“Farwell Delighte Fortune My Foe.” Friday Flash Fics for October 2, 2020 by Jeff Baker

Posted on October 3, 2020 by jeffbaker307

Farwell Delighte Fortune My Foe

                                           By Jeff Baker

                                      

            AUTHOR’S NOTE: This one will need a rewrite if I ever publish it elsewhere, but it was fun writing! Once again, a tale of 20-something Prince Almazotz; youngest son of a youngest son on the run from an arranged marriage to a guy he wants nothing to do with. (He probably didn’t have money!) On an unearthly fantasy world, the possibilities for chaos are endless. The title is from an old Renaissance-era song; the setting made me think of Renaissance Faires.—jsb. 

            Prince Almazotz breathed deep. The air was full of the scents and spices of the weekend festival, which had been going on since before dusk.

            “Where to first?” he said aloud. “Find some place to spend this money or maybe make some more.” He jangled the gold coins in his pocket and wandered down the hill to the array of booths set up in the streets. He wandered around, looking from side to side, not looking like a runaway lesser member of the royal family, actually enjoying himself. Anything beat working but that helped him pay for his room a few blocks away.

            “Hmmmm…trinket, food, food, trinket, hey! Simmuldian Wine!”

            Nothing at a Festival is cheap, especially if it’s cheap, watered-down wine.  Three pieces of gold later, Prince Almazotz leaned an elbow on the booth and sipped the stone cup of wine as he looked around. His eyes rested on a sign towering over the booth across from him: FREE MONEY.  He gulped the wine and with his lighter pockets rushed to the next street.

            Under the sign was a buff young man in a loincloth, standing on a large platform. The sign read in full: MONEY For Those Who Challenge The Strongest Man Alive! He eyed the man up and down, lingering for a moment on his biceps and shoulders, and then he glanced back at the sign and the word in capital letters.

            “Here! Over here!” Prince Almazotz said waving a hand. “I challenge! I challenge!”

            “Wait your turn,” a man to one side of the platform said.

            The man strode to the platform as the shirtless man flexed his biceps for the small crowd. The challenger pulled off his shirt, revealing an equally huge set of biceps. The crowd gasped their approval.

            The first man sneered openly at the challenger. He then leaned down, picked up what looked like part of the trunk of a large tree and hoisted it over his head. He plopped it down as the crowd applauded. Then the challenger reached down, grabbed the tree trunk with both hands, pulled and…nothing. He grunted with surprise and frustration. Prince Almazotz’ eye was caught by a movement of shadow behind the curtain that backed the platform. He stepped away from the crowd and caught a glimpse of the full scene reflected in the metal side of the next booth, not too visible unless someone was looking at it right. And the Prince was. It showed a blue robed man making gestures through the curtain at the stage—a Sorcerer! Prince Almazotz had studied about magic, just enough to recognize some basic types, even though he couldn’t do any of them. This was not an advanced mystic, but advanced enough. He felt for the white-blue metal amulet under his shirt and pulled it out: Moons-Metal was a supposed counter to this form of enchantment. As the challenger left the stage, Prince Almazotz bounded up, handed the muscly guy a coin and gave the assumed name he was using that week. He stood as the man hoisted the tree trunk over his head again, fingering the amulet with one hand. Then it was the Prince’s turn: He grabbed the trunk on the platform, pulled at it and when it didn’t budge, the Prince let the amulet fall on its chain down to touch the trunk. He wasn’t anyone who was going to throw boulders around, but he figured the trunk was hollow anyway. There was a sizzle and a snap. The trunk suddenly flew over his head, his hands stuck to the sides. He hung there for a moment, then there was another crackle, the amulet popped off the log and flew across the platform, snapping the change and Prince Almazotz and the log crashed to the floor, thankfully not on top of one another. He managed to jump up and pull open the curtain.

            “See! It’s rigged!” Almazotz yelled. “Sorcery!” He awaited the cheers of the audience.

            When the Sorcerer, the muscle guy and the audience had tired of chasing him around the festival grounds, Prince Almazotz bought another cup of wine and watched the moons soar into the sky.

                                                          —end—

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, LGBT, Prince Almazotz, Short-Stories, World of Three Moons | Leave a comment

Progress Report, Sept. 29-Oct. 3, 2020. And Night Thoughts, from Jeff Baker.

Posted on October 3, 2020 by jeffbaker307
Photo by Vladyslav Dushenkovskyi on Pexels.com

Been busy, or at least involved. Wrote one line on the Friday Flash story Wednesday, wrote more Thursday and finished it late Friday, early Saturday. Will post it and post the new picture after I hit the sack.

History is happening as I write this; the kind of history that people tell their kids about seeing. That is putting everything else to the side; we have been glued to CNN. (Fox is useless on this story; the facts contradict most of their news coverage since February.)

I’ve started reading through Robert E. Howard’s Texas-set horror stories. They’re really pretty damn good—he is a master storyteller. Been trying to read one a night, before bedtime. Not tonight! Mars rose right near the Moon a few hours ago, following Saturn and Jupiter across the sky. Venus will rise in a bit, with Arcturus as a companion. I will not be up for that.

“Tomorrow,” meaning when-I-get-up, I will post this stuff, and push myself to get in a regular routine. I’m going to try to have the larger WIP sent off by the end of the month. There’s a flash-Christmas story that’s due in November that i ought to do as well. And then, there are the Rbt. E. Howard stories to read, hopefully nightly.

(Oh, I should mention: the Howard stories are from the 2008 Del Ray “The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard.)

That’s about it for now!

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Progress Report; Sept. 23-25, 2020 by Jeff Baker.

Posted on September 26, 2020 by jeffbaker307

Wrote a line or two on the big W.I.P. this week. Also did the weekly flash fiction story. Amazed I did that much. Maybe the plague, the general unrest and a lot of personal crap have been contributed to a sense of personal lethargy these last few months. Oh, well. Progress is still progress.

That’s it for now!

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Dave Danger Encounters, Uh, Danger! Friday Flash Fiction by Jeff Baker for September 25, 2020.

Posted on September 25, 2020 by jeffbaker307

         Dave Danger in Yes Sir, Yes Sir, Three Bags Full   

by Jeff Baker

The building dated back to the sixteen-hundreds, but my boyfriend dated back to the nineteen-nineties so it was appropriate. It was a Hotellery now, what Andrew said they called a bed-and-breakfast back in the twenty-first century, but the English countryside was still the English countryside, right down to the grazing sheep, and we had a nice week of privacy away from the things that got Andrew his nickname “Dave Danger.” But he signed the Hotellery register with his given name: Andrew David Llewellyn Ethan Piltzer.

            “After putting the bags in the room, how about we take in the sights?

            “’Berto,” he said with a grin,” “what sights?”

            “Oh, come on!” I laughed. “There’s a clock tower from 1603 in the village, to say nothing of the ruins of the old monastery. All within walking distance.”

            For a moment, he looked like he was going to sneer, then he brightened.

            “Well, the glorious English countryside is still the glorious English countryside,” he said. “Be a pity not to take it all in…”

            About a half-hour later we were walking down the road, Andrew lost in thought.

            “We might want to pop in at the local pub for a pint,” he said. “See if they have an old-fashioned phone.”

            Our savers were out of range, so I couldn’t check my messages or visit any of a dozen commentary sites I was on to say nothing of use the phone. We ordered a couple of pints in the darkened pub and I started explaining how they had to bring back wire-connected telephones in some locations due to the inaccessibility of some locations as well as excess band usage rendering some savers useless. I’d gotten into that bad habit of explaining things that happened while Andrew was in suspended animation for about a hundred-and-thirty years. Andrew found the phone and he was away for about five minutes.  I ordered some crisps.

            “So, what’s up?” I asked when he sat down and started helping himself to the crisps. “Anything you can talk about?”

            I’d become used to the fact that there was a lot of his work he couldn’t tell me about, but when I’d been jumped by robot spiders and shadowed by a radium drone, to say nothing of finding myself working for a genuine mad scientist with a genuine death ray, I was usually pretty involved.

            “Just needed to have something picked up,” he said. “Ah, these sandwiches look good!”

            It was late afternoon when we walked back to our Hotellery and I saw several small vans and a copter, both unmarked and saw what looked like an armed team loading the herd of sheep into the vans. One of the sheep was swearing in perfect English.

            “All the luscious grass around and those sheep didn’t give it a glance,” Andrew said. “Genetically altered agents, for one of the other sides I’m sure. Probably not after me but surely up to no good. Best to have them removed and the grounds and building scanned.” One of the armed team saw Andrew and gave him a thumbs-up.

            “An ancient gesture that still means something,” Andrew said. “Now, we can get on with our vacation. This gesture means something too.”

            We stood and kissed as the shadows grew long.

                                                —end—

            A sequel to my homage to 60s British adventure TV series like “Adam Adamant Lives.” The first appeared June 2019. Here’s the link: https://authorjeffbaker.com/2019/06/27/out-of-the-freezer-for-friday-flash-fics-june-28-2019-by-jeff-baker/

Posted in Dave Danger, Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, LGBT, Romance, Science Fiction, Short-Stories | 3 Comments

Rewriting is Progress Too! Progress Report from Jeff Baker for September 21, 2020.

Posted on September 21, 2020 by jeffbaker307

Wrote about a half page on the W.I.P. Also re-wrote some of what I wrote yesterday. It fits now, at least!

That’s it for now!

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Progress Report, September 18/19, 2020 from Jeff Baker.

Posted on September 19, 2020 by jeffbaker307

Got about a page done on the work-in-progress that I should have done by the end of the month. Also did the Friday Flash Fiction story late Thursday night/early Friday morning.

That’s about it for now.

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“A Light Across the Water,” Friday Flash Fics by Jeff Baker. September 18, 2020.

Posted on September 18, 2020 by jeffbaker307

                                    A Light Across the Water

                                      By Jeff Baker

            The light of dusk was visible through the windows. The shadows seemed to creep up the stone walls of the cylinder of the great lighthouse on the coast as we set up the table on the ground floor in the middle of the room. Carl tapped the circular staircase with a finger. The metallic “Ping” echoed through the lighthouse.

            “Better answer the door,” he said, grinning. “Ghosts calling!”

            “Oh, will you shut up and let’s just do this,” Naomi said. She was placing the cardboard box on the table and pulling off the top which she tossed to one side on the floor. She pulled out the carved wooden board and set it on the table. She took one more item out of the box and tossed it aside. The item was a planchette.

            “Looks like a guitar pick.” Carl said.

            “Better be serious about this,” said the tall man standing by the table. “If this is gonna work, we better be serious.”

            “We’re serious, Barrett, believe me,” Carl said.

            “Turn off the flashlight and light the candles,” Naomi said.

            Soon the three twenty-somethings were seated at the table, hands touching the planchette on the spirit board, candles flickering.

            “We are here,” Naomi spoke into the darkness of the lighthouse, “to speak with the spirit of Captain Rolland Cross…Gone for one-hundred-forty years, since the sinking of the Macaroon a few miles from here…”

            She paused. The lighthouse was full of the dark, full of the quiet. They could almost hear the candles flicker. They all knew about Captain Cross and the lost treasure of the Macaroon. The ship had sunk just off the coast, the coast they had grown up near. But in the near century-and-a-half, no one had found the ship or the treasure.

            No one was even sure what the treasure was, although most people speculated gold. Captain Cross had taken that secret down with him. It was long speculated that he had sunk his own ship in the storm to protect whatever it was.

            “Captain Cross,” Naomi said. “If you are there, please speak to us.”

            Barrett bit his lip, so as not to yell. The planchette under their fingers was moving. From one letter to the next.

            “A,” whispered Naomi, following the revelation of the letters. “J.” “A. A again. A again.” The planchette lay there, seemingly inert.

            “Ajaaa,” Carl said. “What’s that?”

            “Ajaaa,” Naomi said. “Ajaaa. What does that mean, Captain Cross?”

            The planchette moved swiftly under their fingers, first pointing to Naomi, then to Carl and then swiftly, maddeningly it flew out from under their fingers and pointed at Barrett.

            “What the hell?” Carl said.

            “It…it popped out from our fingers,” Barrett said. “We were pressing down so hard.”

            “It means something,” Carl said. “What?”

            “That word, the one it spelled out,” Naomi said. Maybe we all are supposed to say it?”

            The three of them looked at each other and began to recite.

            “Ajaaa. Ajaaa. Ajaaa. Ajaaa.”

            There was a bright light from the top of the lighthouse. Their voices drifted off as the light began to pulse in time with their chanting. They stared at each other; the light had been removed decades ago when the new beacon had been installed across the bay.

            The lighthouse became cold. The blazing, pulsing light began to spiral downward. The shadows began to dance.

                                    —end—

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Horror, Short-Stories | 2 Comments

Not Too Much Progress to Report, from Jeff Baker, September 16, 2020.

Posted on September 16, 2020 by jeffbaker307

Worked on the Queer Sci-Fi column (about Joanna Russ) last week. Right before deadline. But the last-minute additions only helped, and I got a nice comment on Facebook from a writer who had taken a class from Joanna Russ!

Haven’t written anything in the last few days (working on getting the roof replaced!) but I have started reading Ivanhoe! Never read any Sir Walter Scott.

That’s about it for now!

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“The Demeter Diaries” by Marge Simon and Bryan Dietrich.

Posted on September 14, 2020 by jeffbaker307

by Jeff Baker

It’s always nice to have a famous author living in your hometown. Bryan Dietrich lives here in Wichita and teaches at my alma Mater, Newman University. He’s published several books of poetry and has been nominated for a number of awards (including the Pulitzer!) He and Marge Simon have published “The Demeter Diaries,” a collection of poetry telling the story of Dracula and Mina Harker (from Bram Stoker’s novel) in their own words. Appropriately, the collection was a nominee for the Bram Stoker Award. I’ve met Bryan on a couple of occasions and he was kind enough to sign my copy (through the mail, not in person!) Marge Simon (who I have not met!) is likewise no slouch as a writer of prose and poetry; she has a Rhysling Award to her credit!

The book is a dark delight! I highly recommend its blend of romance and dread. (“Demeter,” by the way, is a reference to the ship in Stoker’s novel “Dracula,” a ship you would not want to book passage on as it has some very dark cargo and a very grim passenger.)

Here’s a link: https://www.amazon.com/DEMETER-DIARIES-Marge-Simon/dp/883195945X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ONQFKUM30Z6Z&dchild=1&keywords=the+demeter+diaries&qid=1600124735&s=books&sprefix=The+Demeter+Diaries%2Caps%2C190&sr=1-1

Posted in Books, Bryan Dietrich, Horror, Marge Simon, Poetry, Promo, The Demeter Diaries | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“Grandfather and the Star Bird.” Friday Flash Fics, September 11, 2020 by Jeff Baker.

Posted on September 11, 2020 by jeffbaker307

Grandfather and the Star-Bird

                                                    By Jeff Baker

            I must have been about two or three when my Grandmother started telling me the story.

            “I was a little girl, like you,” she said. “When the big ship came down from the sky. It almost landed in the rice fields and my Grandmother was furious. The people stepped out of the ship and declared that they were gods.”

            Grandmother snorted. “Well, in my village, we knew the Gods and these people weren’t the Gods. Still, we waited to see what they had to offer. It was my Grandfather who went up to speak to them. They were a little taller than he was and wore metal masks, but they were men.”

            “Well, the men from the ship told my Grandfather that they needed something to make the Star Bird (as they called it) move. My Grandfather said; ‘Oh, you mean fuel, like for an Ox.’ The men told him what they needed, and after a few moments, my Grandfather realized what it was they were describing, and set out to make a bargain.”

            “A bargain for what, Grandma?” I asked.

            “Coffee beans,” Grandma said. “Can you imagine? Well, yes you can, you’ve heard your Grandfather after his morning coffee. Anyhow, my Grandmother knew that if they realized how common it was we would get nothing. So the deal was made, the beans procured and the men and their silver ship left.”

            And Grandmother smiled and hugged me.

            “And someday I will show you and your brother what Grandfather gave me; the gift from the strange men in the Star-Bird.”

                                                —end—    

Posted in Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Science Fiction | 2 Comments