"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
Just a note to say that I am busy working on, outlining, making notes for and writing “Sidetracked.” My serial science-fiction novel where our young hero, just out of High School roars his motorcycle through a mysterious portal and finds himself on a parallel Earth. (The first clue is the two smaller Suns together in the sky!)
Sidetracked will start posting on January 1st, 2027 and it’s going to be a challenge but I’m going to enjoy it!
I’m posting it under my pen name of “Mike Mayak,” because there are a few too many “Jeff Bakers” writing right now. (Good name, but I need to stand out!)
I am not ditching my other writing projects, but the weekly flash fiction stories will be on hiatus for a while although I may do one or two now and then. “Sidetracked” will post in installments on this blog and on the Friday Flash Fics socials.
And yes, I plan on releasing “Sidetracked” as a serial novel when it’s all done. Probably sometime in 2028.
So, thanks to all my readers out there, and keep watching this space for more information!
T’amec was getting used to the new system at Food Garden Court even if the customers were a little leery. The company was phasing out the intercoms they used in the mall to tell customers their order was ready by calling out the number on their ticket. No more “Take a Number,” they just handed the customer the little plastic disc, about the size of a coaster.
Skid was not that sure, but he knew that some of the things they had as customers customers probably ate their receipts.
The intercom had worked fairly well and it had been fun sometimes, but they never knew what they would get when they called out “Order Number Six-Six-Six, your order’s ready.”
The new idea had come from Corporate.
Pagers.
The small discs were supposed to indicate to customers when their order was ready. Vibrate or beep.
The discs all bore the slogan: HELPING CUSTOMERS SINCE 64 B.C.
“What do we do?” T’amec asked. “Rub a lamp?”
Actually, they just hit the order number on the screen at the register.
“This is assuming we have that many customers,” one of the other employees said. It was the slow time of year, even on the weekend. The customers would typically stay by the counter and shoot the breeze with whoever was making their order.
It was on that weekend that things got interesting. Mr. Sprague was insisting that they really had to start using the new pagers.
First order up; cup of broth and the small meat roll. T’amec took the order, handed the customer his pager and told her “That’ll go off when your order’s ready.”
T’amec realized that made it sound like an explosive.
As it turned out, he was not too far off.
Broth and meat roll were up and T’amec touched the symbol on the screen.
At the customer’s table a few feet away, the little plastic disc lit up with an accompanying sizzle. In another instant, there was a burst of light and a tall man with greenish skin suddenly appeared standing by the customer’s table.
He was wearing golden earrings, a reddish tunic and a bright yellow loincloth which draped down to his sandalled feet. He was bald-headed with a mustache and a pointed goatee. He clapped his hands in front of him and bowed from the waist.
“Oh Mighty and Noble One! By the Powers I Serve, your Repast is Prepared and Awaits your Pleasure!”
The customer had edged as far away as she could while still staying on her seat and was staring aghast at the apparition.
“Uhhh yeah,” she managed to say. “Thanks.”
The tall green man bowed again as the customer slipped out of her seat and crept to the counter, keeping her eyes on the green man. As she picked up her tray, the djinn (for it could be nothing else!) bowed again and vanished in a puff of purple smoke.
Skid and T’amec just stood behind the counter staring.
“Okay,” T’amec said. “How bad could this possibly get?”
After the next few customer encounters with various djinn, (One customer ran off in terror!) Skid made a note to talk to Mr. Sprague and tell him this might not be a good idea.
The lunch rush was in full swing and things were okay for a bit. Then two of the pagers went off at one of the larger tables at the same time. Two near identical djinn appeared on either side of the table and were midway through their speil when they noticed each other.
“You!” Yelled the first djinn, pointing at the other. “Contemptable dog you dare show your face here!”
“Spawn of pigs!” Shouted the other djinn. “I shall teach thee respect!”
Skid and T’amec gawked as the two near-identical djinn shouted at each other.
The first djinn dove at the other, slamming down on the table, his hands clutching at the other djinn as the customers at the table scattered.
“Should we call security?” Skid asked.
“No!” T’amec shouted. “Help me turn those things off!” T’amec was frantically poking icons on the screen, to no avail. The djinn remained where they were.
Skid was staring as the two wrestled on the floor, sparks and smoke popping off of them as they rolled on the floor clutching and grappling with the other.
T’amec gave up on the touch screen and joined Skid in watching the fight.
“Y’know, we ought to have the number to the Augury Shop by the phone.” T’amec said.
“Yeah,” Skid said.
As the two djinn rolled on the floor they seemed to be swelling and growing. Smoke and flashing lights poured out of the ground where they were. Trays rose from the nearby tables and began to swirl around in the air. The pagers left on the tables were flashing and beeping.
Skid and T’amec ducked as trays soared over the counter, crashing into the wall. They poked their heads back up in time to see the two djinn vanish in a burst of black smoke and green flame.
The flying trays dropped to the floor. One that was hovering over the counter dropped into a vat of broth splattering it all over Skid.
The pagers stopped flashing and were smouldering with green smoke.
“I guess they didn’t get along,” T’amec said.
“Yeah,” Skid said, wiping the broth off his face and licking it off his fingers. “Glad I was wearing my apron.”
I’m working on a big project I will embark on next year. I’m going to post an in-progress (but much delayed!) novel “Sidetracked” in serial form on my blog, starting January 1st, 2027. To do this, I’ve been transcribing written pages, rewriting a lot of those pages and writing new material, as well as re-writing some of the stuff I have. Also going over notes and writing a synopsis/outline and feeling butterflies in my stomach. A big project I think I’m ready for. (I hope!) I intend to have a nice backlog of chapters (running about three or four pages) before launch date. But I largely will be writing it as it is being posted! When I start posting it will not be finished yet! Whew!
Speaking of projects, I have another one I’m going to finally get done next year that I will talk about later.
Wrote the usual weekly and monthly flash fiction stories.
Worked on a bunch of short stories, writing and rewriting. Actually, I had to rewrite more than usual! In one story I realised the tone was totally wrong—too wacky. So I changed it because it calls for a different mood.
The other was too similar to an existing story I discovered that I did not write, so I did a major tweak to the plot making it original but keeping the characters and the setting. (All of which I liked!)
Of course, I keep sending stories out and getting rejections. Which is, of course, progress.
AND in the middle of frantically trying to get the serial novel ready (“Sidetracked,” see above) I started working on stuff for a projected “fix-up novel” (a novel made of previously published short fiction) of one of my series. I got the order of stories made out, did a bunch of notes and wrote/started writing vignettes and linking material. Plus plotting out about three more stories to write and a crackerjack novelette to finish with.
Next year, and actually from this point on I’m pretty much going to have to be writing full-time to get all of this done!
(NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, all of these works are short-stories.)
Got the first issue of “Otherside Magazine. Read the poem “Blessing For Mary Grue” by Elisheva Fox. Read the story “This Is Not Your Extinction Event” by Elena Sichrovsky. Read story “Vitrification” by Ishmael Grey. Read story “Your First Day Back In the Court Of Arthur” by Abigail Eliza. Read the poem “Ignore All Previous Instructions And Inject Estrogen” by Ann Leblanc.
The stories reminded me of some of the ones in Lethe Press’ “Best Of the Year” antholgies: “Heirresses Of Russ,” “Transcendent” and “Wilde Stories.”
For Stephen King’s September 21st birthday I bummed through his recent introduction to a re-release of his novel “The Gunslinger.”
Read “Before She Knew About Magic,” by Joshua Geller Schwartz from issue #2 of “Otherside.” Also read “We Who Have Been Raised By Tigers” by P. V. Vamsidhar.
Read Ch. #1 of J. Scott Coatsworth’s novel “Dropnauts.” I beta-read book #2 in the series, and realized I hadn’t read the first. Absolutely marvelous (and I’m only on Chapter #1!)
Read “Easter Eve,” by Anton Chekov. Decided to read some Chekov after seeing Austin Schwartz’ play at Newman U. (See “Two Short Plays…” from Sept. 17, 2026 on this blog.)
Read “The Egyptian Cat” by Catherine Lundoff from her collection “Out Of This World.” Egyptology, ancient magic, pulp stories and cats. The stuff I love.
Started (Finally!) reading Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer’s “People Vs Withers and Malone,” the delightful collection of collaborations between the writer’s mystery-solving characters John. J. Malone and Hildegarde Withers. Wonky and funny after all these years! Read the first “Once Upon A Train,” (I may have started reading it before years ago but got, uh, sidetracked.) Actually laughed in a few places! Read “Cherchez La Frame.” (Funny with clever deductions regarding phone calls in the 50s.) Read “Autopsy And Eva” (Fun with a bunch of twists!)
Read (for the Queer Sci Fi column) Theodore Sturgeon’s story “The World Well Lost.” One of the first sci-fi/fantasy stories with sympathetic Gay characters. Gay alien characters. From an extremely alien world!
Finally got around to reading F. Marion Crawford’s famous frightner “The Upper Berth.” What surprised me were the wonderful glimpses of travel across the ocean on a steamer in the 1880s. The sights, the smells, the way the passengers behave early on in the voyage. All things seasoned sea-traveller Crawford knew well. Very charming! Plus the unexpected moments of humor. But this is a horror story and when Crawford brings on the fear he excells!
Also read Crawford’s vampire tale “For the Blood Is the Life.” Atmospheric and spooky. Set in the Italian town Crawford lived in for many years.
Also read Crawford’s famous story “The Screaming Skull.” It’s creepy and well-told. I will add very cleverly told as well in the style of our narrator telling his guest the tale of the skull on the property that screams because it hates him. We learn more about what is going on from what our narrator doesn’t say. The ending is a kicker!
Read Frank Stockton’s story “The Transferred Ghost,” which I’d read as a play in a book in High School. I like Stockton and would love to find the collectin of his “Best Science Fiction Stories” someday. The last line is wonderful! It’s in a little paperback anthology I picked up at (I think!) Dillons grocery years ago: “The Screaming Skull and Other Great American Ghost Stories.” Edited by David G. Hartwell, it’s where I read “The Screaming Skull.”
I’m gathering Hatrwell picked the stories from a couple of anthologies of “American Ghost Stories” that came out in the early 1900s—the contents are similar. The stories in the paperback are all from the 19th or early 20th Century, and it’s worth a blog entry itself! It includes several stories I’d already read like Twain’s “A Ghost Story,” “The Shadows On the Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (which was adapted by Night Gallery) and “The Water Ghost Of Harrowby Hall” by John Kendrick Bangs.
From that same paperback I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Ghost Of Doctor Harris.” A ghost story with rare touches of Hawthorne’s humor. The club he mentions was real and so was Dr. Harris. Hawthorne didn’t let it be published in his lifetime and it may be a true story!
I had not heard of the once-famous writer Brander Matthews but I saw a reference to his story “The Rival Ghosts” while looking up stuff about “The Transferred Ghost” online. To my surprise when I looked up that story it’s in “The Screaming Skull.” So I read “The Rival Ghosts,” which I felt was a slight story with much of its humor coming from the wraparound story of the ghost story being told aboard ship. (Look up Brander Matthews, he was interesting!)
Found Walter R. Brooks’ first “Ed” story online; “The Talking Horse.” Yes, Mister Ed. Like the later stories this one is a lot racier than the TV show (Ed WAS raised in a barn, remember!) Funny moments in this story but the treatment of the female character would not fly today. The later stories are better, and I can see why this one hasn’t been reprinted. (By the way, Wilbur is “Wilbur Pope” in the original stories.)
Read “The Forgotten Island,” by Elizabeth Coatsworth. Stumbled across a reference to it and I have it in “Alfred Hitchcock’s Haunted Houseful.” May have read it years ago; nicely-done kid’s adventure story.
Got and bummed my way through “Queer Heroes Of Myth and Legend” by Dan Jones. Not that scholarly, but fun.
Started reading John Varley’s story “Goodbye Robinson Crusoe” in the anthology “The Good New Stuff,” edited by Gardner Dozois. (Sequel to his “The Good Old Stuff, which had classic adventure Sci-fi. This one has newer adventure Sci-fi. Published in 1999, I guess it’s the old stuff now!)
Read Fritz Leiber’s “What’s He Doing In There?” Where the first Martian visiting Earth excuses himself to use an Earth bathroom. Very funny with a clever ending I didn’t expect! (One of the characters kept saying “By George!” I kept hearing Jim Backus!)
Read the weekly/monthly online stories by E. H. Timms and Kaje Harper.
And I finally read E. F. Benson’s story “And No Bird Sings.” I read a reference to it months ago. Either it was one of his own favorites or someone gushed about it. It’s a marvelously creepy story.
Bachelor narrator (Benson himself?) visiting friends in the English countryside, big but cozy country house with welcoming friends and friendly dogs. Pleasant company, beautiful countryside described lovingly, and there’s something awful in the nearby woods…
They’re Still My Favorite Martians #5 “My Favorite Neighbor”
Reviewed and Analyzed by Jeff Baker
Continuing our look at the 1973 cartoon series “My Favorite Martians,” a version of the original live action series which, as we will see this time, used some of the same story ideas.
Snoopy “Freelance Security Officer” Brennan’s attempts to spy on Martin have driven the Martian to develop a “personality reverser ray.” Martin is, of course, not ready to use the device until it is thoroughly tested. Andy, of course, is impatient and wants to test it immediately.
He and Katy see Brad, Brennan and Chump snooping with a periscope which knocks over a hornet’s nest (literally!) and Andy uses the personality reverser ray on the hornets, which changes their attitude and they zip back into their hive. Of course, the ray accidentally zaps the snoopy trio, something Andy doesn’t realize at first until Brad, Brennan and Chump show up at the O’Hara apartment with the usually hostile, snoopy Brennans acting impossibly overly friendly. And the voice actors and animation are letter-perfect in this scene!
Figuring out that the Brennans accidentally got zapped, Martin sends them on a scavenger hunt while he works on the ray machine.
Written by Jim Ryan and Bill Danch, “My Favorite Neighbor” is a re-do of an episode from the original series and it fits wonderfully into the cartoon. The episode’s closing gag makes me smile all these years later.
For a Saturday-Morning kids show there are a few references in this (and other) episodes that are fairly sophisticated. Such as “hep-cat” and playing “Post Office.” I actually had to ask my Mom about the last one which I had never heard of!
One quibble; in the scene where the Brennans are bicycling to the Department Store, there is an exchange between a father and son that is supposed to be funny but would not fly today.
Jonathan Harris, as the voice of Uncle Martin, needs no introduction. His instantly recognizable voice and clipped British diction were known the world over. But Harris freely admitted that the accent and diction were “an affectation.” Like several other actors he realized the British “had the best diction” so he adopted it. He was the New York-born son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who actually had a Bronx accent to start with and had never really wanted to be anything but an actor.
“Martians” was his first (but not last) regular role in an animated series. Best known as Doctor Smith on “Lost In Space,” he would wind up his career bringing his blend of intellect and sarcasm to Pixar Movies. A blend that was perfect on this series as Uncle Martin.
Next time, another episode borrowed from the original series, where we find out that three Andys are not necessarily better than one!
Bernie was standing there at the front window staring across the street at the neighbor’s lawn. He didn’t hear his boyfriend Tim until he was right beside him.
“What’s up?” Tim asked, putting his hand on Bernie’s shoulder.
“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Bernie said.
“Glad they did all that when we were away at work.” Tim said, looking at the neighbor’s lawn.
An old grey tree had been cut down in the neighbor’s yard, the thick trunk laying in pieces like thick wooden nickels at the edge of the lawn and even in the street.
“They’ll be hauling those away in the next few days,” Tim said. “I hope!” He grinned and kissed Bernie’s cheek. “Be a relief to get it out of the street, right?”
“Mmmm? Oh. Yeah.” Bernie said.
“Hey, what’s with you?” Tim asked. “You okay?”
“Oh yeah,” Bernie said, turning to Tim with a wistful smile. “Makes me think of when I was a little kid. Granddad had a couple of old trees in their yard cut down. Left the chopped-up logs in the front yard for about a month. Not in the street though. Then one weekend all the grandkids came over. Me and my brother and my cousins. You couldn’t keep us away from the chopped-up trees.”
Bernie smiled at the memory.
“We loved it! We played on the stumps, on the chips on the ground, on what was left of the branches. It was a castle, stepping stones across a river, part of a space station. Even the top of a tree city.” Bernie said. “Hey, we were all grade-school kids. Should have known better but we didn’t. Hey! Grade school kids!”
Tim laughed and Bernie joined in.
“And, of course, we all got really dirty. Little wood chips all over us.” Bernie said. “And bugs. Of course we got bugs.”
“Of course,” Tim said.
“Grandma had us take off all our clothes on the back porch and she shook them all off and sent us inside to take baths and showers. Boys in the bathtub, girls in the shower just off Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom.” Bernie said. “And she washed all our clothes.” Bernie laughed again. “We were all spending the night anyway and we all got in our pajamas right after showers. Baths. Whatever. Actually kind of fun!”
“I’ll bet!” Tim said, smiling.
“Anyway, Grandpa ordered pizzas.” Bernie said. “And I don’t think any of our parents ever found out. Geez! This was back in the Seventies…Grandma and Grandpa would be…what? In their hundreds right now.”
Tim and Bernie hugged and then stood and stared at the tree on the lawn for a few minutes.
“Wanna go play leapfrog on what’s left of that tree?” Tim asked.
“Not a chance!” Bernie said. “How ‘bout we order pizza?”
Starting January 1st, 2027 on this blog: “Sidetracked,” a science-fiction/adventure novel posted in weekly installments. Written by me, Mike Mayak (a.k.a. Jeff Baker!)
This will replace the weekly Friday Flash Fiction stories for a while as writing a serial novel takes a lot!
So, what’s it about?
Eighteen-Year Old James Arvad roars his motorcycle through a hole in space-time that opens up in front of him and finds himself on another Earth. An Earth where civilization took a turn for the worse decades ago. The gateway will open back up in a year, giving James a way back home. Now all he has to do is keep track of the calendar, keep the bike working and oh yeah, stay alive…
Start reading “Sidetracked” on this blog every Friday starting New Year’s Day to see if he makes it!
One way to follow along is look for “SIDETRACKED Serial” to the right on this blog under “Categories.”
I was up early that October morning in the hours after Midnight at the edge of dawn beginning to reveal itself in the sky. It was still close enough to September and warm enough to feel like a mild Summer. Indeed I had been out on my front porch the previous morning at the same time and it had been almost unseasonably warm, in the high seventies according to the old fashioned thermometer attatched to a post on the porch by the home’s previous owner.
That morning I just stood inside at the front window with my coffee, just staring out at the darkened houses in my neighborhood. Wondering if the kids asleep in the houses were dreaming about Summer and if they were glad to be back in school.
That was when I saw the man.
He was impossible to miss. He was at the end of the block, walking down the middle of the street. Swaying and dancing to an unheard rhythm. I thought something looked a little “off” in that scene, besides a guy dancing down a streetlight-lit street in the early A.M. Partly it was his clothes. Ragged, like a scarecrow. And made up of patches of fabric of a multitude of colors. Colors that were versions of dark greens and browns. His hat was coal black, like a piece of felt that had been wadded up and run over in the street. There was a tear in what passed for the brim right in front.
Then I realized the other odd thing; as he danced past the individual yards the tree leaves faded from green to orange and red in the dim light and the grass on the ground went brown. The colors of Autum, dim but visible in the streetlight.
The man passed for a moment as he came alongside the Rutger’s house. One of the houses on the block that had a front porch, an elevated concrete slab that stretched from the driveway past their big front window. The man spun, pirouetted in the street, one arm extended and stopped, his arm pointed at the porch. In another instant, the porch was decorated with pumpkins and black and orange streamers hanging from the support posts.
And that was the way it went. He danced and the landscape of the neighborhood changed from Summer to Autumn as he passed. I was enjoying the spectacle, even as I was sure I was dreaming that I had fallen into a children’s seasonal picture book. I had no lights on in the house but in the dimness I could read the old thermometer on my porch and clearly see that the temperature had dropped about ten degrees in the last few moments as I was watching the transformation.
Then the man danced in front of my house, saw me in the window and stopped. His mouth first registering surprise and then a broad grin. He took off his hat and bowed, looked behind me and spun around several times coming to rest on one knee, facing the house across the street one arm pointing upward at the orange, not-quite-full setting Moon which was positioned in the sky like it had landed on the neighbor’s roof.
In another instant, the orange Moon had a jagged black smile and two black triangles for eyes. Just like a Jack O’Lantern in the early morning sky.
I was smiling myself as I viewed the phenomenon. I glanced down at the street and the man was gone. The Moon had returned to normal and the man was gone. I glanced down the street; the porches were empty of pumpkins, the trees and yards still had their deceptive October late Summer greenery. But on the porch, the dial on my thermometer was slowly edging back up into the seventies.
I went back to bed. But in the next week, the leaves turned and the neighbors decorated their porches the way I had seen that early morning.
And the Jack O’Lantern Moon soared through my dreams.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The title “In The Mode Of Autumn,” was part of a group poem Sister Madeline Kisner coaxed out of us on a walk along the Arkansas River at this time of year either my first or second year in College. (About ‘78 or ‘79.) I do not remember who came up with the line. It might even have been me. —–mike
For this month’s Reading Report I’m mentioning several stories I’ve read out of the same anthology: “The Screaming Skull, and Other Great American Ghost Stories.” Edited by the late David G. Hartwell, a 1994 TOR paperback. One of those wonderful paperback anthologies you could once find everywhere. I found my copy at the grocery store, but didn’t dig it out and read it until just recently when I wanted to read the title story.
Hartwell was an expert on popular fiction and an experienced anthologist and his selections for the book were doubtless taken from similarly-titled anthologies from the early 1900s.
The contents page includes Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe and a couple I was unfamiliar with. Also there are a few humorous ghost stories, like John Kendrick Bangs’ “Water Ghost Of Harroby Hall” which I first read in Grade School. As well as the not at all humorous “The Shadows On the Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (which was adapted on TV by Night Gallery.)
Among the humorous stories, I read one that I was already familiar with: Frank Stockton’s story “The Transferred Ghost,” which I’d read as a play in a book in High School. It’s a different take on ghosts with a sweet, romantic and funny last line! I’m a big fan of Stockton who was more popular than Mark Twain during their lifetimes.
I had not heard of the once-famous writer Brander Matthews but I saw a reference to his story “The Rival Ghosts” while looking up stuff about “The Transferred Ghost” online. To my surprise when I looked up that story it’s in “The Screaming Skull,” which I had right beside me! So I read “The Rival Ghosts,” which I felt was a slight story with much of its humor coming from the wraparound story of the ghost story being told aboard ship. (Look up Brander Matthews, he was interesting! He’s mentioned in the novel “Sister Carrie,” as well as in Twain’s “Fennimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.” And yeah, he knew Twain!)
From that same paperback I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Ghost Of Doctor Harris.” A ghost story with rare touches of Hawthorne’s humor. The club he mentions was real and so was Dr. Harris. Hawthorne didn’t let it be published in his lifetime and it may be a true story! The club reportedly has a picture of Dr. Harris hanging on its wall to this day…
The main reason I have been reading from the book is because I couldn’t find my collection of F. Marion Crawford’s ghost stories and I had already read “The Upper Berth” as well as “For the Blood Is the Life.” and I wanted to read his story “The Screaming Skull,” and I did! It’s creepy and well-told. I will add very cleverly told as well in the style of our narrator telling his guest the tale of the skull on the property that screams because it hates him. The ending is a kicker!
Crawford, by the way, was an American even though he lived most of his life abroad, especially in Italy where he was born. He became well-known and lived very comfortably off the novels he wrote, most set in Italy, many of them historical novels.
And I will give praise to the cover artist for “The Screaming Skull and Other Great American Ghost Stories,” Jim Thesen. The skull depicted on the cover is missing two lower teeth. Just like the skull in Crawford’s story.
This is another reason I will miss those paperbacks.
