Dive Into “Kenny’s Pool,” But Be Careful! Friday Flash Fics by Mike Mayak. January 26, 2024.

Posted on January 26, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Photo by Steve Di Matteo from Pexels

(Author’s note: Turned it over to my other self ”Mike Mayak” for this week’s story.)

Kenny’s Pool

By Mike Mayak

“Awright. Hey, hand me the towel and I’ll tell you the story. It was back in July of 1961 and I had just turned eighteen. Yeah. I really looked like this. Crew cut, perfect teeth, muscles, tan, worked at the pool. Great Summer job for Kenny Blasco. Coolest music in the world playing over the speaker hooked to the radio. My boss hated all the rock and roll. I wasn’t a lifeguard, I was more a towel boy who helped clean the pool.

I was on the school basketball team and that got me the girls usually. One reason I loved the job; I could bang girls behind the bushes when we weren’t busy and my boss had given me a key to the storeroom which I made a copy of, so I took girls in there at night. Yeah, fun, fun, fun!

Hang on, I’ll grab you a soda. No, we get ‘em free here. Just gotta work a lot. Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah, the girls.

My boss may have known what I was doing, he certainly encouraged me to wear nothing but my swim trunks and flirt. He thought it brought in more customers. I smiled at that. I was a young hunk who was having the time of my life at an age where summer lasted forever.

This girl showed up, looked just like Marilyn Monroe. Blonde, red lips, stacked, the works.

My tight black swimming trunks got tighter when I saw her. She smiled. I was dazzled. I loved to watch her swim. She had me, not Chris or Ricky or Ray towel her off when she got out of the pool. I remember thinking that maybe she had sprayed the hair to look like Monroe. I didn’t know anything about girls’ hair.

So, it was a slow afternoon and the Marilyn girl shows up. She knows my name. She jumps in the pool in this, wow, white one piece swimsuit, and dares me to race her. Well we swam around the pool for a while and she says “I love your arms, Kenny,” and I just grin and my trunks get tight. I ask her what her name is and she says “Nymphette.”

We are floating in the pool then and she grabs my, you know, with one hand and then brushes my lips with a finger and says if I want more she’s going to have to see what a jock I am. She climbs out of the pool and lays down on the diving board (oh, God! Hot!) and tells me to pull myself up to kiss her but I had to agree that I was hers from now on.

Hey, I was Kenny Blasco! I’d made a lot of promises to girls so they’d put out!

So I jumped up, grabbed the board (thinking “You look really good, Kenny!”) and she’s there on the edge of the diving board grinning at me, and I glance down and I’m young, tan and muscular like guys envy me and the music is playing and I pull myself up a little more and we lock lips and I realize she’d just got out of the pool but she wasn’t even wet at all and I feel my lips stuck to hers and my crotch feels like it’s freezing and my fingers go limp and I let go of the board and fall into the pool but the water spreads apart beneath me and I’m falling into air and spinning and I’m screaming and I feel like bristle brushes are hitting my body all over and then I splash down in the pool.

Well, you know, it isn’t the same pool, but trust me, it’s an exact copy. And Nymphette is here. She’s one of the Water Nymphs. I serve her, well, you and I serve her now. Towel her off, do whatever she says. Got no choice.

I stand on the side of the pool and flex my muscles every now and then, when the Nymphs order me to. I liked doing it for girls when I was in High School. But I don’t now that I’m the object of lust.

It’s kinda boring, actually. I mean, you’d think being the, uh, toy of nymphs would be wonderful but it’s for their pleasure. I don’t get pleasure here. Well, not often.

So, that’s pretty much what you can expect here. That and being a towel boy. When did you, I mean, what’s the last year you remember? In the world, I mean?

2458? Wow.

Okay, the only food we get here is cheap snack bar pizza…”

—-end—

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

Pay Attention To “The Li’l Gay Dude” In Rainbow Snippets From Jeff Baker. January 21st, 2024.

Posted on January 21, 2024 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/963484217054974

My snippet this week is from my fantasy story “The Li’l Gay Dude.” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2024/01/12/the-lil-gay-dude-friday-flash-fics-from-jeff-baker-for-january-12-2024/#comment-4175 The picture above is of the display that inspired the story and yes, my Brother and I really call it that! Our hero is renting a house with his Brother and going on a series of disastrous dates.

Saturday arrived and I was dressed in my best jeans, a shirt that wasn’t too fancy for a sandwich bar (I hoped) and I headed out the door, giving a glance at the thermometer. 68 degrees. Good. It barely registered with me what the figure was doing.

It registered with Patrick. He took a picture of it with his phone and sent it to me.

The Li’l Gay Dude was standing there frowning, holding out his hand, thumb down.

Okay, snippet two is the post-date post-mortem…

The date went okay, but later that week I found that the guy had two other boyfriends, a girlfriend and a wife in another town. Open relationships I could probably deal with but not this blatant dishonesty.

Thursday at home I sat down on Patrick’s sofa with a bottle of beer and stared at the pic I’d saved on my phone. Had the Li’l Gay Dude had been trying to tell me something? Or was it some kind of glitch in the thermometer?

To my amazement, the original post got more response than any story I’ve posted in quite a while! Next week, the first of a few stories I forgot I wrote! And to borrow from an ancient TV show: “Here’s hoping you get the date you really want.” —–jeff

Posted in LGBT, Rainbow Snippets | 2 Comments

Sit “On The Front Porch” By the Lake for Friday Flash Fics by Jeff Baker. January 19th, 2024.

Posted on January 19, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Photo by James Wheeler off Pexels

On The Front Porch

by Jeff Baker

The music was playing soft and the radio and Doug was sitting on the front porch of his family’s lakeside cabin, watching the Moon reflect in the water when Scotty bounded up the steps.

“Doug!” Scotty said. “I got your message! To meet you here at 9:30. Are you okay?”

Doug smiled. As usual, Scotty looked good. He was wearing slacks, brown shoes and the white button down shirt with no tie. The shirt was sweaty; he’d run from his folks’ cabin.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Doug said. “Just that Mom and Dad and Janie left this afternoon. I’m taking off in my roadster in a couple of days. So we got the cabin to ourselves for a day or so.”

“Yeah?” Scotty said. “So, you want to go inside?”

“Later,” Doug said. “Right now, I want you beside me on this bench, looking at the Moon, the lake, the stars. Listen to the romantic music on the radio.” He paused. “We can hold hands.”

“Sure,” Scotty said, sitting down. He glanced around and kissed Doug on the cheek. Doug squeezed his hand as they settled down on the bench; the radio playing a fake Spanish romantic song.

“This is nice…” Scotty said.

“Yeah,” Doug said. He took a deep breath. “Thank my Mom for the idea, she figured it out. She knows.”

Scotty looked at Doug, shocked.

“Dad and Janie don’t know.” Doug said. “Mom said we ought to take advantage of the front porch in the dark in late summer. She’s okay with us. Being us.”

Scotty waited a few moments and let out a deep breath. “Yeah.”

Doug and Scotty had met in College. They’d hit it off and fallen for each other. But this was just after World War Two, the conflict they had spent on the home front.

After a few more minutes, Doug took a deep breath.

“She said we ought to stay together. I mean, not tell people but just room together.” Doug said. “I mean, I can get you a job at the bank, you have that degree and your experience and nobody else knows. About either of us.”

Scotty looked over at the lake for a moment then turned to look at Doug.

“I snore,” he said. “Runs in my family.”

Doug grinned. “I will love your snoring!”

They kissed sitting there, holding the kiss, feeling each other’s faces with their fingers, the romantic music playing on the radio from inside the house. Music which suddenly segued into a Spike Jones record. Gunshots, Belches, Explosions. All punctuated by an orchestra.

Scotty and Doug broke off the kiss and started laughing, all but collapsing on the bench.

Doug stood up, grabbed Scotty’s arm and pulled him off the bench into his arms.

“I was gonna ask you to slow dance, but we gotta dance to Spike Jones!”

They laughed and bounced around the dark porch, kissing and faking the Jitterbug to the wild, happy radio music.

Janie smiled as she finished reading the browned letter.

“And we always played Spike Jones on our Anniversary,”

Mark and Carlos had stared as she had read the old family letter, the letter she had pulled out after they had told Mark’s Grandma Janie they were going to get married. They had hoped for acceptance, the kind they didn’t get from Carlos’ family.

“And you would have loved your Uncles,” she said. “They were together for just over forty-three years before they passed.”

“I didn’t know, didn’t know ever!” Mark said. “About them, I mean.”

“Well, they didn’t wear it on T-shirts but it wasn’t that secret,” she said. “And they donated to a lot of LGBT causes. What we called Gay Rights back then.” She smiled broadly. “Mark, did you know that your Uncle Scott’s middle name was Mark?”

Mark’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t known.

“So,” Grandma Janie said with a smile. “You take this letter, in this old envelope and someday you read it to some niece or nephew or cousin who needs to hear it.”

Mark carefully set the letter beside them on Grandma’s sofa.

“And never stop loving,” she said. “Never.”

—end—

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

Reading Report: December 2023/January 2024, from Jeff Baker. (January 19, 2024)

Posted on January 19, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Reading Report for January 2024 (!!!!)

Starting off with the last week in December, 2023, I finished reading James Moran’s story “A Canadian Ghost In London,” from his collection “Fear itself.” I THINK I’ve read all the stories in the book. “Canadian Ghost” was fun and spooky and felt like a pilot or the start of a series.

For my Poe Project, I read Edgar Allan Poe’s “Von Kempelen and His Discovery.” Sort of a humorous science-fantasy story with the surprise treasure being a topical reference to the recent discovery of gold in California! Also read “The Imp of the Perverse, after seeing it mentioned on a Rod Serling blog (maybe in a post about Charles Beaumont.) The story takes a while to get going as the narrator spends pages philosophizing and only kicks in on the final page and a half, but then it really KICKS!!

For Fritz Leiber’s December 24th birthday I listened to audio of Leiber reading two of his stories; “Gonna Roll the Bones,” and “In the Witch’s Tent.” The latter being one of his Fafard & Grey Mouser stories, which I have neglected. I plan to read some of them in ‘24, as well as his “Change War” series.

I finished reading James Thurber’s “My Life and Hard Times,” (“The Night the Bed Fell,” “The Day the Dam Broke” and “The Dog That Bit People,”) as well as his introduction which has some insights for writers. I’d read some of the book when I was about nine years old but it and the introduction hit me differently now; I laughed at the right places in the stories and I appreciated the introduction more. (One jarring note; it was written in Sandy Hook, NJ!)

Well worth reading and re-reading.

I read Joe Haldeman’s “An Angel of Light” in a sci-fi Christmas anthology I bought and found that I’d read it before. Still worth the time!

And I read Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “The Lift.” Suspense with a premonition. Also read Doyle’s “The American’s Tale.” Set in Arizona, including Arizona’s swamps and giant man-eating plants. Put the inaccuracies down either to Doyle’s not having been to AZ or to the admission at the end of the story that the narrator may be a big liar! Great fun!

I should have mentioned that back in November I read Heinlein’s Weird Tales story “Our Fair City.” Funny and Weird. It’s in his collection “6 x X.”

Just breezed through Scott Coatsworth’s novelette “Slow Thaw” (in “Love and Limitations.”) Of course it’s a romance but it’s also an adventure set in the Antarctic (and around Christmas too!) Scott has been compared to Robert A. Heinlein and it’s an apt comparison. But Scott is his own individual self as a writer. The setting is meticulously researched and vividly described and the, uh, slow thaw between the two characters is presented realistically. And may I say he handles the feelings of widowhood well.

I read a few of the turn-of-the-last-century Philo Grubb stories by Ellis Parker Butler from “Philo Grubb; Correspondence-School Detective.” This may have been the first of several series (by different authors) about Sherlock Holmes wannabes who take a class by mail. I thought the first story (“The Hardboiled Egg”) was funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny but worth several smiles. I imagined Grubb being played by Larry Storch and Oritz being Forrest Tucker. I kind of guessed the ending but still fun!

I continued on with Grubb and read “The Pet,” and I did laugh out loud! Especially at one character’s description of Grubb in disguise; “He looks like an intoxicated pterodactyl…only hairier.” LOL!

Also read “The Eagle’s Claws,” which tied into an earlier Grubb story. Humor ages very badly but this book is fun!

For January 2024 (!!!!) I read Scott Coatsworth’s story “What the Rain Brings” from “Androids And Aliens,” and his story “Tight” from “Spells and Stardust.”

Commemorated Charles Beaumont’s January 2nd birthday by reading his “Infernal Bouillabaisse” and “Insomnia Vobiscum.” Both of which I think I’d read before. Wonderful stuff!

Read a few of Stephen Vincent Benet’s poems from “Young Adventure.”

Started my Fafhrd and Grey Mouser read by starting Fritz Leiber’s novel “The Swords Of Lankhmar.”

Had to look up an O. Henry line for a story I was writing and wound up reading his “The Love Philtre Of Ikey Schoenstein” and “After Twenty Years.”

Sat down to read a different story and instead read Rex Stout’s “Christmas Party” from “The Oxford Book Of American Detective Stories.”

Read Mark Twain’s “A Medieval Romance.” Warning to readers: Twain prankishly states he had no way of getting his characters out of the fix they were in so he just stopped the story there!

Been reading through the Doctor Who novelization “The Romans.” Great fun!

Read some of the poems in Shamir Griffin’s excellent poetry collection “Identity In Shades.”

And I’ve been reading some of Robert E. Howard’s boxing storied. A couple of letters he wrote to boxing magazines, a story that appeared as a “true” ghost story in “Ghost Story” magazine “The Apparition In the Prize Ring,” which was okay, I guess.

And then I read “The Pit Of the Serpent.” Sounds like one of Howard’s Connan the Barbarian stories doesn’t it? Nope! It’s the first of his stories featuring two-fisted sailor Steve Costigan. The laughs are plenty in this story narrated first-person by the Runyonesque Costigan himself. The brawl (in a former snake pit!) turns into something out of All Star Wrestling as Costigan and his rival from another ship toss the referee out of the ring!

All in all a breezy fun read and not what I expected from Howard!

Oh, and it calls the place a “Fight Club.” This was in 1929…

And I finally started reading Fritz Leiber’s “Changewar” stories, from the “Changewar” collection that came out about 1981 or so (paperback.) I started with the first in the book “Try And Change the Past,” which I think I read about thirty years ago on one of those wonderful weekend afternoons at my Brother’s house when he lived nearby. A wonderful blend of science-fantasy and a dash of horror. The book doesn’t have all the Changewar stories he eventually wrote and there’s a novel, “The Big Time,” which I will read eventually. I may have read “A Deskful Of Girls.” I have the 1968 MFSF where it first came out, so I’ll find out when I get to that story later in the book.

Okay, I DID read “Deskful of Girls,” from the original magazine—couldn’t resist! Fun and of course a lot of talk about “sex,” well actually “sexiness” probably. Pretty shocking for 1958! The story is also in the “Changewar” book but I can’t see how it fits into the series, unless it’s because a character keeps referencing “The Big Time.” (I’ll have to read the rest of them!)

And the story got the cover of the magazine, with an illustration by Frank Kelly Freas no less! Brian Aldiss’ famous “Poor Little Warrior” debuted in the issue and he doesn’t even get mentioned on the cover!

Of course, I did my weekly read of Kaje Harper’s fine stories (usually romantic, always worth it!)

I’ll close out here for the monthly report, on Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday, January 19, 2024.

—–jeff baker

Posted in Arthur Conan Doyle, Books, Charles Beaumont, Edgar Allan Poe, Fritz Leiber, J. Scott Coatsworth, James K. Moran, James Thurber, Joe Haldeman, Kaje Harper, LGBT, Mark Twain, Poetry, Reading Report, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert E. Howard, Stephen Vincent Benet | Leave a comment

Progress Report For January 2024. Actually Made Some Progress! (Finishing Unfinished Stuff!) jeff Baker, January 19th, 2024.

Posted on January 19, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Photo by Amy Tharp.

Hey! January Nineteenth is Edgar Allan Poe’s Birthday! Perfect time for a Progress Report!

I’d spent a few months last year working on stories for anthologies on deadlines (and sold at least one!) So I took a kind of writing breather for the last weeks of the year.

For the New Year I decided to finish some of the stories that are incomplete in my files and get them ready to send off. I actually did pretty well on that, a lot of the time doing it on my laptop down at the Wichita Public Library. (I like the atmosphere!)

So, I finished a funny story (about birds) that I set in Mom & Dad’s old backyard and sent it off to the Saturday Evening Post.

I typed-up and edited a sci-fi Christmas story that may be saved on my old computer but I found the original handwritten draft in a notebook.

I finished another story for “RoMMantic Reads” that I started about a year or so ago. Lots of changes since then. About all I had to do was to add a paragraph or two joining a couple of sections.

I wrote up some of the Friday Flash Fics stories and did the Flash Fiction Draw Challenge story for January.

I may be leaving a story out that I can’t recall, but that’s pretty good even if I didn’t start anything new.

I worked on two Queer Sci Fi columns. The one for January, where I had to go online and check name spellings because my handwriting was so bad! The other for a few months from now, which was already partly written. I have about three other columns finished so that fixes that up through May (unless something big comes up!)

All of this makes me feel good, and I need that!

And I’ve kept up on the reading and doing the monthly “Reading Report.”

That’s about it for now!

——jeff baker, Wichita, Kansas

at the Wichita Public Library

January 18, 2024

Posted in Progress Reports, Writing | Leave a comment

Prince Almazotz in Rainbow Snippets from Jeff Baker. January 13, 2024

Posted on January 13, 2024 by jeffbaker307
Photo by Ben Mack on Pexels.com

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: [LINK]

My snippets this week are from a story I wrote for the recent Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, where the prompts were; a Legend, set in a herd of horses involving a grapefruit. Always on the make for riches, my fugitive Bisexual Prince Almazotz is intrigued by “The Legend Of the Golden Horse.” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2024/01/11/legend-of-the-golden-horse-flash-fiction-draw-challenge-story-from-jeff-baker-january-11-2024/

Tales are told of the wandering Prince Almazotz, and of his many adventures attempting to escape his Royal Father’s wrath as well as an arranged marriage to a stuffy and boring prince of another realm. But when the three moons ride high in the sky the ancient chronicles recall the wild night of the Prince’s encounter with the Horse-Drover YoPo and his attempt to find the legendary Horse of Gold.

It had transpired earlier that evening that the Prince (disguised as usual in more humble garments) had come across the Horse-Drover watering his horses at the Fountain Of the Really Smelly Animals. The Prince remembered the Prophecy about the Golden Horse. (The Prince had a mental catalog of any prophecy that involved gold, silver or jewels.)

Prince Almazotz is my attempt to do a de Camp style comic fantasy, so I set it on my mystical sci-fi-ish World Of Three Moons and have several stories posted on my blog and a longer story making its way through the slushpiles. And yes, there will be a book!

Next week, something for those of us who are watching the thermometer! —–jeff

Posted in Fiction, Legend, LGBT, Prince Almazotz, Short-Stories | 2 Comments

Flash Fiction Draw Challenge January 2024—The Results!!

Posted on January 13, 2024 by jeffbaker307

Flash Fiction Draw Challenge January 2024; The Results! January 13th, 2024.

Hi, again! Mike here, also known as “Jeff Baker.”

The draws for the January 2024 FFDC were:

A Legend

Set in a Herd Of Horses

Involving a Grapefruit

Can you believe it’s 2024? Rod Serling would have been 100 this year!

It’s only Saturday January 13th here but I’m posting these stories early! (If I get any more I’ll stick them on!) Happy reading! Here’s a story and a poem!

E. H. Timms wrote “Thundering Hooves” https://thinkingthinking123.blogspot.com/2024/01/flash-fic-challenge-thundering-hooves.html

And I wrote “The Legend Of the Golden Horse” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2024/01/11/legend-of-the-golden-horse-flash-fiction-draw-challenge-story-from-jeff-baker-january-11-2024/

Remember, it’s never too late to write a story of your own, post it in the comments and join in the fun!

We’ll be back with more draws and stories on Febuary 5th, 2024 (!!!!) ——mike

Posted in E. H. Timms, Fantasy, Fiction, LGBT, Mike Mayak, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, Prince Almazotz, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

“The Li’l Gay Dude.” Friday Flash Fics from Jeff Baker for January 12, 2024.

Posted on January 12, 2024 by jeffbaker307

The Li’l Gay Dude

by Jeff Baker

My Brother and I were renting an old house for about a year when he started joking about the thermometer by the front door. It was one of those things with a digital display, this one showing a line drawing of a smiling young man, usually attired for the day’s weather either in shorts, a rain coat with an umbrella, a parka, even swim trunks while the image behind him was of like sun, rain or snow and the current temperature was displayed beside him.

Patrick joked that the display guy looked like that Gay You Tube guy I’d been crushing on. I laughed and we both started calling the guy on the thermometer “The Li’l Gay Dude.”

To myself, I grumbled that the crush on the You Tube guy was about as practical as my bust of a love life had been lately. But Patrick actually tried to help out. He fixed me up on a blind date with this guy he knew from work.

“Is he Gay?” I asked. (I’d been set up on a date with a straight guy once!)

“Of course!” Patrick said. “He’ll meet you at the Monarch downtown at one o’clock Saturday.”

“Afternoon, right?” I asked.

Patrick just glared and laughed.

Saturday arrived and I was dressed in my best jeans, a shirt that wasn’t too fancy for a sandwich bar (I hoped) and I headed out the door, giving a glance at the thermometer. 68 degrees. Good. It barely registered with me what the figure was doing.

It registered with Patrick. He took a picture of it with his phone and sent it to me.

The Li’l Gay Dude was standing there frowning, holding out his hand, thumb down.

The date went okay, but later that week I found that the guy had two other boyfriends, a girlfriend and a wife in another town. Open relationships I could probably deal with but not this blatant dishonesty.

Thursday at home I sat down on Patrick’s sofa with a bottle of beer and stared at the pic I’d saved on my phone. Had the Li’l Gay Dude had been trying to tell me something? Or was it some kind of glitch in the thermometer?

Patrick said “glitch,” and I agreed. But we weren’t all that sure.

A weekend later I had another date. Late lunch at this little outdoor cafe downtown. Weather was nice. I dressed casual. As I walked out the door I did glance at the thermometer and this time the Li’l Gay Dude was wearing slacks, a jacket (like mine) and was frowning and actually holding his nose.

Yes, I took a picture.

The date was a disaster. We got into an argument about politics which ended with my tossing a piece of my chicken on his plate and saying “Here’s the part you like; the right wing!” and storming out of the cafe.

“That guy’s started predicting my bad dates,” I said to Patrick back home, not adding that predicting bad dates for me wasn’t really that difficult.

“He doesn’t seem to register for me, just the weather,” Patrick said.

“You aren’t a Gay dude,” I said ruefully.

“This is like a Gay Twilight Zone,” Patrick said.

I just sat there and thought.

I didn’t go out for another couple of weeks. I was getting gun shy. Then another friend of Patrick’s from work dropped by with a guy my age. Introduced him as Brian and they said they were there to see the Li’l Gay Dude. True to form it was just showing the temperature, the Dude wearing a tank top, shorts and sunglasses, a beach chair in the background.

“Probably because you aren’t going out on a date right now,” Patrick said. I nodded.

“Let’s test it out,” Brian said. “There’s a hot dog place a block over from here. Wanna walk down there and get a soda?”

Patrick was grinning at me. I’d sworn no more blind dates. But…

“Sure,” I said. “What the hey!”

We went out the door actually smiling. I ducked back inside to grab my wallet. I checked the Li’l Gay Dude.

For a moment, just a moment, he was standing there smiling in the display. Wearing what even in black-and-white I could see was a rainbow flag t-shirt. Along with a cutaway formal coat and formal striped pants. And a black top hat.

Like for a wedding.

I grinned again and headed out for my soda date with Brian.

—end—

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Friday Flash Fictions, LGBT, Short-Stories | 4 Comments

“Legend Of the Golden Horse.” Flash Fiction Draw Challenge Story From Jeff Baker. January 11, 2024.

Posted on January 11, 2024 by jeffbaker307
Photo by Helena Lopes on Pexels.com

The Legend Of the Golden Horse

by Jeff Baker

(A Prince Almazotz story.)

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the January 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were for a Legend, set in a Herd of Horses involving a Grapefruit. So we travel to the mysterious World Of Three Moons for an adventure of the not-that-mysterious Prince Almazotz. Enjoy! —jeff

Tales are told of the wandering Prince Almazotz, and of his many adventures attempting to escape his Royal Father’s wrath as well as an arranged marriage to a stuffy and boring prince of another realm.. But when the three moons ride high in the sky the ancient Chronicles recall the wild night of the Prince’s encounter with the Horse-Drover YoPo and his attempt to find the legendary Horse of Gold.

It had transpired earlier that evening that the Prince (disguised as usual in more humble garments) had come across the Horse-Drover watering his horses at the Fountain Of the Really Smelly Animals. The Prince remembered the Prophecy about the Golden Horse. (The Prince had a mental catalog of any prophecy that involved gold, silver or jewels.)

He was able to bribe YoPo to let him travel with him for the night, but the Drover was well aware of the legend of how “a man of Royal birth will encounter a Drover at the Smelliest Fountain and how, under the Three Moons, they shall encounter the Golden Horse.” The Prince had told him he was related to the Royal House but had not given his real name.

As the sun set, YoPo and Prince Almazotz set off across the desert with the five or six horses (the legend is not clear on this) which YoPo was taking to The Grand Market. The Prince walked beside them, making sure the horses did not run off and carrying the basket of sour Grape-Fruit these horses preferred. The Prince occasionally was munching on one of the Grape-Fruits and keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of the Golden Horse.

The night was lit by the three Moons high in the sky when they saw the shape in the distance, coming towards them. The Prince quickly hopped on one of the horses and urged it forward, to meet with this mysterious figure.

The horse wouldn’t move. It looked up at the Prince with an annoyed expression. The Prince climbed down from the horse he was riding on and stood with YoPo.

“Look! It is coming towards us! We need not pursue!” YoPo said pointing. “And behold! The horse is made of gold!”

Indeed they could see clearly in the moons-light the glistening yellowish-golden color of the horse as it approached.

“The Golden Horse!” Prince Almazotz breathed. “And it is ours!”

Within moments, the Golden Horse trotted up to them and to the herd who whinnied and snorted, maybe in greeting. The Golden Horse walked over to Prince Almazotz and nosed the bag full of Grape-Fruits at his side. The Prince handed the horse one of the fruits and he munched it happily

YoPo and the Prince stared. Up close the golden color was the yellowish mud and clay of one of the oases that dotted the area.

Prince Almazotz sighed.

“Doubtless this horse was trying to cool off during the heat of the day and was covered in the clay of the oasis.” YoPo said.

“So the prophecy was worth about as much as a half-eaten Grape-Fruit expelled from a muddy horse,” the Prince said. “Wonderful.”

“On the other hand, we now have another horse to take to market if we do not find its owner.” YoPo said.

“We do? Oh, we do!” Prince Almazotz said. “And the owner could give us a substantial reward!”

“He may even pay us in Grape-Fruit,” YoPo said with a smile as they resumed their walk through the desert.

Thus ends the tale of Prince Almazotz and the Golden Horse. As for whether there ever was a real Golden Horse and what its true nature was, alas! On that, the Chronicles remain silent.

—end—

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Legend, LGBT, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, Prince Almazotz, Short-Stories, World of Three Moons | Leave a comment

Flash Fiction Draw Challenge Draws for January 2024, from Mike Mayak (January 8, 2024)

Posted on January 8, 2024 by jeffbaker307

First, here’s the prompts for the January 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:

A Legend

Involving a Grapefruit

Set in a Herd of Horses

Now, on to the details.

Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.

Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (and hopefully have one of my own written!) the week of January 15th, 2024.

As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage and the results were the King of Hearts (a Legend), the Two of Diamonds (A Herd of Horses) and the Two of Clubs (a Grapefruit.). So we will write a legend set in a herd of horses involving a grapefruit.

So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2024 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message.

Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you next week!

And have fun!

——mike

Flash Draw Sheet for 2024 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)

Clubs

A A Slippery Slide

2 A Rubber Duck

3 Warm Woolen Mittens

4 A Snow Globe

5 Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

6 A Pepper Mill

7. A Giant Mallet

8 A Giant Penny

9 A Box of Rubber Bands

*10 A Grapefruit

J A Cellphone

Q A Dumpster

K A Comic Book

Hearts

A. Science Fiction

2 A Romance

3 Paranormal

4 A Mystery

5 A Thriller

6 An Adventure Story

7. A Bedtime Story

8 A Monster Story

9 A Fantasy

10 A Horror Story

J A Crime Story

Q A Melodrama

*K A Legend

Diamonds

A A Burger Place

* 2 A Herd of Horses

3 A Roomful of Hats

4 An Empty Gymnasium

5 The Temple of Diana In Greece

6 A Field of Lettuce

7 A Haunted House

8 A Western Ghost Town

9 A Greenhouse

10 A Giant Teepee

J A Costume Shop

Q A Cake Shop

K An Outdoor Stage

Posted in 'Nathan Burgoine, Cait Gordon, Jeffrey Ricker, Mike Mayak, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge | 2 Comments