Month: July 2023

I Am Very Good At Social Interaction

/ gdeyke / 2 Comments

my mouth opens like a marble caught in a maze a music box always playing the same tune no matter how you wind it maybe fast slow stuttering out of rhythm maybe missing a few notes but it never does anything new never changes – “no” i say “no thank you” and maybe then it will be over they’ll be gone maybe i can think again standing there with no receipt no bags no invitation nothing maybe i can remember the question i said no to maybe finally when the marbles settle down at the end of the maze – maybe – finally –

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 25, challenge 11: write a stream-of-consciousness story featuring a lyric from a song semi-randomly chosen from prior FFM music prompts; if the song is instrumental, instead feature either its title or an instrument it features.

I landed on Wintergatan – Marble Machine, which is both a music box and a marble maze.

You can read the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific accounts or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 100.

Things Which (Cannot) Break

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We were transferring a group of Andruvian glow-moths into a proper terrarium for study when it happened. Linwe stumbled against a table, the cage dropped, and the force field shattered.

The glow-moths flew away, of course, but we were so stricken by the impossibility of it that no one cared. The force field lay in shards on the floor, invisible except for a thin blue light at the edges, powered by nothing. The shards could be touched, handled, picked up. Turning the cage off and on had no effect; the field generator was broken.

We brought the shards to the captain, but we could bring her no explanation.

“Find one,” she commanded.

We tried.

–

As a part of her worship, Belra lights a ritual flame in her quarters each night. Fire on a spaceship is a tricky subject, but she keeps it small enough that the sensors don’t trigger, and she is always, always careful.

But that night, distracted by thoughts of the field shards impossibly separated from their source, she was less cautious than usual. A careless brush of her hand brought the flame and its holder crashing down, where both lay in pieces.

The flame no longer moved, no longer burned; but it still shone like fire. Holding it, Belra said, was like holding the shattered breath of a god.

–

What had been only a mystery to solve, and to wonder at, turned to terror when somebody – no one would admit to it in the end – dropped a laser pointer, and the beam of light it had sent through artificial fog lay broken on the ground: long and thin and fragile, gleaming as brightly green as it had when it was light scattered from droplets. The pointer itself no longer worked.

“This is impossible,” said the captain, holding the impossibility in her hands. An escaped glow-moth alighted near its end, and the impossible thing held its weight.

Although no one had contradicted her, the captain spoke on: “This ray was never real. It was no more than an artefact of the way we perceive the world. It had no substance. It wasn’t just intangible; it wasn’t.”

We let her speak, knowing what she would conclude, hoping hopelessly that we were wrong.

“The laws of our world have lost all meaning,” she said. “We can rely on nothing.”

–

The sun we are circling has grown cracks, like a fine vase on the verge of breaking or an egg about to hatch.

It will not be much longer, we expect, before we find another impossibility: the last remnants of our hope, lying broken on the floor.

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 22, challenge 10: write a story according a challenge given by another FFMer. I was challenge by ev13il: write a non-realistic story in past tense in which an object breaks.

I mean, it’s mostly past tense, anyway.

You can read the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific accounts or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 439.

Hear the Howling of the Horns

/ gdeyke / 4 Comments

Hearken! Hear the howling of the horns!
Hunters’ horns, as hounds and horses harry hinds.
Heralds’ horns, as holy hordes hie home to hallowed halls.

High on the hill he hears the howling of the horns –
he hearkens with a heavy heart.
Whomever the horn-blowers harrow,
however hale or whole:

nothing awaits them but slaughter.

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 20, challenge 9: write a story of 55 words consisting of at least 50% alliteration.

I thought at first that I might be able to pull this off more or less subtly with Hs, seeing as that gives me one full set of pronouns (plus an extra her) and one full set of auxiliary verbs that might fade into the background a bit, but even so it turned out pretty heavy-handed. So instead we’re leaning into the alliterative verse.

You can read the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific accounts or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 55; H-sound count: 34.

The Founding of Gerathille

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When the rains stopped, Gerath said: “The old tales tell of a building of the ancients in which water flowed freely from many fountains. I have studied the ancient maps, and I believe I know where to find it; though the mountains have swallowed the walls by now, and perhaps what was once a building is now no more than a cave.” And so he went to find this wellspring of legend. With him went Leaf, the hunter; Ellin, for protection; and Kerin, to bear witness.

Never before had Gerath’s love of ancient lore promised anything more than idle fancy, and idleness was not much loved among the people. Now they had placed their last hopes in his hands. They who followed him spoke little as they walked, in part for fear of raiders, in part lest they disturb the delicate balance of doubt and hope between them.

Ellin’s sword was always near at hand; but she never needed to draw it. Leaf ranged far ahead and behind and all around them, keeping watch, and when raiders drew near they hid themselves and waited. In this way they journeyed onwards for ten days and nine nights, growing ever hungrier and ever thirstier, and ever more silent.

At last they came to the place where Gerath suspected the ancient palace, though all they found there was a small hole in the mountainside: small but deep.

Now their doubts arose once again. “We cannot enter this cave without light,” said Kerin. “Perhaps the ancients could see in darkness; we cannot.”

“Too close for torches,” said Ellin.

“I go hunting,” said Leaf, and slipped away.

Ellin stood guard; Kerin sat in silence, keeping her thoughts to herself. Gerath sat staring into the cave’s black maw, fighting with despair.

At length he became aware of red light gleaming from the amulet Ellin wore around her neck as she paced.

“What is that you wear?” he asked.

“This?” It was a flat red disc set in faded black, somewhat scratched; the stone looked translucent, and was patterned with saw-tooth lines that caught the light. “A good luck charm. It has been in my family for many lives; the art of making such things is long lost.”

For a moment, Gerath’s interest in the ancients outweighed the hopelessness of the cave beyond. “May I see it more closely?”

His interest grew the longer he examined Ellin’s charm, which despite its lustre was lighter than wood. It was indeed an artefact from ancient times, and more than that: it was hope.

By the time Leaf returned, bearing a slain rabbit, Gerath was brimming with excitement. “This was a light of the ancients, Ellin. It could light our way through the cave. We need only awaken the magic within.”

“And how are we to do that?” asked Kerin. She concealed her doubt, but he had no need to hear it to know it was there.

“I have studied the alchemy of the ancients,” he said. “I will attempt the ritual. But it requires from each of us a sacrifice of that which is most precious.”

Kerin pulled a gold ring from her finger, and beside it a bracelet of twisted wires.

Ellin laid down her finest steel knife.

Leaf threw down the fresh-slain rabbit; for nothing was as precious to Leaf’s heart as one life given to sustain another.

Gerath cut his finest woven shirt into pieces and set to work. He pulled apart the wires of Kerin’s bracelet and wrapped them tightly in cloth. One he wrapped around the golden ring; the other around the blade of Ellin’s steel knife. The ring he tucked into the hole left by Leaf’s arrow, through the rabbit’s heart; the knife he plunged into its stomach and left there.

The dead rabbit twitched. Leaf flinched; Kerin drew back; Ellin swore. Gerath nearly dropped the cloth-wrapped wires. Yet for all his alarm he was heartened by the rabbit’s revival, for it meant (so he hoped) that the ancient ritual was working. He fed the wires into the amulet’s back, and –

It began to shine from within.

He looked round: the awe he felt was mirrored in the others’ faces. Gone was the doubt they had harboured till then.

“Let us go,” he said, and they went.

Leaf carried the twitching carcass of the rabbit, and the light with it; it filled the cave with a dim red glow, just enough to see by. Deep, deep into the mountain they went. At last the cave changed around them: the floor flattened, the ceiling rose; flat tiles covered the walls. The small red light was mirrored in distant walls of colourless glass. They had reached the place of the ancients.

Here were fountains, Gerath’s studies had told him; but they found none. But down a strange staircase of corded metal they found something better still: the lower rooms of the ancient buildings were mired in water, a fathom deep at least as far as Ellin could measure it.

“Here we shall build anew,” said Kerin.

The people were brought to the mountain, and a well was dug through the ancient halls. The new village was named Gerathille, in honour of the one who had found it. And though the light of Ellin’s magical amulet died when the rabbit’s blood could no longer sustain it, it was enshrined at the village’s centre, and from that day forth brought good luck to all who dwelt there.

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 18, challenge 8: write an adventure story featuring a party of at least three and at least one instance of MacGyvering.

Scientifically accurate ancient necromancy ritual!

You can read the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific accounts or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 910.

Care Will Prevent 9 of 10 Forest Fires

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Only you can prevent wildfires! reads the sign, alongside an image of a bare-chested bear. Johnny looks at it with a mixture of despair and defiance.

Cigarette butts deposited in ashtrays, campfires conscientiously put out – what do these things matter? The world is burning. Why is it Johnny’s lot to prevent what oil executives and billionaires in private jets do all they can to encourage? A single spark that stays in place means nothing when every other spark within a hundred miles will catch and raze the same forest in this drought.

–

In despair at his helplessness, Johnny lights fireworks.

Light showers the sky; smoke floods the lungs of the earth. The crack of the explosion is followed by the panic of birds and dogs and veterans and children. Several of them die, terror-stricken to leap through windows or into walls.

Johnny breathes it in. His lungs are burning.

High above him the trailing sparks alight on leaves as dry as paper. The trees bloom with flame.

–

As Johnny falls to his knees inside the roaring inferno, blistered skin melting from his face, he thinks he sees a shadow striding towards him. A dark figure in jeans and a hat, eyes aflame.

Only you can prevent wildfires, the shadow growls.

“Why me?” he cries, voicelessly, through a throat choked with smoke. “Why only me?”

But when he blinks away the tears sizzling on his cheeks the shadow is gone, dissolved into smoke and fire.

–

Somehow, Johnny survives.

He wakes up different. His skin is gone, his lungs are a ruin, yes, of course – but the difference that matters is inside him, a spark dancing in his fingertips, a flame that gathers in the palms of his hands when called. He has come through the crucible and been changed.

Only you…

He sees it all so clearly, now. There is, after all, a way to prevent the fires. To cool the heat and quell the drought, to give the ravaged climate one more chance.

He knows who turned the world into kindling.

He will watch them burn.

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 15, challenge 7: write a story in which a character with a special skill at first refuses a call to adventure.

You can read the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific accounts or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 349.

The Dubious Value of Ending

/ gdeyke / 4 Comments

“Spectacular,” they said. “Inventive,” they praised. But all their words rang hollow. He knew what he was: a fraud, a sham, a worthless pretender.

It didn’t matter what he did, in the end. How lofty his goals, how many his awards; how long he laboured; how much blood he shed. He’d never be more than that niggling worm that lay curled in his chest, gnawing ceaselessly at his heart.

–

He finds the book in a house long decayed, painted in peeling chartreuse. It lies open on the table, as if waiting for him. He takes it home.

Within its yellowed pages are detailed forbidden rituals of mastery: with them he could turn day to night, or teach the years to run backwards, or alter the courses of planets.

He takes a candle down into the deep and tries.

–

He has brought about the end of time, but time still ticks on inside him, beyond all eternity.

He has forgotten the faces of those who praised him. He has forgotten their words of praise. He has forgotten, even, what he did to earn them.

He has never forgotten his doubt.

Even now he knows: though he has ended time itself, he could never have done so by himself.

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 13, challenge 6: write a 369er containing each of the following words: spectacular; inventive; chartreuse; candle; deep; forbidden; decayed; painted; pages; forgotten; time; end.

You can read the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific accounts or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 3 x 69 = 207.

Walpurgisnacht

/ gdeyke / 2 Comments

May-eve: the holiest night of the year. She should be flying over the mountain with her sisters. Instead she watches bonfires and lovers through the window, sharing meat with her cat for the last time. Cats may have seven lives, but still it is never enough.

This night she’ll use her broom only to sweep.

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 11, challenge 5: write a story featuring food which takes place during a holiday outside of July.

Walpurgisnacht.

You can read the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific accounts or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 55.

Never Go to a Rival for Guidance

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You’ll be feeling your lowest when he comes up to you: thinking of packing up your cards and ball and going home, except that home honestly sounds just as miserable as here does, so you might as well stay and hope you can earn something. Only hope sounds like the wrong word when really the sight of anyone who might be a client fills you with dread. You’ll feel that dread rising up in the pit of your stomach when he walks up, bedraggled as a wet cat without the cute.

“I hear you grant wishes,” he’ll say.

You’ll be snappy with him, in your mood. “If I could, I wouldn’t be here,” maybe. Usually you’d try to lead into your spiel, but since you feel like garbage vomited out by a rat – which takes some doing; rats can’t even vomit – you’ll leave it at that.

He won’t care, though. “See, I want to be a musician,” he’ll say, and without prompting he’ll pull out a guitar and strum a few notes, if you can call them that.

“If you want my advice,” you’ll say, “switch to something else.”

“I tried,” he’ll answer, pitifully earnest. “I wanted to be a painter, first. But, look…”

He’ll whip out some paper and draw something that looks like it was done blindfolded, with his off-hand. Looking at it will actually make you feel nauseous.

“Maybe art isn’t your thing,” you’ll say.

“But it’s the same with everything,” he’ll answer. “The harder I try at something, the worse I fail. I can’t even get you to listen to me.”

The guy’s cursed, obviously. You could break it, easy, if you weren’t in such a foul mood. But that’s the mood he’s cursed to find you in.

I’m telling you this so you know: don’t even bother reading this guy’s cards. It’ll all go wrong. Get him to curse himself and hope it cancels out.

Free advice.

Nah, I don’t know him. Just looking out for you. Why?

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 8, challenge 4: write a second-person story of 333 words featuring a character who is, in some way, the absolute worst.

Not sure this really works, not sure this whole thing is working, but at this point I’m moderately determined to do all the challenges, so here we are.

You can read the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific account or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 333.

Not to Speak of Housetraining

/ gdeyke / 2 Comments

Offspring: “Ooh, look at this one! It’s so cute! Aren’t those little moons adorable?”

Progenitor: “Let’s see… four solid planets, two gas giants, two ice giants, plenty of dwarf planets and asteroids… oh. Oh, no. You don’t want this one, sweetie.”

Offspring: “But look, that one’s got rings!”

Progenitor: “Yes, but sweetie, that one’s got life on it.”

Offspring: “What? Where? Lemme see!”

Progenitor: “Here, aren’t you ashamed of yourself, selling infected systems to children? I thought this was a reputable sort of shop!”

Sales entity: “Yes, I know it comes as a bit of a surprise to our more traditionally-minded clientele, but it turns out inhabited systems are quite popular – among children especially, as it happens. I see that your own offspring appears rather taken with the inhabited planet of that system in particular.”

Progenitor: “In my day systems were considered a relaxing low-maintenance sort of pet, just for watching. I had one myself, you know. All smooth ellipses and gravitational ripple effects, and just enough comets and whatnot to keep it really interesting. I could watch it for aeons. That’s the sort of thing I wanted for my offspring, not – not this. How is anyone meant to relax watching those nasty little respirating things crawling around all over one of the planets?”

Sales entity: “Yes, I can certainly see your concern, but tastes do vary. Perhaps your offspring –”

Offspring: “I want this one!”

Progenitor: “Sweetie, didn’t you like the one over there with the pretty mercury planet? It had such nice orbits!”

Offspring: “But that one didn’t have any life on it. Cthalhia has a system with life on it and she says she got all the organisms to worship her and she says they have really pretty dreams and they taste really good and she says it’s really funny when they break!”

Progenitor: “Really? Eating organisms’ dreams? That can’t be hygienic.”

Sales entity: “Oh come now, what’s the harm? Children’s play may seem unsavoury to us at times, but I’ve always heard it’s healthy to let them run around and explore and experiment a little. I certainly did at that age – I had a friend with an inhabited system, and I had a thousand or two organic worship-dreams when I came round to play with it. It may not be health food, but it never did me any harm in the long run.”

Progenitor: “I don’t know…”

Offspring: “Pleeeeeeeeaaaaase? I’ll take really good care of it, I promise! And I’ll be good for ever and ever and ever!”

Progenitor: “Well… if you promise to be very very good…”

Offspring: “YES!!!”

Sales entity: “Wonderful! Now, if you’ll just step right this way, let’s talk about spay and neuter regulations.”

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 6, challenge 3: write a story containing no humans whatsoever, including a beast- or pet-type character different from all the others which cannot speak.

Right when I’d made up my mind to just do all of the challenges, a bunch of things got in the way and I fell almost a full week behind. But then, a full week of challenges is a good deal less to get caught up on than a full week of all the stories, so there’s still a chance I’ll catch up.

You can find the rest of the day’s stories and/or join in (no specific accounts or sign-up required!) here.

Wordcount: 452.

Sometimes

/ gdeyke / 2 Comments

Blackhand Bill knew every rock, cactus, and spiny yucca plant for twenty miles around town, and so did his faithful Rosie. But the only way to find Her, folks said, was to get so lost you couldn’t tell right from left nor up from down for the stars in your eyes. So Blackhand Bill drank himself sick, tied a blindfold around old Rosie’s eyes and another round his own, and led her stumbling through the prairie.

Boots and chaps kept away the prickly pears, but only his ears warned Bill of the rattlers, and nothing warned him of the yuccas till they stabbed and scraped at his hands. A mighty foolish venture, this. Every chance he’d lead poor Rosie to stumble and break her leg, and that’d be the end of her for sure.

But she kept her nose by his shoulder and breathed warm and soft in his ear, and with every cough or labored breath she gave his chest went tight and he forgot about the cacti and the lurking threat of rattlers beneath his feet. She was the only chance they had. Folks said She only appeared to those too desperate to turn her down, and that sure enough was Blackhand Bill.

He didn’t think much of it at first when the coyotes started yipping and howling. He knew men who’d shoot them soon as look at them, but he wasn’t one: they’d think twice about going for Rosie while he held her lead, even drunk and blindfolded. But then the howls started circling up all around them, and Rosie whipped up her head, and Bill dashed the blindfold from his eyes to look around.

The sun was down now and moon wasn’t up. Stars glittered bright and hard all above, and the coyotes were circling shadows between the brushes and rocks. Right ahead of him the rocks piled into a sort of cave. He’d swear on his life he’d never seen it before, or any part of the land all around him.

She was in there, then, and the pack of coyotes was there to welcome him in.

“Easy, girl,” he said, pulling the blindfold from Rosie’s eyes. She snorted and quivered, eyes and nostrils wide against the circling threat. But then, she’d spent the whole day shivering. Even in starlight the lesions were livid on her skin.

The thought of leaving her like this was like nails in his heart. Worse, with the coyotes still slinking all around. But the little cave wouldn’t fit them both.

“Howdy in there,” he called, one hand gentling on her withers. “I got to leave my horse out here. I ain’t gonna shoot your coyotes – be mighty foolish of me when I want something from you. Not even gonna scare them off. But I got to leave Rosie out here, and I want to be sure she won’t be coyote food when I get back. We got an understanding?”

Silence answered him. The coyotes had stopped howling. A light flickered on in the cave, small and yellow, like a lantern.

“Wait for me, darling,” said Blackhand Bill, kissing Rosie’s nose. “I’ll be right back out, quick as a wink, I promise. Graze a bit if you can. Stay safe.” He took the lead from her halter and stepped away, slowly, as she stood there with head hung low. At last, with effort, he turned and ducked into the cave.

He could barely see Her in the dim light there. A woman, or something in a woman’s shape. Teeth. Eyes. A snake, or a coyote; something not a woman, but woman enough to talk to.

She said nothing at first. Blackhand Bill licked his lips, cleared his throat. “Well,” he began, “folks say you grant wishes, sometimes. That true?”

A glitter of eyes, a glitter of teeth. A voice like scales on stone. “It might.”

“My Rosie – my horse out there. Been carrying me for fifteen years. She’s got glanders – she’s dying. I want to wish her healthy.”

“And you offer?”

Bill hesitated, spreading his hands. “What do you want?”

“Hmm.” The flash of a smile in the gloom. “All the memories of your Rosie would be a fair price.”

Bill swallowed hard. Thought of her nose under his hand, her soft whicker when she came to greet him, the way she’d lean her head on his back when he bent nearby her, the way she’d rub her forehead against his chest.

“Let’s have a wager,” he said. “Double or nothing.”

A laugh from the shadows then, like the yipping howls of the coyotes outside the cave. The flash of a coin spinning in the dim light of the lantern.

“Heads or tails?”

“Heads,” said Blackhand Bill, hands clenched tight on his knees.

The coin landed; Her hand slapped down. Then the lantern went out, as if a sudden wind had blown through the glass. A moment later Bill found himself alone in an empty cave.

As he turned towards the entrance he wondered what he’d find beyond: his Rosie well and whole again, or the half-eaten carcass of a stranger.

Written for Flash Fiction Month 2023, day 4, challenge 2: write a western story in which a character takes a large risk or gamble for a favour or wish, ideally including actual gambling as well.

Technically the challenge said “western town”, and a town definitely exists within 20 miles of this story and has implied bearing on the plot, so this is practically equivalent to a busy saloon.

US-American spellings this time to go with the setting. (I’d consistently go for EU spellings if not for the fact that a) I don’t actually have an EU-English spellcheck and b) EU-English vocabulary can be extremely non-intuitive to native English speakers, which seems somewhat counterproductive.)

You can see the rest of the day’s stories (and/or join in – no accounts or sign-up needed!) here.

Wordcount: 852.