Up! During the week after the jeweller's death, events moved rapidly in a more disquieting direction. Richard Wilder, twenty-four floors below Dr Laing and for that reason far more exposed to the pressures generated within the building, was among the first to realize the full extent of the change...
Its sonar confused by the labyrinth of giant webs spun across the inlet by the colonies of wolf spiders, it missed the wire hood above Kerans' head by only a few feet, and then sailed away along the line of submerged office blocks, gliding in and out of the huge sail-like fronds of the fern trees...
The Japanese field engineers had built this temporary crossing over the Soochow Creek in the weeks following the Pearl Harbor attack, but already the bridge was coming apart under the heavy traffic. As the truck moved towards the first steel pontoon the wet planking began to splay in its worn rop...
Overrun by the silent forest, the quiet roads stretched past forgotten swimming-pools and empty driveways. A water-spray rotated across an ornamental pond, and children’s toys lay abandoned by the garden gates. On all sides the birds crowded the rooftops and telephone wires, jostled for a place o...
Luckily, neither of them was hurt in any way, but the strange circumstances of the accident, and the behaviour of the witnesses, seemed to spring straight from the special logic of the sixties. The exhibition at the Arts Laboratory, which intrigued some visitors and outraged a great many more, su...
At first Dr. Sanders thought he was looking at an elderly woman, probably Ventress's mother, and then realized that in fact she was little more than a child, a young woman in her early twenties. Her long platinum hair lay in a white shawl over her shoulders, her thin high-cheeked face raised to t...
I walked through the huge crowd in the Metro-Centre plaza and filled my lungs with the sooty air, trying to expel the tang of dust and burnt rubber. The night hung heavily over the sullen faces, the darkness stained with the sweat of athletes’ bodies, the scent of chewing gum, bottled beer and an...
‘I’ll want to leave soon,’ I told her as she polished the cheap glass. ‘An hour after sunset, if I can start the engine.’ ‘Is that wise?’ ‘Yes – Kagwa’s forces may be here tomorrow. I advise you to leave, Nora. Harare’s men are all over the place.’ ‘We’ve seen one or two of them. They haven’t giv...
RICHARD GREVILLE, DEPUTY PSYCHIATRIC ADVISER, METROPOLITAN POLICE August 25, 1988. Where to start? So much has been written about the Pangbourne Massacre, as it is now known in the popular press throughout the world, that I find it difficult to see this tragic event with a clear eye. In the past ...
He ignored the pain in his thigh and propped himself roughly against the car, waving the crutch and trying to call back the vanished driver. Sober now, he looked with disgust at his injured leg and ragged clothes, angry with himself for having given way to a moment of juvenile hysteria. As well a...
Ballard The Atrocity Exhibition with an Preface by William Burroughs A Flamingo Modern Classic edition published 2001Copyright © J G Ballard 1993 This revised, expanded, annotated edition of The Atrocity Exhibition first published in a large format in Great Britain by Flamingo, 1993 A revised, ...