What’s coming in the next book? Live nude girls!
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?
“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:
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
“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
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.)
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).
It came upon a midnight clear. I suppose I did.
Momma scolded, “Drop that this instant.”
“But the purple tastes like cheese, momma. Please don’t take my colors away again!”
***
What happened to the painting?
Wyatt examined the canvas on the easel. Everything he’d painted yesterday was gone. Nothing but blank canvas and the small patch of background sky and mountains he’d started earlier in the week.
His thumb encountered the familiar, greasy-tacky paint feel of recent oils, and he examined the spot closely.
In the area where he’d painted yesterday, canvas was now showing through, like looking through a very thin pane of glass. Except the “glass” wasn’t glossy, and it didn’t catch any highlights or reflections at all.
There is tacky paint here, but it’s clear? Where did the tint go?
When he returned the painting to the easel, he noticed the palette. His working palettes were usually messy kaleidoscope-rainbows of blobs, with puddles of mixes and brush-drying strokes around the outer edges.
Today it was the same clear, tint-free paint. So were the most recently used oil tubes on the storage table. Only the older, dried paint was untouched.
Any fresh paint from yesterday, even the forgotten blobs around the tube caps, was now entirely free of any color or tint.
Except there, on the sketchpad, were scrawled letters in neon orange:
“XO More Plz OX.”
***
I hear a kazoo.
I’ve been waiting for something to happen for a long time. Mostly nothing ever does. So I follow the kazoo, pushing. This way, it’s over here.
The kazoo is much louder now. I hear other sounds, too. A party horn, a music box, I think a trumpet. It all gets lots louder and I thump into… It smells like dog, must be big.
I push extra hard against the sound. Do I hear cheese?
Cymbals flash brightly and I’m through. Made it, yay!
***
Wyatt watched from his hiding place in the storage closet. He’d quickly painted a fresh canvas, in big broad strokes of heavy primary colors. He’d left several palettes with fresh paint blobs, and open tubes of oils with the caps off scattered around.
Near midnight, a thin haze flowed out of the painting. Wherever the translucent cloud brushed against the paint, tendrils of color sucked out of the canvas and dispersed into the hazy translucency. Left behind was only the “clear” paint, absolutely without tint.
As the figure moved about the room and devoured the available colors, it grew more distinct and looked more solid. She appeared to be a little girl, perhaps five or six years old.
She was laughing now, smearing her fingers through the paint, sucking globs of color directly from the tubes.
***
It’s hard, but I can write a little bit with color from my finger if I squeeze.
I wrote, “XO Thx Mr. your picturs are yum. OX”
I pressed back through the canvas to the place with no color.
495 words, for this week’s Finish That Thought prompt (3-25/26).
I struggled with this one, suspect it was just too much descriptive weight to mash down to 500 words.
But hey, sometimes they just want to be born, even when it’s a breach presentation.
“Your breath could gag buzzards.”
Just what you need to hear first thing in the morning, right? This is a delicate part of the dance of marriage. It is indecorous and suicidal to counter with “rats have nested in your hair.” Because toxic exhalations can be injurious to the other party, morning breath is always fair game. Under the “promotion of domestic tranquility” clause in the contract, it’s covered.
Hollywood never gets that right.
Trained by years in the harness, I stumble into the bathroom for some modern oral hygiene methodology.
Reaching for my toothbrush, I freeze. My skin is roughening, drying out before my eyes. When I feel it, it’s hard. There are armor-thick patches forming and fissures between the… Scales?
I gaze at my reflection with growing horror. My skin is darkening and tinted greenish. With every passing moment, it grows thicker, harder, and I look more crocodilian.
Dryness is scratching at my throat, and I cough once. A wave of greenish fire envelops the toothbrush in my clawed hand, and the brush melts into liquefied plastic slag.
My morning breath may actually be atomic. If I grow 98 meters taller, I think Tokyo is in serious trouble.
199 words. Inspired by this week’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt:
So yeah, this was a brilliant film…not.
“Thank you for the doll, Santa. Won’t you accept my gift?”
Sarah extended a brightly wrapped package with a smile.
“You have a present for me?” Bill Murphy, the department store Santa, was unsure. Wasn’t there a something in the store policy manual about not accepting gifts? He stalled to cover his confusion, “Ho Ho Ho!”
“We’re supposed to exchange gifts on Christmas, right?”
“Thank you, Sarah.”
Inside the gift box was a pair of odd-looking spectacles with bright orange frames and thick lenses. Rainbows shimmered across them, like the sheen on a soap bubble.
Bill slipped on the glasses. Everything he could see came abruptly into focus, sharp edges razor-delineated. Bright primary hues in high contrast dominated every direction he glanced.
A vested bunny carrying a pocket watch hurried by, pursued by a family of mice racing on tiny motorcycles. Tall grass and pussy willows grew over the store’s linoleum tile floor, and toadstools sprouted in fairy rings. A gently burbling stream flowed out of the Housewares department and tumbled down the escalators.
“My gift,” Sarah laughed, “You can see through a child’s eyes whenever you wish.”
She kissed Bill’s cheek, then spread her wings and flew away.
199 words. In response to this week’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt:
The theme park in Santa Clara is abandoned. Like most of the town, all that remains is paint flaking from oxidating amusements.
“Going somewhere, pretty boy?”
Tight leather and garishly pale skin, she was another gothic princess perpetuating the entire “blackityblack” bloodsucker stereotype.
“I was just pondering if there was any reason to stay here.”
“Possibly not, in your case,” she showed fangs.
At my signal, the ActiveArmor™ burst into life. The shirt I’d been wearing like mail separated into tens of thousands of tiny scales. Each scale split into two wings, and a cloud of metallic butterflies dispersed around me.
Surprise made her hesitate, briefly.
“Cute. But do you think your bugs can save you?”
She lunged for me, claws reaching for my throat. The AA butterfly cloud descended on her as quickly as it ascended from me.
I’d requested customization from the AA sales rep for an excellent reason. Each butterfly wing features a tracery of silver conductor wiring. To a vamp, skin contact with so much silver is like showering in holy water.
“But I do want to thank you for the signal,” I replied to her charred corpse. “It’s definitely time to walk away.”
198 words. Inspired by this week’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt:
Fun stuff. Mixing genres is always a treat. As is hiding away “what does this crap have to do with this prompt” until the very last sentence is, too.
ParkInkSpot 