Such Chaos

Such Chaos

A Selection of Short Stories

Markus McDowell



An Imprint of Sulis International Press

Los Angeles | Dallas | London

SUCH CHAOS: A SELECTION OF SHORT STORIES

Copyright ©2023 by Markus McDowell. All rights reserved.

Except for brief quotations for reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher. Email: info@sulisinternational.com.

So Long first appeared in So Deep in Shadow: Short Stories, published in 2022 by Riversong Books.

Three Days first appeared in The Sky Over Chaos: Short Stories by Markus McDowell, published in 2019 by Riversong Books.

Preparation first appeared in The Sky Over Chaos: Short Stories by Markus McDowell, published in 2019 by Riversong Books.

So Humane first appeared in So Deep in Shadow: Short Stories, published in 2022 by Riversong Books.

Cover photo by Callum Skelton.

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-958139-19-6

Published by Riversong Books

An Imprint of Sulis International

Los Angeles | Dallas | London

www.sulisinternational.com

So Long

¹

Lino looked down the old road toward Padova. The Italian countryside stretched out on all sides, a pale green plain dotted with patches of yellow. Silent. Still. Cold. Clear. A usual winter day in northern Italia.

His worn shoes made a grinding sound in the gravel as he turned in the opposite direction loud in the stillness. Ahead lay the town of Vicenza—a town he had never visited, despite its proximity. The road was almost a mirror of the view behind: a shabby pavement, stretching into the distance, the same pale winter farmlands spread out on either side. An occasional clump of trees and sections of old stone walls.

To the right, far off at the top of a slight rise was a stone farmhouse and a barn. It might be abandoned. Ruins. Or it perhaps it was full of life in the cold, clear afternoon. From this distance, Lino could not know. Death and life looked the same.

He turned to his left, breaking the silence with his shoes again. Train tracks, stretching away straight and true. Telephone poles stood next to the trees, closer to the tracks, spaced at even intervals. Each subsequent totem seemed smaller than the previous until they disappeared in miniature. A straight line of planted trees was a windshield between each set of poles. A neat, ordered geometry. Two straight iron rails receding until they touched. Wooden crossties at precise intervals. The spaced telephone poles and trees. Lino counted how many trees had been planted between the two poles closest to him. Thirteen. He counted the next set, and the next: as many as he could until the distance made it impossible to see. Each numbered thirteen. Order—and superstition be damned.

Lino turned a fourth time, one hundred and eighty degrees. Crunch. Once again, a mirror of the opposite direction, except, in the distance, the tracks curved around rising hills, the