Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published, or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?multi_permalinks=6722293354507336&notif_id=1642216064520358&notif_t=group_activity&ref=notif

This is one from what has become my favorite series to write, about a kid who calls himself “Bryce Going.” When Bryce’s Mom bails out on him (his Dad is out of the picture) Bryce hits the road. He may be big for his age (about sixteen) but the mid-1970s are no time to be even a closeted Gay teenager in a boy’s home. So, he lies about his name and age and has a few paid-under-the-table jobs and a lot of very strange encounters. This one when he’s washing dishes in a back kitchen and living in a storeroom upstairs where Bryce has taken notice of the muscles of the cook Aegir, whose arms are decorated with tattoos with images of the sea.

It was one afternoon after the lunch rush that I was washing pots and pans in the big metal sink when I heard Aegir singing a sea chanty. As I kept on washing the pans the water started to slosh around by itself, reminding me of the sea. Aegir’s song kept rising and falling and suddenly I felt the floor move up and down as if we were on a ship. And now the wind was rising and I could smell the salt air. I looked out the window; the back room was tilting like a ship at sea; the view from the window kept rising and falling. I quickly ducked out the back door and staggered over to lean against the dumpster; there was no wind, no sea-smell, no rising and falling.

I probably talk too much about some of these, but I see the subconscious influence of Manly Wade Wellman, a writer I hugely admire and highly recommend.

No link to Wellman, alas, but here’s the original posting of my story “The Way of the Sea” from December 7, 2018: https://authorjeffbaker.com/2018/12/07/the-way-of-the-sea-continuing-a-serial-for-friday-flash-fics-december-7-2018-by-jeff-baker/