My contemporary and historical fiction that tries (and I mean really tries) to sound like it really happened.
My paragraph piece “An Old War Hog” just published in Ghost Parachute, a magazine devoted to “fresh and vibrant imagery,” to “unleash[ing] the spider behind the rose.” The piece is small so I won’t ruin it with a summary. Just know that Ghost Parachute has an interesting format—every story is paired with an original image created by their artists. Credit for the picture above goes to Felix Sanchez.
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.
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.
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.”
I’m not sure which the boy-emperor held more in contempt: the sinking of a ship carrying golden statues in his likeness, or the sinking of a ship carrying his father.
As enemies invaded from the East, the boy declared war on the sea.
He was back, wagging his pasty pastry butt.
“You can’t catch me!” he shouted from the hill up ahead. The little tart did a cartwheel, then a back handspring, and then a series of side to side feints to make it harder for opponents to track his centerline. Mesa ignored all this. Well, at least she tried. She had pulled out a book on goblin kings while she rested, but her attention was less on Emperor Rikrak the Instigator and more on the dancing dough.
There was something in that pipsqueak falsetto that thwacked the nerves. And the tart had some tasty morsels, too. “Come on, smelly face, why don’t you pick up the pace!” was almost his catchphrase, and his litany included such classics as “Catch me if you can, pimple pan,” and “See you in a while, bile pile.”
A bird landed on the sill and cheeped. It was a pretty thing, mostly brown with a few blue and yellow feathers like scales on a fish. Abigail sat very still and peered over, not wanting to startle it, and noticed that the poor bird had a padlock stuck on its head—the metal hook, like a curled finger, wrapped around its neck. The padlock was small and silver and it gave the bird a noble look, but it was obvious the bird was suffering. Perhaps it had come for help?
“Don’t move,” said Abigail, and she ran about the house, finally returning with a coterie of keys. The bird stood patiently while she applied the metals, but none fit. Not the one to mother’s jewelry-box, not the one that looked like a skeletal finger, not the golden one for the shelf beneath the peering glass, not the one to father’s desk. Finally, Abigail went down into the foyer and with some hesitation pulled the key to the front door from her father’s spare coat. It was shaped like an F and it fit into the padlock. Liberated, the bird flew out the window, soaring over bowler hats and stone heads to the park across the road. From a branch it looked back, then was gone.
I work freeways, where thoughts slip pass like cars. It’s easier pulling over a Corolla. The only voices come from the car.
/ Where the hell is my registration? / Wait, I thought I was going the speed limit. / Stay calm, it’s just the tail light. /
Growing up, I thought I could be a librarian. Among books, thoughts turn slowly. People read well-tread passages like cars following a snow plow. But the librarians ruined it—their minds are violent. I could hear them from the aisles.
/ That goddamn madman couldn’t use the library’s search engine? / Where the hell is nonfiction again? / If she sneezes one more frigging time./
“Sluice Warrington was growing more and more annoyed with Rez, especially the man’s side-street studio with its clitter clatter of canvases and layers upon layers of dust and paint-pocked floors…”
Read more of “The Artist’s Wife.”
“Could be a man or a six-armed cow or a twenty-headed sex goddess.”
“A warehouse that could be the love child between a dumpster and a medieval castle. Coming from inside, groans. Moans.”
“It was maybe the smell – the stench of it – which wafted from its corridor invisibly, or on a bad morning very visible, a blushing mist.”
Desmond, Write 