"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
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.
The little boy in the sweater pointed up at the green helicopter soaring across the sky. His father leaned against the rake and shielded his eyes from the sun looking upward.
“Yeah, I see it,” Andrew said. “A military helicopter, heading to the air base I bet.”
“Incoming!” the little boy said, waving his arms like helicopter blades.
“Skyler, where’d you hear that?” Andrew asked.
“TV show you watch,” Skyler said, for a moment not looking like he was three. “The one with the tents and the green clothes.”
“Oh yeah,” Andrew said. “MASH.”
Andrew resumed raking as his son ran over with more leaves for the pile.
“You know, your Grandpa Mark worked in a hospital like that, way before I was born.” Andrew said.
“Really?” Skyler said.
“Yeah.” Andrew said. “Over in a place called Vietnam. He’s got some pictures. Of course then he came back here and he and Mom had your two aunts and then me.”
“Really?”Skyler said.
“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. Let alone about a fifty-years gone war.
“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.
When they got up and started brushing the leaves off each other Andrew laughed again.
“Let’s get this pile raked back and put in a bag and go inside for some tomato soup,” Andrew said.
“Yaaaaay” Skyler said.
For an instant, Andrew was three years old, with the promise of soup and visits from grandparents.
Read Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Shadows In the Rock,” in the anthology “Scaring and Daring.” A fine homage to Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn. The dialogue is perfect. (“You listen right smart, that river will tell you things, and it’s a good idea to pay attention. That ole river don’t warn you twice.”) A sci-fi/horror story with tinges of Lovecraftian “otherness,” as well as some Twain-style humor.
Finished “Dogs Don’t Break Hearts” by ‘Nathan Burgoine. (See my Goodreads/Amazon review for details!)
Started reading L. Frank Baum’s “Sky Island.” A fine fantasy adventure.
Also started Dickens’ “A Tale Of Two Cities.” Which starts off in Seventeen Seventy-Five… Been reading through it in the Signet Classics edition which tells you where the chapters of the original serialization ended. It comes off like a breezy read, setting things up for drama and adventure.
And I’ve set myself the task of reading all Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore’s novels/novelettes that originally appeared in “Startling Stories” Magazine in the 1940s and ‘50s. The impetus was my copy of “The Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner,” which came out about 1987 and which I picked up used maybe five years later. (Yes, I have the reader’s bad habit of buying books and not getting around to reading them.) So I’ve started in on “The Portal In the Picture,” which is a lot of fun so far. I have several paperback copies of the Kuttner novels that were published originally in “Startling,” and at least a few of the novelettes are in collections I have on my shelves. I just ordered a re-issue of “Lands Of the Earthquake,” another Kuttner story from Startling that has been recently released as a trade paperback.
“Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner” also has the stories “Valley Of the Flame” and the one writers like Roger Zelazny cited as an influence: “The Dark World.” Most likely written mostly by Moore I am really looking forward to getting to that one!
NOTE: I finished “Portal In the Picture.” I posted a Writing Report Addenda on this blog the other day covering it. Also a Goodreads review.
Read the regular online offerings by E. H. Timms and Kaje Harper, as well as J. Scott Coatsworth’s weekly serial “Down The River” the latter of which has wrapped up with an epilogue! A fine send-off for characters we have come to love and which Scott handles masterfully.
I’m not the only one hoping there will be more.
Still reading the late John Maddox Roberts’ “Temple Of the Muses.” I have a big TBR pile!!
Photo: “Facing The Blank Page” by Amy Tharp. With apologies to Norman Rockwell.
Not too much real progress other than the usual flash fictions. Which got a little unusual as I did a four-part superhero serial over the course of four weeks. Kind of flipping the “base it on the picture” idea but it was a blast.
Wrote up a column for Queer Sci-Fi. As we are hitting the Halloween season the next column should be easy. Or, getting the idea for it should be.
I sent off a couple of stories, including one I hadn’t thought of in years and had to trim.
I made notes for some longer stories and plans to finish and send off at least one of them by the end of the year.
There’s a land that I’ve heard of, once in a lullaby—–”Over The Rainbow.”
Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore’s novella “The Portal In the Picture” was first published as “Beyond Earth’s Gates” in the September 1949 issue of “Startling Stories Magazine.” The Kuttners (Husband-and-Wife writers; that’s “Catherine” L. Moore, by the way.) collaborated on a lot of fiction to the extent that they said they weren’t sure who wrote what since they would alternate writing chores on a single story and “Portal…” is basically a short novel, so this review will credit it to both writers.
The plot is simply told: New York actor Eddie Burton inherits an apartment from his favorite uncle, Jim Burton. When a portal opens up in the air in the apartment Eddie’s wannabe-girlfriend Lola is sucked through and Eddie follows some time later. Eddie discovers he is in Malesco, a fantastic city that is nonetheless a gritty, urban jungle, and is the place Eddie’s Uncle Jim used to spin bedtime stories about. Eddie finds it’s quite real and that Uncle Jim had spent about ten years there, which explains to Eddie how his Uncle could make up the Malescan language which he partially taught Eddie.
Eddie narrates to us that he is no hero like Alan Quattermain or John Carter Of Mars: he just wants to get Lola and go home. But he gets involved in the oppressive world held in the grip of a hierarchy of priests and their religion of Alchemy.
The story is set in the very-near future and the Kuttners, writing in the 1940’s, had no problem making television and video a regular part of both the worlds of New York and Malesco. Nonetheless the story is old-fashioned in a lot of ways: Lola comes off as a ditsy airhead who has no problem with Malesco venerating her as an “angel.” Also, Eddie comes off like the standard Kuttner hero; just short of being a character out of Damon Runyon.
As the story goes on and Eddie gets in further over his head, the reader wonders how he’ll get out of this. So does Eddie and so did I! Knowing how the Kuttners did their writing I can almost imagine one of them getting up from the typewriter at a pivotal moment in the story leaving the other to figure out “what’s next?”
Eddie starts off the story sitting in a nightclub after his adventure is over and references his eventual return during the story so while we know he does get home, we wonder what will happen along the way. The climax is satisfying and clever. The entire story is a breezy read with the humor mainly coming from Eddie as he deals with a situation straight out of one of the novels of Haggard or Burroughs. The Kuttners had read those book series which were still being written when they were growing up.
There were also moments that reminded me of the novel “The Wizard Of Oz” as well as “Logan’s Run,” the latter of which did not exist when Henry Kuttner was still alive.
“The Portal In the Picture” is readily available online or in used stories in various collections. My copy is collected in the 1987 Warner Books paperback “The Startling Worlds Of Henry Kuttner” which collects three novels the Kuttners published in “Startling Stories” Magazine, where they were regular contributors.
The man in the rumpled suit was standing in the parking lot next to an ancient camera on a tripod.
“Hey!” Kelly called out through the open driver’s side window. “That’s my spot! Move that, that thing!”
The man in the suit looked up. He had a grubby black beard and glasses.
“I am Malesco,” the man said in an indeterminate accent. “Beg pardon, but I must capture this before the light changes.”
The camera was pointing down at the parking space by the ivy-covered brick wall.
“Uh, that’s fine, but that’s my spot,” Kelly said. He wiggled the handicapped card hanging from the rear-view mirror.
Malesco stared for a moment and then returned to aiming his camera at the parking space.
“The insignia, the symbol. She is, how you say, perfect!”
“Yeah, that’s a handicapped parking spot and it’s where I’m supposed to park,” Kelly said.
“But this picture is perfect,” Malesco said. “It says so much without words.”
“Yeah, just hurry and get out of the way, will you? I have to…”
“But I must capture this before the light changes!”
“What light?” Kelly said. “It’s September and it’s cloudy.”
“In a minute, in a minute…” Malesco said, looking through his camera.
“Maybe more than a minute,” Kelly grumbled to himself.
“Oh, this is, how you say? Wow!” Malesco said, his voice rising. “The symbolism, the imagery is perfect!! I could never have found this moment in Paris or in Spain or even in Tokyo! It is, how do the natives say…”
Kelly didn’t stick around to hear how the natives said it, he drove off, found a parking space in the adjoining lot which fortunately was not any further than his office and walked towards the building with his cane, grumbling about the photographer. But when he reached the office door and saw himself reflected in the glass; a man in a long coat with a cane, walking along grumbling, it reminded him of Ebeneezer Scrooge.
And in the glass, the warm September ground looked like snow.
authorjeffbaker 