The Odd Duck

Sally’s long lashes flickered at Jimmy. She had such beautiful fur, deep and luxuriant, and Jimmy often leaned against her stomach listening to the soft rumble of her breathing while he composed. Poetry, of course, love sonnets and deeply purple prose describing her lovely mouth, gorgeous tail, and luxuriant paws.

Of course, Momma duck would not approve. Jimmy didn’t care. Sally was his muse, his daydream, the reason for his writing.

One day, while waddling down to the pond for his morning swim, Jimmy discovered a scene of carnage. Crushed cattails and prints in the shore side mud, both webbed and clawed. Bloody gobbets of flesh and drifting white feathers were all that remained of Momma duck and Jimmy’s duckling siblings.

A pair of feral red eyes started intently at Jimmy. Her beautiful needle teeth, dripping blood down the slick fur of her perfect chin.

“Time to choose, Jimmy,” purred the enchanting weasel.

Jimmy leapt astride his vintage motorcycle, flicked a cigarette butt into the pond, and offered Sally a lift.

“I’m perfectly willing to think outside the flockses.¹”

—

¹ Spelling intentional, Jimmy’s response to pedants: “[Expletive deleted].²”
² (Which the editor translates with some liberty: “Up yours.”)

198 words, inspired by the week’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt:

Advertisement

Rods from God

At 02:47 fireballs erupted into the sky from central London. Eighty sequential sonic booms, less than three seconds apart, shattered glass from Guy’s Hospital to City Hall. Enormous balls of flame leapt from the top of the Shard into the sky at a nearly vertical seventy-five degree angle.

The phenomenon resulted only in noise and broken glass, no injuries. The military rushed around in jeeps and the media (naturally) posited terrorism. Yet several days passed without any definitive explanation.

Answers came at last in the form of a weak repeating FM radio broadcast, of all things.

“Hello, citizens of Great Britain. This is Commodore Schmidlap of the Sealand Royal Navy, broadcasting from twelve kilometers off the coast of Suffolk.

Several nights ago, Sealand launched a series of projectiles at Mach 30 into low Earth orbit, using the structural girders of the Shard as railguns.

Sealand is now capable of rapid orbital kinetic bombardment anywhere in the world.

For years, Great Britain has laughed at HRH Prince Michael and Sealand’s sovereignty. Consult your records on Project Thor if you have any doubts about our new, one hundred percent legal kinetic defensive capability.

Stay away from our micronation. You have been warned.”

200 words. For this week’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt.

[Don’t worry, no one can yet reach LEO with a railgun…you need about 10km/sec of delta v, roughly Mach 30. Current rail guns can get to Mach 7 (plus or minus).

Now the SpaceX guys could probably put a Thor system up…legally. Hmmmm.]

Crickets Chirp

About a year ago, I noticed how many blog posts I was making about Dave (and weather, and other random boring crap). Convinced that Dave is a very dull boy, I resolved to make fewer of those.

But things have gotten awfully quiet on the old blog front of late, so I need to feed more social to the media (or something).

At one time I had a daily post habit. Then stopped worrying about it, won’t hurt anything to miss a day or two… Then hit a creative dry spell… Days became weeks. Blah.

That’s just how these things go. I’ve fallen back into the habit of television watching (hisssss), twitter-ing, message board babbling (elsewhere), all at the expense of productive writing.

Let this be a warning to you; I can be easily distracted by shiny objects. Squirrel!

Anyway, I’ll try to do better.

Abominable Preview

Whatcha think? Good, bad, meh, omg killitkillit?

I probably should have gone with a much smaller resolution copy. Sorry if you’re still downloading it.   😦

Feel free to comment, I won’t be offended. There’s still plenty of time to revise, if necessary. The text isn’t even done, still editing and whatnot.

P.S. What should I name the next book?

 

Warm Heart, Cold Snow

“Hey, mister, you looking for a date?”

The old man paused and turned slowly. A young woman lurked in the alleyway, keeping warm by the steam rising from a sewer grate. She was underdressed for the first snow of winter in calf high shiny boots and a short skirt.

He approached slowly, most of his face shadowed by the heavy hood of his furred winter coat.

“What is it you seek from me young lady?”

“I just thought you looked lonely, wandering around in the winter, like maybe you could use a friend. I can be a very, very good friend, know what I mean?”

One eye glinted in the hood’s shadow.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Closer to fifteen, I’d judge. You don’t seem a much practiced doxy.”

“What?”

“You’re a runaway, aren’t you? From whence do you flee?”

“Not important. Look mister, don’t you have any money, are we going on a date or what?”

He pressed a single large, golden coin into her hand.

“Run, child. Home to your mother and buy whatever comfort remains, for the Fimbulwinter is upon us all.”

Two ravens descended and perched on his shoulders. A wolf howl echoed far away.

200 words. Inspired by this week’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt:

Chicken Man

The massive demon surveyed me balefully and snorted. When it stomped my direction, the ground shuddered from the impact of its steel shod hoof. The enormous flaming sword clove the apex star from my wizard’s hat and I fled, screaming, “Next!”

A hail of bullets greeted me when I peeked over the bar top, including one that removed my ten-gallon hat. Whiskey bottles exploded over my head and the sudden alcoholic downpour drenched me. Shaken, I called out, “Settings!”

The familiar Panopticon Goggles VR settings screen appeared. I don’t care what my gamer friends think; I’m switching difficulty from “Nightmare” to “Easy.”

102 words, for this week’s Microcosms (#3). Prompts: Magician/the Old West/Sci Fi

Adam, Eve, and 5E+10 Spectators

“It’s entire other civilization like ours. Hurry, we’re almost there.” The corporal’s blood thrummed with feverish eagerness.

Tiptoeing carefully through the Stygian darkness, his ears strained in vain for any sound other than the echo of his own footsteps. Fortunately, senses better than his own were providing active guidance. When he rounded the flowstone outcropping, a patch of luminescent rock illuminated the mud streaked, disheveled face of an adolescent girl.

“Corporal, meet the only other surviving civilization of the Romeo and Juliet War, about twenty five billion nano-enhanced lymphocytes—and their macro scale host, of course. Her name is Susan.”

Inspired by the Microcosms (2) prompts–Soldier/Cave/(bloody) Romance

The Drawbacks of an Expensive Artificial Wang

I remotely pilot your precious Humvee through the “cabin on the lake,” shattering both like our relationship. People who live in glass cabins shouldn’t own elephants.

26 words, for this week’s Shapeshifting 13 (#34 Ghouls in the Cabin)

Tallahassee (to Columbus): “You can do anything you want to a man, but do not fuck with his Cadillac.”

(And you thought Carrie Underwood carried a grudge.)

Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?

Mrs. Black cancelled the third grade field trip to the Botanical Gardens due to the rain. After selecting an alternate, her class headed to the Field Museum instead.

The Field’s arachnologist, Dr. Barrowdale, stopped mid-presentation and exclaimed, “Marybelle has escaped!”

“Our Brazilian Wolf Spider, Lycosa raptoria. She is one of our finest specimens. Please, children, look about you very carefully and watch where you step.”

Pointing at the doorframe, Rebekah said, “She’s up there.”

Dr. Barrowdale quickly and calmly recaptured Marybelle.

“Thank you, young lady. You must have sharp eyes.”

“It was obvious. The wolf is always at the door.”

100 words. For the inaugural launch of Microcosms 1 (the prompts are biologist/rainy day/drama and it’s in homage to recently closed flash competitions (Flash! Friday, Three Line Thursdays, and Micro Bookends).