[Destructo, Wonder-Worker] NEW!

This story was originally written in the seventies (though slightly revised later), and was scheduled to appear in the third issue of the British magazine R.E.M., but the issue never materialized..

"You are in thrall to the aged ones. You live in desolation. Yet you shall be the germ of my fever, and the germ shall be a virus, and the virus shall be a word. And the word shall restore your birthright to you. For here is a new commandment: HE WHO CANNOT CREATE, LET HIM DESTROY

[Enemies of the Golden Mean]

This is a grotesque fable, too grotesque for some, to see print..

"There remains the possibility of forging a real human will. We may then oppose that will to the will of the cosmos. Then, and only then, can our will be called our own."

[Invitation to the Voyage]

This melancholy and distressing fable reflects the author's own self-imposed exile from London. Previously unpublished.

"On leaving the city I travelled north. The coastline receded behind me; the drabness of the hinterland lay ahead. Once on my way, I began to feel like an explorer about to make contact with a backward tribe; for I had been so long absent from the provinces that I had almost forgotten my early life there.."

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All stories copyright 1998 by Barrington J. Bayley

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