Out Of the Freezer for Friday Flash Fics, June 28, 2019 by Jeff Baker

Posted on June 27, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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Introducing Dave Danger!

By Jeff Baker

 

I thought he looked familiar when he sat down across from my desk and handed me the sheet of paper. First of all, hardly anybody does this on paper anymore. Second, he was wearing old-fashioned slacks and a tan tee-shirt. Most people opted for the formal robe and short pants. Of course, he would have looked good in short pants. He was one of those blond guys who gets a good tan and I was thinking that and staring instead of doing my job.

“Uh, are you all finished?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “There’s a problem. It won’t let me fill this out.”

“What, the tabla rosa?” I asked.

He thumbed over at the row of computers on the table.

“I can’t fill out this jobs form on that computer thingie,” he said.

“That’s the tabla rosa. What seems to be the difficulty?” I asked, trying to be professional and not look at how his chest filled out the shirt.

“I keep, uh, typing in my age and this thing won’t accept it.”

“Okay,” I said.

“’Too many digits,’ is the thing that keeps popping up.”

“What’s your birthdate?” I asked.

“January Eleventh, Nineteen-Ninety-Seven,” he said.

“Nineteen?” I blurted out.

“Yeah,” the man said. “I was in the ice chest for a while. That makes me one-hundred and sixty-one years old.” He saw me staring at him and grinned. “Yeah, I don’t look it.

Three digits. The computer thingie keeps saying I need the form for retirement, not taxes.”

“Oh, my Gault!” I gasped out. “I saw you on the news! Disarming that gunman and falling out that window, and grabbing that tree branch! You’re Dave Danger!”

“I wish they hadn’t started calling me that!” the man said, extending his hand. “Andrew David Llewellyn Ethan Piltzer.”

“Alberto,” I said. “Alberto Arrango. Uh, I’m sorry about, uh”

“When I was a kid, they called it going all geeky,” Andrew said.

The story had been all over the place; a convicted icer (that’s what they called them) had been released and thawed when some evidence turned up. Said icer was a sort of, what did they call them, free-lance adventurer for hire. I was never that great at history.

And now, history was sitting across the desk from me.

“When they put me in the Ice Chest, back in ’26, they thought they were getting rid of me,” Andrew said. “Which I guess they did. Maybe they should have had me fill out forms instead. Might have been more effective.”

“What happened?” I asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I was set up,” Andrew said. “By a guy named Magnus Hawke. The irony, I guess, is that I’m about the only person alive who remembers that name.”

“Magnus Hawke,” I said. “I’ve known that name since I was in school. Master criminal, regularly thwarted by Dave Dang…by you, I mean.”

“They teach espionage history in school now?” Andrew asked.

“No, I studied all this after class. I guess I got obsessed for a while,” I said. “I would have made a lousy adventurer or I would have tried to get a job doing that.”

“Most of the time it only paid under the table,” Andrew said.

“Look, I’m not really helping,” I said. “I’ll send you a copy of form A67. That one covers, uh, extenuating circumstances.”

“Thanks,” Andrew said. He stood up and shook my hand again.

“Well, I won’t need this,” Andrew said, waving the paper in the air with a flourish. He seemed to specialize in flourishes, I realized. “But maybe you do.”

He pulled out a pen (with another flourish) and scrawled something on the back of the paper.

“Call me,” he said as he walked off. “Or text me, message me, contact me. Whatever they call it these days.”

He was grinning as he walked out the door.

 

—end—

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been watching a 1960s British TV adventure show called “Adam Adamant Lives” about a Victorian Era adventurer who is frozen by his enemies and thaws out just in time to see (and be appalled by) Swinging London of the 60s. I couldn’t resist trying my hand at it.

Posted in Dave Danger, Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, LGBT, Science Fiction, Short-Stories, Time Travel, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Lake at Evening; Friday Flash Fics for June 21, 2019 by Jeff Baker

Posted on June 23, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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The Lake at Evening

By Jeff Baker

 

“Look! The lake’s receding. It’s starting!”

I pointed across the darkening sky. The lights of the town on the other island were twinkling. I could make out the spires of a couple of the buildings in the dim light.

“I see,” Kendall said, putting his hand on my shoulder. As we watched, the water silently pulled away, leaving the firm ground exposed. A yearly phenomenon that exposed walking paths to the island. Not as important as it had been in the days before air skimmers, boats and bridges. But the festival on the island city remained a tradition from ancient times, though sources were unclear as to whether the original islanders were celebrating the island becoming accessible to the mainland or becoming inaccessible when the waters rolled back in three days.

“Want to go over there?” Kendall asked. “Take in the city? Buy a couple of cheap souvenirs?”

I grinned. “Weren’t we just over there the other day?”

“Yeah, but this is tradition. And remember, we were both over there five years ago for the Festival?”

I remembered. I’d been eating sanded lakefish, he’d just bought a mug of Sarga and asked if he could sit down at my table. We got to talking and had walked around the city, taking in the sights and the street shows. We’d kissed for the first time during the fireworks.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I said. “I like where we are right now.”

We stood there quietly. We could barely hear the music, drifting across the lakebed.

“Lakefish for lunch tomorrow,” I said. “With Sarga.”

Kendall nodded and held me close.

The stars were coming out as we stood there and hugged and kissed, the popping of fireworks in the distance echoing in the air.

 

—end—

 

Posted in Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, LGBT, Science Fiction, Short-Stories, Uncategorized, World of Three Moons | Leave a comment

Oh Moon, Thou Climb’st the Skies; Friday Flash Fics for June 13, 2019 by Jeff Baker

Posted on June 12, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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                          Oh Moon, Thou Climb’st The Skies

By Jeff Baker

 

The weather was warm, the rainbow flags were flying and I was feeling as conspicuous as hell in my “Nobody Knows I’m Bi” t-shirt.

“Relax,” Schuyler said. “You’re as stiff as…well, this is a party! It’s Pride Month! Gay Mardi Gras!”

“Yeah,” I said.” But if we weren’t 1,400 miles away from Wichita, I probably wouldn’t be wearing the shirt,” I said.

“Hey, Billy,” Schuyler said. “Coming out isn’t easy for anybody. But you’re here, you’re wearing that cool shirt and nobody’s going to…Hey! Hey! Over here!”

Schuyler waved, and two people waved from across the street full of waving flags. They were about my age, twenty-something; the girl with long blond hair, jeans and a white tee-shirt with rainbow stripes around the middle; the guy in black jeans, a black tank top and a rainbow striped top hat. Striped top hat looked like he was feeling no pain.

“Guys!” Schuyler said. “Meet a friend of mine, he’s just out.”

“Wha?” the girl said. The crowd was getting pretty loud.

“I said, THIS IS BILLY GONZALEZ,” Schuyler yelled. “WE WENT TO SCHOOL TOGETHER. HE JUST CAME OUT A WHILE BACK!”

“Hey,” the guy said, flashing a peace sign. He introduced himself as Leo. The girl was Melinda. I allowed myself a lingering glance at Leo’s bare arms.

“Let’s sit down over here,” Melinda said. “Less noisy.”

The makeshift outdoor café was further away from the street. We sat down at the table and ordered drinks. Schuyler finished his in a couple of gulps. Then he had another one. Like Leo, he was feeling no pain. He’d done the same thing when we were in college.

“This makes me think of France,” Schuyler said. “About eighty-four or eighty-three. The Queen wasn’t too crazy about me so I went there,”

“I got some queens who don’t like me, either.” Leo said.

“Yeah, but I remember us marching through France on a street like this and they were waving flags a lot like this,” Schuyler said. “Or, maybe it wasn’t France. Maybe it was further north. I think it was. Sir Phillip was with me.”

Schuyler always got like this when he was drunk. Harmless, but nuts.

“We were heading through Zutphen. That was when the Spanish came,” he said. He was speaking strangely accented English. He’d done it before. “They were going to engage us. We were near the water. I had lost one of my cuisses in the long march. Sir Phillip gave me his, saying ‘Edward! I will not be better-armored then my own men and he bade me take his.’”

“Ooooooo!” Leo said.

“Oh, Phillip, Phillip, the arrow came too fast,” Schuyler said. “And you, un-armored in your thigh. I could never profess my love.” Then he began reciting:

“With how sad steps, Oh Moon, thou climb’st the skies,

How silently and with how wan a face…”

All this sounded familiar. One night in the dorm, Anthony Cardno, a psych major, had hypnotized Schuyler and supposedly taken him back over 400 years in his own memory. I’d remembered a lot of it and had told one of my professors a while later, and he was amazed at all the detail. Detail he’d said Schuyler couldn’t have known. Schuyler was no history geek; he thought the American Revolution had something to do with RPMs. And he didn’t give a damn about poetry. Especially Elizabethan poetry. Reincarnation, or somehow picking up on lives of people who had lived before, wasn’t the strangest thing I’d run into.

“He’ll be okay,” I said. “I’ll get him to the hotel and he’ll sleep it off.”

“You’re a good friend, Billy,” Melinda said.

“Yeah,” Leo said.

They both stood up and kissed me. In public. I was surprised. I smiled.

“Happy Pride,” Leo said.

I was remembering the lines I’d heard before:

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?

Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

I sat back, feeling a lot more relaxed. Sometimes, you have to be who you are.

—end—

 

 

Posted in Billy Gonzalez, Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, LGBT, Short-Stories, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Mischief Following Anger for Friday Flash Fics, June 7, 2019 by Jeff Baker

Posted on June 7, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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Mischief Following Anger

By Jeff Baker

 

I discovered one of my ancestors was a witch right before my twenty-fifth birthday. I inherited a box of pictures from my Great Grandmother. It included a letter from her Great Grandmother warning about the influence of Naomi Harker, who had died in 1699. I had the feeling the letter was meant for me. That was when I started doing research into the family history. The internet was a wonderful resource. I found out that a lot of women in my family had greenish-blue eyes, like mine. But I wasn’t a woman, of course. I found that Naomi hadn’t been the only family member accused of witchery; there had been four sisters burned in England, and several others had been accused during the proceeding centuries.

Time, some sources said, meant nothing to a witch. But a witch was nothing until reunited with her coven. Twelve witches and a male sorcerer; an acolyte who was their go-between in their dealings with the dark forces. I lay awake one night, wondering what it had been like for these ancestors in the superstitious past. I suddenly remembered: I had found a line of witches stretching back to the Fourteenth Century. Twelve witches in all.

There was a wind blowing in my room, a fire burning in the ancient stone fireplace (where there had only been a space heater before.) I could hear the call of wild animals outside, and see moonlight, but there was no moon.

My eyes were glowing blue-green as I rose to greet the twelve women who appeared in the dark and to take the flowing robe they offered me.

 

—end—

 

 

 

NOTE: The title comes from a Seventeenth Century charge brought against supposed witches. —-jsb.

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Horror, Short-Stories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Toy Story for Friday Flash Fics by Jeff Baker May 31, 2019

Posted on May 31, 2019 by jeffbaker307

 

The Forlorn Bear

By Jeff Baker

 

I was twelve years old and I was in bed with a cold. Over my protestations, my Mother sent for the doctor. Our regular doctor having been summoned on another call, Old Doctor John was the one who showed up. He was semi-retired and must have been about eighty, He harrumphed and grumped a bit and made me laugh. He told me I had a cold and I said “I know.”

“Sometimes,” Old Doctor John said, “the obvious isn’t so obvious. It reminds me of something that happened when I was helping out a friend of mine. It must have been back in nineteen-oh…”

“Nineteen-oh!” I said. Old Doctor John glared at me. “Yes, Nineteen-Oh. Someday, the years won’t seem as far apart to you as they do now.”

I sat back and listened. I loved his stories. He went on.

I was in the rooms my friend rented in London (Old Doctor John said) and one afternoon he received an envelope with a photograph and a note. The note pertained to the recent kidnapping of a child which had been kept out of the London papers. The note taunted my friend, saying that he was known for solving the “pretty little problems” but couldn’t solve this one.

I examined the note for a watermark and found none as my friend examined the photograph; a child’s toy staring forlornly at the camera.

“We have to get this to the police immediately, John,” he said. “This man may not have wanted to be caught but he was careless.”

My friend usually didn’t call me by my first name, and so I caught the urgency of the situation. As we rushed out the door he said “We now have one vital clue.”

And the kidnappers were apprehended and the child reunited with his family by nightfall.

Old Doctor John finished his story and picked up his doctor’s bag.

“Wait,” I said. “How did your friend know? What was the vital clue?”

Old Doctor John smiled.

“The kidnappers ran a photography studio. The photograph was embossed with their address in gold lettering.”

I smiled and lay back in bed. In my dreams, I was rushing through the London streets with Younger Doctor John and his brilliant friend.

 

—end—

 

Posted in 'Nathan Burgoine, Fiction, LGBT, Mystery, Old Dr. John, Short-Stories | Leave a comment

Short-Story Month, Day 24. Anthologies I’m Looking Forward To

Posted on May 30, 2019 by jeffbaker307

By Jeff Baker

I submit stories to a lot of anthologies and I only get in a few (which is a pretty good average!) and I’m looking forward to one I didn’t get published in: “Schoolbooks and Sorcery,” an LGBT inclusive YA anthology of stories set in magical schools, edited by Michael M. Jones. It sounds fun, and I almost always order a book I submit to, even if I didn’t get into it.

As for my story, “After School,” I’ll keep you posted if it ever appears anywhere!

Posted in Books, LGBT, Short-Stories, Short-Story Month | Leave a comment

Short-Story Month, Day 23 (late!) Stuff I Don’t Usually Read

Posted on May 30, 2019 by jeffbaker307

By Jeff Baker

I don’t read a lot of Westerns and probably will never read a Western novel but I found a treasure trove of Western short-stories  while back. Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg edited a series of paperbacks each featuring stories (and a few poems!) all with a specific theme: “The Railroaders,” “The Lawmen,” “The Outlaws.” The variety in the stories is fantastic and the list of authors is a who’s-who: Owen Wister, O. Henry, Dorothy M. Johnson, Edward D. Hoch. The stories range from classics (“A Man Called Horse”) to a few (then) brand-new stories. The anthologies aren’t too hard to find and not too pricy. Well-worth it for the fine reads. (I may try writing a Western short myself some day!)

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Something To Howl About for Friday Flash Fics, May 24, 2019 by Jeff Baker

Posted on May 24, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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Mareck Silverlock and His All-Wolf Band

By Jeff Baker

 

Young Mareck cleared his throat.

“My report is on entertainment of the War Years. This was almost forty years ago. Europa and the American Continent were at war. Things were sad. People like, like my Grandfather decided to help.” He shifted on his legs and clutched the paper with his front paws. “In the early 1940s, most of the United States had never heard of Wolfsong. So, my Grandfather Mareck got some of his friends together and they toured the country performing. My Grandfather’s family had fled Europa after they passed the legga… legasha…”

“Legislation,” the teacher said, suppressing a smile.

“Legislation. Called the Wolf Act,” Young Mareck said. “The Wolf Act said that wolves were dangerous and a bad influence on other species.” He took a deep breath and glanced out at the class; everybody seemed to be listening. He went on.

“My Grandparents knew that those were all lies, so they set out to show the country what wolves were really like. They toured the country during the war using the name Mareck Silverlock and His All-Wolf Band. They were very popular and even made recordings. After the war, they were presented with a certifk…certify…with a paper that thanks them for their helping with the understanding of the Wolves in this country.” Young Mareck reached over behind the teacher’s desk and pulled out a large piece of cardboard. “And this is the poster my Grandfather used when he was touring thirty years ago.”

The kids leaned forward, rows of attentive ears and twitching whiskers, and wide eyes. The poster showed the head of a large wolf, head thrown back, mouth open in a howl, muzzle surrounded by frozen breath.

“Wow!” one of the cubs in the class breathed.

“Mareck, is that your Grandfather? In the picture?” one of the others asked.

“No,” Young Mareck said. “My Grandmother said this was someone who helped with the tour. He looked right for the picture, but he wasn’t in the band because he couldn’t sing!”

The other cubs and the teacher laughed and Mareck did too. He knew that when he got home, he was going to try out his howl.

 

—end—

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Side-Character Stories. Short-Story Month, Day # 22

Posted on May 23, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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By Jeff Baker

“And then what happened?”

The question which may indicate  that a kid is going to try to become a writer, but writers ask it too. I’m actually thinking about the relationship (just friends) of two characters in a series I’ve written about. Their background story might not fit the story, but it’s dying to be told.

‘Nathan Burgoine is a master at the art of telling side characters’ stories. His collection “Of Echoes Born” brings a lot of characters onstage, and the interconnected short story grouping is a trick I’m not sure I could pull off as well! Just glad I’m able to read them!

Posted in 'Nathan Burgoine, Of Echoes Born, Short-Stories, Short-Story Month, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Best-Of” Anthologies I Love. Short-Story Month Day #21

Posted on May 23, 2019 by jeffbaker307

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By Jeff Baker

I read (and buy) tons of “Best Of The Year” anthologies. We are living in a golden age for Best-Ofs. Here are a few I love:

Lethe Press’ fine “Wilde Stories” (Best Gay Speculative Fiction,) “Heiresses of Russ” (Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction) and “Transcendent,” (Best Transgender Speculative Fiction.) All but the last are defunct, but these products of Steve Berman’s Lethe Press are well worth it. (I know, I know, these posts are starting to sound like the Steve Berman Appreciation Society!) ‘Nathan Burgoine has said a good deal about these in his post for Day # 21, so I’ll just agree.https://apostrophen.wordpress.com/2019/05/21/shortstorymonth-day-twenty-one-the-wilde-stories-transcendent-and-heiresses-of-russ-series/?fbclid=IwAR1HEfd4tSbNRt28ypBcPDp-LIFP1ILm0Da7DPePiJ5f5f2YHtbmn3Wc184

Among the other Best-Of collections on my shelves is DAW Books’ “Year’s Best Fantasy Stories,” which ran for 14 volumes starting in 1975. First edited by Lin Carter, then by Arthur W. Saha. Masters like L. Sprague DeCamp and Fritz Leiber (who were still around and writing!) and discoveries by Robert E. Howard and  Clark Ashton Smith were featured, as well as stories by then-unknowns. I’ve wandered over to that shelf late at night and browsed my way through the stories. Wonderful!

 

Posted in 'Nathan Burgoine, Fantasy, Fiction, L. Sprague DeCamp, LGBT, Science Fiction, Short-Stories, Short-Story Month, Steve Berman, Uncategorized | Leave a comment