fiction and creative non-fiction from brennan quenneville
Drums. Pulsing in the background, slow and throbbing. The kind of sound that you feel, the pressure of it coursing through the air, pushing and pulling on your ears and eyes. They are coming. "Get up." Williams was already awake. Terns dragged himself to a sit. I kicked Davis in the ribs to get him [...]
"Can you run?" he asked. "I don't know," she said, prodding and testing her ankle. She stood up, took a few halting steps then winced and fell back to the ground. "It's okay," he said. Eiko looked around the stone courtyard. Vines trailed over the heavy white slabs and grasses popped up out of cracks [...]
The temple priest stood atop a high ridge. Deep blue water flowed down a ravine behind him and poured into the dark of the caves that cut sharply into the crust of the earth. Water, the lifeblood of the valley, flowed through the caves in a cool current, pushing and pulling with the throb of [...]
Due to my inability to satisfactorily convert 19,000 words and seventy-some odd footnotes to a format that would be palatable for this site, I've elected to make my cross-country novella, The Move, available as a readable PDF here. Enjoy!
In his dream, the river is burning and Tauro is dying. He sees flames leaping up from the dry, rotten riverbed - a hellish vision of a flood season gone terribly wrong. Tapirs rush from the valley into the forests as fast as their feet can carry them. Our houses burn. An army of the [...]
That I cannot speak does not mean that I am silent. The pumping heartbeat, the hissing intake of breath, the endless creaking of bones – I do not need a voice to be heard. When I sat, waiting patiently in the blind in the high tree, I did not wait to hear men’s voices – [...]
I'm only telling you this because I have to. They say that telling it helps, that dragging the words out from my insides and into the world will give me some clarity. Or maybe it was lucidity. Or maybe it was both. I don’t remember. But even if I don’t believe them, I suppose I’m [...]
Beneath the midday sun, the smell of sweat and dust filled the air and reminded Aulus of all that he had to lose – his family and his home, tucked neatly into their own small corner of the Seven Hills. He thought of round Caecina and their seven children. This was no place for Caecina. [...]
…and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Acts 2:17 ----- “‘Hace mucho tiempo, cuando sueños aún tenía capacidad...’ I remember the words clearly now, but I still don’t know what they mean.” “Why didn’t you ask Eduardo to translate them [...]
She has always been a strong woman, my mother. She had buried two of her sons before any of this even began; she held me when I wept for their deaths. Dave and I are left. And here we are, supporting her as we can, doing what sons do. He takes her to swim lessons [...]
