Monthly Archives: September 2020

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – The New Gods by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
“Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

Ganesha,
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#87) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

The New Gods

Baruka had been a priest in The Religion since he was a teenager. He had been a high priest for two decades.

The Religion was thousands of years old. One of the tenets is that no one can ever speak the true name of The Religion, and Baruka has never heard it. Nobody alive for many generations had ever heard it. Nonbelievers made fun of The Religion for that, and many other reasons, but that never bothered Baruka. Every religion looks ridiculous when viewed from the outside.

There were forty eight thousand Gods, Deities, and Demi-Gods recorded in The Religion. The Volumes of Faith are the record of this holy menagerie. A large cadre of Priests exist solely to keep the Volumes of Faith up-to-date, researched, and answer questions about the various gods of The Religion. Copies are made, and old volumes are destroyed after new versions are created.

Baruka had seen the Volumes of Faith. They were arranged like an Encyclopedia, with an article about each God, Deity, or Demi-God. The text was written in elaborate, ancient scripts with detailed information about each, including rich illustrations. Every God, Deity, and Demi-God had an area of responsibility, personality quirks, powers, and weaknesses, all carefully recorded.

The problem is that there had been no updating of the holy menagerie for several centuries. Many, if not most, of the characters where no longer relevant

For example, Huroda, the Demi-God dedicated to the Buggy Whip is never called upon. Obviously, at one time, the terrible God Variola – the God of Smallpox, was feared, worshiped, and sacrificed to. Now, she is forgotten.

And there is no God of Vaccines. And the people believe there should be.

So a council was called at The Religion’s largest monastery. Invited were all the high priests, the entire group of priests from the Volumes of Faith, and a large organization of clerks, calligraphers, artists, and bookbinders ready to produce new volumes containing the new gods. The coterie was so large that the monastery overflowed and filled a local Motel 6 and a La Quinta Motor Inn.

The first order was to decide on formats. There was no doubt that the tradition of having the Volumes of Faith in physical, book form would continue. But Baruka was happy that the council decided to also publish the material digitally. There would be an online database and the work that they did would be available to all. There would be a sort of Wikipedia of Gods from The Religion – complete with scanned illustrations.

There was much excitement and brotherhood and everyone fell into working groups and began to brainstorm the new gods.

Baruka was in a large group dedicated to the gods of digital technology. They had even hired a gaggle of local skateboarders to sit in and ensure capture of all the most cutting-edge deities.

They started with the two key digital gods – Ides, the God of Zero and Yrdon, the God of One.

After that, the deities started falling into line:

Uasis, God of Programming

Aanh, God of Voltage

Xiean, God of Semiconductors

Biion, God of Bloatware

EtdisBars, God of Cellular Phone Reception

Iisyn, God of Flatscreens

Oses, God of Instant Messaging

Phoktis, God of Swiping Right

And so on.

Baruka remembered as a child how delighted and complete he would feel when he thought of the forty eight thousand gods and how they were all looking after them.

Now he knew this was truly the best of all possible worlds and a hundred thousand or more new gods were on their way to make sure everything was going to be all right.

 

 

 

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – No Running by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
“If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the “Fuck you” signs in the world. It’s impossible.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

The sculpture must be intended as a fountain… although it is dry now.

 

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#86) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

No Running

The little boy came up out of the water like a sprite from a fountain. He shook the droplets and watched the tiny rainbows as they flew from his body. He looked down at the dark footprints his wet soles left on the hot concrete – at the space between the toes and curved pads and as he gained speed there was only the toes and the ball, then finally nothing as his skin dried.

A sudden scream of air – a whistle – blown – designed to startle – stopped the boy in his tracks right at the foot of the ladder.

“No Running!” came the simple loud command from high.

The boy shook as he looked up at the voice from the chair – but the speaker was obscured by the bright haloing sun.

He walked carefully the rest of the day, little steps, glancing up at the chair.

That night he ate his dinner and cleaned his plate. Then he copied his lessons from the book onto his blue-lined three-holed paper using his number two lead pencil. He took his evening bath, and – remembering the instructions from his health textbook – combed his hair one hundred times. Finally, he crawled into bed, pulled his blanket up to his neck and quietly, almost silently, sobbed himself to sleep.

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – Like Regular Chickens by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance

Mr. X: Mary usually does the carving but tonight since you are our guest, you could do it, Henry. All right with you?

Henry Spencer: Of course. I’d be happy to. So I just, uh… I just cut them up like regular chickens?

Mr. X: Sure, just cut them up like regular chickens.

—-David Lynch, Eraserhead

Commemorative Air Force, Wings Over Dallas, Dallas, Texas

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#85) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

Like Regular Chickens

I raised another basket of legs and thighs out of the fryer and hooked the wire to let them drain back into the sizzling oil. When the buzzer went off I dumped both baskets out onto the steel tray, shuffled everything around and slid them under the banks of heat lamps.

“Dark meat up,” I shouted.

Chuck had set this job up for me after they fired me down at the country club. It wasn’t as bad as it looked, though I hated the smell of greasy chicken, the uniform and especially the hat. The days went by fast and after my dad had cut off my allowance I needed the cash for walking around money. Actually, my father had offered me my allowance back. I don’t think he liked telling his friends that his son worked down at Chick’n Lick’n. I told him to go to hell.

With my paycheck the week before I had even been able to make the last payment on my car. It was a rolling piece of crap, the air conditioner had never worked, it make a strange growling noise whenever I made a left turn, and I had to put in two quarts of oil a week, but it was mine.

“Hey Sam, get over here, there’s something I want to tell you.”

“Elena, what is it?”

“Sam, what was your mother’s maiden name?”

“Decker. She was Brenda Decker. Why are you asking?”

“That’s what I thought. My dad has known her family for ages. Sam, there’s some guy out front. He’s been in for a couple days now. Says he’s from out of town. Says he’s looking for Brenda Decker.”

“That’s pretty weird… But maybe not. Brenda Decker, that’s a pretty common name.”

“Not that common, not around here.”

Elena and I walked out to the front. She pointed out an old, fat man, his head shaved. He was wearing overalls and sweating something awful, sitting in a booth off to the side, shoving fried chicken into his face.

“Elena, I’m taking my break, I’m going to go talk to him.”

I walked out around and up to the guy’s booth.

“Mister, I hear you’re lookin’ for Brenda Decker.”

“That’s right kid, ya know ‘er.”

“An old friend of the family.”

I’m not sure why, but I didn’t want this guy to know that Brenda Decker was my mother.

“I’m Sam,” I said.

“Brush, Brush Holland.”

He stuck out his hand. I gave a quick shake and sat down across from the guy. He still had bits of chicken in his mouth.

“I’m on break, I don’t have much time.”

“Well, where is she?”

“I’m not sure right now, but I can find out, maybe. First, how do I know that this is the right Brenda Decker. There’s a lot of ’em out there.”

“Sure, son. That’s her maiden name, her married name is Holland.”

“Well, then that can’t be her. The name is wrong.”

The Brush guy then described her. It was my mother, exactly. He had her age right, her height, weight, even the way she talked and walked. He said he hadn’t seen her in a long, long, time, that she’d be older, a lot older now. But he knew her, I was sure of that. It was my mother he was looking for.

“Well, I don’t think I know the Brenda you are looking for,” I said.

“Are you sure of that, boy.”

He stared close and hard. I don’t think he believed me.

“You hear anything, you give me a call, now, you hear. I know where you work.”

He handed me a slip of paper with a cell phone number and I told him I had to get back to work. It was hard to concentrate and I burned myself on a fry load of gizzards. The day went slow, I kept sneaking a look out front to make sure Brush Holland wasn’t back. He didn’t show.

—————

“Mom, I met someone down at work. He said he was looking for you. He called you ‘Brenda Holland.’”

My mother looked like someone had hit her in the back of the head with a baseball bat. Her mouth opened and her tongue came out a little, her eyes grew wide.

“I need to sit down,” she said. “Sammy, can you bring me a glass of water, some ice. Maybe put some vodka in it.”

I went to the kitchen and when I came back she was sitting on the couch, her shoes off, her face ashen. She took the drink wordlessly, raised it and drank the whole glass down.

“Do you need some more?” I asked.

“No, I’m fine,” she said, pulling a cube out of the glass and rubbing it across her forehead. She did not look “fine.” She did not open her eyes or raise her head but asked me in a strange, calm voice, “Was it Brush?”

“Yes, Brush Holland. Mom, why did he use his last name for you?”

She was silent for a long time, but began to shake, slightly at first, but her hands began to tremble more and more until she couldn’t even hold the sliver of ice that remained in her fingers, with a tinkle it fell and shattered on the hardwood floor. Then she said is a low voice, so quiet I could barely hear.

“Because he is my husband.”

When she said that she let out a long low moan. I had never heard a human being make a sound like that before, it was like something an animal makes, maybe a farm animal, maybe when it realizes what is in store, mabye when the slaughterhouse is in sight. She moaned and trembled and then wept.

I didn’t know what to do. I sat there, across from her and couldn’t stop staring at her there. She didn’t look like my mother any more. She looked so sad, but so beautiful, like she had been dropped there, crying, on that couch from some spaceship, dumped on this planet with her sadness and grief as her only baggage.

Slowly, the weeping slowed, then stopped. My mother sat motionless for a while, then she seemed to relax. Her head raised and her shoulders unhunched. The color returned to her face. Finally she opened her eyes and looked straight at me. He eyes grew wide and she looked surprised, like she was seeing me for the first time, like I was a strange boy that had showed up in her living room. Finally, her face relaxed and I even saw a little flash of a smile for a second. Then she sighed a little exhalation and began to talk.

“Oh, Sammy, I never thought this was going to happen. Or, actually, I knew it was going to happen. It’s just that, I guess I hoped it wouldn’t, though, deep down, really deep, I knew it would.

You see, Sammy it was so long ago, so long ago. I was only sixteen. Things at home were, oh, Sammy, you can’t imagine. I was so miserable; I was scared all the time. I had a boyfriend, it’s been so long, even his memory, Sammy, I can’t even remember exactly what he looked like.”

“Brush?”

“No, no, he was later. This was Dwayne, a boy from school, we ran away. He had a car, we barely had enough money for gas. We were going to Las Vegas, we were going to get married, he was going to work in construction and I was going to dance. We made it to Arkansas, and the car broke down. And then… Dwayne was drinking, he was being stupid, it was dark, the fog… the train, it was so fast. Well, see, he died. I had nowhere to go, I was alone, I could not go home.

So I did the best I could. I got a job in a chicken plant. It was awful. The chickens would come down and a machine would cut their heads off. I had to take the bodies and plop them down on a cone, so the rest of the machines could cut them up. Thousands of chickens, tens of thousands. The smell. It was cold, too, my hands would ache. At night, I couldn’t wash the chicken smell off.

And then. And then there was Brush.”

“What kind of a name is Brush?”

“It’s an Arkansas kind of name. He was the supervisor, the manager. He noticed me right off. You’ve met him?”

“Yes, mother.”

“Well, then you know. I guess he’s old now, he wasn’t all that young then. But I was. I was young, I was pretty. He had his eye on me. I was trapped. I had to get… had to get out of there. He had his eyes on me. I had no choice.”

“You married him, didn’t you.”

“Of course I did. I had no choice. No choice. You can’t imagine.”

“How long were you married?”

“Oh, almost two years. I thought the chicken factory was bad. It came to a point I couldn’t stand it, could take it no more. All I thought about was killing myself. Finally, again, I ran. I paid cash for a ticket and when Brush was out cold drunk I hitched a ride to the bus station and was gone. I switched buses at the next town, and switched again at the one after that. I knew he’d try to find me, but I figured if I ran far enough…. So I came here, started some junior college. Then I met your father.”

“When was that?” She saw me starting to count on my fingertips and actually let out a clear chuckle. I realized it was the first time I had heard her laugh in years.

“Sammy, don’t worry, Brush isn’t your father.”

“So you left and you divorced him. That’s not so….”

“Well you see, that’s the problem.”

“What?”

“I never divorced him. I just ran. I just ran.”

And then she looked sad again. She looked so so tired.

“Mom, you look awful. You need to get some sleep.”

“Sleep? How can I?”

“Go upstairs and forget about it. Forget for now. I have an idea. Let me try something.”

My mother looked hollow. I took her by the hand and led her up the stairs to her room. She drifted through the door and I pulled it shut. She looked so worn out, I knew she’d be able to get some sleep. I didn’t want to think about what dreams she would conjure up.

I didn’t have time to think, I had things to do.

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – Shopping Carts by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
“Vandals listen only when others are stronger.
If vandals are equal or stronger
Their word is the last word.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, Circling: 1978-1987

The ponds at the end of my block, Richardson, Texas

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#84) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

Shopping Carts

Sometimes, when the weather was warm, he liked to sit beside this little pond in a park near his house. The bank all around the pond was steep but there was a spot where a tree had died and left a flat area ringed by a rock wall that was a particularly comfortable place to sit.

He was sitting there looking across the pond where a sidewalk ran when he spotted a couple of teenagers pushing a shopping cart. There was a grocery store a block away and he could see a single shopping bag in the center of the cart. When they reached the middle of the part of the sidewalk that ran along the pond, one kid reached into the cart and pulled out the bag. The other simply turned the metal cart and pushed it down the steep bank where it hit the water and with a soft hiss, quickly sank beneath the surface. Once it was gone the two kids kept walking, now carrying the bag in their hands. It didn’t look very big.

He was upset at this. He knew the grocery store was losing money and would soon close. The neighborhood would be hurt by the lack of shopping and the image of the big empty box on the corner, the vacant parking lot. The carts were expensive and those kids were one reason nothing good ever lasted any more.

He thought about yelling something, but they were too far away. He couldn’t even chase them. By the time he rounded the pond they would be long gone. They were too far away for him to even know who they were – if he saw them again, he wouldn’t even know it.

So he sat there for a little longer and then walked home. He never went back to the pond again, preferring to stay home and watch television.

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – Men With a Bow Saw by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#83) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

Men With a Bow Saw

Lucas spent a lot of time running on the Crosstown Trail. It was isolated and ran through some sketchy neighborhoods and that scared Lucas sometimes. One day it was cold and drizzly, with a thick fog rolling in, when he was out there by himself and he came around that bend, you know where it is, where it runs through all that thick brush. It’s like a green tunnel and even though it’s in the middle of the city, it is so quiet and dark it feels like you are out in the middle of nowhere. That’s why he liked it so much. But that day…

There were these two guys walking along. They were young and fit, muscular, and menacing. Lucas immediately saw them, before they saw him. They were walking off the trail and when he came across them they were looking into the woods and gesturing. They were looking intently, like they were seeking something or someone. But what really caught his eye is that one of them was carrying a bow saw – a big, heavy one. It looked like an odd but effective weapon and Lucas realized they were going after something they had spotted in the brush.

His heart skiped and a knot leaped into his belly and Lucas immediately jumped off of the trail and slid down into this little ditch where they could not see him. He had left his phone to charge and didn’t have it with him so he was on his own. He hugged the damp, cold earth on the side of the ditch, hoping the two men didn’t see him.

He could hear them talking excitedly, but the fog damped the sound and he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Then, Lucas heard the sawing. It was loud and hollow sounding and his heart kept beating faster and faster. He didn’t hear any screams, so their victim must be dead already. His mind raced with horror as the awful sound kept going. There would be a pause every now and then, and he could hear the men babbling, then it would start back up.

Lucas was about to go crazy with panic when the sawing finally stopped. But then, to his horror, he could hear the footsteps of the men as they walked off and he realized they were going down the trail right towards his hiding spot. When they reached his location, they could look down into the ditch right at him.

As they approached Lucas gathered his feet underneath and tried to brace his crouch. His only hope of escape if they saw him was to spring up onto the trail and bolt away as fast as he could. Lucas was a strong runner and hopefully, with the element of surprise, he could escape.

The second he completed his preparations, they were upon him. Now that they were closer, he could understand what they were saying and as he tensed, Lucas heard.

“Oh, these are just perfect.”

“Yes, we can coat them with urethane, not the glossy stuff, it’ll look cheap.”

“And they’ll support the shelves and will have just the look we want.”

He looked up at the two men. One still had his saw and the other was carrying a load of bamboo under his arms. Lucas remembered, there was a grove of bamboo around the corner… they were cutting bamboo for bookshelves.

There was a loud clatter as the bamboo hit the concrete trail. They had seen him. Lucas was covered with mud and loose leaves from his slide down and it must had scared the two men to death to find him crouched in the ditch like that.

There was nothing for Lucas to do but to go on with his plan. He sprung out, stumbled a bit, then picked up speed. He could hear one man screaming as he ran as fast as he could. He looked over his shoulder and saw the other one sprinting to the blue-lighted emergency phone a few feet back down the trail. Lucas realized he should have thought about that.

Lucas doubled his speed. Now, instead of racing the two men with the saw, he was trying to get out of there before the cops arrived. He didn’t want to have to explain about all that.

He did make a mental note to come back with a saw of his own. That bamboo was a great idea for bookshelves.

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – Racing With the Wind by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”
― William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#82) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

Racing With the Wind

Roger and Annette had to rush to the van from the basketball court. Annette ran with her oldest daughter’s hand in her own while Roger brought their young son, no more than a toddler, carried in his arms. A huge black angry cloud was building rapidly to the west and the boiling thunderstorm was beginning to kick up a cold fast wind.

As they piled into the van the humid heat of the Texas summer was shoved aside by a blast of cold storm outflow air. The second they settled in, locking the toddler into his car seat and making sure the girl had her belt fastened the wind rose to a howling gale. Dust and leaves rose in a shooting cloud and the van rocked from the power of the wind.

To watch their daughter’s game they had had to park across the street in the lot of a small shopping center. It was anchored by a big hardware store and the wind suddenly began grabbing the hundred shopping carts piled out front and sent them shooting across the lot like rockets, right toward Roger and Annette’s van.

They flew in a wheeled phalanx, upright and racing, some swerving a bit due to a wonky wheel, but most moving straight with amazing speed. Roger and Annette could do nothing but watch them come. Most were driving in a rumbling mass to the south of the van, where they watched them pass, hit the curb, and then tumble out into the street.

A few veered to the left and came close to the van, but due to a lucky act of providence, not actually hit them, although some only missed by inches. Roger, Annette, and their daughter sat there helpless, and felt a great relief and the sudden windstorm died down and was replaced by fat, pelting rain. They felt very lucky they had not been hit, though it would have been a nasty dent at worse.

The toddler, of course, thought the whole thing was a blast and laughed as hard as he could as he watched the shopping carts fly by.

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – Clambake by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”
― Anais Nin

Lee walking in the surf at Crystal Beach. I checked my old blog entries – this was December 29, 2002. Fifteen years ago, almost to the day.

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#81) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

Clambake

Andrew was a senior in high school. He had a brother, Sam, who was a freshman. Andrew didn’t really like going places with his family, but he loved hanging out at the sea. So when he parents insisted that he go to the beach with the three of them and Sam’s friend Wilbur he hemmed and hawed and complained but agreed to go. Actually, he was looking forward to it, but knew he couldn’t appear too eager or it would betray his brand.

“Sam is bringing Wilbur for the day, don’t you have a girlfriend you could invite?” asked his mother. Andrew flashed his best combination face of exasperation, embarrassment, and fury before he turned, huffed, and stomped off. “If I had a girlfriend I wouldn’t have to go to the beach with my family,” he said to himself once he reached the privacy of his room.

The drive was two hours and getting all those people into the MiniVan and on the road was like herding cats. Andrew crammed himself into the back seat with his eyes closed hoping he could stand it until they were there and all this noise stopped. A split second before it became too much to bear they pulled into the parking lot and the whole crew piled out and ran for the sand.

It was a warm day and the ocean was like bathwater. Andrew swam a little and body surfed the waves a bit. His favorite thing was simply to walk the beach in the shallow water between the surf and the dry sand. He was of a curious nature and loved to look at the water, sand, and the creatures that lived in the tidal zone. Every time he came, he wondered at the smell of the sea – salt with a note of rotting fish. The strong breeze from offshore threw his hair around and the sun dried the wet sand on his ankles as he walked. Above all, he loved the rumble and crash of the surf – though it was partially ruined by the constant yelling and screeching of his little brother and Wilbur as they scampered around, causing as much trouble as they could.

The sun was beginning to settle towards the horizon when Sam ran up to Andrew and aroused him from his reverie. Sam was clutching a plastic bucket and toy shovel. Wilbur was grinning a few feet behind.

“Andrew! Look!” his brother said, holding out the bucket.

Andrew peered in and saw a single smooth brown clam.

“So?”

Sam handed the bucket to Wilbur.

“Wilbur and I dug it up! We’ve figured out how to find where the clams are buried.”

“No. That’s crazy.”

“Here, I’ll show you.”

His little brother began walking Andrew along the sand, looking carefully at the strip where the waves ebbed and flowed and the water was a fraction of an inch deep.

“Look down carefully. You just look for a place where these little bubbles are coming up…. There! Right there!”

“I don’t see anything.”

“No, right there. Dig.”

Sam handed Andrew the plastic shovel and he poked at the wet sand. Immediately another clam popped up, only an inch below the surface.

“Wow, another clam!” said Andrew.

“I told you,” Sam said. “Wilbur come here.” Sam flipped the clam into the bucket with the one they had found earlier. “Let’s find some more.”

They continued to walk along the beach and after a bit Sam would point and Andrew would dig up another clam. They would hand them to Wilbur who would drop them into the bucket. Andrew was confused because he could not figure out how Sam was finding the clams.

“What are you seeing that I can’t?”

“It hard to explain, it’s more like a feeling.”

Andrew couldn’t argue though, because every time he’d dig, he’d find a clam. He began to get more and more excited. Visions of filling the bucket and having a clambake began to grow and fill his imagination. He didn’t notice the sky going golden as the sun crept down.

“Hey, guys. Finish up, it’s time to go,” said his father. Andrew hadn’t noticed his parents hanging around next to them.

“No! Dad! We can’t go! Look at all the clams!” Andrew gestured toward the bucket in Wilbur’s hand. “We’re going to have a clambake!” He could barely contain his excitement.

“Just a couple more minutes, then we have to go,” said his father.

Andrew was confused at his father’s lake of enthusiasm for the clambake. He chalked it up to age and continued to walk along with Sam, stopping every few feet to dig up another clam. Wilbur kept putting them in the bucket.

“Ok, that’s it, time to go,” said his father. He was right; it would be dark soon.

“Wow, I hope we have enough to cook up,” said Andrew. “Hey Wilbur, let me look at the bucket. It must be full now.”

Wilbur started to twist away but Andrew was excited and quick and grabbed the bucket. Barely able to contain his excitement he pulled it close and looked down to see the pile of clams they had collected.

“What the hell!”

Andrew was shocked to see in the bucket only one clam rattling around alone in the bottom.

Confused, he looked up to see his parents, impatient and aggravated and his brother and Wilbur down in the sand rolling around laughing so hard they looked like they were going to get sick.

Andrew suddenly realized what had been going on. There was only one clam. Sam must have simply stumbled across it somewhere. Wilbur was walking ahead of them while they were looking down and he was re-burying the thing, over and over. Sam would point to the spot Wilbur had buried it and they would dig the same clam up, again and again.

It took the younger kids a long time to stop laughing and then they all walked back to the MiniVan. Andrew, of course, said nothing and heard nothing. It was especially humiliating to realize his parents could see the whole thing, hear his excitement, and let it go on.

The drive home was the longest trip in Andrew’s life. He was so ashamed and also disappointed – he had been really looking forward to a clambake.

The only thing that made him feel a little better is the thought that at least he didn’t have a girlfriend. If she had been along… and seen what happened. He wasn’t sure he could go on living.

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – Chase Scene by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

Design District
Dallas, Texas

 

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#80) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

Chase Scene

Albert had a critical – the monthly operations schedule planning – meeting coming up. He checked his clock and realized there wasn’t enough time to start on any new task. There was enough time to walk down to the break room for a little bag of Cool Ranch Doritos corn chips to put in a desk drawer and enjoy after the meeting. He was sure he would need them.

Down at the break room there was a big clot of folks gathered around the television mounted high on the wall. Albert couldn’t help his curiosity and joined the group. The TV was on a local news channel and everyone was watching a high-speed police chase. The view was from an overhead news chopper and was amazingly clear. The cops were trying to run down a blue compact car, which was speeding through the city.

“What’s up?” he asked Jerry from accounting.

“Bank robbers,” he said. “It’s been going on for a while. They started out on the Interstate and now they’re in the neighborhoods, Springvale, I think.”

Albert lived in Springvale. He pushed his way closer and stared at the screen, trying to recognize the location. It was so hard – everything went by so fast and it was tough to figure out from the unusual viewpoint of an overhead helicopter.

Suddenly a huge, garish, orange and yellow sign went by. Albert realized that was outside of Juanita’s Tacos y Mas – a Mexican restaurant he and his family ate at all the time. You could not miss that gaudy logo.

“That’s only a couple blocks from my house,” said Albert. Nobody responded.

The car roared into a busy intersection and was T-boned by a pickup coming from the side. Everyone around the TV let out a gasp. The car spun and then, to everyone’s surprise, sped off down the intersecting cross road. Its side was clearly caved in and smoke was pouring from under the hood, but it didn’t stop.

“This won’t last much longer,” said Jerry from accounting.

At the first opening, the car veered right and took off down a residential street. The police cruisers were close behind.

“That’s my block,” said Albert, getting nervous. He knew his kids were at school and his wife at work so he wasn’t worried about them. But it was an invasion of his quiet bucolic suburban neighborhood by evil, unpredictable, outside forces.

The chase wound through the narrow twisting streets. Two police cruisers must have gone around because suddenly, they boxed the blue car in. It turned sharply into a U-shaped driveway which cradled a large, brick mailbox.

That was Albert’s front yard. His family used the alley in back but he had always dreamed of having a front driveway that could fill up with cars when they would entertain. Growing up, he had seen wealthy people with driveways like that. It took him five years to save up enough money to have the concrete poured. At the same time, he hired a bricklayer to make a big permanent mailbox. “A statement,” he said.

The crowd around the TV was getting excited. It was about to go down. Albert didn’t want to say that the scene was at his own house. He felt embarrassed, somehow.

Police cars swerved into both ends of the driveway, trapping the car, which slid to a stop. Despite the damage both doors flew open and the driver took off running across Albert’s lawn with the police in pursuit. He was relieved when they entered his neighbor’s yard and disappeared off screen.

The passenger remained crouched down behind the opened, dented car door. A circle of police began closing in. There was a small puff of smoke from the car and then the police opened fire. Nobody could hear anything but it was obvious by how everyone was moving that many shots were being fired.

There were yells of horror and amazement in the break room as the man went down, sprawled out at the base of Albert’s custom mailbox. It isn’t every day they were able to see someone killed on live television.

Albert stood transfixed, horrified.

“Well, that was something,” said Jerry from accounting. Nobody really knew where Albert lived and nobody recognized his house. Everyone began to disperse and head back to their desks.

Albert didn’t know what to do. Should he go home? There would be cops, news crews, and excited neighbors. Would they all want to talk to him? What would he say? He didn’t know how to deal with all that.

And there was his meeting. It was important. He would have to confess, “I’m sorry but I have to go, someone was killed in my front yard.” Then he’d have to admit he was slacking off in the break room watching the television. It was all so messy, so complicated.

So Albert went to the monthly operations schedule planning meeting and sat there like nothing had happened. He decided to go home at his usual time and wondered if there would be a bloodstain on his driveway or bullet craters in his brick. He was shaken and sweating, but tried to pay attention to the PowerPoint Presentations.

Near the end of the meeting, he realized he had forgotten to buy his bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

 

 

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – A Man Walks Into a Bar in Ouagadougou by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
I went home with a waitress the way I always do
How was I to know she was with the Russians, too?
I was gambling in Havana, I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns, and money
Dad, get me out of this
― Warren Zevon, Lawyers Guns and Money

The bartender pouring the absinthe, note the clear green color.
Pirate’s Alley Cafe, New Orleans

 

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#79) Getting closer! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

A Man Walks Into a Bar in Ouagadougou

When Sarah decided to major in Botany and pursue it as her life’s goal her mother’s first (and only) reaction was, “Oh, dear, now you will never find a husband.”

Jobs for botanists are few and far between and she was eager to take the most extreme and exotic assignments. It didn’t take her long to end up in backwater West Africa doing research on plants used for traditional medicines.

She found herself in the City Resto Bar having dinner with a local businessman that she agreed to meet because he seemed harmless enough and could at least carry on a conversation. The place had the best sushi in Ouagadougou, which wasn’t saying much. Burkina Faso was landlocked, after all, and a very long way from the ocean.

The door opened and a large man entered. He had a jagged, angry crimson scar running from his left ear to his jaw. Sarah couldn’t help but stare.

“You find him attractive,” the businessman said. “Odd, I assumed you were a lesbian.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I thought that only a lesbian would be able to get as far as Burkina Faso without being caught by a man.”

“You don’t think I’m hot enough to snag a man?”

“On the contrary, you are the most attractive woman in Ouagadougou.”

“What about them?” Sarah gestured to the six gorgeous young women lined up behind the bar.

“Oh, the Russians?” the businessman let out a hearty laugh. “They don’t count.”

“Why not? They are very pretty. I can see that, even if I’m not a lesbian.”

“First, they are professionals. And I don’t mean professional bartenders. Take a sip of your Mojito and you will understand that they aren’t. Cheap rum and Mojito mix… that’s the extent of their mixologist skills.”

“It is a shitty drink. But if that is the first reason they don’t count, what’s the second?”

“They are spies.”

“All of them?”

“Oh yes. That is how they end up here. Desperate men, American or British or Japanese or Chinese, are scattered everywhere in the third world looking for love in all the wrong places.”

“Even here?”

“Especially here. They will marry some unfortunate expat sap, follow him home… and he is doomed. That’s why the Russians send their young women to places like this.”

Sarah didn’t buy that story but didn’t feel like arguing it. She understood the businessman was showing off and just making conversation. The scarred man settled in at a table and a cloud of gray smoke rising from the shisha he was smoking partially obscured his face.

The businessman followed her gaze. “Do you want to meet him?”

“You know him?”

“Very well.”

Sarah thought for a moment. “What the hell, see if he’ll come over.”

The businessman walked to his table and chatted with the man while he took up another hose from the shisha and shared the tobacco. They picked up the smoking apparatus, carried it over to Sarah’s table and sat down with quick introductions.

Sarah reached out for a third tube from the shisha.

“I don’t see very many women smoke,” said the man with the scar.

Sarah only replied with what she hoped was a haughty smirk and nod. In truth, she had never tried the shisha smoke before, though she had thought about it. It made her dizzy, enervated, and a little nauseated.

With very little prodding, the man with the scar told his story. He was in the army in Yugoslavia and then Bosnia but forced to bolt the country when his general Ratko Mladic, “The Butcher,” fell. He fled to Congo where he became a mercenary in Kisangani for Mobuto Sese Seko. He had to take off again when that dictator tumbled from power. He ended up in Burkina Faso.

“There is always work for a man that can use a machine gun,” he said.

Sarah’s head was still swimming from the shisha and she was drowning in waves of being attracted and repelled, excited and frightened… all at the same time. She realized how far from home she was. She finally understood how dangerous the world was. She decided she wanted to hear more. She decided to start with the obvious.

“Where did you get that scar?” she asked.

“Oh this?” he said rubbing his hand along the line across his face. “I left a bottle of Perrier out in the sun. Stupid. Didn’t realize how hot it was. When I tried to open it, it exploded.”

“Perrier?” asked the businessman.

“Yes.”

“Never liked the stuff,” said Sarah.

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – Booty Hates Crackheads by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance
“He’s Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket.”
― Jim Butcher  

Shrimp boat, Bolivar Peninsula, Texas

 

I have been feeling in a deep hopeless rut lately, and I’m sure a lot of you have too. After writing another Sunday Snippet I decided to set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ll write a short piece of fiction every day and put it up here. Obviously, quality will vary – you get what you get. Length too – I’ll have to write something short on busy days. They will be raw first drafts and full of errors.

I’m not sure how long I can keep it up… I do write quickly, but coming up with an idea every day will be a difficult challenge. So far so good. Maybe a hundred in a row might be a good, achievable, and tough goal.

Here’s another one for today (#78) Three fourths there! What do you think? Any comments, criticism, insults, ideas, prompts, abuse … anything is welcome. Feel free to comment or contact me.

Thanks for reading.

Booty Hates Crackheads

“BUY SHRIMP HERE – I NEED THE MONEY”

Woody Vogler read the sign as he turned the bicycle onto the gravel and sand side road that ran down to the bay side of the island. The headset squeaked a bit and Woody knew he’d need to take it apart, clean, and re-lube the thing. He liked the ancient bicycle to look bad, so nobody thought about stealing it, but run like a top. Up to now, Woody would ride to the end of the road and buy shrimp from the docks, but never saw a reason to do more work than he had to, plus the guy needed the money, so he turned off and leaned the bike against the graying four by eight sheet of old plywood that was propped up for a sign. The lettering was done with cheap white house paint put on with a brush – the letters were crude, but “At least the guy didn’t use spray paint,” Woody muttered as he walked around the clapboard house up on stilts to the little gray wood dock along the canal in back.

As he approached the dock a scruffy multicolored mutt of a dog came skittering up from the canal, growling low to the ground. The hair on the dog’s back was spiked as it pushed its belly low as it could, the snarl growing to a mean bark.
“Aw shut up Booty! It’s not a crackhead!”
An old man materialized from between the piles of rusty equipment and old trash cluttering up the dock. The dog immediately calmed down and turned, ignoring Woody, moving back to the canal.
“He hates crackheads, you know.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, watch this. Booty! Here comes some crackheads!”
The dog darted past Woody towards the road, barking like crazy.
“Booty! Kidding!”
On cue the dog quieted again, and turned back to the canal without a glance.
“Yeah the crackheads come up the road, this very road. They work on the shrimp boats. They get off the boats down there and walk up the road. Old Booty hates ’em. He can smell a crackhead a mile way…. Shrimp?”
“Two pounds.”
“Head’s on?”
“Naw.”
The old man began shoveling shrimp from a big white foam cooler into a stainless steel bowl suspended from a spring scale. Once he had the weight, he began picking them one by one and snipping the heads off into the water over the side of the dock. When the shrimp heads hit the water, it would boil as critters from below the surface fought over the meal. Booty stood on the bank on point, staring at whatever was gobbling the heads.

While the old man was working the shrimp Woody glanced around. The small square house was old peeling paint and ratty shingles, stilts starting to lean, the stairs missing a runner or two, the sandy lot littered with junk. Pretty standard for the bay side of the peninsula. The road ended a quarter of a mile at a big dock where a dozen Vietnamese shrimpers were pulled up. The crews were out cleaning their nets and stowing them for the day. There was a big reefer truck down there spewing blue smoke, picking the day’s catch up for wholesale. Woody turned to the water that ran by the old man’s shack. The canal that ran back up from the Intercoastal Waterway parallel to the road was getting silted up – an ancient decrepit shrimp boat, nets in terrible tatters leaned over, stuck in a mud bank down from the dock a few feet. The boat would never sail again but somebody had recently carefully repainted the name on the gunwale, “Mary Lou.”

“Here’s your shrimp.”

The old man spun a flimsy Wal-Mart shopping bag and knotted the top tight against the shrimp and handed it to Woody. After peeling some bills off a small roll in his pocket, Woody placed the bag in a wire basket on the bike’s handlebars and with a silent nod started off back home. He rode back to the main paved highway that ran down the length of the peninsula from the Galveston ferry. He rode facing traffic along the gravel shoulder, the old bike’s big heavy balloon tires smoothly negotiating the uneven surface without problem. It wasn’t fast, but Woody wasn’t in a hurry.