Rainbow Snippets goes “Above It All.” Jeff Baker, Picture By Joe Phillips. May 31, 2025.

Posted on May 31, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Illustration By Joe Phillips

(Almost) 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

This is an extra for my 9th Anniversary week of posting regular stories. I wrote a sequel to my story “The Grey Ferris” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2022/02/04/ride-the-grey-ferris-for-friday-flash-fics-by-jeff-baker-february-4th-2022/ influenced by the May calendar page of Joe Phillips’ “Boy Oh Boy” Calendar for 2025. https://www.facebook.com/joe.phillips.393 I always try to do something special and so I wrote this. Hang on to your hats! Here’s snippets from “Above It All” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2025/05/27/get-above-it-all-for-a-friday-flash-fics-anniversary-extra-from-jeff-baker-may-27-2025-picture-by-joe-phillips/

Ross grinned and hung onto the side of the chair of what he called a ski lift, even if it was the middle of summer.

“You okay?” Burt, his boyfriend in his “Planet Of the Apes” t-shirt said, sitting next to him what felt like a million feet up.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ross said, grinning at his boyfriend and feeling the plush dinosaur under his arm that they’d won at the midway. He glanced over to one side. He could see the huge skyscrapers, the vast city and the mountains beyond. Still, somehow it reminded them of the County Fair with its traveling attractions in the small farm town they’d grown up in.

Here’s juuuuuust a little more…

“Yeah,” Ross said. “Remember kissing on the Ferris wheel when it reached the point where nobody could see us?”

“Yeah,” Burt breathed softly, leaning in to kiss his boyfriend. They held for a moment and Ross thought he heard somebody in a seat behind them laughing and applauding.

“Okay, guys, break it up!” That was the attendant as the chair reached the platform where they had to jump off. “Watch your step, and don’t have too much fun!”

I had to leave that kiss in there for you folks!

See you soon with more snippets!

—-jeff

Posted in Joe Phillips, LGBT, Rainbow Snippets | 2 Comments

Reading Report Extra! Horror MAYhem: Decades Of Dread! Jeff Baker, May 30, 2025

Posted on May 30, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Reading Report Addenda: “Horror MAYhem 2025”

For fun, I’m participating in “Horror MAYhem: Decades Of Dread” a Book Tube event where they read horror stories from several decades. I’m not on Book Tube so I’m just posting the results here, and I’m starting early, in every sense of the word. For completists, I’ll post the whole list here. Also, I’m taking advantage of the idea to read stuff by writers I really hadn’t read much of before, like Henry James and Blackwood. And, in keeping with the idea of reading one story for a decade (well, one or more!) I’m starting earlier, in the Nineteenth Century!

Speaking of starting; since these Reports cover the period from the twentieth to the twentieth (or thereabouts) I started Horror MAYhem in the last part of April!

And one more note: the event this year is dedicated to the memory of Book Tuber Scott Bryant (of “The Bookish Bryants”) and I’ll thank them for getting me to getting around to reading some of these stories I’ve been meaning to get to!

1832

“Bon-Bon” or “The Bargain Lost,” by Edgar Allen Poe. Counts as part of my Poe Project too. Read it! More humorous than horrific, but the description of the Devil and his devouring of souls is pretty creepy!

1840’s

“A Confession Found In A Prison In The Time Of Charles The First” by Charles Dickens (1840) Read it!

1850’s

“To Be Read At Dusk” by Charles Dickens. (1852) Read it!

1860’s

“The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes” by Henry James (1868) Read it! Don’t think I’d ever read James before. Spooky, even though I knew how it was going to end!

1870s

“The Haunted Valley” by Ambrose Bierce (1871) read it. A little creepy. An anti-Chinese bigot gets his comeuppance. Bierce’s first story. Followed it by reading Bierce’s much better “Chicamauga,” from about 1889.

Read Julian Hawthorne’s “The Mysterious Case Of My Friend Browne.” Genuinely spooky and ties into a real-life tragedy from 1871, the year he published it. (From the collection “The Rose Of Death and Other Mysterious Delusions.”)

1880s

“The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson (1884) Read it!

“Chicamauga” by Ambrose Bierce. Read it (maybe re-read it!) Bierce has a child encounter the horrors of a Civil War battle’s aftermath. Bierce needed no supernatural trappings to invoke a real-life nightmare.

Started reading another Julian Hawthorne tale: His novella “Kildhurm’s Oak,” which I’ll probably finish in June.

1890’s

“The Repairer Of Reputations” by Rbt. W. Chambers (1895) Read it!

1900’s

“The Leather Funnel” by Arthur Conan Doyle (1902) This was a re-read.

“The Empty House” by Algernon Blackwood (1906) Read it!

1910’s

“How It Happened” by Arthur Conan Doyle (1913) Read it, a re-read!

“Ancient Lights” by Algernon Blackwood (1912) Read it! Plays on Blackwood’s knowledge of the woods and fields, with a bit of the flavor of Manly Wade Wellman.

1920’s

“The Woman Of the Wood” by A. Merritt (1926) Read it!

1930’s

“The Citadel Of Darkness” by Henry Kuttner (1939) Read it!

1940’s

“Call Him Demon” by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore (1946) NOTE: This will be a re-read. Read it!

1950’s

“The Summer People” by Shirley Jackson (1950) Read it! The beginning reminded me of Nesbit’s “Man-Sized In Marble,” but Jackson’s story takes the very normal and turns it progressively darker.

The list was the planned stuff, but I decided to also read some selections from “Tropical Chills,” the 1988 horror anthology edited by Tim Sullivan which finds fear in the heat and sultry night and day of warmer climes in ten stories written for the book and four reprints.

“Getting Up” by Jack Dann and Barry N. Malzberg is a political horror story with thinly-disguised political figures.

Read Pat Cadigan’s “It Was the Heat.” A fine chiller!

“Zeke,” by the anthology’s editor Tim Sullivan. An unexpectedly poignant tale of alone-ness and alienation which first appeared in the old “Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine” in 1981. It not only references the series but it presages a certain movie by a year. And it was nominated for the Nebula Award!

(I looked Sullivan up; he passed away about a year ago. A fine writer.)

Read some Frank Belknap Long that I don’t think I’d read. “Second Night Out” is a monster story and a good one! (It would have fit well in “Tropical Chills.”)

And I read “The Parasite” by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle is one of my favorite writers, and I say more about this story in my May/June Reading Report.

So that was my Horror MAYhem report, plus the reading list stretching over 100 years. (I didn’t read everything on the original list I had; like “The Turn Of the Screw” by Henry James or Blackwood’s “The Willows.” Neither of which I have ever read!)

Oh well, there are always more reads!

Posted in Algernon Blackwood, C. L. Moore, Charles Dickens, Henry Kuttner, Horror MAYhem, Jeff Baker, Julian Hawthorne, Robert Louis Stevenson | Leave a comment

“Escape The Heat” With Friday Flash Fics, As By Mike Mayak. (May 29, 2025)

Posted on May 30, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Escape the Heat

by Mike Mayak

“Pwhew” Jake Malagar said. “Cold in here. Should have brought my hoodie.”

“It’s 101 degrees out there,” Ricky Jago said, thumbing at the big glass doors that looked out onto the Library parking lot. “Besides, you look good.”

Ricky eyed Jake. Young, tanned, dark-haired with lean arms in a white tee-shirt with worn jeans.

“Shirt could be a little tighter.” Ricky said.

“Oh you!” Jake laughed, looking and sounding like an underage call boy. He was neither but he liked to give people that impression. Both of them were barely 23 years old, but with a lot of experience.

He plopped down on the couch just inside the doors near the front desk and stretched out, one arm under his head.

“You look like a liquor ad in the Advocate,” Ricky said.

“Yeah,” Jake grinned looking up at the ceiling.

Jake sat up; something had moved in the flat, tiled ceiling above him. It wasn’t a reflection from the glittering mobile that hung by the balcony above them on the second floor or something blowing in the air conditioning. The ceiling had rippled for a moment, like shaken pudding or the flat water of a swimming pool on a calm day when a swimmer pats it.

An earthquake, maybe? But Jake hadn’t felt anything.

“Hey, let’s grab a croissant or something.” Ricky said, pointing at the little snack bar.

“Uh, yeah.” Jake said sitting up. “You just feel anything?”

“Only you,” Ricky said, brushing his hand against Jake’s butt as they walked over to the snack bar.

Jake leaned against the cool stone wall, eyes closed as he munched on his croissant.

“This is good,” Ricky said, waving his half-eaten croissant in the air.

“MmmmmmHmmmm,” Jake said, glancing up at the painted arrow on the wall above him, pointed to the Auditorium.

Jake suddenly felt sudden warmth from the wall at his back.

“Taste…nice…” came a whisper.

Jake swallowed a piece of croissant and sat up straight. “You say something?”

“Nope.” Ricky said, taking a slurp of soda through a straw.

“Maybe it was in the next room…” Jake muttered, realizing Ricky was paying more attention to the male and female baristas.

Jake leaned back against the wall.

It rippled. The whisper went on.

“I been here since before stone building. I sent here. Trapped. You sensitive. Can feel. Hear. See…”

Jake groped for his soda.

“I sleep except when it hot,” came the whisper.

Jake grabbed Ricky’s arm and jumped off his chair.

“C’mon. Let’s go sit under an AC vent.”

They did. Jake wondering what the land had been like when only the whisper had been there.

—end—

Posted in Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, Horror, LGBT, Science Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Get “Above It All” for a Friday Flash Fics Anniversary Extra, from Jeff Baker. May 27, 2025. (Picture by Joe Phillips)

Posted on May 27, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Picture by Joe Phillips.

Friday Flash Fics Anniversary Extra: Above It All

by Jeff Baker

Ross grinned and hung onto the side of the chair of what he called a ski lift, even if it was the middle of summer.

“You okay?” Burt, his boyfriend in his “Planet Of the Apes” t-shirt said, sitting next to him what felt like a million feet up.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ross said, grinning at his boyfriend and feeling the plush dinosaur under his arm that they’d won at the midway. He glanced over to one side. He could see the huge skyscrapers, the vast city and the mountains beyond. Still, somehow it reminded them of the County Fair with its traveling attractions in the small farm town they’d grown up in.

“Y’know,” Burt said. “This reminds me of the fair back home we used to go to…”

“Every Summer!” Ross said. “I was just thinking about that!”

Ross stared up at the blue sky.

“Remember three years ago?” Ross said. “End of Junior year?”

“Oh, God yes.” Burt said. I wanted out of that place so bad.” He looked into Ross’ eyes. “And I wanted you.”

“Yeah,” Ross said. “Remember kissing on the Ferris wheel when it reached the point where nobody could see us?”

“Yeah,” Burt breathed softly, leaning in to kiss his boyfriend. They held for a moment and Ross thought he heard somebody in a seat behind them laughing and applauding.

“Okay, guys, break it up!” That was the attendant as the chair reached the platform where they had to jump off. “Watch your step, and don’t have too much fun!”

Burt and Ross laughed and nodded and trotted down the flight of stairs to the midway. Burt had an opportunity for a job out here when they graduated and Ross had gone with him, supposedly to drive the old pickup but they both knew they were going to stay together here on the West Coast. They’d juggled bills and jobs but had each other and the crummy little apartment that felt like paradise.

They each took a whiff of the cotton candy and popcorn smells.

High school seemed so far away.

—end—

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Three years ago I wrote a story called “The Grey Ferris” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2022/02/04/ride-the-grey-ferris-for-friday-flash-fics-by-jeff-baker-february-4th-2022/ for Friday Flash Fics. A lot of people liked it and wanted Burt and Ross to get a happy ending or at least away from their homophobic little town. So, I wrote this for my 9th Anniversary month of these flash fiction stories. Inspired partly by the wonderful picture by Joe Phillips off his 2025 “Boy Oh Boy” calendar. Here’s a link to his website: http://www.joephillips.com/index.html

Writing these weekly stories has been a wild ride and I’m glad you’ve come along!

——jeff

Posted in Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, Jeff Baker, Joe Phillips, LGBT, Romance, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Rainbow Snippets From Here to Eternity from Jeff Baker

Posted on May 24, 2025 by jeffbaker307

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

I don’t post as many snippets as I used to (again, I’m lazy!) but I have to celebrate my 9th (!!!!) anniversary of posting near-weekly stories on my blog in conjunction with the Friday Flash Fics Facebook page. For my 9th Anniversary story, I wrote this sweet little romance: “From Here To Eternity Or Thereabouts.” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2025/05/23/from-here-to-eternity-or-nine-years-at-least-friday-flash-fics-from-jeff-baker-may-23-2025/ In snippet one, Geoff finds his teen-age son rummaging through a box of photographs in a back room that’s almost as cluttered as mine:

“You know, I thought you’d have these digitized by now,” Scott said

“Most of them we have,” Geoff said. “But we keep the originals and the negatives.”

“What’s ‘negatives?’” Scott asked innocently.

“Um, that’s when you…” Geoff started to say.

“I know what negatives are!” Scott laughed.

“Good.” Geoff said. “Glad someone’s keeping the ancient knowledge alive.”

Here’s snippet two:

Geoff smiled to himself. He and Jer had the picture of them standing side by side grinning from their wedding framed and hanging next to a picture of the three of them with Scott after they’d adopted him. The wedding had been, what? Ten years ago? And they’d had Scott for six years. And in another year he’d be off to college.

Next week, we’ll take a ride into the sky with another anniversary story!

Until then, take care! —–jeff

Photo by Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto on Pexels.com
Posted in LGBT, Rainbow Snippets | 2 Comments

From Here To Eternity, Or Nine Years At Least! Friday Flash Fics from Jeff Baker. (May 23, 2025)

Posted on May 23, 2025 by jeffbaker307

From Here To Eternity Or Thereabouts Friday Flash Fics 9th Anniversary Story

by Jeff Baker

Geoff found Scott, his teen-age son looking through an old box of photographs in the back room.

“I didn’t know anybody still had these!” Scott said, holding up a black-and-white snapshot.

“Oh yeah,” Geoff said. Some of those are pretty old, too.” He walked over and examined the photo. “My gosh, that’s my Grandparents and my Mom when she was little!”

Geoff took the picture and stared with a wistful grin. “You would have liked my Grandparents.”

“I bet I would have!” Scott said. “You know, I thought you’d have these digitized by now.”

“Most of them we have,” Geoff said. “But we keep the originals and the negatives.”

“What’s ‘negatives?’” Scott asked innocently.

“Um, that’s when you…” Geoff started to say.

“I know what negatives are!” Scott laughed.

“Good.” Geoff said. “Glad someone’s keeping the ancient knowledge alive.”

Geoff smiled to himself. He and Jer had the picture of them standing side by side grinning from their wedding framed and hanging next to a picture of the three of them with Scott after they’d adopted him. The wedding had been, what? Ten years ago? And they’d had Scott for six years. And in another year he’d be off to college.

“Hey, what’s this?” Scott pulled out a brown mailing envelope as big as a sheet of typing paper.

“Not sure,” Geoff said. “Open it up and see. Maybe…” His voice trailed off.

Scott pulled out three large black and white photographs of what looked like two twenty-somethings in swimming trunks lounging on the beach.

“Hey,” Scott said string at the pictures. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.” Geoff said. “Right after college.”

“I didn’t know you were a model.” Scott said, looking at his dad in the black trunks, dark hair, built like a guy who played college baseball but wasn’t brawny.

“Just that once,” Geoff said. “Someone I went to school with told me about it. It was for an ad the local clothing store wanted for the newspaper, and I thought it would be fun.” He laughed and shook his head. “It wasn’t that fun!”

“What happened?”

“We took a bunch of pictures over on a sandbar in the river, and I guess they did the angle right so it looked like a beach on the ocean, not someplace in Kansas.” Geoff said.

“Who was the other guy?” Scott asked.

“Gary,” Geoff said, shaking his head. “Never gonna forget him. Conceited jerk. Talked about himself. About how he was going to have a modeling career. About how good he was in bed. Geez!”

“Sounds like a real putz!” Scott said.

“Yeah, he was.” Geoff said. “Anyhow, the guy directing the shoot wanted us to get over in the water like in ‘From Here To Eternity’ and Gary starts complaining because the water was cold!”

Geoff and Scott laughed.

“They didn’t use the water pictures anyway, but they did use, I think, that one.” Geoff pointed at the first picture. “Anyway, they cut us a couple of checks right there on the, uh, beach and Gary took his and left and that’s when the photographer said…”

“…said ‘What a jerk!’ And then said that not all the models are like that.”

Scott and Geoff turned. Geoff’s husband, Scott’s other Dad, Jer, was leaning against the door frame.

“And then you said, ‘I am really sorry about that guy. Maybe I could make it up to you with coffee someplace?’” Geoff said.

“And you said, ‘Yeah, sure. Just let me change.’ And I said ‘I actually like you like that,’ and I felt so embarrassed!” Jer said.

The three of them laughed.

“Coffee and exchanged numbers…” Geoff said.

“Yeah…” Jer said.

“What? Fifteen years now?” Geoff said.

“Pretty much!” Jer said. “Want some coffee?”

“Yeah.” Geoff said.

They walked towards the kitchen, hand in hand and Geoff called back at Scott.

“Enjoy the pictures!”

Scott smiled and rummaged through the photographs and the memories.

—end—

So Nine Years! Wow! I’ve been doing these near-weekly stories since about May 25th, 2016. I wrote an essay for QueerSciFi that says more about all that! Here it is: https://www.queerscifi.com/400-i-cant-believe-it-either-jeff-baker-boogieman-in-lavender-may-12-2025/

Posted in Anniversary, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, LGBT, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

April/May 2025 Progress Report (Not Much!) From Jeff Baker. (May 20, 2025)

Posted on May 20, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Progress Report April/May 2025 from Jeff Baker

Again for this period not a lot of progress to report writing-wise.

Wrote the regular flash fictions, including one for my 9th anniversary of the near-weekly stories and an extra or two.

Really didn’t work on any of the full-length stories I have in the que, although I did read a couple of Roger Zelazny’s stories in preparation for writing a longer fantasy story set in a mythic world.

Also reading a vampire novel to review it for a Queer sci-fi column.

That’s about it for now!

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Reading Report: April/May 2025 from Jeff Baker. With Some Horror MAYhem! (May 20, 2025)

Posted on May 20, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Reading Report: April/May 2025

I’ve found this period I did more reading away from the house: at the laundromat and at the repair shop. Twice. (Low tires.)

Read Robert W. Chambers’ story “The Tomb of Samaris.” (Actually several chapters in his novel “The Tracer Of Lost Persons.”) First time I’d read any of the original Mr. Keen stories although I had heard the radio show. It’s in the Oldstyle Press Tales edition of Chambers’ “The King In Yellow.”

I will add here that Grant Kellermeyer is not only a fine editor and fiction writer but his non-fictional prose is elegant. For example:

The ghastly garden of Chambers’ disappointing brief career as a horror writer is more dominated by suggestive buds than fruitful blooms. —-M. Grant Kellermeyer, The King In Yellow(2nd Edition) Oldstyle Tales Press.

Read “Dragon Moon” by Henry Kuttner, the last of his Elak Of Atlantis sword-and-sorcery stories, from 1941. I was going to use that for one of my Horror MAYhem stories, but it was more adventure than horror. (“Hey!” I hear readers cry: “What about that moment when Elak…” I’ll just let you read that for yourselves!)

Am planning a larger heroic (?) fantasy story, so I’m reading some of the best in preparation: Roger Zelazny’s stories about Dilvish the Damned. “Read Passage to Dilfar” and the novella “Tower Of Ice.” Zelazny was influenced by Clark Ashton Smith so I had to read some of these to get the flavor for my own story!

Quite the surprise to stumble across the anthology “Alien Pets” which I didn’t have, and find it has a story by Jack Williamson! “The Pet Rocks Mystery” is sweet and strange with plenty of desolate local color from Portales, NM. Didn’t know he’d written for one of those fun theme anthologies. Oh, the book is edited by Denise Little.

Started reading “Ship Of the Line,” one of C. S. Forster’s novels about Horatio Hornblower. Great fun!

I’m doing “Horror MAYhem; Decades Of Dread” and reading a bunch of horror short-stories in conjunction with a Book Tube event. As I end my reading period around the middle of the month, I’ll post my Horror MAYhem list as an addenda to this report towards the end of the month.

As part of that I read A. Merritt’s “The Woman Of the Wood.” I don’t think I’d read any Merritt before. His strength is in the poetry of his words, like “…as though the fire of the young Spring moon ran in her veins.” The horror comes, not from the supernatural but from the actions of the human beings in the story. That was my 1920s story.

For the 1940s, I read (re-read) “Call Him Demon” by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. I’d first read it about thirty years ago, and while I remembered the last lines (and the references to several of the “Oz” books, not just the famous first one) I didn’t remember how the plot ended! Brrrr! It is a masterwork of horror, and like in “Woman Of the Wood,” the horror comes not just from the unearthly but from the human child’s actions.

I will mention I was reading both the above stories from the 1981 anthology “A Treasury Of Modern Fantasy,” edited by Terry Carr and Martin H. Greenberg. Concentrating on magazine fiction it is highly recommended. It has been republished as (“Masters Of Fantasy”) minus a couple of the stories and the book and story introductions which are highly informative.

For the 1860s I read Henry James’ “The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes.” I don’t think I’d ever read James before.

For the 1870s I read Ambrose Bierce’s early “The Haunted Valley” and found it largely meh with a couple of eerie moments. So I read his story “Chicamagua.” A true horror story about the real-life horrors of war and the innocence of a child.

A wealth of stories for the turn of the last century. I hadn’t read much Algernon Blackwood, so I took a friend’s recommendation and read “The Empty House from 1906.

And I’m reading “Vampires Anonymous” by Jeffrey N. MacMahan. On that one more, anon.

And a full list of my Horror MAYhem reading will be posted in a couple of weeks.

Just enough space to list my regular reading of J. Scott Coatsworth’s ongoing serial “Down the River.” As well as the weekly stories by Kaje Harper and E. H. Timms.

That’s about it for now!——-jeff baker, May 19, 2025

Posted in Algernon Blackwood, Anthologies, Books, C. L. Moore, E. H. Timms, Fantasy, Ghost Story, Henry Kuttner, Horror, J. Scott Coatsworth, Kaje Harper, Reading Report, Robert W. Chambers, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

“All Aboard” For Friday Flash Fics from Jeff Baker. (Gee, coming up with the headline this week was easy!) May 16, 2025.

Posted on May 16, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Photo by Brent Silveria

All Aboard

by Jeff Baker

We’d been downstairs watching Uncle Cuthbert run his model train he had set up on the big table in his basement. Watching as it ran under the mountain and past the little row of storefronts. Then we heard our Mom call from upstairs and Uncle Cuthbert left us downstairs with the train which he had switched off.

That was when we heard the voice.

“Pssst! Hey! Up there! Look down here!”

My brother and I looked around (this was way before cellphones) andwe didn’t see anybody. My brother looked under the table and I bent down too.

“Up here! Up here!” That was the same voice again.

We were actually crawling under the table and stuck our heads up so we were actually at eye level with the top of the table where the train was when we saw the little man in the train’s passenger car waving at us, trying to get our attention.

“Yeah, me! Right here!” The little man in the train said.

He was proportioned perfectly to fit in the little passenger car or even sit down on the seats inside. He was dressed like a guy playing the town banker in an old cowboy movie. Grey suit, green vest, grey hat. Not a cowboy hat.

My brother and I looked from the train to each other then back again.

“We’ve got another message for the Big Guy,” the little man said. “Take this down.”

He reeled off a bunch of names and numbers as my brother grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. He was the math whiz. I was into baseball. He wrote down a lot of stuff on both sides of the paper.

That was over thirty-five years ago. My brother inherited Uncle Cuthbert’s train set. That was when he started playing the stock market.

People wonder how my brother got so rich.

I know.

Me, I didn’t want anything to do with that little man on the train.

—end—

Here’s a link to more of Brent Silveria’s work: https://brentsilveria.com/?fbclid=IwAR2pfV2CGesFlv6v805kPXRmHBTWHGdfYGON4GDlgzlEfya9Vwi4WAUQpPk

Posted in Brent Silveria, Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Flash Fiction Draw Challenge Results! May 2025!!!

Posted on May 12, 2025 by jeffbaker307

Hi! I’m Mike, A.K.A. Jeff Baker.

The draws for the May 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were:

A Western

Set in A Palace

Involving a Director’s Chair

E. H. Timms wrote: “Behind Closed Doors.” https://thinkingthinking123.blogspot.com/2025/05/flash-fic-challenge-behind-closed-doors.html

And I wrote: “A Contest Of Principles.” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2025/05/11/a-contest-of-principles-flash-fiction-draw-challenge-story-from-mike-mayak/

Thanks for participating, and for reading and remember it’s never too late to write your own story, post it in the comments and I’ll link it here.

We’ll be back with another draw on June 8th, 2025.

Thanks again!

—–mike

Posted in E. H. Timms, Fiction, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, Short-Stories, Western | Leave a comment