Managed to whip up the Friday Flash Fiction story in time to post, and also worked on the new Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge for August, due next week (a horror story, involving a spoon set in a bakery.) Also I have AQSF column due next week. I wasn’t going to dwell on a lot of current events in the columns, but I just may this time.
That’s it for now.
I’ll Fly Away
By Jeff Baker
Eddie slapped the side of the plane, making the wing vibrate.
“Hit it!” Eddie yelled.
“On it, I mean Roger!” Manny said.
“Flaps up!” Eddie yelled.
“Flaps up!” Manny said.
“Wheels off! “Eddie said.
“They’re off!” Manny said.
“An’ we’re up!” Eddie yelled. “Lookit the clouds down there!”
“Yeah!” Manny yelled. “Hey, I’m supposed to be the pilot this time!”
“Oh, right!”
The two of them quickly opened the doors and ducked around the propeller in the parking lot, hopping back into the cockpit.
“All right, we ready?” Manny asked.
“Ready!” Eddie said.
“Thennnnnn GO!”
“Hey! What’re you two doing?” The laughing voice came from outside the plane.
“Hey, Granddad!” Manny said, as his Granddad stared in the cockpit of the front half of the small plane pushed up against the wall of his shop.
“Where’d you hear all that airplane lingo?” Granddad asked.
“Played a movie last night!” Manny said.
“Fireplanes Over Topeka!” Eddie chimed in.
“It was cool!” Manny said.
“Yeah!” said Eddie. “I’m gonna be a pilot someday!”
“Me too!” Manny said.
“Well, you’ll have to finish school first,” granddad said.
“Awwwwwwwww!” the boys said.
“Look, you take your cousin in the house; I bet Gramma has something special for you in the kitchen.”
The kids cheered as they hopped out of the cockpit and ran into the part of the shop that was a home.
Granddad shook his head and smiled. How old were they? Eight? He remembered when he was eight. He remembered the firefights; the night the skyscrapers downtown burned; the tanks that rolled through the streets.
He sighed. Hopefully, pilots would only fly on missions of peace.
He headed into the building.
—end—
Been taking it easy, nursing indigestion for a few days and all I’ve written is the beginning of the Queer Sci Fi column for the month. August, including some early birthdays I have to remember, snuck up on me. Been taking pills for the stomach and will have the column finished later this week. And hopefully, I will proofread and finalize the historical mystery and send it off this week as well. I did add one sentence late last week which clarified a historical ambiguity I thought needed mentioning.
Then, I can get back on the swashbuckling LGBT fantasy/adventure story that has a market opening up this fall. I have a couple of chapters done and it’s for a pulp-adventure-style magazine.
That’s all for now.
McGuffin’s Goal
By Jeff Baker
It was late afternoon in the club and somehow the talk had become nostalgic and had therefore turned to football. Delmar and Aubrey-Smith were recounting their (largely exaggerated) days of glory on the pitch in their youth, and even Old Man Plunkett had chimed in, when someone said that the best part of this was that McGuffin wasn’t here to brag about some exploit of his.
“Ahem,” came the familiar voice from a darkened corner of the room.
We looked up. We hadn’t seen McGuffin come in and he was not in his usual seat.
“Ah, the fond memories of my school days, playing for University,” McGuffin said. (He never said which university.) “We were up for a cup at least once during my time there, but my most memorable match was an exhibition game played in, oh, nineteen…nineteen…nineteen something.”
I grabbed a full glass from a passing waiter as McGuffin rambled on.
I was a young man (McGuffin said.) young and strong and played with energy and enthusiasm for our squad, proudly wearing our colors of…well, that’s not important. Our exhibition game that weekend was between us and a team from Bandilugia, a new country formed after the war. They were as good as we were but that wasn’t quite the reason we were both at zero as the game headed towards full-time. The Bandilugian Goalkeeper was a young man named Arturo. Lean, muscular, with a head of dark, curly hair and with three legs! Yes, three! He could run like the wind and effectively blocked every shot, including mine! He kicked with any of his legs and didn’t even have to use his hands!
We had run through three goalkeepers on our squad, and Arturo wasn’t even winded!
I looked at the clock; time was running out and even though it was only an exhibition game, our honour was at stake. I looked over at the stands and saw members or our school band that had performed during the opening ceremonies, seated in the front row with their instruments. With a series of gestures, I indicated that they should play. They realized what I meant and they played, and a moment later I scored the winning goal, in fact the only goal just as time expired. And in the uproar we were declared the winners.
McGuffin signaled for another drink and sat back in his chair. I stood up and started demanding explanations.
“Wait just a minute!” I said. “How could you possibly have scored a goal just because the band started playing?”
“It wasn’t that the band started playing,” McGuffin said, “it was what they started playing. They realized I wanted them to play the Bandilugian National Anthem. The Bandilugian players, including Arturo, immediately stood at attention and began singing along. And that was when I kicked the winning goal.”
—end—
I forgot to post here from a week ago (after posting it everywhere else! 🙂 ) The Two Gay Geeks, Keith Lane and Ben Ragunton, interviewed me a few months ago for their regular podcast and we had a grand old time! It was just posted a week ago (on my Birthday, July 20th.) Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoaFVPxEOWU&t=1045s
Okay! Last couple of weeks I’ve been largely lazy, avoiding working on the mystery story i was going to have finished “over the weekend” about a month ago. I finished the first draft tonight, and while it looks like a rough draft I have something to work from! (And I haven’t lost the knack for writing in my lethargy!)
Also polished off the flash fiction story (‘Nathan Burgoine will like this one!) this afternoon. One I’d been wanting to do for a while!
And I surprised myself by writing a poem on Friday (July 24th.) Looks actually good!
That’s all for now!
The Infernal Machine
By Jeff Baker
July 25, 2376
To: Oblivion Co. Head Office
From: Riley Arbuthnot
R.E.: Capuchin Asteroid.
Dear Mr. Baden-Baden:
Made it to the Capuchin Asteroid and it is HUGE! Artificial atmosphere just like Earth. Found the welder’s shop, the only one on the planet. Presented him with his shipment: 1 (one) case of surplus “soldier’s arms,” defined as “munition-projecting weapons, outdated sometime in the last century.”
Slight problem. The customer ordered 1 (one) case of soldering irons.
Clerical error. Please send correct shipment.
Also, please send tow ship for my delivery cruiser, which is in several large pieces, thanks to the crew at the welder’s shop who were really needing those soldering irons. Have them pick me up; I am on nearby Dubuque Asteroid. I will be at the snack bar.
Yours, Respectfully
Riley Arbuthnot.
P.S.: Might we discuss a raise?
—end—
——–for Mr. Upson and Mr. Botts
By Jeff Baker
July 23, 2020
Imagine the scene: Black-and-white, midsummer, evening. A large, American ballpark. Empty seats with cardboard cutouts filling the stands. Camera zip-pans to SERLING, standing in front of the closed hot dog stand.
SERLING: “Opening day for major league baseball. Heralded with the appropriate fanfare as well as the requisite anthems. Young men fulfilling boyhood dreams running onto the field. But this will be a season like no other; as a plague has shut down much of the country leaving the boys of summer to carry on as the national pastime proceeds with business as usual in the face of the blatantly unusual.
This is the beginning of the baseball season during the end of the world…And you have box seats…in the Twilight Zone.”
(With apologies to Rod Serling.)
The Warrior of Frog Island
By Jeff Baker
I had been travelling for months, days of exploration and adventure and nights where a bed-chamber was a luxury if it had a roof overhead, when after a small trip by sailercraft, my companions and I came to Sanar; the place sometimes known as “Frog Island.” The small settlement near the docks provided a tavern for eating and a small hostel where we quickly acquired rooms once the management saw our coinage.
As we had arrived in early evening, I was able to survey the island from the windows of the tavern which faced opposite the direction of the setting sun. The light made the ancient trees the same brownish-orange as the ancient stone turrets that seemed to grow out of the island. When we were done with our meal, the sun had dipped below the horizon on the sea and the island was bathed in purple darkness, illuminated by stars and two of the wan moons.
It was on the next day that we made our explorations. I was always the more adventurous and so I strayed from the well-worn path into the center of the island with its small hills and ancient turrets. As I walked, I recognized the many varieties of plants that were edible and knew that between them and the fish the locals did not starve. I rambled onward until I made a turn and found myself in a small clearing, free of the foliage which obscured my view of everything but the path and a strip of clear, green sky above. I found myself facing the tall façade of what I found to be one of the stone turrets. It was in deep shadow, being early morning, and as I stared I could see an outline of a huge figure crouched against the stone. As the light grew brighter, I was taken aback by the sight of huge, muscular arms, glistening eyes and powerful legs; all tinted green and white. For a few moments, I stood near-panicked, wondering if I should flee but I stood transfixed at the glistening musculature and aspect of what was revealed to be a giant frog-warrior, standing erect, complete with a shield strapped to its back!
I had heard the legends of the fierce battle of the frog-warriors millennia ago, but I was convinced that they had been defeated and never returned. This specimen stood motionless and I suddenly realized that this was no living being, but must be a carving, a statue of some kind. I cautiously moved around the frog-warrior and saw that, indeed, it was attached to the stone of the turret and was almost as high; nearly four times higher than a man.
I was singularly struck with the appearance of the frog; the detail of the mottled green on the backs or the arms and tinting the face and head as well as the pale, almost sickly white of the frog’s underside which was fully on display. It had (I learned later at the tavern) been built into the rock wall of the turret and had been carved and polished but it was, amazingly, the same dull, yellow stone as the turret walls—no jewelry had been used to make it glisten, not even the eyes! The stone had been polished to bring out the glasslike qualities of the rock, and it was considered a thing of beauty.
I had to agree. I surveyed the frog-warrior; probably the last representation of its kind on this world, the living representatives long-fled or remains tossed in the ocean after defeat and death. The light from the sun was beginning to hit the frog in full and I marveled at the delicate work; a stark reminder of ancient days. I had been told by a tutor that the Frog-People were a myth. Looking at this huge, amphibious addition to the edifice, I certainly hoped so.
—end—
July 14 and July 16 I worked on the new Friday Flash Fiction story. This one done in the style of Washington Irving, or at least, of one of his travelogues.
That’s it for now.
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