Tag: fiction

Fiction: The Devil You Know

Posted on by bryon

Satan slouched on his throne, one leathery wing idly beating time to the off-key tune its owner hummed.

He watched the parade of souls stream by him. Some quailed and screamed at the sight of the overlord of evil; others, hoping to be spared a little misery, genuflected before the throne, not realizing that Satan fried every 417th person to do that.

As the endless line of wrecked humanity slunk past him, he would meditatively torture one in a particular fashion and another in a different way. For the better part of an hour, he drilled holes in various sordid souls so that he wasn’t the only one in Hell who was bored.

A flash of movement caught his eye; he turned his horned head to see one of his lieutenants rushing toward him. The demon bowed before his infernal lord.

“What?” Satan demanded.

“My prince, there is … something odd. Something new, and none of us in Admissions can explain it.”

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Fiction: Playing for Keeps

Posted on by bryon

“Two million dollars,” Fisher said, handing over the backpacks.

“Briefcases are traditional,” Panchera said, frowning.

“I had backpacks.”

Fisher waited with forced patience as Panchera unzipped the overstuffed purple backpack and checked the stacks of currency. One of his men opened the orange backpack and did the same.

“While you’re counting to two million,” Fisher said, “maybe you could bring my sister out.”

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Fiction: Bad Boy

Posted on by bryon

Dirk leaned back on the couch, looking up at the angry woman and the four men she had brought home with her.

She sure knows some losers. Not one of ’em is tough enough to be water boy for the chess team. But he was outnumbered, and the tall, young blond man with the button-down collar and the white-knuckle grip on the baseball bat looked angrier than Beth did. He’s in love with her. Poor kid.

“Something you wanted to tell me, Sweetheart?”

Beth smouldered. “Get the hell out of my apartment and get the hell out of my life.”

“And these gentlemen are the moving company?”

“We are if you’re not out of here in two minutes,” the baseball bat kid growled.

Dirk decided he meant it. The guy had never been in a fight in his life, but anyone that tightly wound wouldn’t stop once he got started. It’d take a shampooer to get all of me out of the carpet.

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Fiction: Life Near a Dragon

Posted on by bryon

The lord looked out a window of his magnificent castle and nodded at the fluffy white clouds below him, all brilliantly lit by the winter sun. The clouds looked like snow, and that was all the more he needed of snow. A lackey had told him that it was snowing in the valley, which was the best place for snow.

Still, it was cold, and the fire in his bedroom would need tending soon. He walked across the expanse of the room so he could look out another window. He often did so to watch the endless line of peasants as they walked out of the clouds – or on a clear day, the treeline – bearing the things he required. They regularly brought food and water and wood, piled high on their backs. As each one deposited his load in the assigned place, he was given a small coin – and only one: the lord kept close track of his money, and none of his lackeys were generous with it more than once. Then the peasant joined the line going back down the hill. Strange how their backs were still bent even though they had been relieved of their burdens. Who could understand the ways of peasants?

The lord looked out the window.

* * *

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Fiction: Illumination

Posted on by bryon

“The city’s swimming pools were full again today as we wind up our record-breaking third week of 100-plus-degree days,” the TV weatherman said over images of children splashing around. “My, doesn’t that look nice and cool! They’ll likely be there again tomorrow and the next day as there’s no relief in sight.”

Craig looked up from his tablet and scowled. He picked up the remote and muted the volume. It was bad enough to suffer the heat without listening to some idiot prattle on about it. Almost unheard over the window air conditioner, his children splashed happily in the horse tank he had filled for them to swim in. The nearest town with a swimming pool was ten miles away, and the water was too heavily chlorinated for Kathy to tolerate.

Jane glanced briefly at the now-quiet TV and her husband. She kept working to get the family’s dinner ready. The water for the spaghetti was about to boil. “It’s really too hot for this,” she said to herself. “Can’t live on sandwiches all summer.”

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Fiction: Unnatural Selection

Posted on by bryon

“And when she went to the drugstore to get more aspirin,” Frank said, “they told her she’d already bought the government-set limit for the month. Of course, her husband couldn’t buy it either.”

“Shhh!”

“What’s wrong, Janie?”

“Quiet!”

Outside, a soft drone quickly grew, and the children burst through the back door, screaming.

“Turtles! Turtles!”

“I hear them now,” Frank said.

“Make sure the windows are closed,” Janie said. “I’ll check upstairs.”

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Fiction: Tree House

Posted on by bryon

“Hi, Daddy!” Five-year-old Jana ran to her father and he scooped her up in a hug.

“Hi, Sweetheart. Did you have a good time at Grandpa and Grandma’s all week?”

“Yeah! We had lots of fun.”

“Good. I’ve been very busy while you’ve been gone. Want to see what I’ve been making?”

“Okay.”

Curtis returned Jana to the floor and led her into the back yard. She saw it instantly.

“A tree house!” She ran over to the tree and clambered up the ladder.

“Tree ‘house’ is right,” Helen said quietly, joining her husband. The new structure faced the family’s home. Part of it was built into the tree, but two sturdy poles provided much of the support.

“There has to be enough room if she ever invites me to a tea party up there,” he explained.

“Oh. Well, that makes perfect sense.” She shook her head and smiled at him. “But given your influence on her, I doubt there will be many tea parties.”

* * *

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Fiction: Pajamas

Posted on by bryon

Darla hung her bra on the closet doorknob. She put her arms into her cotton nightshirt, raised it above her head and let it fall down her body.

She paused briefly as she turned back the covers on her side of the bed. Stephen’s pajamas were folded neatly on his side of the bed, not quite touching his pillow. She had washed the bedding a few times since that day when he walked out, but she had been careful to replace his pajamas where he had left them.

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Fiction: War Correspondence

Posted on by bryon

John had just finished filing his latest story about war-torn London when his English friend Maurice tapped him on the shoulder.

“This came for you while you were out,” Maurice said, handing John an envelope. “Looks like it’s from the States.”

John took a quick look at the envelope and smiled. “It’s from my girl, Mary, back in Evanston. Just the little pick-me-up I needed today. Nothing like a letter from home to take your mind completely off the war.”

He opened the envelope and removed the letter. It was on a single piece of stationery.

“Dear John,” it began. “I know this will come as a surprise and will be hard for you to understand.”

John’s mouth fell open as he read the few lines. By the time he finished, there was a noise like sirens in his ears. He got up from his desk and stumbled toward the door.

It was pitch black outside. He fumbled in his jacket for a cigarette and his lighter. He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, the tiny flame all the light in John’s world. He stared at it for half a minute after lighting his smoke, and then deliberately closed the case.

The sirens kept blowing in his mind, and to them was added a dull roar like a hundred airplanes. How could Mary dump him like that? And for Todd?

John drew on his cigarette and passed a hand over his forehead. He felt ill. The new whistling sounds in his brain weren’t helping matters.

Mary’s letter had hit him like a ton of bricks. Unnoticed by the sorrowful young man, so did the building he stood next to when the bomb hit it.

There really was nothing like a letter from home to take a person’s mind completely off the war.

Fiction: Neighborhood Picnic

Posted on by bryon

Sergeant Luckenstiehl wandered around the park, smiling at the children at play, nodding to their parents who were grilling hamburgers and brats and hot dogs – and the occasional steak – and setting the picnic tables. He would soon have to politely decline offers of food. “Regulations,” he would say with genuine regret; these people really knew how to barbecue.

He looked up; there were still a couple of hours before the sun would set behind the 25-story housing complex. The park was in the building’s hollow quadrangle, and Luckenstiehl respected how nicely the residents kept it.

A child ran up to her mother. “Mom! We can’t find Prissy and Janet anywhere!”

Luckenstiehl casually made a quarter turn away from the conversation.

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