#WEP: December Flash Fiction Challenge

This December challenge wraps up the year of artistic inspiration from some great works of art. The WEP is open to all, following the simple rules:

1. SUBMIT your name to the list below on December 1 thru the 15th. Add your link (URL)
2. POST your entry, put WEP is in the TITLE along with The Narcissus badge within your entry.
3. STATE feedback preferences and word count at the end of your entry.
4. READ other entries, giving feedback if requested.
5. SHARE THE CHALLENGE on social media. Tweets are ready on the WEP blog.

PLEASE NOTE: ENTRIES CLOSE Dec. 15th @ midnight (NY Time - check WEP blog clock)
ALL GENRES WELCOME except erotica - 1,000 words maximum

My story for this month's challenge is maybe cheating a little--I didn't write it for the challenge, but I decided that the common understanding of Narcissus and narcissism fits well enough, even if the story doesn't relate to the painting. I wrote this while trekking in Nepal last month, highlighting a character who certainly thinks a little too well of himself. And while Monday isn't my usual day for sharing flash fiction, it was my best bet for fitting within the time frame.

Snow Dragon

The thing was impossible. James Whitherspoon the Third had absolutely no doubt of that, so the shock was complete when it proved to be true.

Whitherspoon knew dragons; had fought them and tried to learn their language from any who would tolerate teaching him. But the dragons had all been in the low hills. They hated the cold. Whitherspoon was not up here in the snows to meet dragons.

So what in the name of all that was holy was this one doing sitting on a glacier? And it was pure white, nearly invisible against the snows, rather than the brilliant ruby and emerald of the low-land dragons. Whitherspoon stomped his booted feet more securely into the snow, stared again at the dragon to ensure it was really there, and looked around for his porters. They would surely know what was up with this strangely misplaced creature.

Perhaps they did. The porters were merely small dark specks well down the mountain slope. Whatever they knew of snow dragons, they clearly didn’t care to meet one.

So what? It was he, James Whitherspoon, not some unlettered local bearers of burdens, who had spent a lifetime studying dragons. Not for him terror and flight.

Whitherspoon continued to slog upwards through the snow and ice. When he was near enough to be heard, he planted his hiking staff, folded his hands on the knob at the top, and called out, “Greetings to you, oh dragon of the high places!”

It was a polite enough greeting, but the only response was a small puff of smoke from the creature’s nostrils, and a stomp of the left forefoot in a manner that might suggest irritation.

Not that Whitherspoon noticed or cared. He focused on the smoke: It must mean that at this altitude, or in this deep snow, the dragon couldn’t flame. Probably the thing was lost and in trouble. Whitherspoon managed to work himself up to quite a sympathy for the poor, lost dragon, which he would of course save from the horrific fate that awaited it in the high-altitude snows.

The self-proclaimed scholar approached closer. The dragon stamped first the left, then the right front foot. Whitherspoon took another step forward, again struck his pose with his staff.

“Can I help you, Master Dragon?” He maintained the respectful form of address, but there is no denying that the nature of the question was condescending, at the least. Certainly the dragon seemed to think so. It shook its head, uttered something int he dragon tongue that Whitherspoon was pretty sure was a curse, and finally deigned to speak in English.

“Leave my mountain at once.”

Leave the mountain? Or what? Whitherspoon actually laughed. “Leave, or you’ll warm me with your breath? Fire is what I crave most here, you know. If you haven’t noticed, it’s cold.”

“I warn you again: You do not belong here. Your companions are wise. They know where they are not welcome.”

Whitherspoon dismissed a vague memory of how hard it had been to find any porters willing to cross this particular pass. Still full of confidence in his own learning, he persisted.

“I can help you find your way back to the warmer lands, where you can thrive.” You fool was in his tone and his heart, if not in his words.

The dragon huffed. As Whitherspoon expected, only a trickle of heavy smoke emerged from the nostrils that, in the lowlands, could incinerate an explorer/scholar in one huff.

“See?” Whitherspoon pointed out. “You are disarmed. You need my help. In return, I ask only that you fly me to my next destination.”

The dragon lashed its tail. “You weary me. What’s more, you insult me.” It drew in a great lungful of the frozen air.

Whitherspoon expected the dragon to drop down dead. Instead, it blew the air back out, exactly as though it breathed fire over him.

The expert on dragons was instantly encased in ice.

When a spring avalanche returned him to the village below, the look of shock and astonishment on the face of James Whitherspoon III was perfectly preserved in his ice coffin.

###

The lair of the snow dragons?

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2021

 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.

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#WEP--The Scream

WEP challenges are FREE and open to all.

On the 1st of the challenge month, there will be a get-your-thinking-caps on post. The badge will include the dates of the challenge and the winner’s prizes.

The InLinkz sign up will open on the third Wednesday and close 3 days later. It will contain no news, just the sign up. Participants link up with their DLs (Direct Links to their entry). 

Learn all about it here. 

 

My entry this time is based on an actual incident. Mom and my brothers will recognize it. My apologies to them for the non-trivial liberties I took with history and their personalities.

We are now also meant to provide a tag line for our stories, so here's mine:

What terrors lurk in the root cellar?

  

The Scream

The house we lived in that year wasn’t much. The wind blew in everywhere you could imagine a draft, and some places you couldn’t. The old enclosed porch we used as a root cellar was worse. It wasn’t just the wind that could get in through the chinks and cracks in that one. Though it stayed just enough above freezing not to spoil the potatoes, it was infested with everything from spiders to mice, maybe more. At least there weren’t any snakes in that part of the country.

By the end of October the porch was full of root veggies from the huge garden we’d maintained all summer, plus rows and rows of quart mason jars full of fruit—peaches, plums, applesauce, tomatoes. It was Mom’s pride, but none of us much cared for it when we had to go in there and dig out a bunch of spuds or parsnips. I especially hated going for parsnips, because I really couldn’t stand them so it was sort of doubly icky.

As a result, it was usually Mom who had to go rummage in the gunny sacks for the evening meal. We kids would make ourselves scarce, even though my brothers were older than me and supposed to be brave and tough and all that stuff teenaged boys claimed to be.

The night I’m talking about was Halloween, so we were all upstairs working on our costumes, even though we were too old for trick-or-treat. There was a party at the high school for everyone who wanted to come, and we had to have costumes. It was cold upstairs, but we were all working in our rooms to keep the costumes secret, for some reason I can’t remember now.

It was that time of year when dark came on early and took us all by surprise, and a gloomy afternoon was the worst. This one was rainy enough to make me glad I was too old to trick-or-treat, though the truth was we lived too far out in the sticks to make that work anyway. The previous fall, when we’d just moved in, I walked the mile up the road to the nearest neighbor, was given an apple, and walked back. That was it. No one else lived close enough to visit.

So this year I was pleased we’d be going to the high school, where I was sure they would have candy. My oldest brother would drive us in after dinner. He’d just gotten his license and was itchy to show it off, though carting the siblings around wasn’t what he had in mind. I could hear those pleasant kitchen noises that meant Mom was starting to fix dinner, though no good smells were rising yet. It didn’t much matter, since we were all saving up to stuff ourselves at the party.

The wind and rain beating on my windows was kind of creepy. It wasn’t really dark, but that super-spooky kind of dusky light, and I hadn’t turned on my lamp yet, so I could see out. I kept flinching from things flying by the window, but maybe that was because we’d been studying Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” in art class. That was the teacher’s idea, to keep our interest when we just wanted to play with paints and clay. But I thought the screamer was dodging some kind of black ghost or something and for the moment blowing leaves made me jump.

I switched on the light, which kept me from seeing out, but might have made my jitters worse. I kept glancing at the windows, now blank black rectangles, and wondering what might be looking in. Honestly, I was kind of enjoying working my way up to a good case of the spooks.

Then Mom screamed.

It sounded just the way the one in the painting looks.

I nearly wet my pants. Mom never screams.

If Mom was screaming, it meant an unthinkable horror. With visions in my head of accidents with the kitchen knives, vampires, monsters, and the undead, I left my room at full speed.

My brothers, I’m glad to say, catapulted from their rooms just as fast. We narrowly avoided a pile-up at the top of the stairs and flew down in close formation.

As fast as we were, Mom had stopped screaming before we got there. It might have been a single scream. Cut off by the fangs of a vampire?

The door to that porch/root cellar was open and the very dim bulb inside glowed feebly. We raced for the spot, crowding around the door, too worried about Mom to be scared, though I kind of hung back and let the boys go first. After all, there were two of them, so Mom and Dad could spare one if the vampire got him.

Mom stood there, looking a little shame-faced, but shaken. While we watched, she pulled on Dad’s heavy work gloves—he wasn’t home—and reached into the nearest potato sack.

She glanced at us. Her voice was almost steady as she said, “Sorry to scare you. But… have you ever felt a furry potato?”

She pulled a dead rat from the bag.

I’d have run, but my knees had gone weak.

And those rotten boys were laughing.

###

 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2021

 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.

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#WEP: Great Wave

 It's time for the bi-monthly WEP challenge. This year's prompts are all from famous paintings, interpretation up to us, of course. Here's the June prompt:

WEP Challenge are open to anyone. Post during the 3-day posting window, then link back to the WEP post page, and visit the other writers to enjoy a bunch of great stories! Read more about it here.

920 words, FCA
 

 

Great Wave

The hooded figure was reported to have visited the same rocky point on the shore every day for a week. Always at high tide, and carrying a large pack.

It wasn’t that no one knew who it was; there were no strangers in the tiny coastal town. Nor did anyone wonder about the hood. Any sensible person outside was wearing a hooded rain parka, and rain pants as well. The question everyone was asking was what Mildred Perkins thought she was doing out there in the rain and crashing surf, and what she had in her pack.

There was some attempt to speculate that she was engaged in some form of smuggling, but that stretched the credulity of even the most imaginative gossips in the tiny town. For one thing, no one could land a boat out on the point. For another, it was broad daylight, or what passed for broad daylight in the teeth of the winter rains, not a time when smugglers usually operated. Further, as far as anyone knew she’d been alone out there all the time, though admittedly even in the interests of a great story no one had been willing to sit out in the rain and watch as long as Mildred sat on the rocks.

Archibald Quindlen had reported seeing her sitting on the rocks for two hours while he was down the tiny sand shore trying to get his engine started so he could move his boat around the point to his proper mooring. In the end he’d given up and rowed the damn thing in order to beat the tide, and because he was tired of working in the rain.

“Didn’t see a damn thing except Mildred sitting there dripping,” he grumbled.

Sarah Pritchard was quick to point out that his attention had been on his boat, not on Mildred, and she could have done nearly anything without him noticing.

Archibald had retorted that she’d just been sitting every time he looked up, and what were the odds? He might have been a little less polite than that.

Victoria Jones admitted Archibald had a point and tried to keep her own watch, but after a half an hour she conceded that watching someone sitting motionless was pretty dull work, and maybe Mildred had gone mad, anyway. Plus, it was still raining.

This situation went on for a week, during which time it never stopped raining for more than about fifteen minutes at a time. All efforts to question Mildred ran smack into the impenetrable wall of a smile so warm and calm that it appeared to hide nothing while giving nothing away.

After four days, Mildred changed her vantage point to sit on the second point over from the first. Then she began to move from one point to another, up and down the shore, sitting in one spot sometimes for hours and sometimes only for minutes. Since no tourists came to town in the pouring rain, business was slow and everyone was going crazy wondering what she was up to.

This made it harder for the townspeople to watch without being obvious, not just to themselves but to their neighbors and to Mildred. Anyway, people were losing their enthusiasm for prowling about in the rain only to learn that she was just sitting there staring at the waves. Since Mildred didn’t seem to mind, or even notice, the rain, they were forced to conclude that she really had gone mad.

“Well, what if she is mad? She’s not hurting anyone,” Charles Godfrid pointed out. “Leave the poor woman be. She seems happy enough.”

For that reason, no one was watching when the rain finally ceased and Mildred at last opened the large pack she’d been keeping dry under her voluminous rain poncho (worn over the rain parka, a common precaution on that very wet coast).

The storm blew itself out late in the morning, and by noon the sun was shining. Young Joshua Pritchard ran down to the shore to see what treasures the high tide had brought, and noticed Mildred was eating a sandwich. That made perfect sense to Joshua, who was ten and starting to develop a frightening appetite. He briefly considered going and asking if she had anything to share, but his mother had told him not to go near the poor crazy woman. Anyway, his attention was caught by some very promising bits of fishing net and he forgot all about her. The next time he looked up, she’d gone off to some other spot for watching the breakers.

By two, the sun and breeze had dried things pretty well, and Mildred had found the place she wanted to stop.

No one at all saw when she opened the backpack again. This time she pulled out not her lunch, but an easel, a large drawing pad, and a box of paints.

She began to work.

It took weeks, sitting out storms, then waiting until it was just dry enough to not soak the canvas. She could work only until the calm changed the scene too much, then had to wait for the next storm. No one paid any attention to her now. Mildred was just “like that, you know,” they said, and left her alone.

At last she was satisfied, and stopped going to the shore.

Mildred’s detailed study of a single tiny portion of the surf took first prize at the country fair. “Great wave,” one of the judges wrote in the notes.

***

 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2021

 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.

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WEP: The Kiss

  

What could be more appropriate for Valentine month than Gustav Klimt’s  The Kiss?

This shimmery, early 20^th century painting of a couple embracing in a patch of wildflowers has riveted art afficionados  across the world for decades.

Use this amazing painting to kick off  a romantic love story of star crossed lovers. Or maybe a much married pair who’ve been together for years. Of unrequited or lost love. Or any love of the other gazillion types.

For unValentinish souls, remember that there are kisses other than romantic ones.  The kiss of life, the kiss of death, the kiss of betrayal, the angels’ kiss in spring. The mystical thousand ways of kneeling and kissing the ground.

One golden artwork, a zillion directions to go. Pick yours and run with it. We’re cheering for you. And can't wait to see what you come up with!

That's the February challenge. And this is my response. I struggled a bit, until I remembered something my boys told me about their experience at 5th Grade "Outdoor Ed" at a camp near San Francisco.

The Kiss

“Do it! Do it!” All the kids were looking at him, chanting, as they had for every other camper in the group, “Do it! Do it! Kiss the slimy lips!”

Jordan looked from his campmates to the forest floor, hoping for some way out. Some way that wouldn’t mark him as a spoilsport or a chicken. Maybe it would be gone. It might have gotten away while they were urging him to pick it up.

“C’mon, Jord,” Callie urged. She was his best friend, but right now he hated her along with all the others. “You’re the only one who hasn’t. If you just do it, we’ll be the first team to complete the Banana Slug Challenge!”

The Banana Slug Challenge. Jordan winced. It meant a lot to the other campers. The first cabin-pair team to present photographic proof that every camper had kissed a banana slug would win the right to go first in line at every meal left in the week. That sort of thing mattered, especially with those bigger kids who always seemed to push ahead and get the best desserts.

Reluctantly, Jordan turned his gaze on the large, greeny-yellow gastropod at his feet. Of course it was still there. It was a slug. It couldn’t run away and hide. It probably didn’t know enough to run anyway. The slug wouldn’t care about what was about to happen. It was just Jordan who was grossed out by the thought of picking up a slug, let alone kissing it.

Not that it would be a real kiss. They’d all been coached on how to do it without hurting the animals. A little peck on the top of the head, avoid the antennae and the funny hole on the side of the head, if you could even call it a head.

Taking a deep breath, feeling Callie’s hand on his shoulder—was she pushing him or trying to reassure him?—Jordan slowly bent and ran his hand through the loose forest-floor duff. His scoop came up with the slug still resting on the mass of fallen redwood needles. He closed his eyes, then forced himself to open them. He’d had to look to make sure he got this right, or he could end up with a mouthful of banana slug. Definitely not what he wanted.

Hoping he wouldn’t puke, Jordan lowered his face to the unsuspecting creature in his hand.

Back at the camp, Jordan washed his mouth again and again, shuddering. He’d been fine until, not far from camp, they had come on a pile of horse poop with a banana slug nosing about for tasty bits. At least he hadn’t been the only one to puke.

The horror of that day would never leave him.

His lips rubbed almost raw, he left the bathroom when he heard the dinner bell, and began to run. He was a hero! They’d be first in line for dinner!

#

The life of a banana slug happens in slow-motion. Movement, dining, defense against predators—all depend on slime and patience, not speed or ferocity. And don’t even ask about mating, which can take all day. It might take half the day for a slug to decide if it will be male or female (answer: both).

The slug therefore hadn’t started or panicked when surrounded by large, noisy animals. It had simply continued to ooze along in search of the pile of delectable horse droppings it sensed lay somewhere nearby. Experience had shown that two-leggers left slugs alone.

The slug was dimly aware that the pile of duff it over which it slid was rising. The magnitude of the disaster became clear only when a vast face loomed in the slug’s view.

Then the slug would have fled at high speed, had such been possible. It made every effort to gather itself and writhe out of the way of the immense pinky-red arcs that curved closer and closer. Surely this couldn’t be happening. To be touched by such a disgusting creature, all dry and raspy and covered with neither fur nor the more sensible slime! The slug shrunk into itself, turned away, would have cried out if it had anything with which to produce a noise.

There was no escape.

The giant fleshy bits descended on the slug’s head, touched its skin. The slug was certain the touch would burn, leave a mark for all to see.

Then it was falling, along with the pile of duff it had rested on in security such a short time before.

The dreadful contact ended, the slug endured a new horror, the discovery of gravity.

Long after the loud, thumping herd of two-leggers was gone the slug lay there. When at last it dared to move, its body stretched out of the mess of dirt and redwood needles that had fallen with it, much of the forest detritus still clinging to head and back.

The horror of that day would never be forgotten, but life must continue. Slowly, cautiously, the slug began to move, gaining purpose and direction.

There was still that pile of horse droppings to be explored.

###

 

Banana slugs range in color from almost an olive drab to bright yellow, and some have black spots while others don't. I'm pretty sure the spots/no spots variations are regional--SF Bay Area slugs never seemed to have them--but the other shadings seem to have more to do with local conditions and what blends in well. The photos below all convey pretty accurate color. These are all my photos, all taken within 50 miles of San Francsico, accompanied by some fun slug facts.

The yellow end of the spectrum. Note the hole in the side, which is for breathing, but also gives access to the genetalia.

A poor photo but at the other end of the color spectrum, almost olive drab. The pneumostome (the breathing hole) is pretty wide open.

Banana slugs in flagrante delicto. Squirmy fact: banana slug phalluses can get stuck, in which case the will gnaw through them in order to separate. Some sources say it grows back, others that it does not.

Banana slugs at the diner (they will eat anyway; presumably they appreciate the partially-digested vegetation in horse poop). Note the mucus plugs at the back ends. Slugs generate a special mucus from the tail (as opposed to the slime they generate all over to prevent drying out and to make it easier to slide over rough surfaces) that can actually be used like a line to allow a safe descent from on high. I never caught them at it.

Hope you've enjoyed this little info drop on banana slugs!

Visit the WEP to see what others have made of this prompt!

 

 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2021

 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.

Don't forget--my third volume of short fiction is out! Pick up your copy of Wizard Libraries and Dragon Archives for just 99¢! Smashwords  Amazon

And pre-orders are open for Death By Donut!  

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WEP: Grave Mistake

 It's time for the October WEP challenge, and after missing several this year, I'm back with a tentative offering. I couldn't do any of the horror-type stories that the prompt and badge suggest. It's humor, and I hope you all enjoy it as a sort of palate-cleanser after all the spooky stories out there this month. But be sure to pop on over to the WEP and check out the other stories in the hop!

As for me--I'm back on the road again, and will be reading the stories when and as I  can, probably continuing into next month. If you leave a comment I *will* get back to you. Just don't hold your breath, okay? I don't want to be responsible for anyone turning blue in the face.

686 words.

FCA

Grave Mistake

“It’s a lovely piece, don’t you think, dear?”

“Mmm, yes. Is that the one you want, then?”

“I’m not sure. This has a lovely color, and the fine grain would look well, I think.”

“WIll it do the job?”

“Well, any of them will be cold enough. And I presume we can get whatever size we want, so I think I mostly need the right look.”

“Right, Dear.”

The salesman spotted the well-dressed couple studying the marble samples, rubbed his hands together, and approached the shoppers with anticipation in his eye.

“Is Madam looking for a slab or a stone?”

“Oh, not a slab. We could never afford to do the whole thing in marble. But for an accent—yes, I think this would do nicely.” She laid her hand on a piece of fine-textured pink-tinted marble. “Can it be cut?”

“Of course. Madam has particular dimensions in mind?”

“Well, naturally.”

“And is this for yourselves, or...” The salesman let the question drift off into a vague query.

“Oh, it’s for me,” the woman laughed. “I’m really the only one who needs it, you know.”

“I see.” The salesman assumed a solemn expression, and murmured something about regrets. The woman, distracted by another marble slab, didn’t hear. Her companion did, and a faint hint of interest, the first he’d shown since entering the showroom, crossed his face. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it.

“Allow me to get your specifics, then, Madam,” the salesman said in a hushed and respectful tone. “Would you be having it engraved now, or, ah, after?”

“Engraved?” The woman appeared startled. Her companion pulled out a large handkerchief and blew his nose noisily. She gave him a dirty look.

“It is customary, my dear,” the man said, when he had his sinuses under control. He appeared to suffer from a curious tic that kept his mouth twitching.

“Oh, of course,” she said, not looking at all as thought it was “of course.” “What do you think would be best, dear? Dates? Some kind of wise or witty saying?”

“The dates, of course,” the salesman put in. He pulled a notebook from one pocket, a gold pen from another. “I’ll just note it down. Date of birth?”

“Oh!” The woman looked confused. “I don’t think that’s relevant. I was thinking more like, ‘Blessed be all that springs from this slab.”

Her husband considered that. “How about, ‘What is laid out on this stone will rise in the flames?’”

“Oh, that’s perfect,” his wife exclaimed. “It captures the spirit exactly!”

The salesman appeared ill. He had turned pale, and beads of sweat glistened on his face. “Are you quite certain?” He asked faintly.

“Of course we are,” the woman said.

Her husband said, “Engraved on the unpolished side, of course.”

“Oh, of course.” The salesman really didn’t seem to know what he was saying. His head was spinning. He collected the relevant billing information from the couple, and saw them to the door.

“Oh,” the woman added before they left. “How soon can you have that ready?”

“Um, we work quickly. Is Madam expecting to need it soon?”

“Oh, yes,” she said happily. “By the end of next week, if everything goes well, don’t you think, dear?”

“Rather. I’ll arrange to have the contractor pick it up.”

The salesman, thinking that rather a strange way to to speak of the usual sort who picked up his stones, headed to his office. He needed a drink.

Outside, the sleek black Audi pulled out of the parking lot. The wife, driving, was absorbed by the need to find a gap in traffic, and her thoughts about finally winning the prize for the best pie crust once she had her marble slab in place in the kitchen they were remodeling. Only her husband could spare the attention to the elegant sign for Simmon’s Granite and Marble, and to see the part of the sign they hadn’t noticed on the way in, perhaps because someone had bumped it with a truck and knocked it askew.

The part that read, “Headstones and Monuments.”    

###

All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, unless otherwise indicated.
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Check out the other entries in the hop!

WEP: Long Shadow

  

 

The WEP posts every second month with a prompt and a bunch of short stories or other creative writing. This month's prompt has inspired me to something a little less conventional, but I'm feeling ready to write a little about it. This is non-fiction, and personal.

 291 words; Comments only.

 LONG SHADOW

A small decision can cast a long shadow. The choice to go for an evening bike ride. Or how far back do you trace the decisions? A move to a new town? The refusal to give night rides after one accident? Or can we blame it on COVID? Because if not for the pandemic, we would have been deep in training for a strenuous July trip to the Swiss Alps. Or was May 8 too early to have shifted from bikes to trails? I can't be sure now.

The decision he made was to ride his bike after dinner, when it was a little cooler, and the sun was no longer beating down on everything. It seemed like a reasonable choice at the time. As far as I know, it was the last decision he made, and the shadow it cast will last the rest of my life, and our sons' lives.

The consequences of that decision reach out into every part of our lives, and the long shadow feels like a good metaphor for it. There is still life and love and joy, but everything is a bit dimmed by that shadow. At first, up close to the source, the shadow makes everything so dark you can't see anything else. Time moves us farther out, and the shadow thins, is less total, but it never goes away.

But there is another long shadow, that cast by the love and generosity and the giving heart that was stilled that night. The hundreds of lives he touched in a 29-year teaching career. All the people he listened to and cared about and swapped stories with all over the world. Some part of him lives on in all of them.

Every life casts a long shadow, and every loss casts a long shadow. The same metaphor, but almost opposite meaning: the gift of self, and the loss of half my self.

 All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, unless otherwise indicated.
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Flash Fiction--WEP: Footprints

 

It's that time, a little early this month because of the holidays. I put off writing my story to the last minute, hoping for inspiration. You get to decide if I got it :)

WEP/IWSG challenges are open to all.

On the 1st of the challenge month, there will be a get-your-thinking-caps on post. The badge will include the dates of the challenge and the winner’s prize.

Going forward, the InLinkz sign up will open on the third Wednesday and close 3 days later. Participants link up with the DLs.

Team members collate a SHORTLIST and Nick Wilford judges WINNER, RUNNER UP and ENCOURAGEMENT AWARD.

The BEST COMMENTER AWARD will continue, shared by different people, so keep on reading wonderful people!

And look who won the Commenter Award this time!

Xavier Xanthum may deserve a little explanation. I invented him years ago for an X post in the A to Z blogging challenge, and kind of fell in love with my absurd space explorer. He's a bit of a dweeb, a bit of a nerd, and a loner who isn't always sure if that's by choice or necessity. His best friend is his ship's AI.

Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer: Footprints

Footprints: A Xavier Xanthum Adventure

Xavier Xanthum  studied the ground beneath the Wanderlust with a scowl, and grunted.

“What is troubling you, Captain?” Larry asked. The AI materialized his floating eyeballs so they could peer into the vidscreen along with the space explorer.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Xavier said. “You aren’t fooling anyone. I know you do your seeing with the hull-mount cameras.”

“Does it not give you comfort to know that I am also studying the situation?”

“No.” Xavier tore his gaze from the screen long enough to glance at his semi-real companion. “Yes. I’m glad you’re looking. I don’t need the eyeballs to know that. Anyway, this isn’t that kind of situation. I just was hoping for something more… interesting.”

Larry directed his eyeballs back to the screen, and appeared to consider the view of the land beneath them. “It may be lacking variety,” he pointed out, “but it looks… safe.”

Xavier sighed. “It does. Safe, and boring, and not likely to be profitable. Still, we’re here, so I suppose I should go down and investigate. Any signs of life?” He waited patiently while Larry did a complete scan of both the records and all his instruments.

“No life reported above single-cell organisms. Nothing on my sensors. The planet has been visited by three previous explorers, none of whom found anything of worth. Why have we come here?”

“I was going to ask you that. Three previous explorers?” They argued for a few minutes over who was responsible for wasting their time with such a planet.

Larry ended the argument. “I need a few hours in the upper atmosphere to recharge certain systems. You may as well go down. It looks like a nice beach.”

Still grumbling and griping, Xavier prepared himself for the descent to the planet.

“Take your swim trunks,” Larry advised. “The atmosphere and water check out as healthy for humans.”

“It’s uninhabited. Why would I need swim trunks?”

#

An hour or two later, Xavier climbed out of the landing pod and stretched. The air felt flat, with no plants or animals to create smells. The land was an endless expanse of dark sand, eroded from the distant volcanic mounds, heaped into low dunes along the shore as far as he could see. It was pretty, in a bleak sort of way.

Xavier touched his radio. “I’m going for a swim, then taking a look around. You can track me while I’m swimming.”

The space pilot skinned out of his flight jumper and shoes, and headed for the water. The sand was hot, so he ran a little. The water was the perfect temperature, and he began to think the planet ought to be worth developing as a resort.

Tired of swimming, he decided to walk along the beach a ways, to see if he could spot any landscape features more interesting than the volcanoes. He stayed on the damp edge of the beach to avoid the hot sand.

Xavier was perhaps a kilometer from his landing pod when he stopped, staring at the ground.

Footprints.

He looked behind him. His own prints led in a straight line back to the landing pod. These led up to the dunes. The prints were humanoid, and there were at least three of them. Xavier decided he was naked, rather than nude.

“Larry? Can you get me out of here?” He asked it before remembering that his comms connection was in his jumpsuit. He’d been too cheap to get it implanted. Well, there was nothing to panic over. He’d just turn around and head back…

Three women appeared over a small dune. Without plants or anything to provide perspective, he’d not known there were dunes high enough to hide a person, let alone a trio of them, and their ship? Why didn’t Larry know these women were here?

And why hadn’t he worn his swim trunks?

The women wore swim suits. There were three women in swimsuits walking towards him, and it had been ages since Xavier had taken shore leave anywhere with such creatures. For a moment he froze.

The one on the right, a blonde he was pretty sure was stunning, opened her mouth. To speak to him, or to scream at the sight of a naked man? Or to laugh?

Feeling inadequate as well as under-dressed, Xavier did the only thing he could.

He turned and ran for the water. It had been a while, but he was pretty sure he could swim a mile back to his pod.

For the first hundred meters, the swim felt great. Xavier paused after a while to check that he was getting away. Three heads plowed through the water, three sets of arms flashing in the sunlight. Xavier thought he was a good swimmer, but they were better. How long had they been on this planet, practicing, lying in wait for an unsuspecting space explorer?

For a moment he hesitated. Maybe they were marooned and needed help? Maybe he should stop and talk?

Why weren’t they calling to him, then? If they needed help, they’d be shouting at him about it.

Those three sleek bodies, carving through the water towards him… Xavier panicked again.

He swam for the shore and surfed up onto the beach. Staggering out of the water, he broke into a run.

His pursuers caught him a dozen yards from the pod.

#

If Xavier suffered a fate worse than death, he didn’t seem to mind. A long time later, he entered the pod, not seeming to notice that the beach was now empty of all but himself.

“Larry, you knew those women were down there. Why didn’t you warn me?”

The AI sounded far more smug than a machine should. “I did suggest you wear your swim trunks.”

Xavier didn’t press the point. He was asleep.

Larry hummed a bit as he navigated the pod back to the Wanderlust, no end pleased with himself.

###

990 words; FCA

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2019
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

WEP: Winter Heart

 

Squeaking in under the wire, here's my entry for the August WEP (Write, Edit, Publish) hop! I've put a wheelbarrow in, but that's definitely not the title of my story, which is kind of a work in progress, as I let time slip away from me. 

I'm open to any level of critique; I may revise this and try to do more with it if I'm inspired :)

700 words; FCA

Winter Heart

One more load, Ilya told herseolf. One more load, and you can sit down in the shade for a few minutes. The unrelenting sun beat on her like a hammer as noon approached, bleaching whatever color there had ever been out of the summer landscape. Out of the everything.

The wheelbarrow that hauled Ilya’s firewood—what irony that, firewood when the mercury tickled the top of the long thermometer—had once been red, but like everything else, the color was long since faded to something mockingly like rust. No rust where there’s no water, Ilya reminded herself. In this climate, there was just color, drained away.

Drained away like all their hopes. Like Jacob’s life, sucked away by the dust that got in his lungs and no amount of coughing would dislodge.

That’s all water over the dam, was her message to herself. Water over that damned dam that had lured them in and never materialized.

“The damn dam,” she repeated aloud, and laughed. There were some compensations to living alone. No one to be shocked that while doing the work of two men, she’d learned to cuss like one. And there was that home-brewed beer in the cellar. She’d learned to make it because Jacob liked it. When he died, the unused bottles had sat in the cellar, until the water in the well fell so low that she’d drunk it in desperation. Now she made a batch every year, grew the hops herself, and when the well water grew warm and tasted richly of the algae that grew in any still water, those cool bottles in the cellar were a treasure.

Dry-land farming had never been their plan. There were to have been canals and irrigation ditches all over, creating a verdant paradise here on the bench so high above the river. The man who sold them the land sold an entire vision with it, but only the scorched dirt held any reality.

She’d finished the last load, pushing a barrow of sticks up from the thicket where the creek ran in the winter. Ilya stacked the wood and went into the house, down to the cellar.

In the cool dim of the cellar she stood a moment and let the heat and weariness of the day drain out of her. In the cellar she could almost remember the winter.

Winter. It was the winters that kept Ilya from leaving, trying her luck elsewhere, however difficult it might be. Life returned with the first rains of autumn. When the snows locked her into her cabin, she began to live again.

Ilya leaned against the cool earthen wall of the cellar, remembering. That first summer, when she had so longed to leave, to return to… no, not to that. But to leave, certainly. Only Jacob had kept her on the farm. For love?

She no longer knew if she had ever loved Jacob. She had gone with him when he asked, too grateful for what he did for her to care where he took her. She had stayed with him, and then with the homestead, from that same gratitude and, yes, perhaps it was love, that feeling that to abandon his homestead dream was to abandon Jacob himself.

By now, there was little of Jacob left about the homestead, and it wasn’t his dream that kept her there. It was fear.

Fear that if she left, she wouldn’t know what to do.

Fear that if she went back, she would know too well what to do.

Anyway, it was only in the summer she wanted to leave. Soon the fall rains would start, and she would come to life again, just like the plants that had turned brown and blown away under the sharp sun.

In the fall, Ilya worked with a will, and the creek returned to life.

But winter. It was winter that kept her there, more than fear, more than need. Winter, when the snow trapped her in the cabin for days and weeks, and no one could come near. When the creek might freeze, or might run swift, deep and icy.

Winter, when at last she was safe.

Winter, when her heart was at rest.

###

Wrong setting, wrong gender, but it is a wheelbarrow full of firewood, or something

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2019
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

#WEP: A Gilded Cage

Note that the rules have changed a little. Since we now have a posting window that ends on the 3rd Wednesday and we don't sign up on the list until the post is live, I'm aiming for the 2nd Wednesday, which I didn't make, but I'm close.

1. CREATE your entry for the JUNE challenge – CAGED BIRD.
2. EDIT your entry, making sure 'WEP' is in the TITLE
3. PUBLISH your entry onto your BLOG or FACEBOOK page by the date shown - state feedback preferences
4. SUBMIT your name to the list below when your entry is live
5. READ other entries, giving feedback as requested
6. SHARE THE CHALLENGE on social media.
PLEASE NOTE: ENTRIES CLOSE JUNE 19
ALL GENRES WELCOME except erotica - 1,000 words maximum
FURTHER ENQUIRIES VISIT www.writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com and leave a comment or: email: laura.gene.walker@gmail.com or olgagodim@gmail.com

I had a little fun with this one. When I started putting the story together in my mind I was driving, and couldn't check the prompt, so what I remembered was the old (very old--1899) song about a bird in a gilded cage. I looked up the lyrics and they pretty much matched what I remembered of them, and my story went on from there.

 735 words
Full Critique is fine

A Bird in a Gilded Cage

Clara ran a hand over the edge of the grand piano, paused a moment, and crossed to the Victrola. She put on the record, an antique disc from her girlhood. "She’s only a bird in a gilded cage,” the singer crooned.

She remembered how they’d laughed at the song, she and her friends in that giddy year when they all “came out” together and took the social scene by storm. Every one of them knew her duty, and no poor boys need apply. Anyway, they didn’t want to be poor, so they’d laughed at the pathetic song of the misguided girl who’d married for money, and set about corralling the richest men they could find, young men preferred, but old men had more money.

A decade later Phoebe, Sarah, and Fannie hadn’t been laughing. They had married rich men and lived to learn that riches didn’t last, but marriage did. Or, in Fannie’s case, just like in the song, that a man could make his wife’s life a misery and it was perfectly legal.

“You’re so lucky,” Phoebe had sighed each time they met, at Clara’s beautiful home, or in a fancy restaurant at her expense. Pheebs and Sadie weren’t unhappy, though. Riches passed, the marriages remained, and each seemed to have found a kind of peace with her man.

Old and grey as she was, Clara still carried much of the beauty of her youth. Where Phoebe and Sarah had aged poorly, forced as they were after their husbands failed and decided to try farming to work too hard, too often outdoors, Clara stood straight and elegant. She protected her skin from sun and wind and hid her wrinkles well.

For all that, Clara knew more than any of them about what could go wrong with a marriage, but she had continued to laugh off the song, to insist that the money was the thing.

Fannie... Fannie had stopped them all laughing for a long time. After her brute of a husband had finally gone beyond cruel words and hit her, Fannie had made sure he would never hurt her, or her children, again.

Fannie hadn’t been subtle. In those days, there was no mercy for a wife who stabbed her husband with his own sword cane, not even when she appeared in court still bearing the scars of his beatings.

She spent the rest of her life in prison, though she might eventually have been pardoned if she hadn’t died of influenza instead. Phoebe and her husband took Fanny’s children. Clara had paid off their father, who didn’t really want them anyway.

Meanwhile, Clara made her own plans. Her husband might have lost his money had she not canceled his orders to pursue some very shaky investments. And when he grew angry at her “interference,” never mind that she’d saved him from a very sharp operator indeed, she had given him only the one chance. One raised hand.

It had been the society story of the year: rich financier dies of heart attack at the peak of his success. Beautiful young widow left mourning. That sort of thing.

Clara’s father hadn’t believed in educating girls, but he hadn’t been able to stop her reading. Clara read everything. When her brother went to medical school, she even read his texts.

And she remembered everything.

No, it hadn’t been so hard to keep the door of her gilded cage open. Clara had found it comfortable, especially as a rich widow. She hadn’t been foolish enough to marry a second time. Why should she? She had all the money she needed, and the skills to make it grow. She remained a leading light in upper-class society, and her entertainments were the most sought-after honor of the town.

She let the Victrola wind down. Her gaze traveled around the elegantly appointed room where she received visitors, on to the room where she conducted business. She thought of the closets full of clothes, carefully selected for every occasion, and not a one of them comfortable.

An ironic smile twisted her lips as she set the record to playing again.

It didn’t take a man to make a cage. How had she failed to realize what a trap she’d made for herself, following all the rules?

All the rules but the one, the powder in his coffee.

At least it had been her own cage all these years.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2019
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!