Author: Desmond White

Blog: www.desmondwrite.com Twitter: @desmondwrite Instagram: @desmondwrite
Life, Scifi, Writing (Published)

Published — “Spheres”

Posted on by Desmond White

Theme of Absence just published my comedic take on extraterrestrial nihilism (the story’s called “Spheres“). The digital magazine is devoted to speculative flash fiction, and primarily posts original fiction on Fridays. These pieces are accompanied by a Q&A with the author, which I think is a really smart move on the editor’s part because then readers can come for writing and/or writing advice. And if that’s not enough for the literary enthusiast, the editor and owner of Theme of Absence also runs Write Good Books, a blog dedicated to producing useful writing resources and articles.

Scifi

Fiction — “Evelyn”

Posted on by Desmond White

A post-apocalyptic notion about the stubborn persistence of wonder.

“I have a feeling,” she whispered to a decapitated paratrooper enthroned in his chute, “that you were like an upside down map.”

“And you weren’t made of sticks,” she told his member, which was suffering some pretty normal rigor mortis. She cocked her head as if judging the time from the sun, but you couldn’t see the sun right now. It was blocked.

She judged for a mo, checked her watch, then clamored up a B-52 stratofortress lying in a tilt. Evelyn climbed the wing casually, ignoring the billows smoking from heaters, engines, dead bodies. She danced over a guttural rotor blade slowly winding itself to a premature death, then looked at a man split in thirds.

We could have been, she fluttered. One happy swell before the wave.

Life, Satire, Writing (Published)

Published — “An Obituary for the Coolest Christian”

Posted on by Desmond White

The Higgs Weldon was a humor site run by Los Angeles stand-ups Robbin Higgins and Paige Weldon and others (sorry to cut you short, others) that did everything from comedic credits to caption contests. The folks over there published my satirical panegyric, “An Obituary for the Coolest Christian,” teasing Christian youth culture (sans the tight pants, iphones, and XS plaid shirts—that’s Christian youth Starbucks culture). Sadly, the site is now defunct, so I post the piece below.

He was the coolest Christian at St. Rutabah Baptist Academy High School: he said phrases like holy bullwhiz or that’s the goshdarn truth (promoting a more conservative, Bible-approved profanity, because you never know if there’s an angel listening), emphasized the screw in Screwtape, cultivated a beard on his neck, brought a bully to Church and then beat him in the parking lot, tore a page out of the Qur’an and ate it, wore a cross on a chain even in the shower. He was Varsity football chaplain.

By six, he’d broken someone’s nose with the Summa Theologica. By twelve, he’d indexed all the Christian symbolism in Lord of the Rings. By middle school, he disagreed fundamentally with C.S. Lewis.

He was the coolest one. He read books like The Consolation of Philosophy and Paradise Lost and claimed Milton was of the Devil’s Party. It was rumored that he kept cigarettes in his fanny pack, that his flip flops weren’t dress code, that he was stoned on Jesus but Buddha gave him a bad trip, that he’d been married at 16 and divorced that summer, only to remarry her and have five kids, that he had a tattoo of Jesus in Ray-Bans, and owned an American Flag made of mixed fibers.

Faster now. He could burp the Lord’s Prayer, kissed a teacher while she was sleeping, tasted his Dad’s ginger beer, snuck into a faculty meeting and wasn’t discovered for the full two hours, could make a paper airplane out of anything, anything, spent a summer in a monastery, hooked up with a nun’s pillow, carved his initials in sixteen pews, refused to learn the order of the months, didn’t believe volcanoes existed, tripped Buddhists on the way to the prayer room, told his Japanese pen pal that tsunamis were divine farts, ate a Jehovah Witness, could justify the War in Iraq, recited the Fox’s Book of Martyrs with a 78% margin of error, drew mustaches in his textbook even when those images didn’t include people, and finally died doing what he loved—running remote-controlled drones into small dogs (the heart attack was incidental).

Scifi

Fiction — “Garden War”

Posted on by Desmond White

An eco-conscious war between space elves.

Between two trees exploded into boulder stumps, Elemmírë raised a fist. Behind him, ten figures, barely visible above the gloom and bloom, dropped to their knees and scanned the street. They relied solely on the ghostly green readouts from their face masks, as their actual sights would have been distracted by the feral tapestry of flowers, the result not only of civilization gone wild but the biodegradable ammunition being used in the War. Inside each bullet was a gene seed which, when struck by fire, would sprout by day’s end into a single flower. It’d been the only agreed-upon convention between the elf factions—a way of turning war zones into gardens, of reducing the carbon imprint from endless shelling.

For a heartbeat, Elemmírë’s Sight picked up a cracked skull, lilac seeping out like purple brain. Then he was Focused on the lights of armored cars bouncing across perforated rock-wake. A set of hand signals and the Ten disappeared, their gaudy red-and-gold camouflage blending with laceleaf and marigold. What Elemmírë’s scouts were about to do was an ugly thing; an undignified ambush of a supply convoy. But in another way, a way beyond the soulless tactical hell of battle, they’d be returning motorized death-cannons and plated mercs wearing the ears of enemies around their necks to the serenity of nature.

Published at Rune Bear Weekly on September 27, 2018. 

Fantasy, Life, Writing (Published)

Published — “Dredge”

Posted on by Desmond White

Whatever Our Souls published my short story “Dredge” in their June 2017 issue (see its Amazon page if you’re interested in buying the issue—paperback is $7.99). My short story introduces Dredge, a plant zombie and necromancer who just wants to be left to his bog garden and tea. Eventually I’d like to pit this character against paladins, but for now a petty hero will suffice.

Whatever Our Souls is a digital/physical print publication devoted to pushing the peculiar, especially stories that would usually “struggle to find acceptance in traditional literary magazines.” This means everything from “space wolves” to “mutant rabbits.” One unique feature of the magazine is its internal competition between its two editors (Team Pollux and Team Castor). Each editor posts their MVP (“Most Valuable Prose”) to the website,and readers have the opportunity to vote for a “reigning champion”*

*Quotes from the site’s homepage.

Scifi

Fiction — “The Immortality Cube”

Posted on by Desmond White

The following is a drabble, or 100-word short story.

There’s always that one friend who sticks to the group like a discount sticker on a used book, and who is tolerated by necessity because any removal might leave behind a sticky residue. Among Skye, Keith, and Kim, this was Lames, whose Mom had long admitted to being high when she tried to write “James” on the birth certificate. When Skye, Keith, and Kim came upon the Cube, without hesitation they excluded Lames from the Pact. And they didn’t care years later when, at Lames’s 89th birthday, he glared bitterly at their youthful bodies. They could wait a little longer.

Writing

Nonfiction — “Honest Seafood”

Posted on by Desmond White

A snippet from my childhood.

My sister will not eat seafood. She is a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl, all inherited from my mother, and she is picky, an inheritance from no one. Or perhaps a suspicious ancestor—maybe the caveman who ate the poisoned mushroom?

We (the boys) are wide, sandy, blue-eyed beasts. We’ll eat anything, be it a bagel or small dog. It’s that cavalier attitude Mom rewarded with meals that stretched the definition of food. She was not the best cook, and sometimes pizza would be recast as “lumps,” or toast as “carcinogens with a side of yeast.” Nor was she the most honest about ingredients. She wanted us to eat, after all.

So, Sis found herself in a constant state of seafood consumption. She’d eat tacos and realize afterward: “These were fish tacos!” She’d eat red beans and rice to discover soggy shrimp.

My poor sister. She’s had more sushi than a sushi chef.

Fantasy

Fiction — “Sam Spayed, Private Eye”

Posted on by Desmond White

Tried my hand at noir-style monologuing but from the pov of a cat detective.

It was the kind of day that made you want to lie around and wait for a belly rub. A breeze was slinking about the neighborhood, and the welcoming scent of McAlister’s Pet Friendly Kitty Chow was wafting through the window. But I had to be on my paws. Trouble could come scratching my door at any minute.

So I sat at my desk, playing with the blinds, waiting for my nine lives to run out. On my desk were a few toy mice and a ball of yarn I’d bought at a flea market to relieve stress. Whatever effect the yarn was supposed to have was being negated by the fleas. I used to have a pot of catnip, too, but I gave that stuff up.

That’s when she sauntered in. A domestic long-hair, although tame is the last word I’d use. She was a tall bowl of milk, white and fluffy with cream on her shoulders like she was wearing a second fur coat. Soft blue eyes. The type of dame you wish hadn’t been declawed.

“You stalking anybody?” she asked.

“No,” I purred. “You got something for me, or are you just looking for the litter box?”

“I might have something,” she said, cool as a calico. “See, there’s this fancy cat I’ve been nuzzling. And he’s gone missing.”

“You check the pound? Maybe he rubbed someone the wrong way?”

“Mittens always keeps his address on his collar. See, he’s forgetful sometimes. I’m afraid something’s happened to him, Sam.” Her whiskers twitched pathetically and I was string in her paws. She went on to describe her plaything. A Himalayan long-hair, blue-gray, googly eyes. Not the sharpest claw on the paw. More like the type who’d run out of an open door and drown in the pool.

“You armed?” she asked. “This might get fuzzy.”

I opened a drawer and pulled out my Ktaxon 5mm laser pointer.

“So you’ll do it?” she said luxuriously. “I should warn you, I can only pay in Purina.”

“Salmon?” I said. “Or Chicken and Liver?”

She looked sheepish: “Chicken Gravy.”

“Hmm.” I thought about it. To be honest, I would have hissed my mother out a window for a spoonful of Meow Mix. “All right, I’ll be your puss-in-boots.”

She rubbed against me in appreciation. “Thank you, Sam,” she said. “Now, please, find my Mittens.”