"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
Every Week at Rainbow Snippets https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets participants post six lines of a work of theirs, a work-in-progress or a work by someone else that has LGBT characters.
I wasn’t going to do any snippeting for this week, but here’s a really brief bit from a mushy, romantic flash fiction I’m posting next Friday. I’m overly proud of the fact that I wrote this (which is as yet untitled) and another flash story and finished yet another one yesterday! It actually only exists in handwritten form right now!!
We meet two thirty-somethings on a flight of steps at a downtown warehouse:
“Okay, we’re on the steps,” Kai said. “And it’s about midnight.”
“It’s about nine-thirty” Richie said.
“Well, it’s midnight somewhere!” Kai laughed. “And we’re under the sign.”
They remembered the night they’d climbed the steps after getting off work late and impulsively kissed; the first time they’d done that in public.
Okay, that’s it for this week. And it’s just about half the story!
Next week, something just in time for Halloween. Until then, take care everybody. —-jeff
Fillet Of A Finny Snake In the Cauldron Boil And Bake
by Mike Mayak
The kitchen was bright and pleasant with the afternoon sun streaming through the skylight. The red, yellow and turquoise of the cups and plates, neatly stacked, gave the room the feel of the Southwest.
Tiresias muttered to himself as he looked in one of the cabinets, staring at the handwritten labels taped to the jars.
“What today…What today? Which one do I need this time…aha!”
He grabbed a small jar with a red lid marked “Mixed Syrian Spices” and set it on the counter next to the stove.
“It would be easier if it was the same formula each time,” Tiresias said to nobody in particular. “I mean, fillet of finny snake, dead man’s hair, drop of tincture of tenderness. And then pop it in the microwave.” He sighed. “But that would be too easy.”
He looked in the cabinet again; at the yellow checkerboard pattern of the shelves, at the hanging cups, at the bottles and jars. Only some of which contained ingredients found at a store, he smiled wryly to himself. There was a capsule of flea repellent he needed to use on his cat, and a little jar of sprinkles.
He checked the ingredients on the counter. All good.
He turned the heat up on the pot of water on the stove, and began measuring and pouring the ingredients into the pot. A cup of this, a pinch of that, a teaspoon of this, most of that. All the while stirring gently, gently…
The smells were overpowering; spices, freshly-turned earth, flowers, wind from the sea and ancient tombs.
Tiresias turned the heat down to simmer and waited…waited…
The liquid in the pot changed color. Green, brown, orange, blood-red and then a luminous blue.
The skylight went dark for a moment, plunging the kitchen into shadow.
In another moment, the kitchen was sunlit-bright again and Tiresias was now a woman.
Much the same face, hair longer, same weight and height but definitely a woman.
Tiresias looked into the pot which was now empty.
“How long this time?” she asked.
“Three weeks,” said the hollow voice.
Tiresias smiled to herself. This year she could wear her witch’s costume to greet the trick-or-treaters.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the October 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were: A Comedy, involving a Spare Tire, set at a Space Station. Here’s what I came up with. —mike
Dante Granello was ten. What his parents jokingly called “a dangerous age.”
Dante’s Dad taught at the University down on Jovanni III, the planet the Jovanni Space Station orbited. They actually lived on the Station because Dante’s Mom was the Station’s Gravitic Engineer. His parents were usually busy when he got out of class so Dante hung out in Mr. Domenikos’ workroom on the lower level of the station. He knew the whole crew of the station would look after him but he liked being with Mr. Domenikos, even though rambling around the big occupied wheels that made up the levels of the Station was fun too.
Mr. Domenikos was the station’s main Engineer and de facto handyman. He was old, almost fifty, and he was regaling Dante with stories about the old stuff (“Don’t call it junk”) he had laying around the workroom.
“Like that tire you’re sitting on,” Mr. Domenikos said. “Dates back almost two-hundred years to the late 20th Century. Perfectly preserved, too.”
Dante leaned over and examined the tire he was sitting on. All he knew was it was rubbery and comfortable.
“Ever have to use it?” Dante asked. Mr. Domenikos had been explaining what a spare tire was earlier.
“Not without an Auto-Car,” he said.
“Got an Auto-Car up here?” Dante asked.
“Naaaaah!” Mr. Domenikos said. “None of them down on the planet either. Just those modern hover thingies.”
“Well, maybe we could take this for a ride anyway.” Dante said hopefully, as he patted the tire.
“A ride?” Mr. Domenikos asked. Then they both started to grin.
It started out okay. Dante and Mr. Domenikos bounced the tire around the workroom and then Mr. Domenikos started making engine noises and the two of them rolled the wheel out into the corridor and started rolling it along the slight curve of the wall. The wheel was half as tall as Dante and he started making it bounce as it rolled along, seeing if he could make it bounce as high as his head. That was when the wheel made it up to nearer the ceiling and Dante remembered something he’d heard about the gravity being less up there.
He was remembering the corridors were about four meters high as Mr. Domenikos let out a yell and the tire bounced up and rolled on the ceiling for a moment before angling down and rolling down the wall, across the floor and up to the ceiling again.
When it rolled back down, Dante made a lunge for it and instead he and the tire bounced off each other and the tire bounced on down the curve of the corridor out of sight.
“At least it’s on the floor again,” Mr. Domenikos said as Dante jumped up and started chasing the tire around the bend.
There was a crash.
Dante and Mister Domenikos collided with a technician wheeling a cart full of platters down the hall. They managed to extricate themselves from the jumble of platters, cart and technician even as he was jabbering about barely being missed by “some old bouncing wheel thingie…”
They chased after it again as the tire barely missed going up the stairway but instead shot right into the gravity chute.
“Out into space,” Dante said.
“Nope,” Mr. Domenikos said. “That chute goes up to the top level. Elevator. C’mon!”
A few moments and one high-powered ride later Dante and Mister Domenikos exited the elevator just in time to see the tire bounce through the open door of the gym. They ran after it, almost colliding with one of the station crew who had jumped out of the tires way.
The crew members were scrimmaging on the basketball court when the tire rolled and bounced into the middle of them. One of the players gave it a kick and the tire bounced off the wall, rocketed over the players, bounced off the empty bleachers and headed to the domed ceiling.
Mr. Domenikos shrugged.
“I was experimenting with a new air pressure formula with the atmosphere of Jovanni III’s Moon and some other stuff. Used it on the tire.”
“You can work on it.” Dante said.
The two of them looked up at the tire as it seemingly lay there on the ceiling, like they were looking at it upside-down.
And for years a framed printout of the picture Dante took of the tire there above the gym would hang in Mr. Domenikos’ office.
Every Week at Rainbow Snippets https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974 participants post six lines of a work of theirs, a work-in-progress or a work by someone else that has LGBT characters.
Skid glanced up as he wiped down a counter top there in the Food Garden Court. Ghosts were more active right now, some of them in small groups flying around the upper floor and the skylights. He glanced at the wall clock. He didn’t know why the Mall insisted on being open until Midnight on the last of Octobrus. Probably good for business. Not so good on the nerves.
Okay, here’s another snippet…
A pair of ghosts dive bombed Skid and he ducked. He could imagine them laughing.
“Maybe next year we’ll have the sense to be closed.” Skid said.
“Yeah, or I’ll be home hiding under my bed,” T’amec said. “Or under your bed,” he said with a grin.
Doug was pushing his motor scooter upwards when he heard the voice calling from the top of the hill.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Doug looked up at Tait and grinned.
“Roaring down the hill” Doug said, patting the scooter.
“At a time like this?” Tait said, spreading his arms. “Violence? Troops in the streets? Near Civil War?”
“It’s kinda like the early part of a Doctor Who episode, isn’t it?” Doug said breathing hard as he and the scooter he was pushing reached the top of the small hill. “Makes me give that blue port-a-potty down there a second glance.”
“Yeah, but we’re not ten years old riding our bikes down this hill anymore,” Tait said.
“I know, I know,” Doug said. “That’s been, what? Thirty years ago?”
“So, what are you doing wasting your time with this now?” Tait said, sounding exasperated with his old friend. “I mean, this is no time to be doing this.”
“This is exactly the time to be doing something like this,” Doug said. “For both of us.”
“Both of us?” Tait said.
“Yeah. We’ve been writing, posting, protesting…” Doug grunted as he turned the scooter around. “We’re fighting for ordinary things, like this, right?”
“Well, yeah,” Tait said. “But…”
“But nothing.” Doug said, patting the back seat of the scooter. “Hop on. We only live once.”
The hill wasn’t very steep and in another minute the two men rode down, hollering like they were ten years old again.
And it seemed in that moment that the world waited for them.
Here’s the draws for the October 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Followed by my usual long-winded explanation:
A Comedy
Involving A Spare Tire
Set at A Space Station
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 (including, hopefully, one of my own!) on the blog.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Seven of Hearts (a Comedy), the Three of Diamonds (a Space Station) and the Three of Clubs (a Spare Tire.)
So we will write a Comedy involving a Spare Tire set on a Space Station.
We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday October 6th, 2025.
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2025 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)
Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!
Nice normal stuff, right? Trust me, this is appropriate for Halloween…
Oscar and Elliot had been driving home from Denver to Kansas City when they stopped in D’Artagnan, Kansas. Not much there. Houses. Businesses along the highway and along the main drag through town.
“Main drag!” Elliot laughed to his husband.
They were driving down the main street to grab lunch. The Mexican restaurant was surprisingly good (“Every serape is a pride flag in disguise!” Oscar whispered as they had sat down in their booth.)
Here’s a little more:
As it was mid-afternoon when they finished they decided to work off their lunch with a stroll down the street and they found the antique store in the shadow of the old-fashioned marquee above the movie theater, next to a Bridal Shoppe.
“Turtle Antiques,” Oscar read aloud from the green sign hand-painted on the front window with, yes, a little turtle at the base.
“Town’s looking like a Gay Mecca,” Elliot whispered as they walked in the door. Nonetheless, they were both glad they were forty-somethings dressed in jeans and nondescript sweatshirts.
See you later with more snippets. Until then, be good to yourself and each other. —jeff
Oscar and Elliot had been driving home from Denver to Kansas City when they stopped in D’Artagnan, Kansas. Not much there. Houses. Businesses along the highway and along the main drag through town.
“Main drag!” Elliot laughed to his husband.
They were driving down the main street to grab lunch. The Mexican restaurant was surprisingly good (“Every serape is a pride flag in disguise!” Oscar whispered as they had sat down in their booth.)
As it was mid-afternoon when they finished they decided to work off their lunch with a stroll down the street and they found the antique store in the shadow of the old-fashioned marquee above the movie theater, next to a Bridal Shoppe.
“Turtle Antiques,” Oscar read aloud from the green sign hand-painted on the front window with, yes, a little turtle at the base.
“Town’s looking like a Gay Mecca,” Elliot whispered as they walked in the door. Nonetheless, they were both glad they were forty-somethings dressed in jeans and nondescript sweatshirts.
The shop was brightly lit and pleasant with antique furniture placed in spots between cases displaying old clothes, posters and books. There was a long glass case lining one wall filled with pieces of decorative glassware. To one side of the case was a small, ornately-carved wooden table. It looked very much like someone had draped a blown, lace cloth over the top letting it hang to the sides but it was all carved wood.
“Oh wow!” Elliot said. “This would go so well in our living room.”
“We have a red vinyl couch and a Snoopy lamp in our living room.” Oscar said. “Still…”
“What’s it say on the card?” Elliot asked.
Oscar picked the card off the table and read: “Brought from France in the mid-1800s. Dates back to the late 1780s…”
“Curious piece,” the voice behind them said. The speaker was short, plump, grey-haired and wore a faded plastic name tag. “The owner was going to donate it to the museum but she wanted the money more.”
Oscar leaned over the table, resting his hands on either side like he was going to pick it up and the room suddenly changed and swung around. It was like he was upside down and alone in the long room still holding on to the table he was standing beside. The carpet both were standing on had become translucent and Oscar could see Elliot and the plump man standing immobile. It was like looking through a mirror made of tinted glass. There was no image of Oscar at the right-side-up table.
Oscar glanced at the upside-down version of the antique store; the dusky light reminding him of a partial solar eclipse he had seen. The glassware in the dimly-lit display case now had unearthly angles and seemed malevolent somehow. The room stretched down into darkness.
Oscar gasped and let go of the table, certain he would fall headfirst into the dark ceiling of the dim room. Instead, he was back in the ordinary shop with Elliot. Neither he nor the plump man had noticed anything unusual.
The plump man was still talking, seemingly uninterrupted from the pause when Oscar had grabbed the table.
“…the owner was an interesting woman, but if I may say so, rather strange and she…”
Oscar didn’t wait to hear the rest. He grabbed Elliot by the arm and pulled him out of the shop, insisting over his protestations that they had to leave.
The plump man shook his head.
“We lose more customers that way,” he said to nobody in particular.
Still it was better than the young delivery man who had brought the table into the store and had vanished without a trace.
He started his nervous habit of drumming his fingers on the table, then thought against it and quickly pulled his hand away.
“Yeah.” Andrew said. “I came along later. Right before we…lost your Grandma and before Grandpa met your Grandpa Bill and decided he wanted to marry him.”
Andrew looked up at the sky again. When was the good time to tell a kid about the LGBT spectrum and how difficult it had been at first for the two men. And how gradually they had gained the acceptance of the whole family.
Here’s a little more
“Well, we will see Grandpa Bill and Grandpa Mark tomorrow for dinner,” Andrew said. “That’s why your Mom and I want the yard all nice and pretty.” He looked at the yard and the leaf pile and grinned, tossing the rake aside.
“But for now…BUNGEEE!” Andrew yelled and with a bounding leap flopped on the big pile of golden and brown leaves. Skyler happily jumped in with him and for a few moments, father and son were happily rolling in the leaves together and laughing.
Awwwwwwww. I got a little mushy and nostalgic with this one.
authorjeffbaker 