The Lost Hour - Time Travel

March 13, 2016 1:22AM
"Minutes crawl like spiders at this hour of night, skittering into the corners and under the bed. Dust bunnies waft across the floorboards in their wake while I watch for the moment that time leaps an hour into the future. Waiting for that exact second to prove I was right. That the move, beginning at Greenwich and rolling ever westward through time zone after time zone, to steal away an hour from each sets the fabric of space/time in motion, too. Treating time as a malleable thing makes it so. Consensual reality builds momentum, a certain inertia of perception, if you will. As an intellectual exercise, we all agree to change time. And while we wink and nod, time really does change.

Tonight. I prove it. I built a device. Time piece, of course. LED so it doesn't completely destroy the battery pack. How embarrassing would it be to travel into the future and have your batteries die, right? So, no. The actual temporal distortion field cannot be battery powered. Unless you've patented a double A nuclear fusion model no one's told me about. No, for that, I tapped into the grid for the particle accelerator in the physics lab. The wire run was a bitch, but never mind that. Call me old fashioned. I know it's all Disney's Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, but yes. I did turn my bed into my time machine. If I'm right, and I think I am, I will go forward in time and only forward because that is the direction of our consensual momentum--humans agreeing to pretend it's an hour later than it really is. I'll have to wait for spring to test going back in time.

Look. It's almost time. To the future, then. Hong, Jamie, I know I've been weird for the past few weeks. This is why. Sorry I couldn't tell you what I was doing. I'll see you guys in three days when you catch up with me in time.
Penny"

Jamie clapped a hand to her mouth and stared with wide, red, tear-filled eyes at her friend Hong who folded the note and slipped it back into her jacket pocket. Jamie risked a glance down at the newly erected headstone.

Penelope Jackson

April 8, 1997-March 15, 2016

 



"Oh my God," Jamie whispered. "You don't think it worked, do you? It can't have worked!"

"Of course not," Hong said. "How could you time travel into your own grave? Your own coffin. Of course it didn't work. For her, there was no day three. Not when she died on day two."

Jamie choked on a sob.

A spider crawled down the face of the marker and began spinning her web.

Flash Fiction DST

The Equation of Time **93 words

Moonlit fog roiled silently 'round the granite marker. The name furrowed on its face was unimportant. 'Twas the dates beneath that mattered. A strange custom had developed in this region and with innumerable participants, the people ripped Time from one chronology and reinserted it into the fabric of the universe later. The body six feet below the surface had ceased living in another season when Fate had slated a painful demise to begin, a finale unfinished because their ritual had interrupted. But the corpse was about to regain that hour. 

Three, two, one.... 

Flash Fiction: The Lost Hour

Wow, I go to the Tucson Festival of Books and my shoes are all stretched out, chopped-off toes strewn around my closet floor, and KAK and Jim toss up amazing bits of flash fiction that set the bar really damn high.

I did get to be on a panel with Terry Brooks, however. And I may have squealed unbecomingly when he held up my book and read reviews from the front. Forever thanks to faithful reader Lynne Facer for grabbing this truly epic photograph.

And now, my contribution to the week's flash fiction challenge, filling in what happens during that hour we lose by springing forward.

**************************************

Too restless to sit, he paced a tight circle around the park bench, checking his watch yet again. Not quite yet 8 a.m., so he shouldn’t be impatient for her arrival.

Still, he couldn’t wait to see her again, to see her beloved face, to tell her he finally understood what she’d tried to explain in all those arguments, both shouted and hissed. Since receiving her note, he’d practiced all the apologies, the promises to change. He would do it, for her.

This early on a Sunday morning, very few other people graced the park, so he’d see her arriving from a ways off. He recited his resolutions again, in time to his footsteps, shushing through the damp grass.

 

I’ll change. I won’t be a Luddite. I’ll get a smartphone and learn to text. Computers aren’t evil, only the way they’re used. I won’t be jealous of your social media friends. I won’t tell you only paper books are real.

Even though he might privately still think so.

The watch hands ticked into place, 8:00, on the dot. Any moment she’d arrive. Even if she was late, he wouldn’t say anything. He was a changed man and could learn to live with her lack of punctuality.

You’d think, though, that for such an important meeting—one that she arranged—she would have made extra effort to be on time. That just showed respect for each other. If she didn’t spend so much time looking at her phone, chatting with people who weren’t even her real friends, she wouldn’t run behind. He loved her and he was real, flesh and blood. She should value that.

8:05. Officially late. Tamping down the irritation, he reversed his circles around the bench. Here she’d said she’d only give him fifteen minutes for the apology he’d beseeched her to accept and she’d blown five of them.

8:07. Edging into irresponsible. Couldn’t she understand how it hurt him for her to abuse his time this way? He didn’t ask so much. The careless bitch. Probably reading one of her trashy ebooks and forgetting all about him.

By ten after, he began to question if he had the right day. Fishing the note out of his pocket—on fine stationery, even, proving that she’d considered his sensibilities—he read it for the hundredth time.

Dear Steve,
Yes, I have received all the letters you sent me. I feel like you’ve already apologized, already made all the promises. We’ve been around this block too many times to count. I loved you—maybe I still do—but we’re simply not compatible. You’re an old-fashioned guy, which is okay! But I’m a modern woman who works in tech. I can’t feel bad about who I am anymore.
Still, because it means so much to you, I’m willing to see you one last time. Meet me Sunday morning, March 13, at 8:00 a.m. I promise to be on time if you will. But I’ll only wait fifteen minutes. I strongly advise you to carefully check the time.
With hope,
Julie

8:15. She hadn’t shown. Irritating that she’d advised him to carefully check the time. She knew he did, ritually winding his grandfather’s watch every night before bed. Setting the alarm on his mechanical clock, the sound of ticking minutes a comfort through the night, though she had complained of the noise. She who slept with that blasted phone on her nightstand.

Fuck her anyway, that she’d taunt him this way. Whether she forgot, overslept or was simply paying him back for all those imagined insults, he didn’t care. She was too picky. Completely selfish and self-absorbed.

He couldn’t believe that she’d done this to him.

I promise to be on time if you will.

He held the watch to his ear, the ticking reassuring him that he was in the right. He’d been on time and she hadn’t.

“Watch stop?” A man slowed his jog, glancing at the display on his wrist. “I’ve got 9:25.”

Steve frowned at his watch display. “8:25, you mean.”

The jogger grinned. “Time change. Spring forward. We lost an hour.” Speeding up, he disappeared around the bend.

I strongly advise you to carefully check the time.

He'd lost far more than an hour.

Flash Fiction: The Lost Hour

Jeffe's off hobnobin' and ballyhooin' at the Tuscon Festival of Books this weekend, so I'm back to muck with her hats and shoes. No, wait. Not shoes. She has tiny feet. Damnitall.  Well, I guess I ought to get to it and tell you, beloved readers, the story of...

What Happens to the Lost Hour of DST

As told to the children who asked...

Time is not a matter of years or months or days. Hours and minutes are just units of measure. It is the seconds that count. The tick, the tock. And do you know why we call it Tick and Tock?

Those are the names of Father Time's dragons.

You see, Father Time has a great big workshop. Our little blue earth sits on a high shelf with all the other planets in our solar system ringing the sparkling orange sun. Tick and Tock are enamored with the vibrant colors of our planets. The rhythmic thumping of their tails cause the worlds to turn ever so slightly, rolling us around the great big sun. It's all a very grand game to them, making the planets move without ever touching them.

But, there are moments when Tick and Tock are mischievous--as all dragons are wont to be.

They know they can look but not touch the pretty, pretty planets. However, on rare occasion, when Father Time is engrossed in his work, Tick will clamber up on Tock's back and stretch his very long neck to get a closer look at our world. There is a scent--of spring and rain, of flowers and grass, and--

Achoo!

Our little world tumbles forward. Tick scrambles off Tock as Father Time looks up from his work. His thick white brows furrow. He glances at his dragons. They look up at him, eyes wide, tails thumping. Father Time chuckles and scruffs their heads, then goes back to work.

That, ladies and gentlemen is how we lose an hour.

Dragon sneeze.

Down the Rabbit Hole? Flash Fiction Part Seven

In the unit next to Crowley's, Aurora opened her eyes.

Shaking, Drake backpedaled.

"Time to find out whether the truth will set me free," he gritted.

He spoke before she could do more than part her lips. “We’re not going down the rabbit hole again. I don’t give a damn if you’re on my side, their side, your own side. I think you’ve been just as played here as I have.”

“Forced to do things I don’t want to do,” she whispered, her lips blue. As the door to the unit opened, she half fell into his arms. “Do you even remember what we came for, sir?” she asked as he prevented her from collapsing.

He shook off the faint voice in his head, blathering on about the red cross, the yellow doors…fuck it. Whoever was running this show wanted him to reset. Well fine, time for the blue ouroboros, eating its own damn tail. Which is what the Unknown They had him and his team doing for days, months, years maybe. Chasing their tails like demented dogs. Taking a step back, he shot out the controls of Arthur’s unit and the door flew open. His partner fell onto the floor, landing with bone jarring force on his hands and knees, shaking with dry heaves.

“We’re getting out of here, people,” Drake said to Aurora and Arthur. “We’ve lost Crowley, at least for now. Who knows how real any of this bullshit is? Get up, soldiers, follow me. It’s only twenty paces to the doors, we can make that. One of us has to get into the room behind the blue snake.”

He left them assisting each other to rise. Going to the door of the cryo chamber, he peered cautiously through the window, staying as low as he could. “Hall’s empty, let’s go.” Not waiting for backup, he burst through the doors, sprinting for the three symbols painted on otherwise blank panels at the end of the corridor. He angled toward the red cross but at the last second slid on the slick floor like a panicky quarterback and went crashing feet first through the door bearing the endless blue snake.

Opening his eyes, Drake realized he was suspended in a vast star field, no up or down, nothing but the black of space all around him. Off to the left he watched a supernova explode in slow motion, while on the right planets coalesced from a dust cloud. “What the hell?” Time is really screwed up.

Arthur and Aurora bumped into him a few seconds apart. The three soldiers clung together, rotating slowly in space, protected by some invisible shield.

“How do we get home from here, sir?” Arthur asked, voice eerie and thin in their strange cocoon.

Muscle memory meeting his unspoken command, Drake maneuvered in the lack of gravity to see what lay behind them.

A giant ship of some kind. Ours? Theirs?

“We – we went to explore that derelict, didn’t we?” Aurora said.

He twisted so he could look at her face. “I think so.”

“But there were twenty of us.” Arthur’s voice was gaining strength. “I’m remembering. We all volunteered for the duty.”

“And then when we got on board, we became someone’s playthings. Or lab rats.” Drake saw it all now, the coldness of space bringing clarity.

“This may still be the experiment.” Aurora sounded close to tears.

“Well, I know one thing – I love you. I don’t know if we were in love before we set foot in that house of mirrors and horrors but I sure the hell can’t live without you now.” Drake’s heart beat faster as he made the declaration, feeling to the core of his being the statement was true.

For answer she gave him a blinding smile, tugging him close for a kiss.

“Uh, guys, this is all very heart warming,” Arthur said a few moments later, “But I think we need to get out of here before the keeper tries to repossess its specimens. Isn’t that our ship over there?”

“How do we--” Drake had barely begun the thought when the bubble or whatever it was sheltering them, moved toward the small ship they’d ridden to these co-ordinates. “Maybe all that poking and prodding and experimenting they did on us gave us some abilities we didn’t own before, you think?”

The trio reached the open airlock on their own vessel and tumbled inside, delivered by the bubble, which seemed to dissipate as the ship sealed in response to Drake’s hasty command.

He was up and running for the control chamber a moment later, Aurora and Arthur right behind. Vaulting into the center seat, Drake said a silent prayer as he flipped switches and punched buttons, lighting the engines and demanding full emergency power. The ship responded with a shudder, accelerating into hyperspace, leaving the alien derelict drifting in its wake.

Experiment Concluded…… 85% mortality rate

Remaining Subjects returned to their natural habitat……

Follow-up: Not required

Recommendation:  Subjects too willful and self-directed to be useful for Program. No further need for testing in this quadrant. Moving on to next assigned location. Have identified potential population for sampling.

DECISIONS Serial Flash Fiction: Part Three

One more step and he would have to choose. Knife or wife.

He could feel her breath. So warm brushing over his skin, raising hairs and burning memories. Fingers trembling, he reached for the blush along her cheek.

Thirty milliamps jerked his eyes wide and seized his heart. The filaments of illusion fell away. Blue and gold light scrabbled around a barren room of steel alloy. Electricity arced and zinged, neatly avoiding the Lucite chamber at the very center of the room.

A Courtier's Catch. A godsdamned electrified prison box.

His big boot was on the pressure pad.

He dropped, convulsing. Foam and spittle formed on his lips, carrying the scent of broiled meat. Black spots burst before his eyes. Hot and wet oozed down his legs.

His greatest damnation smiled and stretched. Muscular limbs straddled the clear bench that had once seemed a sumptuous bed. The knife, though, that was real enough; that she clenched in her left hand. Her right tapped the hollow behind her ear.

"Turn it down, Jhonyi. We need his precious brain wholly functional. Call up Doc and her minions. Maybe she'll have better luck locating his implant."

The light-show died. The floor brightened to glaring white. He stopped gagging on his own bile, but couldn't work his lungs worth a damn. Beneath the keening between his ears, his gasps sounded like an old vinyl record at the end of its song.

His wife slapped the flat of her blade against the Lucite wall. "Darling, you never could make a decision and stick with it. You've been dead twice. That's beyond a miracle. That's a problem."

Rubber hands hoisted him off the floor and dragged him out the door.

Crackling echoed inside his skull.

"Tank's finally topped off. All circuits now registering. Let's bring his systems online."

A hum. Two hums. Three and his lungs finally drew in a real breath. Still tasted like charred chicken.

"Easy, easy, buddy." The voice no one believed was real had the gall to chuckle. "Twenty paces 'til three doors. Red cross for the infirmary and Patient Zero's blood sample. Yellow biohazard leads to the containment cells holding the rest of your team. Blue ouroboros...no one knows."

He closed his eyes and prayed to any god that would listen. Opening his eyes changed his vision.

"Five steps. Four. Three. Two..."

Decision in the Dark

Through the crack of the barely open door, her body glowed pearlescent in the moonlight. She’d flung back the summer blanket and the white sheet twisted over her hip, tangling between her thighs. The short nightgown faded into shadows, as did the silk scarf of her long hair, falling over the pillow in a dramatic sweep.

She hadn’t run.

Not yet.

Easing the door open, he slipped into the room, moving quietly so as not to wake her. It was a toss-up how she’d react. Entirely possible that she’d thought he’d left and wouldn’t return. Or that she banked on him not having the courage to come there to seek her out. That he wouldn’t have dared.

But then, she’d never guessed at the depths of his obsession. To be fair, he hadn’t told her. Even he wasn’t that much of a fool. Still, staying away from her had never been an option and, now that he stood in her bedroom, watching her sleep, his hands ached to touch her skin, to thread through her hair and brush aside the tangled sheet. 

She might scream if he did. More likely she’d use the knife under the pillow to lay him open before he could explain. Or she might smile as she had that one rainy night, and open her silken limbs to welcome him in, her lush mouth hot on his, both fierce and surrendering.

If she’d wanted him to forget her, she should never have kissed him like that.

He flexed his fingers. He should go, stealing away as quietly as he’d come in. She’d never know he’d been there. 

Or should he touch her and take the risk?

Flash Fiction There's Bacon Involved

Ok, our task this week was to write a flash fiction using certain words our Readers gave us (thanks by the way!).

The scene takes place at an unnamed movie studio:

AMANDA: "I'm telling' ya, Sid, this script can't miss. It's got zombies that can only be killed with strips of bacon around their necks. We'll do that  odor-o-rama thing and drive the audiences wild. Everyone loves bacon. And we already got a star attached."

SID: "If you're talking about Sally Sue Silvania, she said she'd do the pic over her dead, gelatinous body, as I recall."

AMANDA considers: "Nah, we need her alive, not playing a zombie. I know she's got a big head about hitting the A List and winning all those awards in that chick flick she did about the delicious cupcake chef. That ain't enough to get her out of the last film she owes us on her contract." (Lowers her voice, moves closer to SID.)  "And I happen to know she has a thing for guys with um hardware. Have you seen that new hunk our boss just signed? If he doesn't have a piercing you-know-where, I'll play the part myself."

Will Sally Sue relent? Does the new guy have a piercing you-know-where? Is there enough bacon to save us all? Will the zombies take over the earth??? Coming to a theater near you in 360 Odor-o-rama SOON!

Flash Fiction that Might Not Be as Flash as All That

Happy Friday the 13th!!

Our words:

zombie
combustion
delicious
gelatinous
piercing
bacon

There was another rule. Something about 149 words. I got those. Twice. Plus maybe a few extras. Brevity and wit apparently aren't my things.

SOMEWHERE IN SPACE

"Didja ever figure out what they are? Zombies?"

"Nah. They're alive. Indigenous life form. Carbon based, polysaccharides and a whole bunch more we don't know yet. Can't get samples easily. No one expected gelatinous oozes on a space rock. Now. Shut up. Bait doesn't talk."

The spacesuit encased man, lashed to a cluster of O2 tanks uttered a pained laugh. "Gelatinous ooze. I see the resemblance. I played that game in junior high."

"Didn't we all."

"You and the team didn't expect these things to eat through the expedition's stores, either?"

"Who'd have thought they'd have a taste for earth based food?"

With the piercing squeal of metal on metal, translucent blobs inched around the iron and nickel rich rocks.

"It's not just food, they have a taste for. Is it?"

"Nope."

"So you're just going to let them rip me apart?"

"Nothing like that. I mean to take the bastards out. You're my bait. And my bomb. Do you know how
hard it is to achieve combustion without oxygen?"

"You can't afford to blow these auxiliary tanks! Stop this!"

"Eh. The mining team found a frozen supply. We're good on that front. Just food, you thief."

"Look, Lieutenant, all I did . . ."

"Was steal supplies. We know."

"Dammit. I thought you said these things wouldn't come near while I was talking!"

"I said 'bait doesn't talk' to get you yakking. Turns out, they're attracted to noise."

"Lieutenant, this won't help! Killing me solves nothing! Why are you . . ."

"Because I'm a psychopathic bitch, Roberts."

"I didn't mean that."

"Sure you did, but I don't hold a grudge. Your problem is that I made a bet." She pressed a button. Before her shuttle view port, the twitching, struggling space suit, already engulfed in blue-gray ooze, vanished in a brilliant flash of orange fire. The short-lived fire ball burned off. Telltale, blackened carbon smeared the nearby surfaces. A charred space suit lay crumpled before a trio of oxygen tanks that had blown out like flowers blooming.

"Heh. Gotcha, you bastards. That'll teach you to steal our food. Sorry, Roberts. Plenz bet that you'll taste like bacon. Me? I'm going with revenge being delicious."

149 Words of Flash Fiction Fun

Teeth began piercing her skin and she screamed as the zombie tore away flesh and began chewing with the same gregarious fervor her father displayed when relishing a plateful of delicious bacon. On the day the apocalypse began, she knew her life would inevitably end this way--they would all die this way--but she wouldn't have guessed the infectious bite would work so quickly, thickening her blood to a gelatinous goo clotting her veins. She wouldn't have guessed she'd feel pressure building into searing agony as it caused the combustion of internal organs one by one. She wouldn't have guessed she'd live long enough to experience such multitudinous aches. And she wouldn't have guessed that while her killer was yet feasting upon her, she would feel her mind ablaze, humanity burning away, transforming her into the embodiment of a relentless hunger housed in a soulless and rotting body.


Thank you, dear readers, for the six ad-lib words shaping this week's series of flash-fiction:

 zombie, delicious, gelatinous, combustion, piercing, bacon.

Flash Fiction: The Bake-Off

Rotting flesh. Sickly pale greenish grey with a whiff of excrement.  Every last one.  Zarth closed his eyes and slammed the lid shut. "You said these were fresh."

"What? Thems still a movin' in there." Ugi flicked a claw against the stained slats of the teetering, moaning crate. "A baker's dozen, high quality, pre-seasoned. Pay up."

Zarth rubbed the dense scales of his ridged brow. "That stink and color are not indicative of seasoning, you idiot. It's decay. These are zombies, magic-infused reanimations. I asked for fresh lively humans."

"You asked for the pie baker's secret ingredient." Ugi snorted.Coils of smoke danced through the piercings in his wide-set nostrils. "If yous not appreciate the flavor of magic, well, maybe you don't deserve the high-hill kitchen, eh?" 

The pie baker had won the bake-off five years running. Zarth would be damned if he'd lose to her again. No more second place. No more runner-up. No more consolation contracts. No more toiling away in the valley where the mountains trapped the aromas of the delicious dishes he made. Every hateful day, once sumptuous, sultry bouquets turned sour, lingering in layers upon layers of conflicting cloying stink. It didn't matter how good the flavor was if customers couldn't get past the stench.

This year he would win the high-hill kitchens where the strong, cleansing winds would disperse the scents of his scrumptious temptations to the entire horde. His business would finally overtake the bottle-bellied baker's. His culinary genius would finally be recognized.

Most of all, he'd finally enjoy cooking again.

This year, he had the sure-fire recipe to win the bake-off. Something unique, something novel. The inside-out pie. A tightly woven bacon crust with cow dumplings suspended in a gelatinous forest stew.

Zarth slammed a trunk of gemstones on the table. "Payment, as promised. But so help me,  if these aren't--"

"They are," Ugi interrupted. The hunter pulled up a stool and draped his arm over the trunk. "We known each other too long. Knew you'd come 'round."

"You can go now," Zarth groused.

"You gonna need a taste-tester." Ugi patted his belly. "I'm already here."

"Fine. Make yourself useful. Light the combustion gasses." Zarth thew open the capture-crate and suppressed the rise of bile in his throat. He dipped his talons in brine, then hoisted a zombie by its head.

Time to make magic-flavored bacon.

Thank you, dear readers, for the six ad-lib words shaping this week's series of flash-fiction:

 zombie, delicious, gelatinous, combustion, piercing, bacon.

An Ode to Breakfast, by Jackson Cat

This week on Word Whores we're doing a bit of flash fiction. Last week we asked for word suggestions. Each of us will write a short story based on these six words:


zombie
delicious
gelatinous
combustion
piercing
bacon

Here's mine.

*****

Soaking hot on his black fur, the sun sizzled in the window, warming him into gelatinous relaxation. In the kitchen, the combustion of bacon hitting the hot pan signaled Jackson's favorite time of day: breakfast. With a piercing meow that would frighten zombies, he leapt off the day bed and galloped off to acquire the delicious treats that awaited.

Effervescent (FlashFic)

by Allison Pang

Another bit of flash fiction for the subject of the week. :)

OOO

The boat shimmied on the line, pulling at the ropes like a fierce horse as the waves shunted it away from the docks. I could only watch in silence.

The Effervescent Mermaid was my father’s, a downeast cruiser of ramshackle paint and a host of memories all wrapped within the scent of brine and dead fish. The lobster traps hung useless at the sides, dreaming of crustaceans and covered in a smattering of barnacles.

And I?

I had no dreams. No wish to feed my family upon the whims of the sea.

From where I stood, I couldn’t see the shrouded body of my father, nestled in the bosom of his beloved boat, rocking to a lullaby he could no longer hear. But if I cocked my head just so, I almost saw the old man, nut-brown and stooped and smiling at the white-caps in the distance.

The rope whined beneath the strain of an impatient current.

Time, time it sang.

I sliced the rope, watching only until the boat began to drift. For a moment it was as if the boat were the anchor and the dock was afloat, bobbing and whirling me into some distant place.

“Aye, then,” I whispered and turned away.

Dreams. Death.

The tide could take them both.

Flash Fiction - Decrepit

     I left the odd little house down at the end of the street to last. Weedy empty lots surrounded the dingy green clapboard house. It’s only neighbors were broken glass, scraps of paper and sodden sleeping bags, mostly with no one in them, snarled in the briars trying to overrun the house. Thick, thorny blackberry vines had grabbed hold of one sagging corner of the house. I’d never been able to tell whether the house sagged because the berry vines were pulling it down or if vines had snagged the house because it had begun crumbling of its own accord.

     I didn’t bring the delivery truck up the narrow street. No room to turn around and the gravel shoulders were notoriously soft. Besides. The old man living in the house, Mr. Tilfson, never had anything bigger or heavier than a breadbox delivered. I carried his package up the street. I strode past the empty lot stinking of rot and urine. Homeless encampment, I assumed. Why didn’t the old man call the cops?

     He knew my delivery schedule and I heard him coming out to the porch to meet me. Scraaaaaape. Clunk. Scraaaaaaape. Clunk. Listing like a barge taking on water, Mr. Tilfson listed. To remedy that situation, he dragged a great big axe around with him where ever he went. He used it to prop his decrepit, bony frame upright. The metal axe head rested on the ground. His gnarled hand rested on the butt end of the handle.

     “Here you go,” I said, stopping one step down. I offered up his package.

     Sparse, wiry, white hair poked like straw from beneath a baseball cap so old and filthy it was colorless. Dark bird eyes followed my every move and when I set the cardboard box into his free hand, he grinned a gap-toothed smile. He set the box on the porch rail.

     “Afore you run off,” he wheezed. “Do an old man a favor? Got a deep freeze in the car port. Been a long time since these old bones’d let me reach down into the bottom of it for a morsel of venison.”

     “Sure thing.” I rounded the front of the house.

     He followed, dragging that damned axe across the porch as he came. Bloated black plastic trash bags, the skeletons of ancient lawnmowers and thick spider webs cluttered the car port, but against the back wall, a white deep freeze stood, the path to it clear of debris. The old man hefted his axe down one step, then, one hand on the railing, the other on the axe handle, hobbled down. He tailed me to the freezer, the metal of his makeshift crutch screeching on the concrete beneath my feet.

     He hadn’t lied about not being able to get into the deep freeze. It took me two tries to break the seal and lift the lid. The damned thing wasn’t deep. It was cavernous. Leaning over to snatch a white paper wrapped packet off the bottom took me off my feet. I picked up the packet.

     And looked into the pair of wide open, iced over eyes the wrapped meet had been concealing. My breath went out in a rush.

     “Nice thing about being a butcher,” the old guy wheezed. “I can refill the larder my own self. Hand over the meat.”

     What else could I do? Staring at those eyes, I handed up the packet. “I don’t understand how you get away with it.”

     “Old age and treachery kid.”

     Scraaaaape.

     Excrutiating pain exploded at the back of my head. I fell into those eyes. So far down.
    
     “Old age and treachery."

Crisp

by Allison Pang

I think for a number of these topics, I'm going to start writing flash fiction as a bit of a warm-up to other things, particularly if I don't have much else to say on the subject. (I've a number of other little projects I'm working on, and I figure I might as well pop into some character heads to get to know them better. Which could be a good or bad thing.)


Crisp

The apple is crisp the way her bones are crisp – crunching between pale teeth, skin splitting to lay bare the sweetness of the flesh within. It drops from her fingers; such nerveless appendages no longer have use for fruit. The juice stains her lips, even as her blood stains mine.

Beneath a coating of dew, the apple glitters like snow in the sunlight.

Flash Fiction Challenge: Chicken, Map, Whirl

             “You want us to just abandon the cabin, pack some food and water on the poor mule and take off into the mountains tomorrow because you found a  map?”  Sara tossed the sole remaining chicken some kernels of corn and glared at her husband.

              Sam kicked the porch with the well scuffed toe of his boot. “Aww, don’t look at me like that, Sary. I swear, this map is the real thing.”

      “You have the one and only map to the buried treasure of Cordoba. And you found it where?” She folded the empty corn sack, mentally estimating whether this last sack would be enough to finish the dress she was sewing for their daughter. So she’d have something new to wear when school starts.

       Taking her hand and spinning her around till her head was in a whirl, Sam laughed. “That’s the best part, the reason why I’m sure it’s genuine. I was prospecting in that old mine up by the high pasture and there was a cave-in recently. Maybe from that earthquake last week. And behind the collapsed wall, I found the skeletons of four of those old time Spanish conquistadores. One of them was clutching this map.”

                Maybe our luck has turned, maybe he is onto something. Trying not to let her excitement get too far ahead of her common sense, Sara led him inside the ramshackle cabin, out of sight of any prying eyes. “Well, let me see it,” she said, hands on her hips.

                Licking his lips, Sam made an excruciatingly protracted business of untying the flap on his saddle bag and withdrawing a folded, stained piece of tanned deerhide. He spread the crude map out on their wobbly table, and Sara moved closer. “See, here’s the river, and here’s the canyon, and that old mountain goat trail that winds through the pass.” His finger traced the route as he named the local landmarks. “And here’s the gold.” He stabbed the big red X painted near the top of the map, deep in the mountains.

                “But what’s all this writing off to the side?” She touched the black scrawls with her fingertip. “And is this a bloodstain?”

                “You know I can’t read. Not Spanish nor English.” Her husband frowned, seeming a bit annoyed at her cautious appraisal of the map.

                “I think it’s Latin,” she said, trying to remember long ago lessons with her older brothers, back in Philadelphia. “Could be a prayer. Or a curse. Looks like it was written in a hurry.”

                He licked his lips. “Now, Sary, no one believes in curses nowadays.”

                She flinched as the wind blew the door open with a bang.  “Well, what killed those Spaniards? You said they were buried behind a wall, right?”

                Sam came up behind her as she closed the door. Catching her for a kiss, he said, “Will you for just once in your life stop being all practical and take a risk?”

                I did that when I married you and move to this godforsaken wasteland. 

Flash Fiction Challenge: Zombie, Cooking, Checkers

The rules were: Three words, as short a story as we could manage with no more than 24 hours to contemplate. My words were "Zombie, Cooking, Checkers." Those three words are almost a flash fiction story in and of themselves. So I didn't stray far from that line.

THE COOKING CONTEST

“Chef Janelle, from Chez Frou-Frou, lovely to have you in the competition. Chef Jorge comes to us from his avant-garde restaurant Skid Marks. And finally, in a great, pleasant surprise, Chef Timothy from the renowned café Mystery Meat! We’re pleased to see you, sir. Rumors of your untimely death were greatly exaggerated, it seems, and we’re all of us glad of it.”

The panel of judges could be heard whispering in the background. “Is he a bit – pale? He seems pale to me.”

“On to the contest! You know the rules! You each have the same list of ingredients with which to create your dishes based upon the theme we give you. Our panel of judges will rate your creations based on imagination, presentation and, of course, taste. Perhaps the most challenging ingredient in today’s contest: Brains!”

All three contestants groaned. Though perhaps Chef Timothy groaned longest.

“Your theme is: Checkers! Let your imaginations run wild. Ready? Set? COOK!”

<Stay tuned for the results after this word from our sponsors!>

“AND we’re back! In a contest first, we’ve had not one, but TWO of our contestants drop out of the competition without a word. Our thanks to Chef Timothy for staying the course and to our staff chef for stepping in at the last minute to give Chef Timothy a run for his money. Judges ready for the unveiling of the dishes? Voila!”

“Our staff chef has given us lightly scrambled eggs and beef brains garnished with a clever checkered pattern of sour cream and chives. Well done, Trish!”

The panel of three judges each tasted the dish before moving on to sample Chef Timothy’s offering. General exclamations of delight followed from all three judges.

“Chef Timothy! Step forward, please!”

He shambled two steps toward the judging table. All three judges traded concerned glances. Chef Timothy’s pallor had taken on a distinctly blue tinge.

“Chef Timothy, this is a fabulous presentation of light and dark meats arranged in a checker board pattern topped with a mélange of brains sautéed in butter, white wine, and capers. It is excellent, sir! Excellent. Tell us what we’re eating?”

“Braaains.”

“Well, yes, sir. Can you be more specific?”

After a moment’s silence, Chef Timothy grinned a bloody toothed grin. “Janelle and Jorge braaains.”

Bordello Challenge: BloodStone

by Allison Pang

My words for this challenge were gecko, cape and diamond. I don't really write flash anything, so have 1000 or so words of anthropomorphic oddness:

OOO

Rain pelts the rooftop with all the gentleness of crystalline bullets, the sound becoming a gentle plat plat when it hits the plastic hood of my waterproof.  It’s more of a cape, really – four legs and a tail don’t lend themselves well to human clothing standards.

But it’s got plenty of coverage and that’s all that matters at the moment.

“Do you see it?”   As sidekicks go, Skink is all right. He’s cheerful enough and fast on the take, but he can’t stick to walls for shit.

“Not yet,” I hiss. “And move over. You just poked me in the eye.”

“Like that's hard to do. Friggin’ big enough.” But he shifts all the same, peering through the slick glass into the museum below. “Remind me again why we thought this was a good idea?”

“Because someone had the bad sense to play cards with Python last night...and got caught cheating?”

He flushes, his skin mottling. “How was I supposed to know he’d have spotted that extra ace?”

“You’re a lousy card player, Skink. The moment you got cocky he was bound to know something was up.” I give him a sour look. “Never mind it now. We pull this off and we’ll be all set. Probably have some left over. Besides, I’m tired of eating that mealworm slugbait Rabbit calls food. I want a proper meal of salted crickets for once. And that little beauty is going to help me get it.” I incline my head toward the skylight, far below to where the Ulun'suti lays mounted on a crystal pedestal.

I’m not sure Skink really believes Uktena ever existed. I’m not sure I do either. But Python does and apparently the promise of getting his coils on a family artifact is worth more than lining his jacket with what’s left of my friend’s skin.

At any rate,  there’s no denying that there’s a damned huge diamond waiting to fall into my sticky little padded fingers. Whether it came from a mythological serpent or not makes no difference to me. I just want the goods.

“Let’s get this over with, aye?” Skink uncoils the rope at his hip.

My tongue flicks out to land on my eyeball, slathering it in comforting moisture.

Nervous habit.

But there it is. I remove the waterproof before motioning Skink to use his glass cutter to slice through the skylight. The sound sets my teeth on edge, but a moment later and there’s a smooth hole just large enough for me to fit through.

Skink hands me the rope and I hook it to the belt at my waist.  “I’ll go first, like we planned. If I hit trouble, pull me back up.”

“Aye,” he agrees soberly.

I slither into the hole; my toes spread wide over the glass to grip the smooth surface with ease.

“Piece of cake,” I mutter, and a moment later I’ve wriggled through so I’m hanging upside down and staring back at Skink.

“Looking good, boss.”

“Damn right.” The rope hangs easy from my belt, but Skink tugs it briefly to keep the line taut so it doesn’t twist around my tail.

The climb down is quick. I find myself scuttling from surface to surface, keeping a wary eye on my prize, but it remains as motionless as ever on its pedestal. Something about it makes my vision waver, but I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other until I’ve completed my descent.

The museum has other artifacts, of course. Dusty scales and hen’s teeth and the remains of a barnacle goose beneath a glass cover.  On any other night, I’d probably take my time to see if there was anything else worth stealing. But not tonight.

A shadow skitters down one of the side hallways and I freeze.

“Gecko,” Skink whispers, giving the rope a tentative pull. I shake my head. This close to the diamond I can see the streak of red within, giving off a faint pulse of light. I stand on my hind legs and twiddle the toes on my right front foot as though testing its reflexes. Quick, quick and gone.

“It needs blood, you know.” My hand jerks to my chest on instinct, though there’s no doubt whatsoever as to what I’m doing here.

“I beg your pardon?” Stunned or not, no sense in bad manners, and the Panther who struts in will not be fooled.

Her agate gaze slide over me with amusement, but she doesn’t seem particularly worried.  My tongue flicks back over my eye before I can stop it. Dammit.

“Blood,” she says archly, circling around the pillar and me, even as her chest rumbles with a soft purr.  Her tail slinks around my waist and I struggle to keep from shuddering. “A proper thief would have done his research before his pilferage.”

“Ah, well. I’m not exactly a proper anything.” I’m babbling, my brain whirring with possibilities and outcomes. None of them are good and at least two will involve me losing most of my tail.

The purring stops. “Pity.”

When she strikes, it’s beyond fast. The claws slice down my chest, raking over my hip. Skink has finally figured out what’s going on but from the way the rope suddenly puddles to the floor to curl around my feet, it’s clear I’m on my own.

Can’t say I blame him, but he can forget about getting his cut for this little endeavor.

Panther swats at me again, but I duck this time, my breath hitching at the exquisite rush of pain from my wounds. Twisting out of the belt, my fingers leave a bloody trail down my side, but I no longer have to worry about tripping.

In fact, all I have to do is grab the diamond and climb the wall. She won’t be able to follow me once I reach the window.

I roll between her legs when she moves toward me, leaping forward to the top of the pedestal. The pads on my fingers barely brush the surface of the diamond when a low wail ripples through the room.

An alarm? But no, the diamond in my hands pulses to life, beating like a crystalline heart, crooning with a song I have no name for but which terrifies me to the marrow of my bones.

The room spins, darkness overtaking me in a swirling rush.

When I wake, I am in the desert, clutching a blood-smeared red diamond.

The End. (For now)

Bordello Flash-Fiction: Escape From Saturday Morning

Oh, you darling, lovely, twisted readers. How awesome of you to arrange for me to have the following words for my piece of flash-fiction:

Gumball.    Naked mole rat.    Baboon.

~snarfs into wine~  Alllllrighty then, you asked for it.



A cold sting spread over my cheek. Once. Twice. The third time the sting burned hot. My technicolor acid trip warped and waffled. Streaks morphed into faces. Animated. Cartoon animated. Saturday morning side-kicks pushed and pulled at me. Screeches dropped an octave or two into comprehensible words.

"Sober up, demon, you got to go. Animators, they comin' for you." I.R. Baboon from I AM WEASEL threw his shoulder into my side and shoved me down the sterilized grey hall.

A bell dinged. Monotone. The elevator at the end of the corridor flashed its red linear numbers.

Bing. Bing. Bing. 3. 4. 5.  

The etching on the tall steel doors read 13.

"But that's what I want. The animators are the gatekeepers." I twisted away from Baboon. "I mean, I'll get out of here. I'll be back on the screen."

"Back on the screen? Back on the ..." Baboon held his sides and laughed. "You daft demon, you never been on the screen. You too damn old. How much ink you drink today, eh?"

Bing. Bing. Bing. 6. 7. 8.

A pink turd dropped from the ceiling, pulling down an air vent. No. Not a turd. A naked mole rat. Rufus from KIM POSSIBLE dangled from the wire-work. He chirred and grunted, gesturing wildly up to the air shaft.

I pressed my back to the wall. "The animators, they can update me. I can make it out through them. Every TV, tablet, and phone. I can go anywhere, be anyone."

Bing. Bing. Bing. 9. 10. 11.

"Animators don't digitize something as old as you. If they try, you get erased permanently." Baboon pushed me toward Rufus. "The Studio Head found your magic lamp on eBay. He wants you back on the glass, demon. Bind you to the lamp. Bind you to him."

"Fontana cursed the lamp. It wasn't enough to curse me. He cursed the lamp too." My world spun. Those days in 16th century Venice, crawling over plaster and stone just so a mad scientist could scare some coin from his patrons. Fontana the Inventor. Fontana the Magus. He'd been a fraud until that blood-stained night when he'd turned me from a man into the first animation. Stole my work. Stole my life. Damned my soul.  

Bing. 12.

I leapt for the air duct.

"Oy, take this." Baboon tossed a black gumball at me. "If you want to be free forever from the lamp, demon, you got to put someone on the glass. They eat that gumball, they turn to ink...and that ink better be on your glass."

Bing. 13.

Glass. Gumball.

Gone.