{"id":1632,"date":"2021-10-11T09:57:59","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T09:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2022-01-03T18:18:22","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T18:18:22","slug":"the-lichyard-by-harrison-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1632","title":{"rendered":"The Lichyard by Harrison Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>The Lichyard <\/em><\/strong>by Harrison Valley (<em>Parsec<\/em> #1, Autumn 2021) begins with a man called Emil carrying the corpse of a man called Taff to the Lichyard. They squabble along the way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cWhy\u2019re you complaining? You paid me to get you to the Lichyard as fast as possible!\u201d<br>\u201cI didn\u2019t realize I\u2019d be staring into the sun the whole time.\u201d<br>\u201cWhat do you want from me? It\u2019s evening, and the Lichyard\u2019s in the east.\u201d There are two voices but one set of footsteps. \u201cBesides, the sun can\u2019t hurt you. You don\u2019t even have eyes.\u201d<br>\u201cYet it is blinding.\u201d<br>\u201cAnd?\u201d <br>A man walks from an alleyway, talking over his shoulder.<br>Lashed to his back, a grey and dusty burden bounces limply with each step. A human skull lolls over toward the man\u2019s ear, and from between decayed teeth come the words, \u201cI\u2019m dead. Don\u2019t I deserve compassion?\u201d&nbsp; p. 29<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>En route Emil loses the three coins he needs to put on Taff\u2019s eyes and mouth when he buries him, and so he comes up with a plan to steal those from another corpse when they get to the graveyard. However, when they arrive, matters play out differently (spoiler): Emil buries Taff without the coins but, when the undertaker arrives, he changes his mind. However, when Emil digs down to retrieve the body he finds it has disappeared. Then the undertaker is shot by an old person in a tree, and Emil is told to take the corpse back to where he lost the coins.<br>There are a couple of good images and scenes here (the quarrel at the beginning, the Lichyard, etc.) but these haven\u2019t been turned into a coherent whole.<br>* (Mediocre). 2,500 words. <em>Parsec<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pspublishing.co.uk\/parsec-digital-magazine---issue1-5203-p.asp\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lichyard by Harrison Valley (Parsec #1, Autumn 2021) begins with a man called Emil carrying the corpse of a man called Taff to the Lichyard. They squabble along the way: \u201cWhy\u2019re you complaining? You paid me to get you to the Lichyard as fast as possible!\u201d\u201cI didn\u2019t realize I\u2019d be staring into the sun [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396],"tags":[21,50,395,394,12],"class_list":["post-1632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harrison-valley","tag-21","tag-50","tag-harrison-valley","tag-parsec","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2276,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions\/2276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}