Maze
by Gio Clairval
Professor Talbot puts a stray white rat in its maze, and she briefly hears the rat
calling out to her for help. Then, after the rodent bites her, she finds herself as a sea
captain serving at the pleasure of King George II (and perhaps also at the pleasure of a
drowning rat).
She’s wearing a cocked hat of beaver fur over a red waistcoat. Her boat just arrived at
a northern city on the Baltic, under a sky of zinc marred by sooty clouds.
“Maze” by Gio Clairval, Daily Science
Fiction, 26 August 2015 [webzine].