Dime Novels From Oblivion

He existed in the depths of nowhere. His life happened in flashes. Every moment was sudden and fleeting. It was like blacking out in a dream. His mind had been smashed like a mirror; his memories were like pictures reflecting on the jagged shards. His eyes would open to the burning beams of surgical lamps gripped by gleaming titanium claws, and the pain ran through his nervous system like an electric current, but sometimes he saw other things. Sometimes he was able to dream, and it was in the haze of his subconscious that he had any clarity. He could see himself as if he were an outside spectator. He was a tall, thin middle-aged man. A man with a face aged beyond its years. His bruised and cracked flesh looked like it had been painted on his skull. His sunken black eyes were like empty voids. His lanky frail form was covered by clothes that were as worn and tattered as he was. He lived in a room as small as his existence. The paint on the walls had all but chipped away. The wooden fl…

Colonel Nasser was a striking man. Tall and dark he stood with perfect posture in a spotless military tunic. The multitude of shining medals only served to underscore the authority conveyed by his dark unblinking eyes that sat under the shadow of the brim cast by his military cap. His polished leather boots gave him the extra height, so that he was always looking down at whoever he was talking to, his eyes locking with theirs allowing him to assert his will simply with his gaze. His meteoric rise in the army and his ability to rally a popular and effective opposition was very little a surprise to those who had met and spoke to the colonel in person, but those advantages had run themselves out. In his last few days the colonel was holding up in a bunker situated beneath no less than 25 feet of earth. Its windowless cinder block walls, single light, and bolted steel door made it resemble a prison cell. Besides a twin bed, a television, and a wooden chair the drab concrete space was most…