Yesteryear Fiction

Suspended Idiosyncrasies
By Peter Baltensperger


The mountains loomed high above the valley, massive rock formations sculpted into a non-descript sky, gray clouds. Far below, a wide river sliced the valley in half, amalgamating tributaries of glacial water and alpine rain to take them to a distant ocean, shrinking distances into moments, flashes of thoughts. Marek cowered under the weight of the mountains, clinging to dreams of summits and escapes, triumph and release among the ever-shifting vicissitudes of his tableau, but the burden never lessened, the river never changed.

The gray clouds gradually morphed into black omens, driven from horizon to horizon by a high wind, but there was no rain. He was crouched on his hands and knees on the shore of the quiet lake half-way up the mountain, gathering stones and arranging them carefully into patterns to try and derive some meaning from their existence, find some credibility in their arrangements. He counted them methodically so as not to lose track of his questions, entangle himself in their multiplicity. He had done the same thing many times before, and he knew what he wanted to do, even though some of the stones always rolled out of his hands, refusing to yield their secrets, their innate connections to the essence of his mind.

At times, he felt as if the weight on his shoulders diminished when he counted the stones, but it was always back as soon as he sorted them into his insignificant configurations and tried to read into them what wasn’t there. At times, he was ready to despair in his never-ending search for answers, but the lake invariably drew him to its shore. It was better when the sky was clear and the wet stones glistened in the sun. It was the clouds that made everything more difficult, obscuring his vision as they did.

He was just fitting the final stones into his new arrangement when a beautiful woman came wading out of the lake, gathering vague threads of redemption from among the darkening clouds. She brought them ashore and spread them out beside his stones, then crouched down with him and wove them into intricate swatches of colorful material. With nimble fingers, she placed them into a cryptic order, matching size with size, color with color, and pointed at the overall design.

“See?” the woman said

“I don’t understand,” Marek said.

“I will show you,” the woman said.

She took him by the hand and led him into the lake. When they reached the middle of the lake, she grabbed his hand tightly and pulled him under the surface. He gasped in desperation to fill his lungs with a last breath of air, then gave himself over to the irresistible pull. They dove deeper and deeper until they came to a cave filled with glittering crystals and he realized that he was able to breathe again. He looked around in wonder, trying to comprehend the significance of her lair without coming to any conclusions.

“See?” the woman said.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

The woman reached out with her hand and covered his eyes, plunging him into an immense darkness of silence and confusion. He thought he could feel the sharp crystals puncturing his skin, but there was no pain, nor any kind of revelation. It was as if he had become trapped in an incomprehensible prison without windows, a nightmare of inscrutable shadows in non-existent corners. His mind was reeling with the mystery of her appearance, his ears deafened from the hollow silence of the cave. Yet he kept trying to peer into the darkness for a final answer, a redeeming word, his eyes burning with the futility of his search.

The next thing he knew, he was floating down the turbulent river towards the village, grasping at insignificant phantoms, apparitions, trying to keep afloat. A heavy rain was pounding the river, his body, his face, until he could barely see anything anymore. With his last ounce of passion, he clawed his way across the current and slung himself up on the shore. He collapsed in the rain on the grassy bank, panting and gasping for breath, his spinning mind wondering what happened to the mountain, to the lake.


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Peter Baltensperger is a Canadian writer of Swiss origin and the author of ten books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. His work has appeared in print and on-line in several hundred publications around the world.

Living In Shadows
By Peter Baltensperger


Had it not been for the wrinkle in a cosmic interlude, Richard wouldn't have heard the thunder. He was running through a dimly-lit forest without direction, wolves somewhere in the distance, the trees forbiddingly close. Mere suggestions of a late afternoon sun were dripping through the thick canopy of leaves, slanting distorted shadows of monsters across his path. The forest kept flinging bushes and brambles in his way, dangling branches, thick roots, fallen trees, yet he kept running even though he didn't know why or what from.

He was circumventing an ancient swamp full of skeletal trees when the indistinct figure of a woman in a black cape and hood on a white steed differentiated itself from the trees somewhere far ahead of him. He tried to force his mind to focus on the unexpected redemption, but his thoughts were too blurred to comprehend the significance. At least he had found a purpose, yet the faster he ran, the further the woman receded into the forest, slipping through his fingers right in front of his tired eyes.

On the other side of the wrinkle, the sun was always shining from an undisturbed sky, his office window glistening. He was sitting at his mahogany desk, his shadow motionless in front of him, trying to advance his career, thinking of forest monsters instead. The image of the woman was always at the back of his mind, but he couldn't make her come any closer, no matter how hard he tried. The sun kept shining in through his window overlooking the city, yet his mind kept dwelling on the darkness, the thunder.

He was running across an endless steppe, a herd of wild horses drumming the parched ground. The woman on her white steed was galloping in the distance, her black cape flying behind her, a marker in his wilderness. The high sun kept throwing black shadows in front of him, glinting off hoofs, desert glass. His eyes were aching in the burning brightness, his vision blurred with desolation, images of destruction, the woman a distant mirage in the confusion of his afternoon.

The shadow on his desk shivered, refusing to answer, even though he kept shuffling his papers, focusing his bleary eyes without seeing, even though he kept running. The papers never held still enough to comprehend their meaning, or the forest or the steppe. Only the sun was a constant, deceptive as its shadows were. He could have found the answers if he had looked in the right direction, if his mind had not been preoccupied with peripherals.

In a different forest, the woman in the black cape and hood was waiting by a quiet pond, her white steed lapping the fresh water, their reflections telling duplications. The sun was glinting off the calm surface, casting soft shadows across the pond, the thunder but a distant threat to what didn't exist.


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Peter Baltensperger is a Canadian writer of Swiss origin and the author of ten books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His work has appeared in print and on-line in several hundred publications around the world over the past several decades. He writes, and has been writing all his life, because he has to and loves to do it, and because it adds a significant dimension to his personal quest. He makes his home in London, Canada with his wife Viki and their three cats.