Pocket Story series #2

Woof, back so soon! Been rainy near these parts, so I’m stuck inside, which means I get to chain myself to my desk and rattle away on here. Livin’ the dream.

Brief thought experiment before diving into The Goods here today: Without googling it, and be honest, how many ants would you guess are there estimated on the surface of the planet? Don’t be surprised if it’s way more than you think, or weirdly way less than you’d imagine. Either way, it’s part of an essay-project I’ve had brewing, and I don’t think I’ve ever done so much math in my life.

Just…stay tuned for that.

Anyway, if you forgot how this works or are just getting started, the little ditty to follow comes from a premise generator from a book that I got at a yard sale some time back. It gives a circumstance, a character, and an action (and all usually pretty weird ones). So, getting on with it…

Where Are They Now?

Winston Turtledove closed his eyes tightly, gritted his teeth, and rubbed his temples. The noise was getting to be hard to handle.

…I hope there’s leftover lasagna in the fridge. That hot sauce ain’t gonna use itself.…

…if I can return these pants for store credit, and if they let me use that coupon since it only expired yesterday, then those new shoes will only be five dollars, or three if I scuff up the edges while they’re…

…those cards better show up in the mail today. Tracking said two to four days, but they’re usually early and the shipping update was pretty fast, so then maybe…

“…just call my name, I’ll be there in a hurry, you don’t have to worry, ’cause baby there AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN HIIIIGH ENOUGH, AIN’T NO VALLEY LOOOOW ENOUGH, AIN’T NO RIVER WIIIIIDE ENOUGH, to keep me from…”

…wasn’t he the one from ‘Three-Ring?’ Little Andy?‘ Aw, he used to be so cute.…

The voices started about a week ago. At first, he thought he was insane, his personality fragmenting into different shades, but now he was just concerned about being driven to madness. As it turned out, through magic, a curse, solar winds, or a cosmic joke, he was hearing other people’s thoughts all of a sudden. At first, he thought it was cool. He’d listen in on neighbors, other patrons at coffee shops, and rather enjoyed the new dimension given to his people-watching hobby.

But the voices kept piling on and piling on, and he couldn’t shut them off. It’s fun to listen in one at a time, but when you’re never alone and have a crowd in your head at near all times, it was enough to mill one’s sanity.

It had also been a disappointing revelation to have, too. He caught passersby occasionally recognize him from his childhood role as Little Andy on ABC’s hit comedy ‘Three-Ring Circus,’ and he’d always like to imagine subtle awestricken ripples at his minor celebrity, but now he knew what mostly occupied their reaction was how old he’d gotten. Not shyness at asking for a picture, not fondness over the show, just pity for how he was now.

So he sat on his usual park bench, now a grumpy man in his early-fifties, and watched the birds whose thoughts were blessedly one-note enough to meditate out the other visitors of the park: “Coo? Coo. Coo? Coo? Coo? Cooooo. Coo.”

That’s when he saw old Harold, a man in his eighties who came to the same park regularly. Winston hadn’t seen Harold since his newfound powers had taken root. And the intrigue at some familiar thoughts pulled him from his meditating on the pigeons. It took some time, but as the light crowds of joggers, babysitters, and dog-walkers began to clear out, he found he was able to focus in on Harold’s thoughts.

“…some day. With Martha gone, a man would think the guilt would have gone away some day. But nope. Sure, everyone has their theories. They’ve sold their books, their movies, their crack-pot bits, and TV specials, but holding onto the secret truth? Outliving all the others and being the last one holding onto the secret. Now that…that’s a real Magic Bullet. Shit. Why do I even still come here? Is it the knoll? Maybe. I think the lake helps keep the images out. Killin’ a man, an important one…fuck. And poor Jacky, never got to…”

Winston blinked his eyes in disbelief, sitting on a bench in a park outside Missoula, Montana, with the man who might have assassinated JFK…

After a few minutes, Winston simply shrugged.

We never know where life will take us, do we?

END

So, I’ll be real, wasn’t entirely sure how to end this one, which might be pretty evident in the text itself. The attributes this time were as follows: “Suddenly able to hear others’ thoughts, // a former child television star // discovers who really killed JFK.” And full confession, the first mixture had the last part as “steals a baby,” but I wasn’t totally sure how to work with that one. The JFK thing at least worked with the telepathy, and besides, it was that or he “grows at extra arm.”

Anyway, hope all is well, take it easy, much love, and see you next time.

Pocket Story Series #1

Good…God.

Well’p, we made it. We’ve made it to a point where we might be able to start watching the dust settle rather than whip around in a heinous maelstrom of bad news and general caca. I’m all for fresh starts. In fact, just behind Thanksgiving here in the States, New Year’s Day is my favorite holiday. I appreciate Christmas and Halloween for the things they do, but I just prefer silver to gold, the lieutenant to the captain, the…crow’s nest to the…figurehead- I dunno. This is starting to fall apart, but you get my point: The Underdog.

And in an effort to embrace that, I’m starting this up: the Pocket Story Series.

A little bit ago at a yard sale, I picked up a little book called the “Amazing Story Generator,” and I think our goal here will be to do our best to disprove that.

The gist: The book gives a circumstance, a character, and an action, then I’ll whip up a little diddy here for us to enjoy, marvel at, laugh at, or whatever else, then I’ll show what the elements were that I had to work with.

Cool? Cool.

Oh! Also, quick plug: I’m gonna have a few published stories come out this year that are already in the pipeline, so expect to be bombarded with news about those when they approach and/or come out.

Cool again? Cool again. Without further adieu…

Working Late

Geoffry Hanson set down his cup of coffee, folded his finger over his belly, and enjoyed a contented sigh. The outdoor cafe was nice, and it had been a long while since he’d been in Amsterdam. When he was here last, must have been, what, ’93? And that was for work, so he hadn’t really been able to enjoy the city.

Funny enough, as the thought hit him, the job site had been close to where he was now. Very close, in fact. He paid for his coffee, got up, and left to go for a stroll. He walked along the canals and paused at a house by one of the embankments. There it was. He looked on at the gabled facade, a remnant of the seventeenth century Golden Age, and smiled.

That was where he and his team had busted a trade between a couple of Turkish gun runners and their Soviet partners. Across the street was where they’d surveilled a Chinese-national informant to verify what she’d had to say before taking her asylum. Aaah, and just down the canal there was where they’d saved the city from a terrorist plot involving a threat to its water treatment. Geoff smiled.

A life working for MI6 had been a rewarding one.

He ambled down along the waterside, reminiscing on the good he and his team had done. As he strolled, something caught his trained eye. A briefcase, sitting alone next to a discarded beer can underneath a nearby bridge. It’s nothing, he told himself. Definitely nothing.

This was his first vacation in his 25-year long career, and he wasn’t going to let work spoil it…

…much.

Despite himself, and mostly to convince himself of what he was telling himself, he meandered over to the discarded case. He gestured to an invisible crowd of onlookers the futility of the observation and tested its weight as a means of showing his instincts were misplaced. To his dismay, the case was heavy. Very heavy. Too heavy to house simple papers.

He pinched his nose and heaved a great sigh.

Geoff clicked the briefcase slowly open and revealed its inner working: wires, nodes, and a digital reader showing a countdown. It was a bomb, and a very big one at that. Disgruntled, Geoff clicked the heel of his left shoe, detached the sole to retrieve the bomb disposal kit hidden therein, and set to work saving the world yet another time.

Retirement couldn’t come soon enough for Geoffry Hansom; but, he supposed, perhaps for the sake of the world, it could.

END

Aaah, that was dorky.

Okay, so the pages turned up, as you may have guessed: “On vacation for the first time in years / a world-weary intelligence agent / finds a buried atomic bomb.”

We missed the “buried” bit, and let go of the “world-weariness” as well, but it came together adorably enough. This being just a warm-up, keep an eye out for more of these and again for news on bigger stories I’ve got coming our way.

Til then, take it easy, y’all.

In Case You Missed It: “Lessons from the Deep”

(Quick re-post, cause this got put up a little later yesterday. Enjoy, y’all!)

Whaaaaat’s up everybody? Happy-

…

…Tuesday! (Sorry, I actually had to scratch my chin to remember what day it was and wanted to reflect that here.)

Wanted to get this out earlier today, but the hectic nature of trying to sell the house now that it’s good and flipped, well, you get it. Now that we’re here, so cues the part where I tell you the passing thought that just cartwheeled around the yard, wispily threaded its way through the window, and slipped through my ear to the top of my head:

If you’ve never been to a speak-easy, like, a “real” one that adheres to its theme, you owe it to yourself. On a recent trip to L.A. for my friends’ wedding, my girlfriend Amanda and I found (okay, really, she found it and I just went) a Speak-Easy the night before the wedding, and y’all, it was AWESOME. I’m talking had to spot the bouncer out front looking inconspicuous out front of the inconspicuous building, get the night’s password out of him, go down a back alley (where Mandy swung my hand all giddy-like while I thought we were gonna get dirked), make a turn where we found a red light, knock on the door where a man on the other side pulled a curtain and asked for the password – the Whole Nine. If you find yourself in Pasadena and in the very specific, nameless speak-easy I’m talking about, get the Mama’s Poison – it’s tops, daddio.

Anyway, in the name of flipping (two paragraphs ago – poor segue), we’re going to go through our little flip book again (like we did last week).

Here’s how it’s gonna go: I’m gonna stop typing to briefly flip through randomly for a prompt, probably sit with my mouth agape for a moment or two while observing what it comes up with, then decide whether or not to tell you before or after to tell y’all what the parameters were.

Ready?

Cool.

-flippy flips-

…

Heh heh heh, I love this thing.

Alright, so this time, we got the following:

Following a disastrous job interview,
a big-time weather reporter
wakes up in a strange house

Same as last time, we’re taking this nice and gently, not rushing and stressing the shit out of it like on previous fan/friend submitted prompts – even though those turn out awesome and we’ll get back to them soon.

Without further adieu…

The Dark Below Pepperdine Circle

The man in the suit clapped his hand on the desk as he laughed. He had thick fingers and a heavy ring that knocked against the wood. It was here Greg also noticed the two metal teeth on the man’s bottom row, as well as the thickness of his sideburns. He would’ve said something, but he hadn’t exactly had the power in the conversation thus far as it was.

“I love it!” the man boomed. “Oh, I love it, I tell ya! You go ahead and keep that, and you’ll hear from us within the week!” Greg took the item in question from the man in the suit as he resumed laughing. He laughed unceasingly while he held the door open for Greg, during the entire escort to the parking lot, and laughed still as the front door of the office building closed to officiate their parting. Greg walked out to his car, threw his briefcase in the back, and drove around to the other side of the lot, where he parked again, and let his head fall onto the horn for a good long while.

This was the seventh interview that had pushed daisies in the last four days. He looked to the bobble-head James had given him. It was a small figure of Greg, with the usual over-sized head, but an expression of bewildered discomfort and a cartoon-like, green gas cloud erupting from his bottom. “Come on,” his wife had said. “John and Stacey have been inviting us over for weeks. They want to do fish tacos and play some games. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Karen,” Future Greg would say. “Maybe John and Stacey don’t know a spatula from an flattened duck foot. Maybe that rank-ass fish ruins my gut live on air and gets me fired. Maybe I come home that day to bitch about it, and find John bending you over my billiard table. Maybe I move out and live on Curtis’s couch for three months. Maybe, when I’m finally ready to start job hunting again, I find out I’m a new goddamn meme format. So, no, Karen. Fuck their tacos.”

He took his head off the horn and got out of his car, whereupon he hurled the bobble-head over the curve of the nearest building’s wall and started kicking the hell out of his tires. When his tirade finally calmed, he looked up to see an older man staring at him from the sidewalk. He wore a beanie, weathered jacket, finger-less gloves, and sat in a wheelchair. “What the fuck do you want?” Greg screamed, red in the face.

His flat expression unchanged, the homeless man held out a hand with a tab of acid suspended between two fingers. Greg’s heavy breathing slowly returned to normal under the weight of his confusion at first, but then began instead weighing the consequences.

Thus began a series of poor choices.

Greg woke up to a splash of water going up his nose. His burning sinuses and coughing fit immediately roused him to consciousness, but he found he was in utter darkness. His eyes opened wide in the black, that they might drink in any wayward light, but to no avail. He could tell he was lying on his stomach in water that was maybe two inches deep, and his fingers were against something soft, like wet fur under the water. He scrambled away at first, imagining he was on the back of a sleeping aquatic bear or wildebeest. When he didn’t hear a roar or the crunching of his own bones, he sopped his way to his knees and listened. Beyond his own heavy breathing, he heard the very soft lapping of water somewhere, distant in the void. And something like…the crunching of gift wrap?

He fumbled about in his pocket for his phone and its flashlight, but when he tried to touch the screen, nothing. Damn, he thought. Soaked.

He began feeling his way around in the dark, sloshing around in the the toe-height chill of the water. After a few, stumbling steps, he knocked something over in the dark. Was that…a chair? He felt around some more. There were chairs and a table. Meaning the fur under the water was actually…carpet? Was he…was he in a house?

He fumbled around until he had roughly mapped out in his mind’s eye what must be the dining room and kitchen, then felt around from there for some sort of hallway where one might keep a flashlight or emergency supplies, all the while eerily confident that a giant, monstrous crab was going to snatch him out of the dark. Finally, he grasped what felt like the handle to a closet door and in a stroke of luck, found a flashlight.

After his eyes adjusted, he looked around and had one thought: “This looks just like my grandma’s house.”

And it did. Pink wallpaper, pastry plates in display shelves (all curiously shifted to one side), and spoons on the walls (all slightly tilted in their angle). Besides the water and the strange arrangement gravity had seemed to have taken on the objects in the room, the only oddity was that it was completely black. No light came even from the windows.

He walked over to one and saw that, besides the utter dark, there was a curious, milky whiteness on the other side of the glass. He pressed his face close to it in some vain hope of seeing beyond the veil when the light caught against the large round eye of a fish. He screeched a leapt back. Now he was certain that he was in some kind of sick Lovecraftian nightmare.

Against his better judgement, he ran to what he surmised to be the front door and flung it open. A huge, white belly forced its way into the door, translucent against the light and writhing with undersea grass and swishing tails. Right when he was sure he was moments from an eldritch, cosmic death, the whole house began to shake and shift. He felt gravity sway and pull him down the hallway as the floor moved beneath him. Seemingly pulled by unseen forces, the hallway felt less like that and more like an esophagus leading to Cthulu’s stomach.

Right when he was about to scream obscenities to God and his aunt Maggie (long story), the scene changed. He heard a rush of water, light poured through the windows, the belly in the doorway deflated of a sudden, and there were…voices? More than voices, it was the sound of heavy machinery.

When the seismic motions finally stopped, he cautiously approached the front door, beyond which he heard voices. The skin of the belly, he now saw, had writing on it, and up close it read: “Tyvek.”

Plastic wrap? Greg thought. What the hell is…

No sooner had he thought the question than a utility knife thrust through the industrial plastic and Greg was face-to-face with a mustachio’d man in a tow-truck company jumpsuit. The both of them squealed at each other, and the next moment Greg was surrounded by a gaggle of uniformed officers who, in perfect stereo, all shouted, “Freeze!”

“Jesus, Greg,” sighed his friend Curtis. “You’ve outdone yourself this time.”

Curtis sat with Greg on the back ramp of an ambulance rig, a heat blanket draped over his shoulders and Starbucks in both their hands. They just been shown security footage from the dockside cabin of Greg, at 2:30 in the morning, backing up an enormous flatbed truck carrying a mobile home to the edge of the water, climbing on the to roof while screaming something about “ferrying the Great Turtle Charon,” and falling through a skylight. At approximately 3:14, the truck’s brakes gave out rolled out into the lake, sinking the house just up the edge of the roof.

“I think a homeless man gave me acid,” said Greg.

“No,” said Curtis, “you accepted acid from a homeless man. And probably more than just that. Jesus.”

Greg hung his head.

“But hey,” continued Curtis, “at least we still have this. Turns out the lady who’s house you dunked was a fan.” And he handed Greg one of his own bobble-heads.

Greg looked at the bobble-head, back to Curtis, then back to the bobble-head.

And through it in the lake.

END

The Take: Sorry, sort of rushed it there at the end, but I like the Hangover-style adventure that came of this one. Hope it was coherent enough for y’all. See you Thursday!

Ciao.

Lessons from the Deep

Whaaaaat’s up everybody? Happy-

…

…Tuesday! (Sorry, I actually had to scratch my chin to remember what day it was and wanted to reflect that here.)

Anyway, in the name of flipping (two paragraphs ago – poor segue), we’re going to go through our little flip book again (like we did last week).

Ready?

Cool.

-flippy flips-

…

Heh heh heh, I love this thing.

Alright, so this time, we got the following:

Following a disastrous job interview,
a big-time weather reporter
wakes up in a strange house

Without further adieu…

The Dark Below Pepperdine Circle

Thus began a series of poor choices.

He fumbled about in his pocket for his phone and its flashlight, but when he tried to touch the screen, nothing. Damn, he thought. Soaked.

After his eyes adjusted, he looked around and had one thought: “This looks just like my grandma’s house.”

Plastic wrap? Greg thought. What the hell is…

“Jesus, Greg,” sighed his friend Curtis. “You’ve outdone yourself this time.”

“I think a homeless man gave me acid,” said Greg.

“No,” said Curtis, “you accepted acid from a homeless man. And probably more than just that. Jesus.”

Greg hung his head.

“But hey,” continued Curtis, “at least we still have this. Turns out the lady who’s house you dunked was a fan.” And he handed Greg one of his own bobble-heads.

Greg looked at the bobble-head, back to Curtis, then back to the bobble-head.

And through it in the lake.

END

The Take: Sorry, sort of rushed it there at the end, but I like the Hangover-style adventure that came of this one. Hope it was coherent enough for y’all. See you Thursday!

Ciao.

Some Good News and a Lil’ Diddy

What. Is. Up. Everybody? Happy Thursday!

I know I’ve mentioned at least half a dozen times how hard flooring is lately, but that’s all done now! Spent the better part of a couple weeks on my hands and knees (sh’narf, giggle, chuckle) doing that and other house projects, but today marks the first foot coming down on the finish line. -cue applause-

But that’s not the good news. I’ve also mentioned the NYC Midnight fiction contests I take part in every so often (actually, every year since finding out about them…totaling…two, actually) and the entries I put in towards them. In the standard manner of submitting to fiction markets, I just sort of floated my entry out there without any expectation of success.

WELL THAT CHANGES TODAY!

Got an email this very morning showing I ranked #6 in the top fifteen of Round One. I know it’s not a walk-off Home Run or taking the championship trophy or anything, but it’s pretty cool to me, so, endure my raving- YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

Ahem.

So my back is sore, my knees and hips are sore, the muscles in my feet, weirdly, are sore, but my heart is full. Anyway, that was the good news, on to the diddy aforementioned as “lil”.

Sort of like the prompt challenges we cranked out for a while, I want to do a brief free-write. It’ll be the same concept as racing the clock to get the story done, but less stressful. We’re gonna be cool, breezy, groovy, laid back, and most chill, brah. At a library event (SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARIES) a little while ago, I got a fun little flip-book that supplies writing prompts in three components: a setting, a character, and a basic “quest” (for lack of a better word, and I feel “quest” underappreciated and underutilized).

So we’ll flip through, see what comes up, and get goin’ with a time “limit” of, oh, fifteen short-ass minutes. Excuse me while I flippy flippy.

-flippy flips-

Oh…oh Lord…

Okay, listen. I will never lie to you guys. Even if you have no way of verifying that, it wouldn’t feel right, so I’ll always be honest with you.

I think I fucked up.

I flipped the pages. I proceeded to then flop the pages. After which, I fanned more pages. And this is what we got:

With only a week to live,
a licensed cat-hair stylist
creates a family of robots.

Hmm…, right. Sort of makes a quick right turn there at number three, dun’nit? Well, what the heck, let’s dive on in…

Nine Lives

Stacy lied on her back, watching the ceiling fan slowly spin and draw circles on the white in shadow. Her eyes were dry, but stiff with the salt of recent tears.

Seven days isn’t a lot of time.

She’d spent a childhood in pageants, like she was told to. She’d been the valedictorian of her high school graduating class, like she was supposed to. Then she went to school and got her undergrad in robotics engineering, like she was expected to. There’d never been time for dating, much of a social circle who knew her without her last name, she’d never even been drunk before. It had taken her until her 36th birthday to shuck the yolk of responsibility that’d been foisted on her by her parents and finally pursue a the dream she’d drawn about when she was little, to take charge of her own, adult life.

And now, two months later, here she was going to die.

She wanted to see Paris as more than a postcard. She wanted to go sky diving, with her cheeks blown aside in that funny way they did in videos. But, most immediately, she wanted to get utterly annihilated at a bar somewhere.

A soft ‘meow’ sounded from the foot of her bed along with the jingle of a tiny bell. The meow sprang on to the bed, walked along her leg like a balance beam, and stared at her, inches from her nose.

“Heya, Jethro,” Stacy said, sniffling.

The black, green-eyed cat, sporting a tall, pink-tipped mohawk fade and a curly-q’d mustache of whiskers sat purring on her chest otherwise silently for several moments. Then, a back leg shot out over Stacy’s forehead and the gruff scratches of feline grooming rhythmically commenced.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Stacy sighed. “Waste all those years just taking orders and instructions, to then spend more years sitting in design meetings and looking at someone else’s concept work-up’s – I wouldn’t be surprised if they caused the tumor, y’know – and what do I have to show for it?

Meow.

“Well yeah, you, but you’re hardly a legacy, sorry to say. Don’t worry, Tommy’ll take care of you once it’s all said and done. Just, don’t let him let your fade grow out, okay? It looks good on you.”

Mao.

“Good.” She went back to watching the fan and lingered on that word, “legacy,” for a minute longer. Something that lives after you’re gone. Then, in that moment, either the tumor kicked like a baby in utero, or she had an epiphany.

“Up, Jethro, we gotta go. I have an idea.”

Meow?

“Yeah, we have to hit Radio Shack.”

END

The Take: So, relied a little on the reader knowing the context there, but this one was supposed to be cute and laid back. And even if one wanted to moan, “Ugh, Evan, but she didn’t even wind up building the robots IN the story, you doof,” I would rightly respond, “Yeah, well that pretty quickly took a back seat once there was a cat with a mohawk, didn’t it?” (Hahaha, also just realized we could have called it a “meow-hawk,” but that might have seemed too easy, in retrospect.)
Anyway, hope that landed some chuckles. See you guys Tuesday, and may Jethro be with you.

Ciao.

Prompt Challenge: A Gift of Time

Happy Thursday, everybody – hope the week’s been treating you right.

We’ll just get right to it and not waste your time today, mostly because I don’t have anything funny to say- eh, that’s not true, actually. Recently, I watched a kid pee all over the front of his mom’s car just outside a busy cafe window, and besides the little dude’s equally little brother, I was the only witness. So…that was…it was pretty funny (I just… it feels weird mentioning that I watched a kid pee).

MOVING ON NOW.

The prompt for today is another one from the splendiferous Mr. Bacchus again and is (more or less verbatim) as follows: “You’re approached by a stranger on the street. He walks up to you briskly, hands you a package, and departs just as quickly. You open it to see an old fashioned pocket watch. The moment you touch it… [Must include magic.]”

You want magical shit? Let’s get to some magical shit.

You know how these go, but if you’re just joining us, the gist is I have thirty minutes to scrap together something we can all look at and say, “Huh, funny.” I set a timer and it goes off when it goes off. If I finish in time, great; if not, I either eat some pumpkins and add time or it ends abruptly and hilariously unsatisfying. So let’s get to it.

Starting time in 3…

2…

[Note: Hey everybody, Future Evan here. Post is all done and I just did a brief re-read before publishing it and want to say, to add to the experience, try reading the following story in your grandfather’s voice. Okay, peace out. Enjoy.]

1…

Old and Gray

I don’t know that why, of all the details, the thing I remember first about the day after I met you were the clouds. They were those ones, big and fluffy, but look almost like water stains on a backdrop. The edges are just a little too hard, and the light hits them like…well, just differently than you’d expect them to look. The best part also was that they weren’t dark. There wasn’t the threat of rain. They just felt there to be pleasant.

I was walking down Phelps road, on my way to Central Park Library. I think I was going to return a cookbook I’d checked out, something with old, Polish recipes – not important. But do you remember the side of town the library was on? It was a block over from the tracks and the train station. I always liked that because while most people complained about the train, I liked hearing it. It made the town’s usual quiet feel a bit busier, a bit more lively.

Anyway, I was just watching the clouds and listening to the train when that guy bumped into me, remember? He was dressed in an old-timey trench coat and hat, like he’d just stepped out of a 1920’s noir film. It was doubly weird, because we were the only two people on that sidewalk, so it wasn’t like it was a bustling crowd. We could have both been distracted, but something about the shove felt deliberate, I mean, other than the parcel he put in my hand.

It was like something out of those old C.I.A.-era spy movies where two agents make a pass, except I didn’t know I was one of the agents. I turned around to explain to the guy that I didn’t want to be involved in any of his shenanigans, but when I turned around he was gone. Just about immediately, I forgot all about returning that Polish cookbook.

I took a left on Lewis and went to the park, sat on a bench, and stared at the box in front of me. It wasn’t ticking. When I shook it, I could feel the packing fluff inside, and whatever it was wasn’t very heavy. All I knew is that I didn’t want to end up on a news story. Ultimately, curiosity (same stuff that killed The Cat, I know) got the better of me and I opened the box. Inside was a silver pocket watch on a thin chain.

Not what I expected, and still no ticking.

I clicked the little latch and opened it to the face of the watch. The hands weren’t moving and it looked like it was set to about two forty-five. I checked my own watch just to be sure and saw the time was about six o’clock. I looked for a little dial or key hole to wind it, but it was solid all around, save for the lid’s clasp. That’s when I noticed the engraving on the inside of the cover:

“Guide thine path hence forth,
so hands are held in the north.”

At first, I was cripplingly confused. “Hands held in the north?” Was I supposed to go somewhere, or was this a code of some kind? Was I supposed to wait six hours until the watch counted midday or midnight? Or wind it to be that way? But it wasn’t working and there was no way to wind it. And the time was off anyway. I had a ton of questions and no answers…

Until I started walking.

I started walking just to mull over this mysterious puzzle. I had nothing better to do that day – and come to think of it, I think I forgot the cookbook on the park bench. Oops. I started walking north on Copper just to amuse myself and looked at the watch.

Nothing.

After a few minutes of this, I knew the only thing further in that direction before the highway out to Coalton was a farm supply store. So I looped back down Main, and after a few minutes, I noticed something: the hands on the watch had moved. Both had moved up a little closer.

I really can’t say what the heck it was, but I started walking faster. I followed Main until the hands stopped, and soon they started getting farther apart. I turned down Spruce and they began closing in again. It was acting like a compass, or a metal detector, except I had no idea what I was supposed to be detecting. All I knew was that I wanted to know where this led.

I followed the signals from the hands of the watch, having them frustratingly grow near and then part several times. But eventually…ah well, you know this part.

I was standing at the fountain in Juliard and so were you. I’d spent all afternoon walking, so the sun was setting against the day’s strange clouds and I’m sure I looked a mess, but you were beautiful. You were in that red and white sundress, had that ribbon you always liked to wear, and you were just finished making a wish off a penny you flipped in the water. When you saw me, you smiled and said, “Hey, stranger,” since we’d met the day before at your shop.

You’ve called me crazy a thousand times for this, but I really did have that pocket watch. I put it in my pocket for just a second to shake your hand, and when I reached for it again, it was gone.

But I don’t care if you ever believed me, about the watch, about the mysterious man in the coat, or my goose chase all over town. Because whether you believed in the watch or not, we still had a lifetime together. We didn’t just hold hands in the north, because we went to so many places, but what really mattered was who I was with – even when we were old and gray.

I never got to give you flowers, because of course my wife had to be a florist and you don’t approach Midas with a gift of gold. But now, here on the family plot, I finally can.

I love you, honey, and I miss you already.

END

The Take: Well…you know what? Yeah, we went over time, but I don’t really care this time. Official time came in at 46 minutes, 16 over challenge-time, so I nommed down on some pumpkins (“Cheater-cheater, pumpkin-” you get it) and kept going. I would have called it out mid-post like that one time, but while that had been funny, it didn’t feel as right to interrupt this one. It wasn’t planned to take such a sentimental turn, but, well, that’s how these things go. Originally, when the stuff with the train started, I figured I might make the magical element have something to do with making it explode or fly, but ultimately – as you can tell – took it in a more subtle direction.

Anyway, hope you liked it and enjoyed the journey. If you thought this was cool, check out some of the others here, here, or here, and I’ll catch you guys again Tuesday.

Ciao.

Speed Prompt Challenge #3 – “Atomic Bacon”

Happy Thursday, y’all.

For full disclosure, this was going to be the intended post for Tuesday, but…well, stuff came up and kind of stole the show. But today’s a new day and truth be told I needed a little bit of time to outline today’s challenge.

“But Evan!” I hear you shout, “That’s cheeeeating! You’re only supposed to have thirty minutes!”
“Ah, gentle reader,” I would respond. “you’re absolutely right. So it’s a good thing all that time I could have spent really building it into a fully-formed thing only amounted to about five minutes of spit-balling onto some paper before starting this.”

All good? Cool.

We know how this goes. We have a prompt, thirty desperate minutes, the Law of the Honor System, and some kind of product at the end (featured below). This time, however, we’re going to do it a touch out of order. The prompt this time was a little unusual, and as such, I think it’s better to share what it was afterward.

You’ll see what I mean.

Starting timer in 3…

2…

1…

Atomic Bacon

Las Vegas, 1982

“I do not like these costumes.” Bucky scratched at his armpit. He was dressed in the uniform of a hotel bellhop and pushing a cart covered in trays and glasses.

“They are not costumes,” replied his partner, Foxhole. He was dressed in a tuxedo that was a size and half too small for him. “They are uniforms.”

“Yes, but they are not our uniforms. And so they are costumes.”

“It doesn’t matter if you like them or not, we have them to help do our job. Besides, they were someone’s uniform. So fuck you.”

Bucky spared a hand from his cart-pushing to give his partner the finger. Agent Foxhole was ready to protest, but the two were forced to calm as a group of large, sunburned, American tourists came bumbling down the hallway in their pool attire.

The two Russians adopted the friendly smiles of normal, American hotel staff as the gaggle passed them by, smelling of sun screen and tequila burps. When they were once again alone, scowls retook their faces. “You know what?” Agent Bucky asked.

“What?”

“American hot dogs. They are not all that bad.”

“But they make you shit like crazy.”

“You would know,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Well, game face. And shut up, we are here.”

The two approached the door at the end of the long, long hallway. In front of it, was a behemoth of a man in a suit, with hair slicked back and sunglasses on indoors. As the two got close, his upper lip curled into a lopsided sneer.

“Hello,” Foxhole greeted. “We are here to deliver room service.” He smiled, showing all of his teeth.

“Ain’t nobody order room service. Get goin’.”

“Ah, you must be from Texas. Happy American ‘Lone Star State.’ Ha-ha! You are not one who ordered big steak here, under tray? We know you like things big in big Texas.” Foxhole nudged the giant’s tummy with a friendly elbow.

“Take your cart, take your trays, and take your steak, and get the fuck out of here before I shove it all up your ass. Boss didn’t call for no food.”

Agent Foxhole looked back to Agent Bucky and shrugged his shoulders, to which Bucky replied in the same. “We tried,” they said together.

Lightning fast, Foxhole kicked the big man’s knee to the sound of a loud crack, parried away the hand that reached for a stowed pistol, and pulled a blackjack out from between the tray’s napkins, whapping the juggernaut soundly over the head into the soft, sweet arms of unconsciousness.

“Oh, shit,” complained Foxhole.

“What is the matter?” Bucky inquired.

“I tore my pants.” The Russian agent indicated a long tear along the rear-end of his tuxedo’s slacks.

“Well, I mean, y’know,” Bucky stammered.

“What?”

“You know how you got your codename, do you not?”

“How did you get yours?”

“Oh, they just put me into a name generator. ‘Bucky’ was good, bland American name. I think like big stag, with horns and mean antlers, but that’s just for me.”

“Why did I get ‘Foxhole’ then, according to you?”

“It was from time you cracked porcelain in toilets at The Farm. You leave big old crater.”

Agent Bucky began to snicker and laugh, but Foxhole slapped him upside the head. “You ready to be serious?”

Bucky nodded, only smiling.

Foxhole nodded and knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again to the same response. He looked at his partner and again the two shared a moment of shoulder-shrugging. He replaced the blackjack on the tray and retrieved two silenced pistols, giving one to Bucky. They nodded together, and Foxhole slammed a heavy Russian foot against the door.

Back-to-back, the two whirled into the room and sprayed bullets at their targets, each firing quiet, whispered shots until their pistols were empty.

Then they noticed the people they were- um, the targets they were neutralizing were…

They were already dead.

The two stopped and looked at one another in confusion. They walked about the decadent Las Vegas penthouse that was, currently, littered with corpses. The followed the trail of bodies through the luxuriant space around to the master bedroom, which itself sported a bloodied doorknob. They opened the door and saw an man in a bathrobe, spread-eagle’d on the bed.

With a knife in his throat.

“Shit!” the two shouted. Foxhole threw down his bow-tie. “Second place is the worst.”

“Wait,” said Bucky. “Maybe…maybe they got kill, but did they get prize?”

Foxhole’s eyes lit up. “Maybe you are right. What was your half of code?”

Bucky cleared his throat. “‘Pull me to pieces, hear me crackle. Hungry for mushrooms, you’ll need my name.’ What was yours?”

“‘Not very tall, better avoid my tackle, but while I don’t play, without me there’s no game.’ What do you think it means?”

The Russians walked about the room, looking for clues as to what their riddle might reference. They searched between crystal decanters, liquor bottles, under the fabric of the card tables, inside the cushions of the furniture, everywhere.

“Oo!” exclaimed Bucky. “What about that?” He pointed a hairy finger between two lamps and underneath two hung portraits of the penthouse’s owner. Agent Foxhole followed the line of sight and saw a gleaming, golden statue of a hog.

They approached it together. Crackling bacon, mushroom-hunting pigs, the charge of a boar – everything checked out.

“What about needing for game?” Foxhole asked.

“Ah, dirty American passtime. Football. They refer to ball as ‘pig-skin’. Very silly.”

“Makes sense.”

“What do you think is inside? CIA agent names? Launch codes?” Bucky heard two hissed stings and felt a shock in his back. He fell to the ground and saw Foxhole standing over him with a pistol.

“Sorry comrade. Extra-curricular assignments, and everything. You know how it goes.”

“Da.”

END

The Take: Hmm…well, that was…weird. Okay, so the prompt here was this: “A story out of the three words ‘Boar,’ ‘Penthouse,’ and ‘Blackjack.'” The very first thing to come to mind was a Vegas story, obviously, wherein it culminates in some sort of high-stakes hand of blackjack at a card table, right? The thing that really throws a super wrench into that, though, is the addition of ‘Boar.’ The thought process went, “What the shit would a pig be doing at a casino gaming table?” soon met “Well maybe there’s just a pig playing cards, shut up” soon became “Yeah, like Animal Farm meets Ocean’s Eleven.” Like, that’s kind of awesome, but too much for what we’re doing here.
So that got dialed back to some kind of 1980’s spy-thriller but it got goofy really quick. That was in part because I wrote the title on the fly in a panicked moment, but still felt a sort of loyalty to it. It wasn’t until the end that I suddenly realized how weird and contrived it sounded to actually have nuclear launch codes stashed that way, so that’s why it ended abruptly. But hey! We were within time (sort of, I had to pause once or twice because of distractions outside of my control – but that’s not what we’re focusing on here), so yay!

Anyway, y’all are great. This one was weird. See ya Tuesday.

Ciao!

Prompt Challenge #2 – Lost in the Woods

Okay, and we’re back.

Sup everybody. Happy Tuesday to you. It’s been a busy-ass week.

But let’s skip the formalities. The last time we did this it went over pretty well, so we might as well get up to it again.

This time, the prompt (graciously given by the noble Mr. Bacchus) is as follows:

“An investigative journalist goes to a forest where people have been disappearing, and one night they’re awoken by someone breaking into their tent.”

Pfft, spoilers, right? (#kidding)

But just like last time, we’re going to set a timer for thirty minutes and just start pounding keys until it’s either done or those precious little seconds have all dripped away.

“Yaaaaas! But Evan,” I hear you cry, “how will we know you’re actually timed??”

Easy, I’m a believer in the Honor System (and you…well…you just can’t).

Anyway!

3…

2…

1…

Lost in Hoia-Baciu

Justin adjusted his camera strap. He held the straps on his backpack as he took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the fresh, mountain air. It had taken him three flights, a bus, a boat, and a rented car, but he’d finally made it.

Hoia-Baciu, nestled in the arms of Transylvania, Romania, it was known as the world’s most haunted forest was the common villain pointed to for missing persons, alien sightings, paranormal experiences, and supernatural occurrences. There was no shortage of stories ranging from the bizarre and eerie, to the ookie and strange. Urban legends even told of one where a young girl went missing and reappeared seven years later without having aged and with no recollection of her absence.

Justin hiked down the hill to the treeline. He’d been warned by his editor, the locals, and even his parents to get a story some other way, but he was set on this one. He wanted to get a lens on what all the hubbub was about. Though, for his money, he expected to spend the night, find a few tire tracks, some tags, or some other evidence of government presence, then bounce with a catchy headline. All that crap about aliens and ghosts was just…well, too easy. He stood at the edge of the dense forest and checked the time: 11:23 am.

Plenty of daylight to march to the center, set up camp, and get a good boundary before dark. So he did, and on the way saw the sights that made the woods so famous. There was a portion where the trees were strangely curved, like upside-down question marks, and arranged in neat rows. Justin always figured they might have been planted like that by someone who died a long time ago, and when the next people came around and couldn’t meet him, people cried “Aliens!”

He found a spot to set up camp and began unrolling his tent. The stories about strange lights, feelings of unease, and illusory people would probably be easier to judge once it got dark. As it was, he felt great. No lights weirder than the sun poking through the trees, no uneasiness besides a bit of an irritated colon (but that was probably the stew from earlier), and the only imaginary people were just the figments of his boss and Hot Susan from the office he normally kept around. He spent the rest of the day’s light checking his equipment and playing his harmonica.

Once dark had fallen, he ranged a bit with his flashlight. About two hours of looking for Slender Man and an alien light show, he was met with nothing, not even the quiet fart of a white-tail deer. He made his way back to his tent with a strange mix of deep-seated relief and the confidence of a debunker. He crawled into his tent, zipped up his sleeping bag, and prepared for sleep. Then he noticed something. He sat up in his sleeping bag and strained his ears.

He couldn’t hear anything.

Nothing at all, save for his own quiet breathing and small movements. There was no wind through the trees, no small brushing of leaves, or distant animal calls. The close walls of his tent suddenly felt incredibly claustrophobic.

It’s okay, he told himself. You’re out here by yourself and you’re jet-lagged. Bound to feel a little weird, but you’re by yourself – no one’s out here with you.

As he breathed a small sigh of relief, his heart leapt out of his chest.

A sound. He heard a sound.

It was distant, tough to make out. It sounded like leaves crunching. Then the sound drew closer, and Justin realized there was a rhythm to it. It sounded like footsteps- no, it sounded like someone was running.

Someone was running towards him. In that moment, the anxiety returned to the thought that was once so calming, but with a chilling new addition: No one can help you either.

He reached for his flashlight with one hand and the tent door with the other. He fumbled with the zipper as the footsteps approached faster and faster. As he hissed the zipper open, there was a splay of leaves that covered him. A figure, a person, tackled him back into his tent.

“Ah!” Justin screamed. “Get the fuck off me!”

His assailant just screamed in response, but not normally. It sounded like a loud moan, like they were screaming without parting their lips. In the fumbled light of the tent, with the flashlight flailing about in the melee, Justin scrambled and wound up on top of them. He beat his fists against the intruder until, in the chaos, the flashlight illuminated their face.

He would never forget the feeling of that moment, the regret of seeing what he saw.

The intruder was a young man with fair skin and brown hair, though it was matted with dirt and…was that blood? This observation paled in notice that they had only one eye. The rest of the man’s face was fused together, like a wax statue that had been melted and blended. The single eye was panicked and frightened, but upon being seen, seemed suddenly to turn angry and hostile.

[TIMER BUZZES]

(…nope. No, we’re gonna keep going. Adding ten minutes and restarting in 3…2…1..)

The intruder’s hands gripped Justin by the wrists. Whoever they were…whatever it was, was inhumanly strong. They wrestled Justin over and began to hit him again and again alongside his head. Justin kicked frantically and finally freed himself. He burst from the tent and ran blindly out into the dark.

He ran, breathless and without a guide of any sort. Twice he was knocked over by the trunk of a tree in the invisibly dark wood. Each time, he clawed his way to his feet. The forest that had once been so silent was now alive with sounds of all kinds: clicks, burbles, distant caws, but above all of them, the pursuing moan of the one-eyed intruder.

Then, he began to see lights. A twinkling procession of pale green lights revealed themselves between the dark forms of tree trunks. He used this as a heading as he ran with all his breath, all the time hearing the pained moans behind him. A wayward root sticking up from the ground caught his foot and Justin flew forward, landing on his face and chest. Sharp stones in the dirt lacerated his cheek and got in his eyes. He rubbed his eyes fiercely to clear them and got his left open.

With his depth-perception compromised and breathing made difficult from his bloody nose

[TIMER BUZZES]
(No! Fuck, spent some of that editing. We’re close. Five more minutes! Starting…now!)

With his depth-perception compromised and breathing made difficult from his bloody nose, he felt like a wounded deer being stalked by a wolf. Nonetheless, he made his way to the floating green lights. Behind him, he heard the furious moans of the monster in pursuit.

He burst from the trees onto a small, dirt path. The green lights lit the way like road flares. He followed these, sprinting with all his remaining strength.

The path curved, and near the end he saw something. Was that…a tent?

There were other campers here! He’d have help! Maybe they had a phone since he’d left his behind. Maybe they had weapons.

He gritted his teeth and ran. Just as he got to the tent, its door flew open and he slipped. Justin fell headlong into the stranger’s tent and the two scrambled into a twisting mess. They were hitting him and he tried to scream, but he found he couldn’t open his mouth.

Finally, a flashlight was rolled over and clicked on. He froze by what he saw.

[TIMER]
(No! Two minutes!)

Justin looked up with his one good eye and found he was looking at himself from earlier that night. He screamed, but all that sounded was a moan. This wasn’t happening. His doppleganger screamed back. There was a fight. Justin was kicked, and his doppleganger ran off into the woods. Stunned, the disfigured journalist sat there, but soon heard the rhythmic running footsteps come up from behind him and primal fear pulled him to his feet.

He ran back out into the dark of Hoia-Baciu.

END

The Take: Okay, technically the timer rang halfway into the word “dark” of that last line, but c’mon. Anyway, hey! We did it (mostly)! Even though we cheated just a little bit, this one was cool. I liked the prompt and as soon as I read it from him, I knew I was going to base it in Hoia-Baciu. Speaking of, if you’ve never read it before, it’s pronounced like ‘Hoya-Botchu,’ and least, I’m pretty sure. If you prove me wrong somehow, that’s okay. But yeah, I put you through a lot of set-up to get there, but that was mostly just me ‘blurrrrb’ing until I pieced together what was going to happen. I knew early on I wanted the twist to be “He runs into himself out there” but what to do with it once we’d gotten there was the trick.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it this time around, catch you guys n’ gals Thursday!

Ciao!

Almost- WAIT!! If this little appetizer whet your palate for something creepy, pop on over to the NIGHTLIGHT podcast and check out my episode with them, “The Scars of Eliza Gray” because I think that would be pretty cool. If that works, then consider also sticking around the catch and interview between me and the podcast’s creator, Tonia Thompson (and tell ‘er Evan sent ya!).

‘Kay, bye!