Tag Archives: fiction

In A Flash: Menu Del Día

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Gerald grimaced against the glare of the sun as he stared down the teeming street. The faces shifted rapidly across his frame of vision, the calls of the hawkers drowning out any chatter on the street that the clatter of the vehicles trundling by did not. He bit his lip as his stomach was lanced by a sharp pain that shuddered down his bowels and threatened to spill out at his feet.

“Everything okay?” Ariel said.

“Yeah,” he said, exhaling slowly and relaxing his tense muscles, hoping nothing dislodged itself in the process.

She laughed. “That bad, huh?”

“Fucking menu del día. Never should’ve eaten that.”

“I warned you,” Ariel said.

“Oh god,” Gerald said, clutching at his stomach. “Now is definitely not the time.”

“You still up for the museum?”

“Not like we’ve got another day. Bound to be a bathroom in there anyway.”

Ariel led the way along the uneven cobblestone street, past the Incan wall with its massive many-sided stones, to what had once been the Archbishop’s palace. Now it was a museum filled with works of cusqueño art from the colonial period, though there were still Church offices on site. The archbishop continued to attend there on occasion. They had bought a ticket for the museum the day before at the cathedral on the main square and now they had the ticket punched and were offered an audio tour, which Ariel accepted, procuring headphones for both of them.

They went from room to room of the palace, which had been home to an Incan priest prior to the Church taking it over, following the conquest, listening to their audio guide drone on about the minutia of the art work on the walls. It all looked much the same to Gerald, paeans to God, Mary and Jesus, intended to educate those new to the faith by placing these foreign symbols in familiar contexts. Thus, there was a guinea pig, corn and potatoes being served with every image of the Last Supper. One example of this would have been enough to make the point, but the paintings seemed to proliferate throughout each room.

Gerald had to allow that the paintings were incredible, though he always found the baroque effects left him cold. He was especially unmoved on this day because of the rather tenuous state of his stomach. It was a matter of when, not if, he would need a bathroom, and he had yet to see a sign directing him to one.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: How to Make Love Like a Warlock

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Although many exhaustive and learned volumes have been published on the subject of amorous instruction, I feel much remains to be said on the matter, especially as it pertains to the copulatory habits of warlocks and other masters of dark magic. As one well-practiced in both infernal arts, I feel well suited to speak on the matter with the clarity required, lest another poor apprentice or sorcerer be led astray into more dismal and dreary acts, for lack of knowledge on how to properly engage with an enchantress, siren or familiar.

Firstly, one must attach the suitable appendage. On acquiring the requisite appendage, I will say little now, though it perhaps warrants its own appendix, for it is a matter worthy of careful consideration. Many is the dark master who endeavors to perform the salacious act, only to find his chosen member shriveled and smelling of putrescence. No amount of ointment or potion will see you to satisfying either party in that situation.

The subject puts me in mind of a story, which if the reader will allow me the indulgence of a small digression, I will detail here. I was in a cemetery practicing a poor bit of necromancy—never one of my finer talents, I am sorry to admit—when I came across a sorcerer collecting mandrake root. I was cold and damp from my evening’s toil, and glad for the company, so I shared some of my tobacco and we each drew on our pipes.

After explaining that I had been engaged to summon the recalcitrant spirit of a distant father by a spurned son, cast out of inheritance, I inquired as to what had brought him to this place. “I am collecting the female of the mandrake root,” he said, with a gesture to his satchel.

“To what end?” I said, for I was curious as to what spell he was conducting. As anyone familiar with the arts will be aware, there are many uses for the mandrake root, both male and female.

“I am effecting a spell of transformation,” the sorcerer said, somewhat guardedly.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: Felipe

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Anna smiled as the security agent handed back her passport and moved forward to the conveyer belt. As she pulled out some trays from the stack and set her belongings in them, she glanced up and saw Felipe in the line across from her and frowned. They were racing each other, having chosen separate lines, and up until this point she had been ahead of him, her line moving at a steady pace.

She hurried with the trays, moving them onto the conveyer belt, and went to stand at the line in front of the x-ray machine.

“Shoes,” the bored woman standing on the other side of the machine said.

Muttering under her breath, Anna quickly slid off her shoes and jammed them into the tray alongside her purse and jacket. Felipe, she saw, was still removing his belt. She had time. Back at the line, the woman waved her through and Anna went, savoring her triumph. It was short-lived, for the alarm sounded.

“Check your pockets, ma’am,” the security guard said. “Keys. Cell phone. Jewelry.”

Anna frantically searched her person for the stray item, but was unable to locate anything. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s nothing in my pockets.”

“Come through again.”

Anna did, and this time no alarm sounded. Still the woman insisted on waving her squeaking wand around Anna’s body. Each change in pitch sounded ominous, but when she was done she waved Anna away. She went over to collect her things and met Felipe, who was watching her grinning, beyond the security checkpoint.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: A New Career In A New Town

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The dead ruled the back roads. They had worn and weathered faces, eyes hard against the horizon. They were staring at that unwavering point, always visible, no matter which direction one was traveling. The horizon beyond the horizon and the sky beyond the sky. No matter where one looked, it was there, and the dead were always walking toward it, though they could never arrive at that destination. It was the land of the living, and they had passed beyond it.

Xue had as well, though he was not dead. Not yet, anyway. He avoided the dead, hiding himself along the roadside whenever he saw them approaching. Caution was his watchword in this place, for he had none of the powers of the inhabitants here. He was a mere swordsman, practitioner of those sacred arts, though no master. His failures were that of any man, and for them he had been punished—cursed—and now he found himself wandering this land, just as the dead did, hoping somehow to reach that point on the horizon and cross to the world beyond.

Xue stayed to the nether regions and the back roads, for beyond them were things far worse than the dead. If he wanted to return to the land of living he needed to stay alive, a difficult proposition in this realm, where ghouls, demons, and things not even imagined by mortals existed. Had he understood the terrible cost his actions would carry, the damnation he would incur for his wrongs, he would not have been so quick to act.

“Vengeance is a luxury only the rich can afford,” his master had once told him. He had been correct, but Xue had not been willing to listen. Now he rued his impatience and anger every day.

The road upon which he walked during this endless day—for evening never came here, just as morning never returned anew—was a trail worn by an unending multitude of walkers. Dust stirred with his every step. He was on a vast and arid plain, that seemed to cross all of the realm here, the sky above vast and incomprehensible. It was blue, though somewhat faded and drawn, with specks of clouds adrift within. They never seemed to move and the weather never changed. It was as though the sky was caught in an instant forever. And he was ensnared in it as well.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: A Brief Encounter

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“For two?” the waiter said, reaching for a stack of menus before hearing a response.

“Yes. Thanks,” J said.

“This way please.”

They followed the waiter as he made his way across the restaurant to a table sitting against the far wall. J and her companion sat down, smiling their thanks at the waiter, who disappeared behind them into the kitchen, moving rapidly.

“This is a big place,” her companion said, looking around the room.

“Hm,” J said, intent on the menu.

When she finally glanced up she saw her companion was correct. The restaurant was L-shaped and they sat near the junction of the two parts of the letter. The top part of the L, which extended from the entrance to the kitchen behind them, had more than twenty tables easily, she guessed, set in four precise rows. The other end of the L was longer and had even more tables. Maybe a third of those tables were filled now, a low murmur of conversation reaching their ears.

“What are you thinking?” her companion said, flipping through the menu. “Dim sum? And maybe some noodles?”

J did not reply. In her study of the room, she had set her eyes upon a group at a table two rows across from them. She hadn’t noticed them when they first entered the restaurant—for which she was now cursing herself—and now that she had, she found herself unable to stop looking. At last she forced herself to turn away—before they noticed, and before her companion did as well.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: Two Skulls

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The bones had been bleached dry by the sun and now were a gleaming white amidst a sea of green grass that stretched on for miles in any direction. The sun glimmered off the bones, drawing the two riders to it. They came across the rest of the body on their way to the skull—a femur here, a rib there—the body having been torn apart by whatever carrion hunters inhabited these parts. When they reached it, one of the riders dismounted, picking it up gingerly to study it, while the other kept her eyes upon the horizon in all directions.

“Be quick,” the woman, whose name was Harni the Cleaved. “There is someone approaching.”

“You know this cannot be rushed,” Mejk the Unharnessed said, not taking his eyes from the skull.

“It may have to be,” Harni said.

Hearing the urgency in her voice, Mejk looked up from the skull and cast his eyes along the horizon. “Who is it?”

“Who else,” was her whispered reply.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: Lost Coordinates

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The first call came that afternoon as Mary finally settled down to get some work done on her computer.

“Give me my fucking phone back cunt,” the voice on other end of the call said. The man was more than angry, he sounded unhinged.

Mary was left disturbed and, after taking a moment to gather herself, she called the police. The officer listened sympathetically and took down a report, promising to follow up that week.

Not more than an hour later there was a knock at the door. When Mary got up from her computer she saw two police officers standing outside. That was quick, she thought, assuming they were following up on her earlier call.

“Ma’am, may we come in,” the first officer, an unsmiling woman said. “We have a report that there is stolen property located here and we’d like to look around.”

Mary blinked, a tiny ping of doubt echoing through her thoughts. “That’s crazy. Do you have warrant?”

“We were hoping you would cooperate with us,” the second officer said, offering a placating smile.

“I will. When you have a warrant. I can assure you, I haven’t stolen anything. You’re the second ones to accuse me of that today. The other one I had to report to the police.”

Both officers frowned and glanced at each other. “When did this happen?” the woman said.

“About an hour ago,” Mary said, and explained the phone call.

Neither officer had anything to say to her story. They thanked her for her time and retreated to their squad car, parked in front of the house. There they spent some time on the radio and their computers as Mary watched, glancing from time to time at the house. After half an hour they left and Mary finally allowed herself to relax, though she was still left unsettled. What was going on?

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: Men of Twilight

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His first mistake had been coming to this anonymous warehouse on the outskirts of the city alone and at night, without telling anyone where he was going or what he was doing. Novo was simply too caught up in the investigation. His need for justice and order, to right what he saw as wrong, had always been his greatest strength and his fatal flaw. It had led him to reveal things that those in power might wish stayed hidden. But it blinded him to many inconvenient practicalities as well. Such as, how he was going to get out of this mess of his own creation.

That was the matter at hand now, and it left him cursing his own shortsightedness. If he had texted Mary Sue before donning his full length leather jacket and heading out for the night. Or after. Or really, at any point along the continuum of events that had led him to here.

But Mary Sue, being a practical sort, would have phoned the police, who would have arrived here before he had a chance to confront this master of villainy and reveal his true plans. And that would have denied Novo his moment of triumph. A triumph that now tasted like bitter chalk at the back of his throat.

For the warehouse, empty but for the odd pieces of equipment at one end, and the flagrantly dangerous vat of acid at the center of the room, was a distraction. It was a feint by a criminal mastermind, to hide his true intentions. That was why Novo had come. He needed to know the truth. He was going to do battle with the darkness.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: Crazy Eddie

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Crazy Eddie, the neighborhood kids called him, though no one knew his name. He moved into the Caldwell’s house that summer, after it had sat empty over the winter, following their move to Arizona. No one knew anything about him, though some said he was a family relation of Melissa Caldwell’s. He did not appear to have a job, at least not one that required him to leave the house, which he did rarely.

When he did, it was to drive up and down the streets of the neighborhood in his dull and rusted Dodge Dart. The engine rumbled oddly and the exhaust it spewed was dark and heavy. There seemed no purpose to these ventures, except to stare at passersby as they stared at him. He did not stop anywhere. No one could recall him ever going into a store, not even to buy food, though surely he must have. He became an object of fascination as a result, children telling each other more and more outlandish stories of his provenance and the unspeakable things he did in the Caldwell’s place.

As the months went by and summer turned to autumn, even the parents living on the same street began to suspect that something was amiss with Crazy Eddie. All but those suspicious of any newcomer had just assumed he was a harmless oddity. An eccentric, not worthy of much notice. But his strangeness began to seem sinister, for reasons no one could quite put into words.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

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In A Flash: The Woman Who Didn’t Speak

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The sky was grey with cloud that promised rain. Marjiana eyed it with distrust as she set off down the road. She had learned to prepare for the worst. The universe was rarely kind and beneficent and one had to fight for the scraps of happiness that could be found, lest someone else steal them away.

Her side ached as she walked. It was a dull pain, one that she had grown used to over the last weeks since her injury. There was nothing else to do but become accustomed to it, for there was nothing to be done about it. The community doctor had succumbed to the rhesus virus two seasons ago. Now they made do with what little those who were left knew.

The hetman had promised a new doctor would arrive with the next ship, but everyone knew it was just something he felt he had to say. Of all of them he had to remain optimistic. Why else was he the hetman, if not for that? To lead was to believe. The rest of them, including Marjiana, focused on surviving. They knew that there was little likelihood of another ship arriving anytime soon—the greater probability by far was that none would arrive in what remained of their lifetimes—let alone one carrying a doctor.

Marjiana walked past the other five homesteads nearest her own home, each of them on its own carefully delineated half acre of terraformed land. Danjesh saw her from the field where he was busy at work and stood to give her a quick wave, before returning to the painstaking work of drawing sustenance from the poor soil. No one else was about in the fields and the surrounding houses were dark and filled with shadows. Two of them were uninhabited, the families there having passed from the rhesus fever along with the doctor. The remaining two were not empty, but might as well have been, for their inhabitants had fallen into despair and now spent their days indoors awaiting their end. The hetman came once a week, trying to stir them from their melancholy, to no effect.

Marjiana had no time for melancholy, even if her spirit had tended that way. She had mouths to feed—six ,in fact, if one counted her husband Kjessel, which she supposed she had to. Presumably he could fend for himself, but Marjiana had her doubts, based on their first five years here following the terraforming. He was an engineer and used to problems having solutions, an inner logic, and there had been little of that here so far. There had been little of anything beyond mistakes and their ill consequences, which they all had lived with as best they could. Some better than others.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

In A Flash: read a new story every Thursday…

If you like this story, or any of my others, please consider supporting me on Patreon

Image: Clint Westgard