In a Fog with Friday Flash Fics for March 22, 2019 by Jeff Baker

Posted on March 22, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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                            McGuffin and the London Peril

By Jeff Baker

Delmar and I were waiting on a cab and made the mistake of going back into the clubroom and old Plunkett asked about the fog.

“That fog out there is nothing,” the voice came from the far chair. “The fog some years ago caused people to disappear.”

McGuffin sat in his regular chair and sipped his whiskey. We couldn’t stop him from talking so we sat down and listened.

I was a much younger man (McGuffin said) and eager for adventure. So, when the third man, this time an MP vanished in the fog, the authorities called me, based on my work with Intelligence. There were no signs of foul play, except three people were gone. The MP had been seen last just a few blocks away from the Houses of Parliament, umbrella in hand. No trace had been found. I realized three other things the men had in common: They were male, they were unmarried and they were alone at the time they were last seen. There was another man, Kensington, who had said he had, well, felt something when he was out in the same area at the same time in an earlier evening. As I remember we had quite the time questioning him. Kensington was deaf as a post and too vain to use his hearing aid.

And that was when I realized what was happening.

I outlined my suspicions to the other investigators; one of the legendary Sirens, such as Jason and the Argonauts had faced. This one only seemed to affect the unmarried, but the solution was simple; no unmarried male should go walking in the area except in the company of a married man or a woman. Small marching bands were placed around the streets to drown out the Siren’s song. And we needed do this only until the weather changed.

McGuffin paused and finished his whiskey.

“The weather?” I asked. “What about the weather?”

“The same unseasonably warm currents that had helped bring the fog had brought the Siren with it from the area of the Pillars of Hercules. When the water cooled, the Siren left. Ahh!”

McGuffin’s reaction was to the waiter bringing a plate of sole and another whiskey.

“This fish,” McGuffin said, “is far less dangerous.”

—end—

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, McGuffin, Mystery, Short-Stories, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

“Nothing Annoys Them So Much,” Friday Flash Fics by Jeff Baker for March 15, 2019.

Posted on March 15, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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Nothing Annoys Them So Much

By Jeff Baker

 

The tree was still there at the edge of town and whenever I saw it, the memories would come back, memories of a summer afternoon when I was ten years old in 1882.

It was early summer and not too warm for Kansas and so the men were playing their weekly game of base-ball and watching this was my own weekly fun. We had the usual group standing (and in some cases sitting) around and watching the play of the game and I was standing in the shade of the big tree, wishing I was old and big enough to play with my father, my oldest brother Samuel and Dillard Jellicoe who everyone said was built like a bull. There was one newcomer to the audience for the game, the man who had stayed at Mayor Everett’s house after giving some talk at the church the night before. He was supposed to be famous but I hadn’t heard of him. He was wearing a long black coat, pressed black pants (Sam told me he had worn knee-breeches at his talk the night before) and a white shirt. He had a longish nose, black hair down to his shoulders and he carried an umbrella which he was using to protect himself from the sun. I crept closer, wondering why he simply didn’t stand under the shade of the tree but I overheard him say he wanted to see what he called “the new spectacle.” He was watching intently, however.

Someone pointed Dillard Jellicoe out to him and he nodded referring to “the loud young man who had been asked to leave” during the stranger’s talk the previous evening. I saw Jellicoe eyeing the stranger and his face reminded me of an angry bull.

The game had reached the height of play when Jellicoe suddenly ran across the field, directly at the stranger, the other players being occupied at third base and home plate. Jellicoe let out a loud yell and jumped at the stranger and I closed my eyes.

I heard a loud thud. Two of them really.

I opened my eyes. Someone was lying there in the dirt, and the stranger was standing over him, his feet spread, his arm outstretched, fist clenched.

“I boxed a bit while I was at University in Dublin,” the stranger said.

I made sure I was there that evening when the stranger caught the train. He bowed to the small crowd on the railway platform (Dillard Jellicoe conspicuously not among them) and then announced “Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.” He turned to where I was standing and winked. “Except maybe a fist to the jaw!”

 

—end—

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The Library Dancer—Friday Flash Fics by Jeff Baker (On Saturday again!) March 9, 2019

Posted on March 9, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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The Library Dancer

By Jeff Baker

 

The young woman pirouetted around the tall bookcases in spite of wearing high heels, her dress flowing around her legs like an upside down flower.

Crouched behind a low bookcase, the two men stared and the one whispered to the other.

“There, Basil,” said the shorter of the two. “Perfect specimen of a Library Dancer!”

“And a female!” Basil replied, whispering. “Note the newsprint pattern of the dress.”

“Notice something else,” Willie replied. “She’s in a bookstore, not a library. That’s rare!”

“Almost unheard of,” Basil said.

The two men watched as the Dancer moved from one section of the bookstore to another, executing one graceful move after the other; now a pas de dux, now a swirl, now something bringing to mind Pavlova’s Swan.

“Remember the one we had to run out of the Brooksdale Library?” Basil whispered. “A male exotic dancer!”

“Oh, yes!” Willie said. “Half the men were titillated, the other were jealous!”

“And then there’s the pair in the Notre Dame Library. Not many places have a pair.”

“Rather incongruous having a pair of square dancers, but they don’t seem to bother anyone,” Willie added. “Oooo! Look what she’s doing now!”

The Dancer was balanced on the tall ladder the employees used to reach the high shelves, hopping from one rung to the next, ever higher. Then, she looked down and realized she was being observed. There was a sudden whoosh of air and Basil turned his head just in time to catch a last glimpse of the Dancer zipping behind the books on a high shelf.

“Some of them,” Basil observed, “are shy.”

 

—end—

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A Caged Bird (Way Late for Friday Flash Fics, March 3, 2019) by Jeff Baker

Posted on March 3, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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                          I Know Why The Caged Bird Stings

By Jeff Baker

 

I had been in minimum security about two months and it was a big change from being behind the walls. In minimum it was more like a dorm. We had a room furnished like a motel room which we had to share with somebody and the doors were almost never locked. We had to have a pass to leave and we had to be back at a certain time but we could leave, which was a big change. Some of us had jobs on the outside, some of us just went in town to see a movie or eat real food. Plus, we could wear our own clothes, which was a nice change from a “state blue” uniform.

My cellie Pete actually had a girlfriend.

I should explain. The facility just outside of town was made up of two minimum-security dorms, one for guys, one for girls. They both shared the same exercise yard, and while the yard and some of the classes they offered were co-ed, the rest of the facility was not. The no fraternization rule was strictly enforced. I kept to myself; I didn’t even know Pete’s girlfriend’s name. (No, Pete and I didn’t talk that much.)

Anyway, I figured Pete and his girlfriend were meeting up somewhere in town when they were supposedly working and got tattoos on their hands. One was a cage with its door open; the other was a bird flying free. Yeah, real subtle. Especially when you weren’t supposed to get any tattoos while you were in prison. (Yeah, I know, every prison I’d been in looked like a tattoo convention.) The guards would have figured it out except Pete and the girl broke up. Like I said, they weren’t supposed to be together, but they met around the back of one of the buildings when we were all out in the yard. I didn’t see them go but soon everybody heard them arguing and then they heard a crash and a lot of shouting. The guards started running towards the noise and I thought about it too for a second, but I didn’t need the trouble. Besides, I figured I’d find out what happened later.

Which I did.

Apparently, Pete had told her it was over and she proceeded to knock the crap out of him.

I guess she spent some time in the hole and Pete spent a week in the infirmary and then a week in the hole. Me, I had my room to myself for two weeks. Pure bliss.

Or, as close to bliss as one of those places ever gets.

 

—end—

Author’s Note: “The Hole” is prison slang for solitary confinement. 

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A Flash Fiction Fragment for Friday Flash Fics, by Jeff Baker (Feb. 22, 2019.)

Posted on February 22, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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The Shadow From Khem

By Jeff Baker

 

My studies at University having finished, and thus having been given a clean bill of health from academia, I went into the wide world to seek my fortune. If I had known that I would have encountered Madame Pyrrah I would have stayed home.

She seemed exotic and mysterious when I first saw her at the museum. She seemed to know as much about the artifacts as I did and she mentioned the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, (Mind you this was in the year 1897.) I complimented her on her curiosity and introduced myself as Arthur Ward, “Artie” to my friends. I encountered her several times and that was when the dreams started.

They always involved her.

In one, I saw here on the prairie, kneeling and summoning a whirlwind. In another, I saw a vast, starlit expanse of desert with a lithe figure walking towards me. Knowing what I know now, I must assume the dreams were a portent of some kind, for I always awoke in a cold sweat, and to the certainty that for a moment there was someone else in the room with me…

 

Author’s Note: Only got around to writing a beginning this week, inspired by my recent reading of some of Sax Rohmer’s Egyptian-themed horror stories.

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Horror, Short-Stories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

J. Scott Coatsworth’s new book, Ithani releases today!

Posted on February 19, 2019 by jeffbaker307

COVER - Ithani

My friend J. Scott Coatsworth’s new book “Ithani” is releasing today! It’s the last (I think) book in a trilogy and it isn’t his only trilogy! Science fiction in a Heinlein/Clarke mode with LGBT characters. Ordering links are included!

Time is running out.

 

After saving the world twice, Xander, Jameson and friends plunge headlong into a new crisis. The ithani–the aliens who broke the world–have reawakened from their hundred millennia-long slumber. When Xander and Jameson disappear in a flash, an already fractured world is thrown into chaos.

 

The ithani plans, laid a hundred thousand years before, are finally coming to pass, and they threaten all life on Erro. Venin and Alix go on a desperate search for their missing and find more than they bargained for. And Quince, Robin and Jessa discover a secret as old as the skythane themselves.

 

Will alien technology, unexpected help from the distant past, destiny and some good old-fashioned firepower be enough to defeat an enemy with the power to split a world? The final battle of the epic science fiction adventure that began in Skythane will decide the fate of lander and skythane alike. And in the north, the ithani rise….

Oberon is one of the natural wonders of the Universe – a half planet that shouldn’t exist, at least according to the laws of nature.

 

Oberon is also a nest of secrets. The Skythane – the first human colonists of Oberon – keep some of them, and so do the “landers” who work for OberCorp, the company that is exploiting the planet for its natural resources.

 

Now Oberon is in danger. A solar flare threatens to end most life on the planet, but an ancient prophecy leads Quince, Xander, Jameson and a small group of landers and skythane on an epic quest to save the planet – and unravel its secrets along the way.

 

Other challenges await on the horizon, for the world, and its inhabitants. Will they find the answers they need, and their way to each other, in time?

Here’s An Excerpt:

Venin stood under the dome of the chapel, the waters of the Orn rushing past the small island to crash over the edge of the crater rim, where they fell a thousand meters to the broken city of Errian below.

The Erriani chapel was different from what he was used to back home. The Gaelani chapel in Gaelan had sat at the top of a tall pillar of stone, open to the night sky, a wide space of grass and trees that intertwined in a natural dome through which moonlight filtered down to make dappled shadows on the ground.

This chapel, instead, was a wonder of streaming sunlight, the columns a polished eggshell marble with glimmering seams of gold. Red creeper vines climbed up the columns, festooned with clusters of yellow flowers that gave off a sweet scent.

Both were bright and airy, but the Erriani chapel lay under a dome supported by fluted marble columns, a painted arch of daytime sky and the rose-colored sun blazing overhead.

The last time he’d gone to chapel had been with Tazim, before his untimely death.

Long before the troubles that roiled the world now.

Something drew him back. A need to reconnect with his past. To bridge the gap between then and now, between who he was and who he had become. Taz would have liked this place.

The chapel here had survived the attack, while much of Errian had not. The city below was a jumble of broken corrinder, the multistory plants that were the main building stock for the city. They would grow again, but the sight of the city’s beautiful white towers laid low struck him to the core.

So had Gaelan looked, after the flood.

Venin turned back to the chapel and unlaced his boots, baring his muscular calves before he approached the fountain that splashed at its center. The cool flagstone beneath his feet sent a shiver up his spine, and green moss filled the gaps between the stones.

Some builder whose name was lost to time had tapped into the river itself to make the fountain run, and the water leapt into the air with a manic energy around the golden statue of Erro, before falling back down to the pool.

Venin knelt at the fountain’s edge on one of the well-worn pads, laid his hands in the shallow water, and let his wings rest over himself, making a private place to pray.

Erro and Gael, spare us from danger and lift us up into the sky with your powerful wings. He gave Erro deference, being that this was his chapel, but he hoped Gael would hear him too. The god of his own people had been known to intervene in mortal affairs before, and if what Quince had told them about these ithani was true, they would need all the help they could get.

Venin’s wings warmed.

He looked up in astonishment to see the statue of Erro giving off an intense golden glow. His mouth dropped open, and he stood and stared at its beautiful male curves and muscles. Maybe the gods were answering him.

Venin reached up and touched the statue’s outstretched hand. The shock knocked him backward onto his ass, and he hit the ground hard, slamming into one of the marble columns.

Venin groaned, stunned, and reached back to feel his wings and spine. He seemed to be in one piece.

Taz would have laughed his ass off at the whole thing.

After a moment he sat up cautiously. He wrapped his arms around his legs and stared up at the statue, his chin on his knees.

The glow was gone.

Did I imagine it? He stood and felt the back of his head. A lump was already forming there. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Something had changed. Venin didn’t know what yet, but he was sure of that much.

He pulled his boots back on and laced them up. With one last suspicious glare at the statue, he turned and stepped out of the chapel, taking a deep breath of the moisture-laden air.

Then he leapt into the sky to soar down to the broken city.

 

Buy Links:

 

Publisher: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/ithani-by-j-scott-coatsworth-10236-b

Publisher 2: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/ithani-by-j-scott-coatsworth-10237-b

Amazon Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1644051125/

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ithani-j-scott-coatsworth/1130033186?ean=9781644051115

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/J_Scott_Coatsworth_Ithani?id=3DWADwAAQBAJ

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/ithani

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/ithani/id1447589270?mt=11

 

Giveaway:

 

Scott is giving away a $50 Amazon gift card and ten copies of “The Stark Divide,” the first book in his other trilogy,  his other trilogy, “Liminal Sky,” with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter:

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d4753/?

Author Bio:

 

Scott lives between the here and now and the what could be. Indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine, he devoured her library. But as he grew up, he wondered where the people like him were.

 

He decided it was time to create the kinds of stories he couldn’t find at Waldenbooks. If there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.

 

His friends say Scott’s brain works a little differently – he sees relationships between things that others miss, and gets more done in a day than most folks manage in a week. He seeks to transform traditional sci fi, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into something unexpected.

 

A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, sites that bring queer people together to promote and celebrate fiction reflecitng their own reality.

 

Author Website: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com

Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth

Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworthauthor/

Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/jscoatsworth

Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8392709.J_Scott_Coatsworth

Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/

Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/J.-Scott-Coatsworth/e/B011AFO4OQ/

Posted in Books, Fantasy, Fiction, Ithani, J. Scott Coatsworth, LGBT, Science Fiction, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Looking Glass House” for Friday Flash Fics, February 15, 2019, by Jeff Baker

Posted on February 15, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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                              Looking Glass House

                                         By Jeff Baker                       

            The two men in tuxedos stood kissing beside the big window.

“Look! I can see myself!”

            “Quit talking like an old commercial and kiss me!”

            “Hey, when are we going to tell your parents?”

            He looked through the window for a moment. “Never,” he said. “They’re shelling out big bucks for this wedding, more than they spent when my sister got hitched.”

            “So shouldn’t we tell them that,” he lowered his voice, “that we got married at the courthouse three months ago?”

            “A little late for that. They just sprang this on us, remember?”

            “Yeah, I know!” He grinned. “We’d better get inside.”

            “In a minute,” he said. “I want to finish this first.”

            The two men in tuxedos stood kissing beside the big window.

 

                                                —end—

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“Concerning My Recent Encounter With the Eagle People” edited by Jeff Baker, for Friday Flash Fics, February 8, 2019.

Posted on February 8, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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Concerning My Recent Encounter With the Chief of the Eagle People

Edited by Jeff Baker

(NOTE: The following MS was found in the author’s paper’s at the University. It was doubtless intended to be published with the rest of the book in 1872, but was not included, for reasons unknown. It may have been lost or the author may not have considered it suitable. It is here reproduced in its entirety.—jsb.) 

In the Summer of 1861 I followed my brother Orion west, to the Nevada Territory. We travelled through the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, mainly by stage, at which point I acknowledged that actually riding on the mountains, like a horse would have been less painful. It was while we were camping out between the plains and the mountains that I decided to take a horse and do some rudimentary exploring, despite warnings that the local Natives tended to get irritated. I responded that my Brother had campaigned for Lincoln in the recent election and that I was not unfamiliar with irritated natives and I considered the ones in the East to be far more savage than the ones in the West. So, I set out upon my borrowed horse, confident in my knowledge and skill.

I promptly got lost.

The sun was setting when I saw what looked like campfires ahead. I rode cautiously, realizing that whoever was ahead I was probably in a predicament; if I was returning to the stage line, late and in my haggard condition I was bound to be lectured by the driver but If I fell among the natives, they might decide to take out on me the indignities they had suffered at the hand of my well-meaning brethren during the last two centuries. While I was percolating over my options, suddenly two large young braves appeared at my sides so swiftly and silently that I had not heard or seen their approach. They indicated that I should dismount and I marched with them leading my horse by the bridle on foot toward their camp. I observed them and tried to discern what tribe (from my little experience) they might belong to. They wore long pants, shoes of the same material and instead of shirts, their shoulders were covered with cloaks that I at first thought were fur but I quickly realized were feathers. Eagle feathers. Most astonishing to me was the fact that they were unmounted and had swiftly approached me on foot without the aid of horses.

We arrived at the camp as it was getting dark, apparently in the middle of some form of trial or ceremony. What I imagined to be the whole tribe was seated around a large fire. This was some thirty men or women. Standing in the middle were three young men, like all of them draped in the same feathered cloak, the one in feathers darker than the others.

As we approached, a tall, white-haired man stood up and held a hand out, indicating quiet. Then he spoke, to my surprise, in English. He told me that I was at a gathering of the Eagle People, the day on which these three were to “ascend to manhood.” He introduced himself as the Chieftain and wise man of the tribe, and said a name I couldn’t pronounce; full of A’s and K’s. I would have written it down but I hadn’t brought a pencil. Then he said something that took me by surprise: that I was here because I was destined to be a wise man and that I should sit and watch.

The ceremony (I assumed it to be such) was quick and I did not understand the language, but I got the basic meaning; Each of the three young men was questioned by the Wise Man and at the end of the questioning, took off the necklaces they had been wearing and handed them to the Wise Man who, at the end, tossed the necklaces into the fire. This was followed by a rousing cry from all of the assembled and I caught a slight smile on the face of one of the three young men, and one of the others seemed to thrust his chest out. In another moment, the Wise Man sat down beside me and the three young men stepped to the edges of the circle and (wonder of wonders!) what I had assumed to be feathered cloaks unfurled from their shoulders and revealed themselves as wings, not unlike those of birds. Then they left the ground and soared into the darkened sky where the stars were beginning to be visible, and I was torn between staring upward, slack-jawed at the sight and looking around at the other members of the tribe closely examining them and realizing their feathered cloaks were indeed wings.

“We are the Eagle People,” the Wise Man said to me. “Our ancestors were the eagles of the heavens, and we walk the earth as men and soar in the skies.”

I was thinking to myself that the dark-winged boy must have had some crow in him, maybe a catbird, when I suddenly thought of a question and turned to ask the Wise Man. He must have known what I was thinking for he smiled, and

(Here the manuscript ends.)

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Wise Words From “The Writer,” (the magazine, not me. Jeff Baker, February 4, 2019.)

Posted on February 4, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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                             Short Words From The Writer

                                                By Jeff Baker               

            I got a small stack of back-issues of “The Writer” today, most from around 1970. Browsed through them and found a few things that may interest writers out there, especially writers of short-stories. 

            First off, from the excellent Flannery O’Connor; an essay The Writer republished in its January 1970 issue:

            “Being short does not mean being slight. A short story should be long in depth and should give us an experience of meaning.”

            The Writer’s columnist Lesley Conger presented “A Writer’s Alphabet” in her May 1977 Off The Cuff column in that issue. Here are a few gems:

            “M is for Mailbox. If you feed the public mailbox on the corner regularly, your own mailbox may begin to feed you.”

            “P is for Publisher. To be able to preface this word with ‘My’ is the aim of every beginning writer.”

            “T is for Time. …the best way to make use of time is to deal with it even if there are only minutes of it foreseeably available ahead of you.”

            “E is for Envelope. Going out, manila envelopes are fine. Coming back, envelopes should be thin, long and white.”

 

            The Writer is still publishing. Back in 1977 they were celebrating their 90th year. Times have changed since the days of manila envelopes and mailboxes. But I wish for all the writers reading this the metaphorical white envelopes of success.

 

                                                —end—

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“The Frog on the Pillow.” Pillow talk for Friday Flash Fics ( a day late!) Jeff Baker, February 2, 2019.

Posted on February 2, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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                                                           The Frog on the Pillow

                                                                        By Jeff Baker

                       

            “Oh, the ring?” he said. “With the silver frog? It’s a family heirloom. Supposedly we’re descended from; well you know that story about the princess and the frog?”

            I nodded.

            “Well, that’s supposedly one of my ancestors. Supposedly.”

            “Wow,” I said.

            “Back in the Middle Ages (the story goes) there was a young prince (which is not as impressive as it sounds.) He was the youngest son of the son of a Feudal Duke, and probably wasn’t really a prince, but that’s how the story goes. Anyway, he got turned into a frog somehow and a genuine princess kissed him and he turned back and that was it. Well, she was a genuine princess, the niece of some other princess somewhere (they were probably some kind of cousins) but they did get married…”

            “And you’re all descended from all the little tadpoles?” I said grinning.

            “Yeah,” he said. “And I don’t know when we started getting these rings, but they’re kind of cool.”

            “Yeah,” I said. “So are you.”

            We kissed.

            “Well,” I said. “I guess you have to kiss a lot of princes to find your frog!”

 

                                                —end—

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