The books and music of Ren Cummins
The official site of author Ren Cummins, information about his books and music, a place to find questions, answers, and more questions for those. Links and other internety things, in a sort of one-stop shop.
The first thing he noticed was the sound. It triggered a random memory of being in an elevator; the shuddering vibration of movement, accompanied by melodies which were at once both familiar and unplaceable. It took more effort than he would have expected to open his eyes. He was sure he was having the Monday of all Mondays, grotesquely hung over and trapped in a stubbornly resistant body. Everything was slow in responding. How long had he been asleep?
Read MoreIt was a decidedly indecent hour for a house call, even for an officer of the Metropolitan police force. The young man straightened the navy blue jacket and matching hat which marked him as a constable, hoping to look as official and presentable as possible before knocking at the darkened door at 9 Dorset Street. Behind him, the carriage waited, its driver and horses seeming equally put out by the moisture that lingered in the night air and made the cold that much more intolerable.
Read MoreOn a grassy green hill in the countryside overlooking a quiet little hamlet, a boy tended to the sheep which had been placed in his care for a penny a week. The night was peaceful and calm, and the boy grew restless. So he made up a game near the edge of the meadow by hitting rocks into the forest with swings of his shepherd’s crook. He had such fun, in fact, that during the night – while he should have been tending to the sheep – some of the sheep went missing.
Read MoreThe sky was an endless curtain of stars, hung like winter’s wool over the valley. It had been another long day’s ride following the sun, setting camp and settling for the night; the rider happened upon a decent clearing near a broad stream, sheltered by an overhanging rock. No bear or wolf tracks, but the water source was likely to draw predator and prey alike. It would do for a night or two, but he knew he would have to move on before long. He was not alone out here; the dark and shadowy thing that had been pursuing him since St. Louis was still out there. It had his scent. It would not stop. It never stopped.
Read More"Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?”
“Yes, that’s what I asked. Are you okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I ask because I care.”
Read More“Hey Banks,” the stocky ginger-mustachioed guard nodded as he passed through the door that led into the main prison complex. Thomas let the gate swing back into place and lock fast with a loud clack as the electric bolt snapped back against the strikeplate. It didn’t matter how many time he heard that sound, there was always a sort of finality to it that made him feel both secure and a little afraid. The rest of the world was now locked outside. He was locked inside. With them.
Read More“I am great,” he whispered, immediately shaking his head. “No, no, that’s not right. I am the great…. The great… what was it again?”
He sat back down on his cushioned stool, wincing as it creaked beneath him. “I need to get that fixed.”
Read MoreThere were plenty of challenges with being the daughter to your people’s spiritual advisor, but right near the top of the list was not being able to win arguments. Not a single one of them, Sjora thought. She sat in the back of the assembly hall, watching as a dozen citizens of the floating citadel Jaaris B’kaan waited in their queue to address the Song Mistress. While she watched and waited, Sjora looked at each of the supplicants in turn, trying to imagine what wishes blossomed in their hearts.
Read MoreIt was Friday. Friday? Was it Friday? He lay back in bed, stretching until his feet hung off into the abyss, gritting his teeth against the aches in his muscles. Friday felt almost mythological, like any one of a number of words that lose their sense of meaning after being spoken too often. What even was a Friday? His thoughts pushed back the fog like hands throwing back a tangle of sheets. Roger’s brain brushed against a half-remembered piece of his high school education, that it was named after Thor’s mother or something. Freya? Frigga? Who knew. Who cared. Myths were in the past; a dead past.
Read MoreI’d been walking in the desert
(Part for solace, part for fun)
When I had a conversation
With a raven in the sun
He was blackened like obsidian
I was sunburned, I was sore
He was curious of my sandwich
But I told him, “Nevermore.”
He regarded my confusion
I regarded his concern
I asked if he had wisdom
To impart upon his turn
He discarded his impatience
With my clueless human mind
And decided to take pity
And to share what he could find
He picked and hopped and sampled
All the bits upon the ground
Then to spit out or to swallow
Based upon what he had found
And as soon as he was finished
With the space in which he’d stood
He would hop and flutter further on
Where the findings might be good
Each time he’d keep or discard
He’d glance to me and squawk
To see if I was following
The way in which he’d talk
At last I felt I realized
This truth as best I could:
To taste the world in all its forms
But keeping just the good.
I spoke this thought aloud to him
He squawked one last reply
As if to say “about time, fool,”
And away he then did fly.
She sat up, rubbing the delicate grains of sand from her eyes. It was…really bright, she realized. It hadn’t been this blindingly sunny a moment ago, had it? Or…had it? Where had she been a moment ago? Hadn’t she been falling? That didn’t make sense, though. She shook her head, blinking her eyes until they started to adjust. Didn’t matter, anyway. She awoke on a grassy hill that was covered in wildflowers; their scent filled her lungs and pushed all less-important matter back into the less-visited sections of her mind. The meadow was surrounded by a loose grouping of trees that probably would have qualified as either a forest or a jungle. From somewhere beyond the tree line, she could smell the sea air, wafting through pine trees and heat-ripened tropical fruit. And towering above it all to her left was the tallest mountain she’d ever seen, from which rose a pale grey column of smoke.
Read MoreIt was hard to blame them for needing to let off some steam, now and then: being a god was a lot of work. Creation, evolution, the continual need to build more for the humans to find as they carried on with their relentless exploration up, down and within. Oh, there were the bursts of nigh-omnipotence generated from the love and adoration (or in some cases, abject fear and obeisance) of all their followers, and the general sense of immortality certainly trumped any comparable health plan among the contemporary humans; but above all, there were the parties.
Read MoreEveryone loves brownies. It’s one of those things where you can walk through a crowded room with a plate, stacked high with these fresh chocolate morsels, confident in the knowledge that not a single person will refuse you. Diet? Well, I can probably get away with just one. Just ate? Well, it’s a nice dessert, thank you. There’s no such thing as “not hungry” when brownies are involved. Some people put walnuts in their brownies, but that’s like putting a hat on a pig. Just leave the bacon alone, I say.
Read MoreI never believed in Death. Not the regular death death, you know, the kind that happens at the end of one’s life – that much is a fact and hard to ignore. But actual Death, in the flesh. A Reaper. And maybe you do, maybe you always have. I know a lot of people talk about the Reapers like they were angels, or monsters, or some sort of force of nature. Good or evil, fact or myth, I guess I always just thought of them like a bedtime story we invent to put a name to the shadows that we’re afraid of. Well, I used to think that. But that was before I met her.
Read MoreIt was raining again. Rain, here, was expected to be the third most popular topic among complete strangers, right after coffee and the Seahawks. It fell so often upon the city of Seattle that the wettest days seemed to run together in an unblinking blur of grey dampness. It did little to improve Shino Kantoshu’s mood.
Read MoreAll life in Oldtown-Against-the-Wall revolved around three primary structures – the colleges, the town council, and the market. The first offered knowledge, the second provided order, but the third was the most lucrative. The market spanned several blocks in every direction. It was designed like the spokes of a great wheel, with an open courtyard for an axle. Even at its extremities, families with homes at the fringes of the market had converted their living spaces into shops or the like. On any given day, even in the coldest weeks of winter, there were several dozen covered stalls open for business. Nearly anything of any imagination could be found for sale here, from the grains or vegetables and fruits grown out in the agricultural fields to livestock or meats from the stables. Given enough time, a person would encounter merchants selling tools, clothing, furnishings, and even a few stalls dedicated to the more esoteric, art-imbued items.
Read MoreGary almost laughed when his eyes fixed themselves on the dusty black sphere on the back row of items on the shelf. He’d come in here looking for a nice accent piece for his new cube at work – something with a bit of character to it, maybe something artistic. Maggie had suggested one of those electric meditation fountains, but those just made him need to pee. He’d driven past this old antique shop – why are there never new antique shops, he’d mused – various times on his way to or from work, and he simply felt the jones to swing by and check it out today. A sort of celebratory tour in honor of his recent promotion, he decided.
Read MoreI am David’s white blood cell. Just one of a million or so – probably more, if you believe the propaganda – little white blood cells just like me, doing our job. No need to thank me. Though, just between you and me, a little gratitude wouldn’t be a bad thing. Sure, it’s a thankless enough job, running around the veins and arteries and capillaries of this guy day after day, night after night. But I suppose you could say, just like any job, that it has its own rewards.
Read MoreThe metal of the blade must be tempered. Hardened, beaten and cooled in turns. It must be folded, beaten again, all but crushed between the hammer and the anvil, returned to the forge and heated to a bright orange before meeting the blows once more. Thus it is for the blade. So it is as well for they who wield it.
Read MoreIt’s autumn again.
I know, you’re probably one of those people who loves the fall. Hot apple cider, back to school sales, warm sweaters, the crackle and crunch of the browning leaves beneath your shoes, that sort of thing. But then, you’re probably one of those people living on the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. Out there, you have different issues. Europe, North America, you all have your own challenges, living around that stretch of water. But over here in the Pacific, well, you have…me.
You don’t really have a word in your language for what I am. I’m taller than most of your buildings, strong enough to bear the damage from nearly everything in your impressively industrious military, and, if left to my own devices, I’m fairly confident I could strike land and not stop until I reached the other shore, leaving nothing alive in my wake. That is how we do it, my family line and my species.
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