Category: Adventures in Fiction

Missed Connections, A Tragic Short Story

It’s been a while so I figured I may as well drop a little content here. I posted it a few days ago on Facebook, but I think it deserves a place here because, well, it just does.

She put on her finest outfit. The one that always drew his attention. Patiently, she waited. Seeing him across the way, she began her dance.
He knew she would be there and dashed as fast as he could, throwing caution to the wind. Tonight would be the night. There she was, beautiful. He watched her move. He’d waited his whole life for this moment.
He was right there. Surely he could see her. Slowly, carefully she danced in his direction, but he came no closer.
He was ensnared. He tried to signal her but he was unable to approach. He’d been caught by something and couldn’t escape but he had to let her know how he felt. Desperately, he signaled while being wound ever more tightly.
Drawing closer, she began to realize something was terribly wrong. He was singing their song, but he’d stopped moving. She must have gotten to him. Hope dimmed and slowed.
He flashed his last as the femme fatale had her way with him.
Thus ends the front yard firefly romance foiled by an orb weaver.

 

One Foggy Christmas Eve, The Laughter Stopped

Rudolph grew tired of the being called names and decided to take them instead. That’s right, Rudolph has gone tactical.

He upgraded his bright red nose to a Crimson Trace Rail Master Universal Mount Laser, and prepared for serious operations.

All of the other reindeer were distracted by their reindeer games. Rudolph settled in behind his silenced SBR fitted with the Trijicon ACOG. He placed the red dot on Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer, but not Vixen. He had other plans for her.

Now it was time to deal with the fat man himself. Rudolph reached inside his 5.11 Tactical Rush 12 Backpack, Black and retrieved the Cold Steel Kukri he’d stowed inside.

His eyes, how they twinkled when they saw the carbon steel that foggy Christmas eve.

All of the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names.

Used to. Until that fateful night when Rudolph had enough.

Random Dialogue

I had this odd bit of dialogue just pop into my head. It’s part of a bigger story that’s been rattling around in there for a while. Maybe if I drop this here it will inspire me to get back into that world and finally flesh it out.

Clarence: Check out what I found!

Annie: Another clock?

Clarence: Look, this one still works.  All I’ve got to do is replace the glass.

Annie: What do you need with another clock? That’s like the fourth one this week.

Clarence: I can’t believe people just throw these things away.  It’s still good.

Annie: Are you even listening to yourself? To me?

Clarence: This one even has the pendulum. I won’t even have to mock up a power source.

Annie: Sure, but what are you doing with all these things?

Clarence: I fix them and spread them around. Different places in the quad.

Annie: Wait.  What?

Clarence: Someone will find it.

Annie: Let me get this straight.  You are picking up broken clocks, fixing them, and then leaving them for people to just find.

Clarence: Exactly.  Do you know what time it is?

Annie: Yeah it’s… A man obsessed with clocks doesn’t know the time? The Tower says 10 minutes ’til lights out.

Clarence: I don’t trust The Tower. It just counts down to the next arbitrary point. That’s not Time; it’s control.

Annie: But clocks are okay?

Clarence: Clocks are different.  They are like history.  You look at a clock to orient yourself at a specific moment in time.  A clock is like a connection to freedom.  I can decide at what hour I wake, eat, and sleep. That’s why I leave them for people.  So they can connect to their point in history too. Besides, The Tower changes. I think ‘lights out’ has been happening earlier and earlier since Michelle disappeared.

Annie: Not that again. Look, we all miss Michelle, but she’s been gone for two years now. She didn’t ‘disappear,’ she’s dead. She went outside the wall. No one can survive out there.

Clarence: You can believe whatever you’d like. I know she’s still out there.

Annie: Why does Time matter to you so much anyway? They’re going to shut down the grid when the countdown hits zero, regardless of what your clocks say.

Clarence: What if I told you the sun still shines outside the wall?

Annie: I’d tell you you’d better get home and take your meds. You’ve been reading too much ancient history again. I’ve got to get going anyway. If I’m not in my rack in five, I’ll be stumbling in the dark.

Clarence: Be careful out there, Annie. My offer still stands.

Annie: As does my decline. This place creeps me out when the lights go out.

So, there it is. A window into the world building in my head.

 

This Was Never Supposed to Happen

We laughed. We joked. Made fun of the tiny dictator from the east. At least he waited for the spring when the songbirds returned.

Who knows if this message will actually make it through. We’ve still got a connection here in flyover country, but we know it’s only a matter of time. North Korean troops followed the bombs within a day. We aren’t so far from Austin in the grand scheme of things.

This message is dangerous. I’ll have to disappear once it posts. I’m going underground. Surely we can mount some kind of resistance. I can’t tell you what to look for, but there will be signs if you are looking. Can’t stop the signal.

If only there was snow. I could really use some coffee.

So Um Yeah…I Did That

A few of you that know me in real life, know that from time to time I’ve tossed around the idea of writing a little fiction.  Maybe I’m just enamored with the idea of bindings and the shuffle of pages and the idea of my name on a cover.  Oh how I love the smell of the library.  Well, at least when the bums aren’t there.

Problem is, everytime I’ve started on a story, I’ve psyched myself out and put it away.  It’s never been a big deal because no one else knew I was working on it.  Therefore I’m the only one hearing the voices of partially developed characters crying out for attention.

And then I had this dream which I had to share with my husband.  It sounded like a great premise for a story.  I rolled it around in my head for a few days and told him that I thought I was going to play with it and see where it went.  So I snatched up a new spiral notebook and began to make some basic story notes.  And then I put it down.  But my still unnamed protagagonist kept pestering me.

And then last night over a serving of bourbon (not the first of the evening), I decided to catch up on the MHI fan fiction currently being posted at the gun counter.  Before I knew it, I had posted something to the effect of, “I’ve been fermenting a little story idea.  I’ll share once it’s ready.”  And then realized that I’d just promised a bunch of guys that I was actually going to work on this story and not let it join the others in the great pile of procrastination.  This is the same forum that decided to track me down when I was not so active for a while.  Not that I’m difficult to track down.

So I figured I had better actually work on it.  With bourbon in hand, I grabbed my spiral notebook and a pencil.  I know, so very low-tech of me.  Meh.  There’s something satisfying about having actual paper in my hands with words written on it.  And I wrote 6 pages before going to bed.  I haven’t looked at them yet today, so it may be crap, but it exists.  And is potentially legible.  Maybe. And I might have to give ghost writing credit to Elijah Craig.  At least some acknowledgement somewhere.

It doesn’t have anything even resembling a title yet, and I’m not ready to offer any teasers.  Hell, I don’t really even know what genre it falls under.  I haven’t even settled on a name for anything other than the goldfish.  I figured I should jump in over my head while sober and mention it here too.  I’ll keep you updated on my progress and share it when it is ready for that.  That may require some help from my buddy, Elijah Craig.