Yet again, another strange dream. I don’t write all of them down – I’m much too busy for that, with meetings, visits from dignitaries (and undignitaries), travel, official dinners and what not. Some people would find it hard to believe I have any time for writing.

In this one, I was floating in a dark ocean. All I could see was darkness. There was no light towards the surface. I had no trouble breathing normally as I was moving my arms and legs to propel myself forward. I had no idea where I was and no idea where I was going. I simply knew I had to keep moving. And then a gigantic shark came into my field of vision. Grey, massive, threatening – if only by its sheer presence.

I stopped moving. It came towards me until its head was about two meters away. It appeared to be looking a me with the one eye I could see. As I’d heard before, shark eyes have no emotion, they are simply blank, unemotional, dark, monstrous.

I remained frozen. I was not afraid even though I was fully aware that these could be the last minutes of my life.

The shark, the terrible blank eye came closer. And then I mercifully woke up with a gasp.

It took me some time to calm myself, telling myself that it had been just a dream. But then I remembered the last session I’d had with Mme. Sovatskaya, my spiritual advisor. I’d asked her about her prediction for my future – she had not answered but looked at me for a long time.

When she finally spoke, she said that there was no soul left in me, that she could tell by the blank emptiness she saw in my eyes. It was as if there was nothing human left in them, as if my self had been replaced by some non-human entity. “Like a shark,” she said.

Then she went into some tirade. Was I really not aware of what I was doing? To all those dead soldiers, their mothers and fathers? The whole country? And what for?

To cut her off, I jumped up and put my hands on her shoulders. Hard.

“Do you even know what you’re babbling, you stupid woman?”

She was going to say something else, but I yanked her out of her chair and towards the door, opened it and told the guards to throw her out.

That was the last I ever saw of this grey-haired woman who had professed to be a soothsayer, a clairvoyant, and whom I’d consulted for years.

– James Steerforth (© 2025)

Failed poems

Some poet
I don’t know

wrote
30 lines

containing
concrete details

of personal
experience

about
failed poems

without saying
why

those poems
had failed

and who had
said

they had
failed

Failure,
like beauty,

may be
in the eyes

of the beholder,
assuming

such failed
poems

are ever
beheld

Resisting
all that,

I declare
this one

not failed
in 33 lines

– James Steerforth (© 2025)

I’m happy and honored to report that my 42-word story From the life of Ilion Tusk, Space Crusader – a thinly veiled allusion to a well-known real-life figure –, is part of the anthology Book of 42² published in November of 2024. The anthology was compiled by B. A. Mullin and comprises 1764 ultrashort stories in 42 genres, such as Alternate Reality, Apocalyptic, Crime, Culture, Romance, Steampunk, Tragedy, Vampire and Western, to name just a few.

My story is story #35 in Chapter 22, Outer Space.

My biography (also 42 words long) says:

James Steerforth is an illegitimate descendant of Charles Dickens. He writes the Steer Forth! blog, has published a play called End Game (short version, 2007), participated in Best of Meme (2008) with flash fiction and poems and published stories in other media.

A much accelerated spy thriller

Up until a few weeks ago I worked a mission in an unnamed African country, which is known for its divisiveness and long history of internal and external conflict, with the goal of making useful acquaintances. Useful in the eyes of the unnamed agency that was my employer and its unnamed affiliate agencies. Then I was recalled to the unnamed local office in the unmentionable capital of an unnamed island nation north of mainland Europe for reasons that were never mentioned. However, I suspect that at least a part of these reasons was dissatisfaction with the usefulness of my acquaintances and the intelligence obtained from them.

I’d had a story in the unnamed African country – with a named married woman whose name I shall not disclose, which had to come to a forcible and abrupt end when my mission ended. I told her I’d transferred to another unmentionable country doing the job I’d used as a cover. I’d never told her about my real job. She said it was probably for the best that I only told her last minute to shorten the pain. Our parting was an acknowledgment of the inevitable.

Try as I might, though, I could not forget her once I’d arrived at my destination and for weeks thereafter. Eventually, I contacted her through telephone channels I was convinced were safe and secret.

As it turns out, she had also landed up in the unmentionable capital due to a new appointment with an international institution she mentioned but that shall not be disclosed.

We met at an unnamed hotel to do spend hours doing the sweet unmentionable things lovers do.

There was a sound from her phone while she’d gone to the toilet. Being what I am, I looked to see who the message was from, but the unmentionable name that was displayed meant nothing to me. When she came back, I told her that her phone had beeped. She briefly looked but shrugged and said it was just a reminder. She left after an exchange of sweet nothings.

Not wanting to be connected with her in any way discernible to my network or her people, I waited for some time before I left the unnamed hotel and took a side entrance to walk to the unnamed garage where I’d parked my car. To reach, I’d had removed the tracker – no doubt installed by my own agency – from under the car at an intermediate stop under a bridge and had shaken off all the unmentionable cars that might or might not have shadowed me. So I was reasonably sure that no-one had followed me.

However, as I approached the car, a gut feeling told me that something was off. I stopped and was about to look for a place that offered protection, but it was too late – someone had been waiting for me.

A figure stepped out from behind a column, I heard a muffled noise, felt a terrible sting and fell down. A female dressed in a sleek black coat, black hat and sleek black boots came towards me.

“Sorry, babe.”

Two more muffled sounds and terrible stings.

How and where in the world had she managed to change clothes? What agency was she working for? How come I’d never even suspected her of being a colleague? Wasn’t I supposed to last till the end of the show? Wasn’t that the plot? Why did death strike me? Usually it strikes others. Anyone but me!

These were my last thoughts within my unnamed brain within my unnamed body.

Any other thoughts thereafter occurred externally in my anonymous ethereal body.

– James Steerforth (© 2024)

My favorite song by Ringo Starr

Why did I post this? I woke up this morning with this line from the song on my mind – for reasons completely unknown.

I bought the LP this song is on in about 1978 – used, at a record store on The Hill in Boulder, Colorado. Not having a good turntable, I haven’t been listening to records much in the last 12 years. The one I have has a built-in loudspeaker and sounds tinny. It looks nice and stylish, but that’s about it.

Memory is the weirdest thing. What brought this song up into my subconscious?

That shall never be known…

The complete lyrics:

Beaucoups of Blues

I left Louisiana, I had me big plans
To go out and take me all over this land
To see me the world, I left my sweet girl
And gave it a whirl, but now here I stand
Alongside the road with holes in my soul and my shoes
And beaucoups of blues

Oh, sweet magnolia
Breath carried over the marsh by a breeze from the gulf
I’m coming home (coming home)
I’ve had me enough (I’ve had me enough)

Oh, where are the things I saw in my dreams?
Where’s the happy that freedom should bring?
I see me today and know yesterday
That I threw away my most precious things
I see me a man who’s lonely, wants only to lose
Beaucoups of blues

Oh, sweet magnolia
Breath carried over the marsh by a breeze from the gulf
I’m coming home (coming home)
I’ve had me enough (had me enough)
I’m coming home (coming home)
I’ve had me enough (I’ve had me enough)

The song was written by Buzz Rabin, the album was released in 1970.

Brunette, slim and trim, perky, hopes up but also visibly uncertain.

Walks up the stone path to the country house and knocks on the door.

We see what’s inside – a man and another woman in embrace.

He opens the door, sees who it is, grabs a suitcase sitting by the door and throws it out.

Slams the door in the poor girl’s face.

“So, where were we?” he throws at the blonde inside.

Always throwing something.

– James Steerforth (© 2024)

Based on a preview of the Klondike Adventures video game I get to see way more often than I like when trying to play Microsoft Solitaire. The picture above is a low-quality screenshot from the preview.

– Justinian Belisar (© 2024)

(Translation from the German original.)

What is this?
Be more precise,
my dear precision
maniac!

And by the way:
today is my
birthday – have you
forgotten?

And it’s not my
fifteen-hundred-
eighty-first one –
I’ve got a ways to go.

Looks like I got lost
in the jungle
(or jumble)
of my memories –

my old diaries
are populated
with people
I don’t remember.

They’re not even
blurry – simply
non-existent.
But you exist,

of course, and
your birthday.
I was going to buy
little tarts

according to your
instructions, but you
said – very specifically –
to stay away

from the biscuit
kind. If only it were
clear to me
which those are.

Summary: mission
not accomplished.
That’s what
it’s come to.

– James Steerforth (© 2023)

It’s yet another dreary rainy day. I’m in Castel di Leva to pick up Sa. Had coffee at the bar, then went to the store to avoid being in the rain.

Now I’m in the car, across from a car port with a banged-up black Fiat Uno with the windshield missing and a pair of pink high heels sitting on the hood, as if put there for a purpose. Or as a sign? Like, honey, I’m back, left the shoes on the ride, come visit me upstairs.

I’m typing away on the touchpad, hitting the wrong letters sometimes. My fingers are too big. The phone keeps suggesting things.

Will have to write something using that feature. “Automatic writing.”

But not here right now.

– James Steerforth (© 2023)

Notes
Conad is a chain of supermarkets in Italy. Castel di Leva is a small Italian town in Lazio close to Rome.

Photo credits: Pink high heels by Johannes Beilharz.

What, you don’t believe me? These two are real-life lovers! They met in the waiting room of the cosmetic surgeon who was to blow up their lips, were approached right there by a model scout specializing in surgically enhanced prototypes and signed up on the spot. The rest is AI.

– James Steerforth (© 2023)

(50 words)