"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
I’m seriously amazed I’ve made any progress writing during the last few months.
I was taking it really slow, I guess, after my Mom passed away this past December. I had to get a bunch of things done, including getting some furniture moved and some paperwork done. So I spent a lot of the spare time home with Darryl, snuggling on the couch up at all hours watching old TV shows into the early morning and the only writing I got done was the usual weekly/monthly flash fiction stories and columns. I figured I’d get back into doing the longer stuff gradually. Then in mid-March Darryl’s health took a nosedive and he was hospitalized. Despite excellent care he passed away from something sudden we hadn’t seen coming.
I will be all right. Yes, I am grieving, but to my surprise I am writing again too. And not just the weekly flash stories. I wrote 1800 words on a full-length story one night. 900 words on another one a night or so later. And I have 2000+ words on yet another story that is about a page (that’s around 250 words) away from being completed.
I like keeping odd hours and I’m doing a lot of this writing after midnight, listening to ESPN on the radio (Darryl’s preferred station) sitting on our big bed with notebooks scattered around me and my laptop in various places. (Lap sometimes, propped up on folded blankets sometimes, just sitting there sometimes) Darryl and I used to sit up till almost dawn watching old sitcoms on TV on the living room couch, so being up this late, feels cozy. And it’s becoming a working routine, which is doing me a lot of good. I’ve heard a lot in my lifetime about how getting back to work after a loss can help you work through it and I think that is what I’m doing. I’d read about it and heard about it from friends who have experienced it and now I am living it.
And I’m back to keeping my notes about what I’ve written in an old “Project Notebook” I bought at a going-out-of-business sale F & E had when I worked for them. I already filled one notebook (I started keeping this in about 2006) and I have been lax in keeping it the last three years when my folks were in hospice care. Keeping those notes feels good too.
These reports are supposed to be about the work but I will thank my friends who call and text/facebook/what-have-you contact me to check on me. It does me a lot of good having those friends out there.
So I should have a full-length story done by the middle of the week and some progress on the others as the month goes on. As a matter of fact, yesterday morning (the 13th) I took a line out of the story I’m working on and this morning (the 14th) I put it back! Holy Oscar Wilde, Batman!
And I will start doing these progress reports regularly again. I promise, now that I have regular hours (being late evening to early morning! Gotta love it!) And if I didn’t say it before; Thanks Dad! Thanks Mom! Thanks Darryl! I love you!
Every week we post six lines of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets herehttps://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
Looking back at my story “Life Is But a Dream,” from June 2016 https://authorjeffbaker.com/2016/06/27/life-is-but-a-dream-monday-flash-fiction-62716/ I see the influence of H. G. Wells’ s disaster story “The Star.” In my story, the Moon has spun off its orbit causing chaos on Earth. Lars and our narrator are surveying a boat left in a tree when the water
receded.
“You know, I hear the Maguire house up on Karlen’s Hill is staying pretty dry,” I said, staring up at the boat.
“Really?” Lars asked.
“Big bedroom,” I said. “Spare bedroom too, if you want.”
Okay, here’s the Happy-For-Now ending
Lars stared out at the receding water for a moment. Then he smiled and grabbed my hand. Life was too short not to take chances.
We started walking towards Karlen’s Hill. I glimpsed the Moon out of the corner of my eye. It seemed to be smiling at us.
Next week, something that pivots on a sneeze.—-jsb
Billy Turner was sitting where he figured he’d sat a million times before, on the edge of Matt’s bed in his bedroom, legs dangling over the side in the blue shorts with their High School logo on them.
“Hey, schweetheart,” Matt Cobb said doing his terrible Humphrey Bogart imitation. “You got a fine set of gams, you know that?”
Billy laughed. “I think gams are women’s legs,” he said.
“Yeah, well yours are pale enough to be women’s legs!” Matt laughed, plopping down beside him.
“Har-har,” Billy said sarcastically. “They’ve been covered up for winter. And I’m in college now. My legs spend their time studying.”
“And they’re smart,” Matt said. “They’re saving money living at your folks’ house.”
“Yeah,” Billy laughed, just a little ruefully. “We used to sit here after school and wrestle and watch reruns of I Dream of Jeannie.”
“Yeah,” Matt said. “Long time.” He stood up looking serious. He glanced at the closed door. “Look, Billy, we’ve been best friends since Grade school, right?”
“Yeah,” Billy said.
“I gotta tell you. I mean, it’s not because of your legs but…I’m Gay.”
Billy stared at him for a second. “Yeah, I know.”
Matt’s jaw dropped. “You know? How could you know? I’m not that obvious, am I?”
Billy grinned. “You told me.”
“Told you?” Matt said. “When the hell did I tell you? I’d remember if I told you! I sweated about telling you for years.”
Billy stood up and walked over to his friend.
“Remember when we used to go camping? When we were kids?”
“Yeah,” Matt said.” It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Remember late one summer? We were out at the campground by the lake and we ducked into that little tent because it started pouring?”
“At least we stayed dry.” Matt said.
“Uh huh,” Billy said. “And we had candy bars for dinner, we listened to that little radio and then we started talking until we curled up in our sleeping bags and we kept on talking.”
“And then you started snoring,” Matt said slowly.
“And you kept on talking,” Billy said. “And you told me, or rather you said it to me. I heard it over my snoring.”
“I remember now…” Matt breathed. “And you weren’t really asleep…”
“I was to start with but when I woke up I faked the snoring to see if I could fool you.” Billy shrugged. “I guess I did.”
“Oh my gosh…” Matt said. “And I never knew! I’d almost forgotten I’d said anything. And you never said anything!”
“You’re my best friend,” Billy said. “I didn’t want you to know I’d fooled you like that. Besides, it didn’t matter to me. What, we were in Junior High and it was about 1976? I had to look up what Gay meant in the library.”
The two of them laughed, both of them with relief.
“Just be careful,” Billy said. “There’s a lot of weird people out there.”
“So far all I’ve done is kiss a couple of guys.” Matt said.
“Same here, except with girls,” Billy said.
“Not a lot of people know…about me.” Matt said.
“Yeah, well my love life may as well be a deep secret for all the good it does!” Billy said.
“Wow!” Matt breathed after they sat back on the bed. “How long’s it been since we were both first up here?”
“I dunno,” Billy said. ‘How long’s it been since we first did this…”
He jumped up, quickly had Matt in a half-nelson which he broke out of, laughing. They both grabbed each other, rolled around on the bed and fell off onto the floor still laughing, still wrestling.
“Shoulda tried out for the team at school,” Matt said.
“You or me?” Billy asked laughing.
The door opened and Billy’s Mom stepped into the room.
“Honestly! You two boys still wrestling on the floor like nine-year-olds!” Billy’s Mom said. “Billy, you’re in College now! And Matt, what would they say at the technical school if they saw you on the floor like that? Well, if you’re acting that juvenile you won’t say no when I tell you I have cookies and ice cream downstairs. Store bought, of course. It’s faster to make.”
“Yes, Ma’am!” Matt said.
“Thanks, Mom!” Billy said, as they both rushed down the stairs.
Some things never changed.
—end—
AUTHORS NOTE: Yeah, the “coming out” story is more than a cliché but what inspired this story was the idea of somebody (Matt) forgetting he’d done something important years before. That and the prompt pic (and those are my legs by the way!)
(Above—Mike in his H.P. Lovecraft, E.A. Poe shirt. Photo by Mike Mayak.)
The draws for the May 2023 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were:
A Lovecraftian Horror Story
Set on an Assembly Line
Involving a broken Walkman.
Here’s what I came up with…happy listening… ——-mike
The Lurker In the Details
by Mike Mayak
“Hey, Dave.” Mac said. “Dave!”
“Wha?” Dave said looking up.
“Whadya want for lunch?” Mac asked.
“Uh, not sure.” Dave said.
Dave and Mac worked on the assembly line, putting the new digital electronic music players in boxes, surrounded by Styrofoam making it look bigger than it was so they could charge more for a device the size of a credit card.
“Take those things off your head,” Mac said. “That’s why you can’t hear.”
Mac reached over to pull the old fashioned headset off Dave’s head. Dave pulled back.
“Don’t touch that!” Dave snapped. “T’iabbas Beware, you’ll break it! It’s an antique.”
“It’s junk,” Mac said. “An old Walkman held together by duct tape and those damn tie things off of a bag for a loaf of bread. I’m amazed the Shift Supervisor even lets you have that thing on the Line.”
“He thinks it’s funny.” Dave said. “At least, now he does, Neouppass be praised.”
“What? Are you on something?” Mac asked.
“Not me man, I just get high on life!” Dave said.
“Oh,” Mac said. After a few more moments he observed that Dave had gotten back into his rhythm of putting the device in the foam and sticking it in the box. His head was bobbing to the music he was listening to. Mac remembered his Dad always saying the Devil was in the details. He deftly grabbed the headphones off Dave’s ears and the player off his belt.
“HEY!” Dave shouted, making a lunge. But Mac had spun around facing the other way and put the earphones to one ear.
He’d expected music but instead there was a droning intonation of the names he’d heard Dave say: Neouppas, the Darksome. T’iabbas the Ravager. Dolgna the Low. It made him feel funny. He dropped the Walkman and stepped on it.
Dave swore using several other names Mac had never heard. There was a glazed look in his eyes, and his pupils looked reversed; the black part was outside and the white part was just a little dot.
Someone grabbed Dave from behind and held him tight.
“Sorry buddy.” Dave said. “We have to sent our broadcasts out for those who venerate the Great Name. I got the Boss and the Supervisor to listen to my point of view but that device was too slow, taking it from one to the other.
The intercom crackled and began playing the droning tone of alien names. Mac felt weak and numb all over.
After a while they didn’t go to lunch or on breaks anymore. They just stood there on the line, packing the devices that would be shipped out to the populace, bringing them into the fold of their Master.
I stumbled across a literal hole-in-the-wall record shop just east of downtown Wichita that I had never heard of and which deserves more attention.
“The Gate,” described as “A Heavy Metal Record Store” is at 115 S. Pattie 101. Just off Douglas. It is what it says it is; a small, old-fashioned record store selling Heavy Metal L.P.’s, C.D.’s and even cassette tapes! Plus a wall full of old magazines, many about music and movies but I found a 1947 copy of the digest magazine “Avon Fantasy Reader,” including reprint stories by Bradbury, Collier and Lovecraft.
As befits a used store there is a feel of a shop from another time among the vintage items for sale. They even sell video tapes!
The shop has been open for over two years and deserves your patronage.
First, here’s the prompts for the May 2023 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Lovecraftian Horror Story
Involving a Broken Walkman
Set at an Assembly Line
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 May 15th, 2023.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage and the results were the Six of Hearts (Lovecraftian Horror), the Ten of Diamonds (An Assembly Line) and the Nine of Clubs (A Broken Walkman.)
So we will write a Lovecraftian Horror Story (that is, horror fiction derived from the kind of stuff H. P. Lovecraft wrote) set at an Assembly Line involving a Broken Walkman (if you remember those!)
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week!
Every week we post six lines of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets here https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
Eddie wasn’t surprised an angel would know about Gino. They’d been fifteen that summer; Gino had been young, dark and gorgeous. They’d hung out at the lake. On the final day, Eddie had tried kissing Gino and Gino had shoved him away and used an anti-Gay slur. Thank God he’d never told anybody. But before that, the summer had been wonderful.
The angel grants him that last request. To re-live one moment when he was fifteen…Here’s the snippet.
“C’mon! Let’s jump!” Gino said, standing over the lake.
“Uh, no, it’s too high,” Eddie said, suddenly remembering that this had happened before and they hadn’t jumped. He grabbed Gino’s hand and jumped off the edge, the two of them whooping as they fell into the warm, beautiful water, surrounded by bubbles. As they broke the surface, laughing and splashing towards shore, Eddie took a last glance at young, gorgeous Gino and stepped onto the bank as he felt himself drawn upwards towards eternity.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The title is from Act 4, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.”
NOTE: I went for my occasional pen-name for this story—-jeff
Leader of the Laundromat
by Mike Mayak
The young man in the brown suede jacket sitting on the row or green plastic seats in the laundromat sat talking into his cellphone.
“Hey, Honey,” he said. “I just put the clothes in and I’m sitting here, gonna either read a book or work in the notebook.” He patted the small duffel bag on the seat next to him. “Yeah, I’ll be glad when we get the washer downstairs fixed too, honey. Then I can put the wash in, hop upstairs and do my reading snuggled on the couch next to you. I’ll have this done in about thirty minutes and come home and use our dryer for free. I’ll call before I leave. Love you, too! Bye”
He put the phone in his jacket pocket and didn’t bother tapping it to shut it off.
A few minutes later, the taller man in the sweater approached him.
“Hey, sorry to bother your reading but do you have any of those detergent pods? I left mine at home.”
“Huh? Oh sure. Yeah.” He fumbled through the duffel bag and pulled out a plastic bag printed with the logo of the grocery store. “Help yourself.”
Thanks,” said the man in the sweater, his mind flashing to all the PSA’s he’d seen about keeping the pods away from kids. After a few more minutes, the man in the sweater sat down next to the young man who was back to his reading.
“I owe you for the pods,” he said extending a hand. “I’m Justin.”
“Mick,” the other man said.
They sat there for a few more minutes and then Mick put his book down and sighed with his eyes closed.
“I hate the washer being busted,” Justin said. “Nice of you to do this for your wife.”
“Nice,” Justin said. I had a boyfriend right out of college, Never made any real commitment though.”
“Mmmm.” Mick said nodding.
“I hope I find somebody who makes my face light up the way yours did when you were talking to your husband. Look, I’m bothering you, I’ll let you get back to your reading.” Justin stood up.
Mick took a deep breath. “My husband passed away…about eight months ago. Really sudden.” Mick stared at his feet. “He had some things wrong with him, but we hoped…”
“My God, I’m sorry…” Justin started.
“It’s okay,” Mick said holding up his hand. “I’m doing all right. We knew each other about twenty years. We got married out in California fifteen years ago. I guess I…well. I pretend to call him up sometimes when I’m away from the house. Like I used to.”
Justin sat down again. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Not really,” Mick said. “I don’t need to talk or anything.”
Then Mick talked. About meeting Paco at work by accident when they were both scheduled for the same shift by mistake, about their first date, about the spilled coffee, about coming out to his parents (his Mom had known all along), about how Paco’s Mom was gone and his Dad had run off somewhere when Paco was twenty, about how a redheaded white guy had gotten the nickname “Paco.”
Justin listened. He’d expected to maybe tear up, but he found himself laughing at some of this sweet couple’s misadventures. Before they knew it he realized both the washers had stopped, their washing finished.
“Wow!” Mick said. “I…I guess I needed to unload. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Justin said. “Listen, would you want to maybe meet up for like coffee or something?”
Mick sat there for a moment.
“I…uh…I don’t think so.” Mick said. “I mean, you’re nice, but I don’t know if I’m ready to date yet. Maybe not ever. I guess I still consider myself married.”
“That’s okay,” Justin said. “Hey, I’d better put my laundry in the dryer before I forget.”
Mick pulled his own laundry out of the washer and put it in the trash bags he had brought along. “A basket is so cliché,” he’d muttered to himself. He didn’t bother using the carts the laundromat provided, he needed the exercise.
When he’d finished taking both bags (wet laundry was heavy) to his car trunk he went back inside and grabbed his book and duffel bag, nodded politely at Justin and walked out to his car.
Mick was in their…his basement at home and had put the wash in the dryer, checked the lint trap and turned the dryer on. He opened the duffel bag and pulled out the little bag with the detergent pods when a piece of paper fell out of the duffel bag.
It was a piece of notebook paper, carefully folded. On it was scrawled a phone number and the name JUSTIN.
Underneath that was written: “For when you’re ready.”
Mick smiled. He stuck the paper in his pocket and headed upstairs. He’d sit in his old spot on the couch and enter the number into his phone.
Every week we post six lines of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets here https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
I may have posted this, from my story “Something In The Dark” before. It features a loving couple who I admit were based a little on my late husband and myself. Fortunately we never got into a situation like this. Our snippets are from the earlier, domestic set-up. Although this is a horror story it was written with a lot of love. It was read over the “Monsters Out of the Closet” podcast by Eric Little. https://www.monstersoutofthecloset.com/listen/2018/12/25/episode-15-darkness
I sleep with the lights on now.
Kevin and I had been officially married for four months. We owned our own business flipping houses. We’d worked through a lot of towns in Western Kansas near where Kevin had grown up. Hugoton, Elk Ridge, Rachel, even Dodge City. By the end of that summer we were in Darley, Kansas, working on a house at the edge of town.
Here’s more snippets, maybe a few lines over.
Buying fixer-uppers, fixing them up and selling them at a profit was a pretty cushy job, and was no sweat for us. We’d both been practically born with a hammer in our hands and once we got the power on and the plumbing working we stayed in the house we were working on, usually with the big inflatable air bed along with a cooler full of ice, food and soda. Saved a lot of money that way, and gave new meaning to the phrase “working from home.” Darley, Kansas wasn’t much. A main street with old brick, one story buildings, grain elevator by the railroad tracks to the north, water tower overlooking everything. Surrounding that were several streets with the newest houses mostly dating back to the 1960’s. The one we were in was a ranch style with faux brick below painted wood along with a concrete front porch with an awning. Most of the paint was peeling and the grass was overgrown in brown waves like a tan comb-over.
Okay, that’s enough before things get spooky (and they do!) Next week, an appointment with an angel.
authorjeffbaker 