[Complete] [125,000] [Soft Sci-Fi] Notes from the Void

For as long as I remember, the towers straddling the horizon had represented the unknown to me. They were one of the last remaining links to a past that had been engulfed by the ages. No one really knew who had built them, but Quentin, my tutor, said they were likely a relic of the people who came before us. The people who vanished after the long hunger. The people who had sailed the stars and disappeared, leaving behind a wounded world. I beat the sole of the shoe, placed on the anvil before me, with the cobbler’s hammer. The hazy, afternoon heat of summer baked the shop like an oven. Mr Rockford, my master of craft, approached from behind. ‘What’s on your mind, boy?’ ‘Nothing, why?’ ‘You were distracted. You’re hammering mindlessly. The shoes are already finished.’ I looked down; he was right. What was really on my mind? The fact that I had planned to sneak out to see the towers that afternoon. Mr Rockford sucked on his clay pipe. ‘You’re finished for today. Good work.’ ‘I’ll be going out with Micah and Lettie after dinner,’ I said. Mr Rockford nodded. ‘You know the curfew.’

Our meeting place was the old, towering gnomon that ounce counted the cycles with precision, but now only traced the sun. I had left Mr Rockford snoozing in his rocking chair, warmed by a sunbeam that shone through the shop window. I remember thinking that when he slept, he could be mistaken for a younger man.