Lyra Thornfield
11 stories published
Stories by Lyra Thornfield
Library of Lost Objects
In the quiet wing, shelves hold mismatched gloves, vanished pens, orphaned socks. Each item sits in a book jacket. If you check out your missing object, you must return something else you are not read...
Rain That Remembers
The forecast says drizzle, but the rain arrives humming melodies. Each drop carries a different forgotten song. People step outside with open mouths, tasting refrains of lullabies and first dances. Th...
Missing Shadow
One morning, a shadow refuses to rise with its owner. It leaves a note on the bed: "Taking a day off. Back by dusk." The owner walks through town sunlit and exposed. Without the shadow, there is nowhe...
The Forgetting Bakery
The bakery sells pastries that remove one regret per bite. A muffin erases the memory of a bad haircut. A croissant dissolves a cruel remark. People queue around the block, leaving lighter than they a...
Gravity Black Market
In alleys behind dance studios and construction sites, dealers sell pockets of lesser gravity sealed in vacuum jars. Dancers buy them to float longer during leaps. Thieves use them to lift safes. Malik, a courier, moves jars at night. He never opens...
Library of Forgotten Smells
In the basement of the city library, past genealogy and microfiche, lies the Olfactory Archive. Glass vials line shelves, each containing a preserved scent. Labels read like poetry: "First Snow on Concrete," "Grandmother's Spice Drawer," "Bus Seat in...
The Painter of Laws
In the republic of Varo, laws cannot take effect until the Painter renders them on canvas. Tradition began to ensure laws were visual and comprehensible. The current Painter, Alis, has grown weary of painting endless tax codes. When a new law arrives...
The Pilot Light of the World
Deep beneath the old city, past tunnels forgotten by maps and rats, there was a flame no one tended yet never went out. Legend said it had been lit when the city was founded, a pilot light that kept the world from going cold. Plumbers joked about it during breaks. Historians rolled their eyes. Lina,...
The Greenhouse at the End of the Internet
The greenhouse sat at the last IP address anyone could trace. Not a physical location, at first glanceājust a server endpoint that returned packet loss and a single ASCII vine when pinged. Hackers bragged about finding it; netsec folks shrugged it off as art. Jan, a network archaeologist, dug deeper...
The Atlas of Regrets
Naomiās atlas wasnāt bound in leather or stored on a shelf. It lived on her kitchen table, pages spread, coffee-stained, annotated with pencil and tears. Each map charted a regret: cities she never moved to, careers she declined, people she let go. She drew them like transit maps, lines of possibili...
The Daylight Heist
A crew of thieves planned the impossible: steal an afternoon. They hacked calendars, hijacked city clocks, and launched reflective balloons to confuse sundials. At 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, time hiccupped. Watches showed 2 p.m. again. An extra hour appeared, untethered. The crew aimed to sell itāone hour...