My (as Mike Mayak) latest story “Nereus” appears in the new online magazine “Orion’s Beau, Quarterly,” alongside work by Stephen Mead and Sarah Butkovic in the premiere issue; Spring 2022.
My special thanks to editor Solomon Robert for making the issue look so good!
The magazine features stories, poetry and artwork of the fantastic, all in the LGBT spectrum.
“Nereus” takes readers to the era of ancient myth and to the bottom of the sea. https://www.orionsbeau.com/fantasy-quarterly/
First the results: The draws for the March 2022 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a Four of Hearts, a Four of Clubs and a Five of Diamonds (low cards again!)
Meaning the story prompts for March are:
A Horror of Dark Fantasy
Set at the Bottom of the Ocean
Including a Broadsword.
Now for the details: The Flash Fiction Draw Challenge is a monthly flash fiction challenge done for FUN (no stress!) and started by ‘Nathan Burgoine and continued by Cait Gordon, Jeffrey Ricker and now Jeff Baker (ME!)
Basically, I draw three cards of different suits that correspond to a list of an object, a setting and a genre. Anybody who wants to play along can write a flash fiction story (1,000 words or less, we aren’t picky!) and post it here next Tuesday, March 15th. (I’m running behind, so take an extra day!) I’ll post the results for all to enjoy!
So, have fun and I’ll see you next week!
Have fun!
——-jeff
A touch of New Year’s in March, now; another of my weekly Friday Flash Fiction stories, this one from December 31, 2017. I hadn’t expected my Bi private eye Andrew Navarro to become a series character but I did another short-short about him a few months ago. And Andrew hadn’t expected to work on New Year’s Eve until an old friend practically begged him. And he definitely didn’t expect murder to intrude on a simple security job. This snippet helps set the scene in my story “WRUD New Year’s Eve?”
His request was simple; stay sober, keep an eye out and troubleshoot if necessary. The hotel had security but with two floors full of hard-drinking partiers they wanted to take no chances. The hotel rooms all opened out onto windowed hallways with a view of the city, and there was a big conference room at one end of the top floor which had been converted to a makeshift ballroom with streamers, signs saying “Happy New Year” and a cash bar. There was a table to one side where the D. J. was going to set up later, but the partying had already started, I saw about four guys sitting around, drinking beer and laughing. Another couple, both with graying hair, were kissing in the hallway outside their room, one of the two men reaching behind him and fumbling for the doorknob.
Have fun guys, I thought as I walked past the closing door.
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/RainbowSnippets
Here’s a link to the original story:https://authorjeffbaker.com/2017/12/21/something-for-the-end-of-december-in-friday-flash-fics-by-jeff-baker/
And I named Andrew Navarro after the gay actor Ramon Novarro.
See you next week! ——jeff
Cager
by Jeff Baker
D’Andre walked through the back corridor of the gym. Fast. He checked his smartphone. It had been an hour-and-a-half. Place wasn’t busy but it was the middle of the week and everyone who lived on campus was probably in the cafeteria. If they ate.
And D’Andre wasn’t sure about that anymore.
He’d been shooting hoops that afternoon after class and had been pulling on his sweats in the back of the locker room. He thought he was alone in the gym but then he heard Coach’s voice talking with someone else, explaining about how “it was working” and how D’Andre didn’t suspect that it was all set up for his benefit and he hadn’t realized that nothing else on the small college campus was real.
Not the school, not its history, not its people. The basketball team D’Andre had been recruited for wasn’t real; their website was a fake.
D’Andre came to the back door. Locked. Usually he could get out that way. It was never locked from the inside.
Somebody knew. They knew he had found out. They couldn’t know.
There Was a “click” and then the lights shut down, except for the exit lights.
They knew.
D’Andre ran down the hall to the side door. He tried it. It opened. He ducked out into the late afternoon sunlight.
Where to go? No car. The dorm? No. He hadn’t trusted his roommate before, he certainly didn’t now.
He had to get away from there. He clenched his fists. If he had to, he’d walk back to Arkansas.
D’Andre glanced around. Man, the place is deserted. And it wasn’t just dinnertime. Usually there was at least somebody walking by on the street or even some kid on a bicycle. And the offices in the Administration building had just closed, people should be going out to their cars to drive home.
Where were all the people?
He’d tripped an alarm somehow. That was it. But what was he here for?
“There he is! D’Andre!”
He didn’t recognize the voice. He didn’t recognize the huge vehicle that was bearing down on him.
D’Andre ran, ran for his life; the huge thing close at his heels, lights piercing the dusk.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: To be continued?
Mr. Strang Gets a (Second) Collection
a review by Jeff Baker
Publisher Crippen and Landru’s second collection of William Brittain’s fine mystery stories “The Man Who Solved Mysteries” is wonderful, perfect and long, long overdue.
Brittain, who later wrote Y. A. mystery and fantasy novels, started out his writing short mysteries, most of which appeared in Ellery Queen or Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines over fifty years ago. He had been a teacher in real life and his series character is Mr. Leonard Strang, a High School science teacher who winds up solving mysteries.
The Strang stories had never been collected despite a clamor for them until the recent C & L collection “The Man Who Read Mysteries,” which brought Mr. Strang between hard covers and also collected all of Brittain’s clever “Man Who Read” mysteries.
Packaged with a fine introduction from editor Josh Pachter as well as a reminiscence by Brittain’s son, James and a fine bibliography of William Brittain’s work, the centerpiece of the book is the remaining twenty-five of the Strang stories.
The tales feature moods from the comedic to the tragic and mysteries ranging from crimes, theft and murder and even a historical mystery (in “Mr. Strang Examines a Legend.”) The societal climate of the 60s through the eighties provides a backdrop to many of the stories with civil rights and the counterculture featuring prominently. This makes some of the stories feel almost like historical mysteries themselves as they document a youth culture now decades past.
Almost overlooked is the fact that Brittain was also a master of the Impossible Crime or Miracle Problem and several are featured. The very simple solution of “Mr. Strang Picks Up the Pieces.” The Impossible Vanishment of “Mr. Strang Pulls a Switch.” The clever and complex killing in “Mr. Strang Accepts a Challenge.”
In the stories, answers are found, justice is served and the innocent are exonerated.
And readers are entertained.
Here’s the link to buy not only “The Man Who Solved Mysteries” but “The Man Who Read Mysteries.” As well as the forthcoming collection of the rest of William Brittain’s non-series mystery short-stories “The Man Who Wrote Mysteries.” (Don’t forget to look for the hidden noose on the cover!)https://crippenlandru.com/magento/index.php/
Greek Salad
by Jeff Baker
Dinner with a handsome, muscular Greek man had long been one of my fantasies.
Sitting across the table, watching his smile across a sumptuous Greek meal prepared by the finest available chefs.
But the table was in my small apartment kitchen, dinner was a glass of wine and a Greek salad, the best I could do.
And my dinner date was not buff or tall. Skinny, hardly muscular. Scraggly dark hair.
But Nicky had that smile. And eyes, as much eyes for me as mine were for him.
We happily munched the salad and sipped the wine.
I tell him the grilled cheese sandwiches will be ready soon. I apologize for not having Feta cheese.
He grins broadly and we both laugh.
A beautiful man, a beautiful evening.
—end—
Fittingly the typewriter page is blank in the picture because I haven’t done much writing the last couple of months. I’ve done the usual weekly and monthly flash fictions but not much else. Not a matter of taking a needed break, I’ve just sloughed-off on the writing.
I have two stories I need to revise and I didn’t do much on the one that has a deadline (the end of this short month!) except write some notes last week and type up a couple of hundred words tonight.
More progress like that and I should get that done!
That’s about it for now!
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
These snippets are from another of my weekly flash fictions, called “Atmosphere.” (Here’s the link to the full story: https://authorjeffbaker.com/2016/08/28/monday-flash-fic-for-august-29-2016-atmosphere/) Bryan and Nico are happily making out on a blanket outdoors in the evening when suddenly Nico realizes he has no idea how he got there…
Here’s snippet one:
“Programming,” Bryan said. “They hooked you up to an, an encephalic mind thingie. Programmed you,” he said flatly. “Me too. We’re supposed to believe that this is really us, that this is how we really feel. It’s the programming, we were programmed to fall in love and get romantic and physical and, and, oh, God you have nice legs!”
Here’s snippet two:
“Programming,” Nico said as he rubbed Bryan’s chest. “Like robots? Oh, God, we’re not robots are we?”
“No,” Bryan said, in between kisses. “We’re not robots.” After a few more minutes of kissing, Nico pulled away and stared up at the sky.
That’s it for this week. I wrote a sequel which is in the link to the original story. Maybe some day I’ll turn this one into something full-length. ‘Till then, take care and stay warm! ——jeff
When All the World Dissolves
by Jeff Baker
Danny stood and stared at the ocean, the sand under his sneakers the old wooden school desk a few feet away.
Where am I now, he wondered.
He shook his head. He’d been hired to clean out the old storeroom at the top floor of the old warehouse. That’s where he’d found the old desk. He’d seen pictures of them, right down to the hole at front where a student could put an inkwell or in more modern times, a cup with pens and pencils. Hed been full of nostalgia and had managed to squeeze into the desk, six-foot-two, twenty-five years old wasn’t too big and he’d been reading the names scrawled into the desk and wishing he was somewhere other than working a nowhere job that had been nothing like what he wanted to do when there was a rush of air and the room seemed to blur and swirl around him and there was a feeling of forward motion and suddenly he had been just outside the city but it was midday not early morning.
He had about freaked and had slapped himself in the face. Not dreaming. It hit him suddenly that the desk might have something to do with. He sat down again and for an instant thought of wishing he was back at the warehouse. Then he had another thought. If this wasn’t a dream or even if it was he wasn’t going to just go back. But forward.
He thought of a beach and wished. Hard.
The world had dissolved and he’d been on the beach.
He stared. It wasn’t dusk yet. Where was this beach? Was he traveling in time as well as space? He looked upward, relieved to see a jet, not a pterodactyl.
He was on the opposite coast. Probably in the present. Probably. He could test that, sit in the desk and try to go back to 1776 in Philadelphia or something.
He thought some more. Where was somewhere he really wanted to go? Norway, to see the Northern Lights? No, he hadn’t brought a jacket. London? No, it was probably after midnight there and he didn’t have any money.
But there were places he wouldn’t need money. Someplace to start out small.
He smiled. He knew exactly where he wanted to go.
—end—
(Note: Title is a quote from Christopher Marlowe.—–jeff b.)
The Snow of 1983 a Tale of Three Days
by Jeff Baker
Note: This was originally published in The Vantage following a campus-closing snowstorm in January 1983. I present it here with only slight alteration for clarity nearly forty years later. Oh, and it references “Frosty” Sheridan. (For the record, I was a young Senior.)
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Conversations on that fateful Monday January 31, 1983 tended towards the weather, more specifically, the predictions of snow for the late evening.
Many people spent the afternoon commenting on the light drizzle which occasionally sputtered from the gray sky, or in recollection of the many times when the weathermen had been wrong in the past.
By 8 p.m. the conversation had turned to comparisons with 1978, 1971, 1970 and even 1888. Snow was falling, or rather being dumped by malicious clouds.
The scene the next morning was of a campus enshrouded in a velvety blanket of white, albeit a thick one, and a miniature version of the Himalayas where the parking lot used to be. Snow continued to fall, making the valiant attempts to clear the sidewalk by Newman’s janitorial staff (led by Frosty the Snowman) wasted at best.
Driving conditions? Pitiful.
Would Sister JoAnn Mark, academic dean, call off classes?
No one really cared. It was near impossible to get from McNeill to the cafeteria, let alone to school from off-campus.
Snowbound, the students of Newman did the only thing they possibly could to survive under the circumstances.
The Town and Country Market began to run low on beer by Tuesday night. One party was, according to rumor, held continuously for two days, interrupted by occasional snowball fights inside the dorm room. Someone started humming the “Twilight Zone” theme as more snow fell.
Wednesday dawned drably, as symptoms of stir craziness began to set in. Snowfall started and stopped on-and-off during the day and evenings. Record albums were ground to fine powder from constant replay. During it all, nobody seemed to notice that it was February 2nd.
Groundhog Day.
Thursday morning. The song “Winter Wonderland” has lost its charm. A 7:30 phone call from my Mom. She’s heard incorrectly that Friends and Newman are holding classes today.
“Mom…I don’t have any Thursday classes…”
Friday—classes resume! Yaaaayyy! Return to normalcy!
A bright-eyed, bushy-tailed instructor skips merrily into the classroom, freed from imprisonment in a suburban house with six kids and addresses the class.
“Is anybody here today? No? Oh well…” he says and begins to recite the day’s lecture.
In the sky, the clouds chuckle grimly, planning another evening onslaught of that unmentionable white stuff.
From The Vantage, February 10, 1983.
Written by Jeff Baker. Special thanks to editor Linda Panzer and Advisor (the late) Jeanne Cardenas. Oh, and The Vantage was the college paper I worked on at Newman University, then called “Kansas Newman College.”
authorjeffbaker 