Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Friends
    Friends
    Friends
    Ebook26 pages21 minutes

    Friends

    By Rei Rosenquist

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Below the pristine mountains of Portugal's countryside, a war rages on. Then, one day, it comes to Abrir's home. Not the war, but an official caravan, black against the pale sky.

    Thrown together in a dismal war camp, imported refugees share nothing but their suffering.

    No common culture. No common tongue. Confusion, and no more.

    Abrir manages to finds a few friends, but it doesn't last.

    One by one, they take their lives and leave Arbrir.

    "I am the last one."

    "And it's time I left too."

    Could a single friend change Abrir's mind?

    Rei Rosenquist brings you a dark dystopian science fiction universe where pronouns, gender, and identity no longer follow the old rules -- exploring not only a grim possible future, but also asking new questions of how we identify ourselves and one another.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTangled Sky Press
    Release dateOct 7, 2018
    ISBN9781386435112
    Friends
    Author

    Rei Rosenquist

    Rei Rosenquist first remembers life as seen out the high window of a hotel balcony. Down below is a courtyard, swarms of brightly dressed tourists, the beach. The memory is nothing but a blue-green washed image. Warmth and sunlight. Here, they are three years old, and this is the beginning of a nomadic story-teller’s life. Over the years, they have traveled to many countries, engaged many peoples, picked up new habits, and learned new languages. But, some things never change. For them, these are stories, food service, and traveling. These three passions have bloomed from hobbies, studies, and jobs into a way of life. These days, Rei can be found in between Tokyo, Kailua, and Bellingham, Washington pouring beautiful latte art, baking off a batch of famous savory scones, and cozying up with a laptop to obsessively write mountains of dark speculative fiction. You can find Rei’s stories and blog at reirosenquist.com. You can also reach them via email at reirosenquist@gmail.com or connect via Facebook (Rei Rosenquist), Twitter (rylrosenquist) and Instagram (rylrosenquist).

    Read more from Rei Rosenquist

    Related to Friends

    Related ebooks

    War & Military Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Three Poems by Rohan Chhetri

      Sep 8, 2020

      All summer the half voice lurked behind me & I played deaf for days for to live To not write about it to use my body Part the river’s flesh to operate Machinery is human too to love & for once stay awake through it all. Now it comes like the deer sle

      3 min read

    • Article

      Station to Station

      Dec 3, 2020

      Station to Station
      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The American linden sways nonplussed by the storm,a bounce here, a shimmy there, just shaking like musicleft over from the night’s end wafting into the avenues before sleep.I remember once walking down Clinton Street, and singingthat line returning,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Phillip B. Williams

      Dec 15, 2017

      The masters are yet dead. Wanting to be human,I tried to rewrite The Waste Land. The canon’s reachcasts ruinous light. The masters’ pens breachthis page where, above, my own hand spectates. Babylonrisen, exorcism in reverse, whose nature upended now?

      6 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      May 1, 2022

      —after Gerrit van Honthorst’s “Samson and Delilah,” c. 1621 They’ve made a monster of me, marring my namefor eternity. I’m not Delilah,but Laila. I loved him. Each night, in bed, after our bodies became one body, he would succumb to sleep, resting hi

      3 min read

    • Article

      Voyage around My Cell

      Oct 10, 2019

      Voyage around My Cell
      10 min read

    • Article

      After Kaddish

      Sep 27, 2018

      After Kaddish
      9 min read

    • Article

      Hollywood, Ending

      Feb 13, 2018

      Hollywood, Ending
      7 min read

    • Article

      In The Ruins Of Paradise

      Dec 17, 2018

      In The Ruins Of Paradise
      18 min read

    • Article

      Silence and Air Raids

      Nov 25, 2022

      Silence and Air Raids
      14 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Sep 1, 2022

      1. Here there’s no rainy season.Sun scalds my forehead,yet the pool is empty. Beside it,a toppled table, its glass surface shattered.The asphalt is too hot for bare feet. 2. Far away: white hillocksand white dunes under a deepblue sky. Swirling winds

      5 min read

    • Article

      Nick Laird

      Dec 15, 2017

      I was trying to write like an adult.I had children.I was at the end of something. As I waited at my table by the window for the coffee,I saw that the sirocco had depositeda scrim of dust on the sill overnight,and it was the dark red of powdered blood

      3 min read

    • Article

      Komorebi

      Nov 6, 2023

      Komorebi
      6 min read

    • Article

      In The Spotlight:your Writing Dark Side

      Dec 7, 2023

      Spooky season evidently offered creative inspiration aplenty for the WM writers, who responded to the call for writing in November’s crime-themed issue on the theme of ‘Dark Side’ with our fullest mailbox yet. The poetry and prose sent in demonstrate

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Living Days

      Nov 4, 2019

      The Living Days
      9 min read

    • Article

      The First Day: One man’s walk to his own cremation.

      Aug 7, 2014

      The fog was thick when I left my bedsit and ventured out alone into the barren and murky city. I was heading for what used to be called a crematorium and these days is known as a funeral parlor. I had received a notice instructing me to arrive by 9 a

      15 min read

    • Article

      Marta

      Oct 15, 2019

      Marta
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Tale Of Two Crises

      Nov 17, 2020

      A Tale Of Two Crises
      5 min read

    • Article

      Change of Direction

      Jan 24, 2020

      Change of Direction
      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2022

      If I call myself unlovable, I am, practically; if I say itenough times: unlovable. Then, like practical magic, I’m hollow as old garlic; I’m distance-skinned.I’m a long, mean package, a terror-dyke, a nag, a squinting, slut-spun hag—it’s easy, really

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Friends

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Friends - Rei Rosenquist

      Friends

      Friends

      A Short Story

      Rei Rosenquist

      Tangled Sky Press

      Contents

      Friends

      Also by Rei Rosenquist

      About the Author

      Friends

      My name is Abrir and I am a citizen of District Four.

      I say that loosely. This place is a shit hole with sheet metal shacks for houses, dirt that becomes reeking mud when it rains for roads, and electro-magnetic fences everywhere.

      I have had enough.

      My plan as of this morning is to be dead.

      To make it clear—I don’t belong here.

      At the end of the war, my high mountain village remained untouched, pristine.

      We had our wide-open fields, our hand-made clay and tile homes, our small dotted neighborhoods. We had full families and many happy friends.

      We had everything.

      Water ran crystalline in rivers fed by underground streams. The moist ground offered up the ripe fruits of our hands’ labor. Pears soft and plump, cherries that glittered like droplets of wine, milk thick and sweet. Among the ancient oaks, firs grew tall and spread wide, their branches filling the air with a sweet green scent. Soft wing-like seed pods fell around our heads while ash and bombs rained down on the rest of the suffering world.

      The wars ended one day, and we cheered to the sound of music on hand-held wi-fi radios. We roasted beef and celebrated that our small valley, lush and fertile, had remained unscathed.

      But still, they came.

      A dirty black mar on the horizon that nobody noticed. It grew bigger and uglier as it drew nearer. Until, all at once, the arrival of the militia was unavoidable.

      We stood out in the fields, dancing

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1