asks while walking towards him. “Splendid! Care to join?” he answers, tapping the empty seat beside him. The older man chuckles. He nods in agreement, before taking place next to h...

One wrong step. That’s all it would take for him to go tumbling down to his death at the bottom of this crevice. That’s probably all it had taken for the person he was coming to get to find themselves there. The fact that they had even survived such a fall was nothing short of miraculous, but that was not a mystery for him to solve. No, his job was to get down there and bring them back up, not to ask questions. In fact, his least favourite part of his job was seeing the family and friends of the people he brought back hound them about what had happened, asking them whether they hadn’t been careful enough, or whose fault it was that they had found themselves in their predicament despite taking all the necessary precautions. He was aware that this was just a very human way of dealing with overwhelming relief at the safe return of a loved one, but it still annoyed him. His descent was slow but it could not be helped. This deep fault had opened up overnight, so he knew the terrain even ...

“I have to admit, your facilites are impressive.” The school principal smiled humbly at the mother she had just been giving a tour to. “Thank you. We do hope they live up to expectations for students and parents alike.” “To be perfectly honest with you, I do have concerns about my son possibly facing… discrimination, if he were to be enrolled here.” “Has bullying been a problem for him in the past?” inquired the principal, a worried crease appearing on her forehead. “No, but… well… he is a human being, like me. A regular human being, without any particular gift or appendage like most of your students seem to have.” The mother gestured at a group of young children running around the playground a few meters away: some of them had horns, others wings, some had both. Most of them jumped higher and ran faster than you would expect any human child their age to be able too, exhibiting superior physical strength. “I understand your concern, but I assure you, our activities are tailored...

Assis sur un banc, à l’abri de la petite pluie automnale qui s’abat actuellement sur la ville, Mae et Nelson discutent. Ellen est occupée avec le journal du lycée, et le garçon en a profité pour enfin révéler à sa plus vieille amie ce qu’il a appris sur la plus récente, il y a maintenant une dizaine de jours. Il a toute confiance en la marginale, mais il ne voulait pas mettre de l’eau au moulin de ses tendances protectrices envers le groupe ces derniers temps. Il sait aussi par expérience que la blondinette a un seuil de tolérance à la criminalité élevé, comme en atteste la chance qu’elle lui a donnée lorsqu’il se sont rencontrés. Et la hauteur de ce seuil est encore plus évidente aujourd’hui, avec la magnanimité avec laquelle elle arrive à parler d’un tueur en série, ou encore de celui qui lui a donné ses symptômes. Contrairement à ce qu’il a annoncé à Sam, Nelson n’a pas encore parlé à Soledad des questions qui lui ont été posées à son sujet. Il n’a pas osé. Et c’est aussi la premiè...