Consciousness Pirates (Sci-fi short story)
“Have you heard?” the pointy-nosed adolescent squealed softly under his purple buret. His scrawny fingers worked fluidly, equipping various hinges in the train’s engine compartment so as to better stoke the blue-red flames that anachronistically fueled our transport. If I didn’t know the specific time and place of our journey I might have thought the oxygenating licks a mere nostalgic ornament, a subtle nod to an…