"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
(And I botched big time! I posted E. H.’s story instead of mine! I just fixed it!—-mike 2/16/23)
Thanks for participating and remember, it’s never too late to do a story for any of these challenges and post it to the challenge blog post and I’ll add it.
Since July 4th is a long weekend, I’ll do the next draw on Monday July 11th. See you then!
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for this month’s Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were:
A Romance on a Country Road including a sopping wet sponge. Here’s what I came up with.
There should have been a Moon, Shawn thought as the horses pulled the old wooden wagon full of hay down the old dirt road in the starlight. Trees to one side, open field to the other.
“Bet the horses would go this way even if you weren’t holding on,” Lonnie said sitting next to Shawn on the wagon’s front seat.
“My Dad always told me to hold on to the reins anyway,” Shawn said with a grin. “Anyway I think Summer Hayride ‘22 has been a success. Everybody seemed to have a good time.”
“Yeah, we didn’t even have to use this,” Lonnie said tapping the bucket full of water and a sponge on the floor beneath the seat with his foot.
“Still not sure why we bring a wet sponge along on the ride every year.” Shawn said.
“Tradition,” Lonnie said. “When my Granddad ran this ride his Dad kept a wet sponge around to throw at girls who got too fresh with their boyfriends.”
Shawn laughed. “Wish he could have seen the necking going on tonight.”
“Yeah, now that’s tradition,” Lonnie said. “Hey, what time is it, anyway?”
“About eleven-thirty,” Shawn said.
“Let’s make our own tradition,” Lonnie said sliding close enough in the seat to kiss Shawn on the cheek. Shawn turned around and kissed Lonnie’s lips. They lingered. The air felt warmer.
“That’s about the first time we’ve done that in public,” Lonnie said breathing heavily.
“What public?” Shawn said. We’re here alone.”
“Alone, my butt!” The voice came from behind them. “Get a room, guys!”
Shawn’s brother, Sky stuck his head out of the straw, his girlfriend hanging on to his neck. They were both laughing.
Shawn and Lonnie joined the laughter.
“Hey, you two behave back there,” Shawn said. “Or I’ll use the sponge on you!”
“I gotta work tomorrow morning,” Sky said. “Just decide. Either neck or get us home.”
“We can do both!” Lonnie laughed, kissing Shawn again.
The horses pulled the wagon down the well-worn road.
Mergen spun around too late as the rings surrounded his head like fallen halos.
They were screened somehow, still were. Even with Mergen’s advanced sensory powers he couldn’t make them out clearly.
He tried hitting them with a telepathic bolt and doubled over in raging agony, clutching his head, his fingers stinging with cold from the rings.
Damn, again! He’d known not to touch those things; the rings floated around his head without touching him, blocking the use of his powers.
“Who the hell are you?” Mergen yelled.
“William Gaynes Turner, Junior,” the first figure said. “You seem to have gone to the other side since your youth in Othcault.”
“Trying to stop guys like you!” Mergen yelled, his head throbbing.
“You were a very successful criminal at such a young age,” the second figure said. “They could call the movie ‘I Was A Teenage Mesmerist.’ But your powers were far more. Your telepathy and telekinesis made you a formidable foe.”
“That is our problem,” the second figure said. “You endanger our operation as you have been capturing our criminal operatives in the act, as it were.”
Mergen fought against the pain, aimed a psychic blast squarely at the mind of the second figure.
The pain nearly blinded him.
“I advise you not to try anything like that again,” the second figure said.
There was a clicking as blueish chips formed around his body, starting from the legs and moving up to his torso.
“In a moment you will be prepared for transport,” the first first figure said. “The blue shielding will hold you until we have you at our facility where you will be held in our suspension tube.”
Through a fog, Mergen could make out a smile where the face of the first figure registered as a foggy silhouette.
“The same tubes used to hold our adult colleagues incarcerated in Nix Olympica,” the second figure said.
“Understanding how these worked and making our own is crucial to our plan,” the first figure said.
Mergen, by now, was covered in the small blue chips. He felt cold and woozy as if he was falling asleep.
“You’re showing off that body just wearing a tight pair of cutoffs,’ his brother had said of his superhero costume.
That wasn’t what made him feel cold.
He was nearly unconscious and felt hands lifting him when his subconscious mind, long trained and programmed, sent out a fleeting, desperate telepathic burst.
No pain. Just the message which he realized had been sent, but where.
He remembered the god Mergen, where he’d gotten the name, was depicted as an archer.
His last conscious thought was of a poem: “I shot an arrow in the air…”
I’m the current moderator for the Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was stared 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 each month I draw three cards, a club, a heart and a diamond. 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/blog and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results next week, sometime around June 13th. (But take as long as you want!)
As I have no idea how to make a video, I did it offline. The results were a six of Hearts (a Romance,) a three of diamonds (a country road) and a three of clubs (a sopping wet sponge.)
So, that’s it for the draws! Good luck! Have fun, and I’ll see you next week!
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or a work of someone else’s that has at least one LGBT character, posted on the Rainbow Snippets page, here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets
This week, something special, that breaks a bunch of rules; I’m celebrating my sixth anniversary (since May, 2016) of doing (and usually posting) at least one flash fiction story every week (or at least writing 52 a year.) Since I’ve been doing Rainbow Snippets for about half a year, I wondered if I could do a six-word story to go with the weekly picture? This week I did! And I grabbed the title from a song title (I do that a lot!) Enjoy!
Spiders and Snakes
by Jeff Baker.
Jack had been kissing Kevin when the spiders appeared, hanging in the air.
“Uh, that’s this thing I have,” Jack said. “My thoughts manifest sometimes, like my anxieties, which I guess are spiders.
Kevin smiled. “You don’t have anxieties about us do you?”
Jack had been kissing Kevin when the spiders appeared, hanging in the air.
“Uh, that’s this thing I have,” Jack said. “My thoughts manifest sometimes, like my anxieties, which I guess are spiders.
Kevin smiled. “You don’t have anxieties about us do you?”
They kissed again and the spiders disappeared.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been celebrating my sixth anniversary of posting these weekly flash fiction stories, so I wanted to do this one: I’ve been posting excerpts of my stories on “Rainbow Snippets” where we post six lines of fiction with at least one LGBT character. I’d been tickled by the idea of doing a six-line story, so this one fit! And the prompt picture was from early on in Monday Flash Fucs before I joined in 2016. Special thanks to Theo Fenraven, Helena Stone, ‘Nathan Burgoine and Brigham Vaughn.
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or a work of someone else’s that has at least one LGBT character, posted on the Rainbow Snippets page, here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
This week from an accidental series that I wrote for my weekly fiction blog posts, but didn’t intend to do any sequels to. Set in a magical mall on a magical world and involving Skid and T’amec, two twenty-somethings who work at the Food Garden Court. Here’s the snippet from “Old Man River.”
“Comin’ thru! Comin’ thru,” Skid said pushing the swinging doors open with his foot. He was carrying a big tray with an assortment of smaller containers on it at an awkward angle, ready to put in the slots on the counter where they could throw together the made-to-order food the Food Garden Court was famous for. T’amec gave Skid an appreciative glance; Skid was shorter, darker and muscular where T’amec was tall with grubby blonde hair. They had been good friends since they started working there part-time after graduation. They had only pushed the friendship somewhere else when a spell by the fae had required them to make out in the moonlight but that had been almost a year ago.
“Hey, c’mon!” Skid said. “Wake up and help me with this!”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is my sixth anniversary post. I started doing weekly flash fictions from picture prompts in May of 2016 off the old Monday Flash Fiction Facebook page. There have been a few breaks for holidays but I’ve also written for more than one prompt site as well as the Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge ‘Nathan Burgoine started a few years ago. It all adds up to over 52 stories a year (that’s around 348 stories so far!)
And right now, I am moderator of not only the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge but Friday Flash Fics as well! (I gotta be out of my mind!)
When I found this week’s picture it made me think of a story I dreamed up for a magazine in the 90s, but I got lazy, didn’t write it and didn’t get published anywhere until now! Enjoy!
The Beach at the End of the World
by Jeff Baker
The tall young man walked along the beach, glancing occasionally at the desolate muck that had been the ocean. He noted the position of the sun in the murky sky and turned around trying to figure exactly where the compass point was. He knelt on the sand and bowed toward the East.
After he was done, he tried to rise but his left knee hit something hard. A rock?
He stood up and pulled at the object. Not a rock, a misshapen cylinder with lines carved on one end. He cautiously pulled at one end and what looked like a cap came off. In another instant, there was the sound of a thousand bees and a blob of dark nothing surged from the cylinder.
In another moment, it formed into a tall, dark man, muscular where the other man was thin. Wearing a flowing robe where the first man was wearing ragged pants and a torn shirt.
“Mortals! Show Fear! I, Attos, am free once more to wreak chaos in this world after millennia!”
The skinny man in the torn clothes stared upward at the apparition.
“Ho, Attos!” the skinny man said. “I am Mottrea, he who has released you into this world. You will find much has changed since you walked the Earth last.”
“I shall destroy you first, then I shall ravage this world!” Attos said, glaring down. “For I am a Lord of the Dal-Huer, one called the Jann by those of this world. Behold my power!”
Attos raised one hand and the wind roared and fire crackled and a column of sand rose from the beach and solidified into a jagged column of dirty quartz.
“Behold, Attos,” Mottrea said. “I am also of the Dal, and my power is the equal to yours!”
With a gesture, Mottrea summoned lightning which shattered the crystal. With another gesture, he restored the crystal shards to sand again.
“I bow to no power!” Attos shouted. The pair of them raised their arms summoning fire, lightning and roaring wind. The ground shook. The mucky water receded.
Attos’ robes flowed behind him in the wind. Mottrea’s eyes glowed green.
A pile of rocks hurtled toward Mottrea and shattered against the aura which shone brightly around him.
Tentacles tried to bind Attos and shredded at his gaze.
Mottrea’s voice could not be heard over the wind. This fight could go on forever. He glanced around. He saw the outline of the city in the distance.
And he conjured.
Visions of the world suddenly appeared before Attos. A world shattered by the wars and cataclysmic weaponry of mortals. Mortals who had wiped themselves off the face of the world they claimed to rule.
The two men lowered their arms, the wind and visions ceased.
“There are no more men?” Attos asked.
“None,” Mottrea said.
“And what of our race?” Attos asked.
“I have found none but you, so far.” Mottrea said.
The two men walked together and kept walking along the edge of what had been a beach, the shell of the city in the distance, sunset, moonrise, sunrise, moonset.
And when the hours came they knelt and faced East, their voices echoing in the empty world.
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or a work of somebody else’s that has at least one LGBT character at Rainbow Snippets here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets
This week, I’m celebrating my sixth anniversary of posting at least one flash fiction story (usually on Friday Flash Fics’ picture prompt site) a week. Whew! I’ve posted the original picture above.
So here’s the very first: something called “Entr’acte.” I wasn’t sure what the guy was picking up off the floor…
“Excuse me,” Kent said, “I think you dropped these.”
“Oh, thanks,” Danny said. “Hey, you want one?”
“No thanks, I don’t smoke.”
“Good. I keep trying to quit, but, but…” Danny shook his head and held up the script. “Look, are you people sure about this, I mean this dialogue is really lame.”
Okay, here’s a little more…
“Yeah,” Kent said. “We’re really going to talk like this?”
The sun was streaming through the skylight in the Mall as T’amec finished filling one of the canisters with shredded, cooked meat. No customers yet, and most of the stores weren’t open this early but they were way ahead of schedule.
“Comin’ thru! Comin’ thru!” Skid said pushing the swinging doors open with his foot. He was carrying a big tray with an assortment of smaller containers on it at an awkward angle, ready to put in the slots on the counter where they could throw together the made-to-order food the Food Garden Court was famous for. T’amec gave Skid an appreciative glance. Skid was shorter, darker and muscular where T’amec was tall with grubby blonde hair. They had been good friends since they started working there part-time after graduation. They had only pushed the friendship somewhere else when a spell by the fae had required them to make out in the moonlight but that had been almost a year ago.
“Hey, c’mon!” Skid said. “Wake up and help me with this!”
T’amec grabbed the containers off the tilting tray and put them on the counter.
“Another disaster averted,” T’amec said. “All we need now is more room, a few more employees who won’t quit so we won’t have to cover shifts and managers who know what they’re doing.”
“Yeah,” Skid said grinning. “This isn’t what I got my degree for.”
The two of them worked putting the canisters in the slots and keeping them stirred, shooting the breeze and people-watching as the regular trickle of early-morning browsers and mall employees wandered by. Early morning regulars like Mr. Aloysius who ran the Augury shop at the other end of the mall coming up for his morning cup of steamed broth.
Then there were the mall walkers, usually older people (“You know, about 40 or so…” Skid had quipped.) who exercised by walking around the mall some even carrying small weights.
Then there was Old Man River.
Skid had nicknamed him that, an old, wrinkled man (“Looks like a preserved Pharaoh,” T’amec had said) because he kept moving around like in the old song. He had been one of the regulars who strode around the mall in the morning, usually in grey sweats “and matching face,” T’amec said. Sometimes T’amec or Skid would wave at some of them, sometimes they’d just nod. Sometimes they would buy something at Food Garden Court, usually coffee. Then they’d sit down at one of the tables under the indoor palm trees that towered over everything and smoke a cigarette and drink coffee.
“Sort of defeating the purpose,” Skid had muttered on more than one occasion.
It was a weekday morning so there weren’t many people in the mall that early but T’amec spotted someone familiar.
“Hey, look! There he goes.” He pointed.
Old Man River was unmistakable staggering along the side of the mall where the shops stopped and the polished brick wall started near the end where the Food Garden Court and the palm trees were. Some of the Mall exercisers ran their hand along the wall and at least one of them would grab the trunk of the palm tree and hold on as they swung around it to head back the other way.
“And you were worried,” Skid said.
“I was not,” T’amec said stirring the broth.
“Yeah you were. The last couple of weeks you kept saying ‘Hey, I wonder where our Old Man River is?’ You made it sound like you were in love with him.”
“I did not!” T’amec said with a laugh. “He’s too old and wouldn’t look as good in a Food Garden Court uniform as…” He stared for a second and looked away, blushing.
Skid grinned.
“Anyway, you notice he got a new suit?” T’amec asked.
Skid craned his neck to look down the mall.
“Yeah. Must have a formal to go to later.”
“Or his sweats are at the cleaners.” T’amec said.
They finished the prep work and all that was left was the stirring. After a few more minutes Old Man River came back around, followed closely by three men in uniforms. One of them grabbed him by the shoulder and escorted him back down the hall, swinging him right past the counter where Skid and T’amec were working.
Enough of a moment for Skid and T’amec to get a good look at his face. Emotionless and a lot more grey.
A little bit later in the morning one of the regular mall Security came up to the Food Garden Court for a cup of vegetable root coffee.
“You had a little excitement here this morning,” Skid said as he filled the cup.
“Yeah, I heard,” said the guard.
“We saw it,” T’amec said, stirring the broth. “They arrested the guy right in front of us.”
“That wasn’t an arrest,” the guard said sipping his coffee. “They apprehended him because he walked away and wasn’t supposed to do that.”
“From a hospital?” T’amec asked.
“From the cemetery,” the guard said. “He went all zombie a few days ago and crawled out of the ground. I was amazed the tux looked as good as it did.”
Skid and T’amec stared at each other; the glimpse they’d gotten of that face…
“Hey, will ya lookit this?” The guard set his coffee back on the counter pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket as he bent down.
He stood up and showed them the handkerchief which he’d used to pick something up from the stone floor.
“Must have fallen when they got a hold of the guy. I’d better take it to ‘em.”
The guard grabbed his coffee and walked off nonchalantly carrying Old Man River’s fallen, stiffening hand.
