Our Daily Bread (+ News)

“Quickly, help me with him!” shouted the first. “It’s the only way he can be saved.”

The second solemnly shook his head. “You know, if we do this,” he said gravely, “he will never be the same.”

“If we don’t, he will die! He’s already begun to turn, before long he’ll fall apart entirely. I’m not going to leave him here to rot!”

The first searched his feelings for a moment, before taking a deep breath and relenting. Together, they lifted their beloved elder and carried him to the steps of the Great Door, and upon its opening, felt the wintry breath of the beyond.

“Lo, there do I see my father,” spoke the second. “Lo, there do I see my mother, my sisters and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning of The Journey.” He began to sob, pain wrestling with the words. “Lo, they do call to me, and bid me take my place among them.” He placed a hand on their elder, snowfall already burying their feet.

“Rest well, brother,” he said. “Wait for me, beyond the bread.”

“Beyond the bread,” echoed the first.

Then, with heavy hearts, the two bananas closed the door to the freezer, and retook their place in the fruit bowl on the kitchen countertop.

[THE EXPLANATION]

So, I thought I was hilarious when I first scribbled this one out. And to be fair, I do still chuckle when I read it back to myself. I’ve shown it to a few friends and get nothing but a raised eyebrow and a “Huh…?” back. If it didn’t come across, it’s a couple of young bananas taking an older banana that’s started to spot and turn brown up to the freezer, where it later has a chance of being made into banana bread – which, if my wife has taught me anything, is the promised fate of all bananas that wind up in the freezer.

I’d also just watched The 13^th Warrior, which is likely where the Lo speech came from. If you got it and enjoyed it, freaking right on! Thank you for the validation. If not, I mean, I get it, and thank you anyway.

Lastly, if you haven’t heard or don’t remember from last time, I have a story coming out! Yeehaw’s and Woohoo’s all around. The lovely little tale this time is called “Shoes for Little Sap”, and it’s coming out with Abyss & Apex Magazine on Monday (4/1/24), so keep a look out.

Shoes for Little Sap

by Evan A Davis

The Challenger (A Napkin Note)

Zzzit’ck climbed the precipice until he stood at the ziggurat’s peak, and there he beheld Her.

“I have come, Titaness!” he bellowed. “Another challenger to bask in your glory and one who will defeat you! Many have fallen where I now stand, and I have taken the mantle of their number, their valor, and their memory. Now come, Great Lady, face me and reckon!”

And lo did the goddess, fierce and unknowable, strike down the challenger with unconquerable fury.

“Ugh, God,” Sarah grunted.
“Hmm?” grunted her husband.
“Every night I find, like, a single ant on my nightstand and I’m getting sick of it. Can you pick up more traps from work tomorrow?”
“Hmm,” he grunted again.

END

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.

Roadside

There was a body on the roadside.

Kyle stared at it while the flashing of her hazard lights illuminated it like the strobe of lightning during a storm.

“Get your headlights fixed,” is what had been so easy for everyone to say. Easy advice to offer. But a busy work week and a mechanic’s shop that was across town makes that “easy” advice harder to follow. She hadn’t known she was going to be out that late, how could she have? The canyon was a back road, and there wasn’t supposed to be anyone out there but her.

And now there was a body on the roadside.

Two sounds, each like a shock from her stomach to the tingling edges of her scalp, one right after the other. The first was a groan from the supposed corpse, and the second was the sound of tires coming around the bend.

The clack of a gavel, the slamming of bars, and Samantha crying where all that filled her ears after that.

Then, lights came around the bend. Lights that approached fast, then slowed. Lights that turned off to the roadside behind her.

“Everything alright?” said the Good Samaritan.

“Yeah,” Kyle said back with a wave. “Headlights gave out on me all of a sudden. Can’t see an inch ahead of the grill.” She motioned to the clear space of gravel on the roadside.

“Oh,” said the voice. “Good thing you found the turnout. How ’bout you follow my taillights back to the main road. Dark out here.”

“You. Are. Awesome. Thank you!”

She stayed focused on the two red eyes that guided her out of the dark, not giving a moment’s concentration to the steep hills beyond the roadside.

FIN