Category: fiction

Fiction: Almanacs

Posted on by bryon

Roy saw the new Chaffinch’s Almanacs sitting near the cash register. He paid for the odds and ends he was getting at the hardware store and plucked two of the free almanacs from the displays.

Chaffinch’s was the only almanac sexist enough to publish his and hers editions, in blue and pink covers. The women’s edition contained all sorts of stuff about that time of the month and children and homemaking that the men in Chaffinch’s target audience were certain they didn’t need to know.

Roy picked up a pink almanac for Enid so that if she saw him with his blue-covered almanac she couldn’t complain about his not getting her an almanac. Married life was full of little preemptory strikes like that, he mused.

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Fiction: Bobblehead

Posted on by bryon

Harry sat alone in the little house. It seemed larger now that Juanita was gone, which Harry liked. When she had lived there, they had fought day in and day out, and the house felt more like clothing that had shrunk in the wash. Now there was room for Harry to swing his arms and breathe deeply.

A car drove by the house. The vibration from the road rattled the old windows just slightly and rocked a little end table. A folded index card under the back leg of the table would have kept it from moving, but Harry had never noticed that the table wobbled.

What Harry did notice was the circus clown bobblehead on the table. It had been Juanita’s, and Harry supposed she had left it as her final gift to him. He didn’t want a farewell gift from Juanita, but a farewell gift had to be treated with respect.

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Fiction: Final Encounter

Posted on by bryon

Private William E. Morency was always easy for Quân to find. Skill and training were key the first time; modern technology and the openness of a big city now came to his aid.

Quân had been in the city for three days, adjusting to a time zone halfway around the world and — following years of habit —ensuring he wasn’t being followed.

The cemetery was on the tour bus route; a number of persons prominent in regional and national history were buried there. Quân paid polite attention during the early part of the tour, waiting patiently for the garish bus to arrive at the cemetery.

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Fiction: The G-String Conspiracy

Posted on by bryon

“That’s looking a little tight, Richard,” Ann said.

Richard finished buttoning his shirt. “It feels tighter for some reason,” he agreed. “I’ve been working out every day. Haven’t been eating more. It must have shrunk in the closet.”

“Uh-huh,” Ann said.

There was a loud sneeze.

“Bless you,” Ann and Richard said to each other. They exchanged a funny look even as another sneeze rang out. They looked at the closet and Richard rushed over and yanked the door open. He shoved aside the shirts and trousers hanging from the rod.

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Fiction: The Fish Knife

Posted on by bryon

Hector Selrymple, Lord Broodinwood, bit the inside of his upper lip, just to the left of his canines. It was the fifth time in three days he had done so during a meal, and he was suddenly seized with the judgment that this was no sort of life to continue.

His grunt of pain was swiftly followed by action: his left hand swooped down to the place setting and snatched up the fish knife. It was, by the standards of the knowledgeable would-be suicide, a poor instrument for the purpose; the earl, in his anguish, was prepared to overlook any deficiency and make the best go of it he could.

He raised the knife toward his throat and was stopped only by his wife’s horrified gasp. Hector warred with himself and the pain in his mouth. He surrendered to yet another of the cruelties of mortal existence and gently placed the fish knife on the side of his plate. He took two sips of white wine and sighed, prepared once more to meet a world of misery and injustice as it came.

Beatrice, Lady Broodinwood, looked down at her plate and composed herself before continuing to dine. She shook her head just slightly, deeply unnerved by the scene.

How she longed for Shurlton, the butler, to return from his holiday. The biscuit-headed girl deputizing for him had no notion of consistency in setting the table. Anyone of sense knew the fish knife was correctly placed to the right of the plate and not the left, where the Earl had found it. Lady Broodinwood feared what fresh horrors lay ahead before Shurlton was back in harness. God had scarcely tested Job more harshly.

Fiction: One Low Payment

Posted on by bryon

“I’m going next door for just a little while,” Pastor Henniks told his wife.

“All right,” Sue said. “I’m going on to bed. Don’t be too long.”

He nodded at her and went out the front door of his parsonage and walked across the lawn to his church. He let himself in a side door and went directly to the sanctuary. The pews could hold about eight hundred people, and most Sundays they were filled. He turned on the chancel lights, leaving most of the room in darkness.

He knelt before the altar and stared at the gold-plated cross.

“Lord, I know I’ve done wrong. I’ve done more wrong than a man should, especially a man in my position. I’m sorry. I am so very sorry. Please, please help me. Don’t visit my sins on my poor family or on my congregation. They don’t deserve that. I know I’ve done wrong. But I’ll change, I’ll change. I’ll mend my ways if you’ll just take this cup from me.”

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Fiction: Road Hazard

Posted on by bryon

Stan and Peggy hadn’t taken any food on their trip, so they were hungry from the first day of being snowbound in the blizzard. On the second day, their carefully shepherded supply of cold coffee ran out; they couldn’t gather snow because the electric motors for the windows were frozen. On the third day they ran out of gasoline and could no longer even risk carbon monoxide poisoning to keep warm.

A few hours later, he confessed.

“Peggy,” he stammered in the cold, “I can’t die with this on my conscience. I’ve been having an affair with Lora. It’s been going on for almost five years. I even took her on the Acapulco trip, the one I told you the company wouldn’t let us take spouses on. And your mother’s diamond necklace? The one I said was stolen? I gave it to Lora. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

Peggy just stared at him, too bitterly cold to fully grasp the enormity of his words.

She awoke in the hospital a day later. Turning her head to her left she could see Stan in the next bed. She didn’t remember being rescued, but she did recall Stan’s confession.

She sat up in her bed and gingerly placed her heels on the floor. That didn’t hurt too badly and she hobbled the few steps to Stan’s bed.

“Stan?” she said softly. “Stan? Are you awake?”

“Hmmm?”

He came to consciousness quickly enough when Peggy yanked out his catheter.

Once the screaming had faded to a dull whimper, she told him, “And I’m just getting warmed up.”

Fiction: Lemonade Stand

Posted on by bryon

Darrell flopped into his recliner. “Hoo, boy! What a day. Am I glad to be home.”

“Rough day?” Bonnie asked. She came from behind the overstocked in-home bar and handed him a double martini. The bar took up the space where the previous homeowner had had both an organ and a grand piano.

“It’s always the same old stuff. No one has any vision, no new ideas. They stick with the tried and true and safe, and then they wonder why sales are slumping. I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m just happy to be in the bosom of my sweet, normal family. So what happened around here today?” He took a sip of his drink.

Bonnie was quiet for a moment. “The children set up a lemonade stand.”

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Fiction: Security Breach

Posted on by bryon

Arvid8 sat in the security room watching the monitors. The half-starved population outside the gates knew about Lord Grazorius’s food storehouse; Arvid8 looked for criminals who had slipped past the guards. Peasants could be tricky.

He was also vigilant for smaller intruders. Mice still plagued humanity in the late 22nd century. There hadn’t been any trouble since the Great Raid when more than ninety mice made off with an astonishing amount of food. Lord Grazorius had been furious, and security had installed hundreds of additional traps.

Arvid8 heard a motion alarm. He switched the view to the holographic tank, recreating the scene life size in his office.

A single mouse crept toward a box of food. The trap sitting by the box caught the mouse’s attention. As it should, Arvid8 thought as he magnified the view.

The trap’s enclosure was almost invisible. The mouse walked straight in and a little door folded down, sealing the opening. The mouse walked onto the platform and grabbed the bait. As the trigger tripped, the powerful spring propelled the titanium hammer onto the mouse’s back.

The hammer bent around the rodent.

Arvid8 gasped as he watched the unharmed mouse eat its prize. Then it backed out from under the hammer and one back leg kicked the trap’s door open. The mouse skittered out and looked directly into the hidden camera, making Arvid8 feel uneasy.

The mouse leaped to the box of foodstuffs, and its powerful jaws made short work of one corner of the steel box. Arvid8 dispatched a hunter-killer robot, but the mouse fled with its loot.

Arvid8 cleared the holoimage and turned to his hardwired communicator.

“Security Control, this is Security 2, Arvid8.”

“Go ahead, Security 2.”

“I need a probe team in here, armed and with extra robots for perimeter security. And tell Lord Grazorius the mice have evolved again.”

Fiction: Wisdom

Posted on by bryon

Philippe arrived at the Mountain of Wisdom, eager to climb it and meet the Wisest of the Wise, who lived near the summit, and learn the great lessons of life.

The peace of his surroundings was interrupted by a pounding sound, and he went to investigate.

He found five men, four of them obviously native to the area, erecting a sign. The fifth man looked up and saw Philippe and walked toward him.

“Greetings, friend,” the fifth man said. “I am Karl. You have come to meet with the Wisest of the Wise?”

“Indeed I have, Karl. I am Philippe. I have walked the pilgrim trail from my beloved France to meet with her.”

Karl looked down a moment, apparently trying to compose himself.

“I deeply regret, Philippe, that I will always be known as the last person to talk with her.”

“Then … she is…?”

Karl nodded. “Yes. The aged one now sleeps forever.” He drew a deep breath. “I climbed the mountain, just as you came to do. I found her at death’s open door. She spoke only briefly. I have had this sign made in the village below to tell other pilgrims of her death and to record her last words to humanity.”

Philippe, his mind crying out against fate, permitted Karl to lead him over to the sign. It was written in several languages. Philippe read the French version: “The Wisest of the Wise, as all do, has died. Her final words were, ‘Do not make a shrine of my dying place. Seek the truth of life in your own way.’”

Tears ran down Philippe’s face. He knelt on the ground and sobbed unashamedly as the other men looked on. Then he abruptly pulled himself together and stood.

“My sorrow is nothing,” he declared. “I must go and fulfill her instructions. She left great wisdom, and I must follow it.” He embraced Karl and kissed him on each cheek and then went back the way he came.

The sign maker and his men followed at a discreet distance, leaving Karl alone to contemplate the mountain.

And thus it was that none ever after climbed the Mountain of Wisdom to speak with the Wisest of the Wise, who lived until she died without another visitor.

Karl took the wisdom she had given him and twisted it to build a vast financial empire. He became one of the world’s great plutocrats and died at a greatly advanced age, rich, powerful, and gleefully unrepentant.