Flashback Friday!

 Flashback Friday is a monthly meme that takes place on the last Friday of the month.
The idea is to give a little more love to a post you’ve published on your blog before.  Maybe you just love it, maybe it’s appropriate for now, or maybe it just didn’t get the attention it deserved when you first published it.

Thanks to Michael d’Agostino, who started it all, there is a solution – join Flashback Friday!

Just join in whenever you like, repost one of your own blog posts, including any copyright notices on text or media, on the last Friday of the month.

Use the Flashback Friday logo above, as designed by Michael d’Agostino. Link it back to host Jemima Pett (there's a linky list!) and add a link to your post in the comments on Jemima's post (or mine, or any other participant's).

Since Friday is my flash fiction day, I've been sharing stories from the archives. This one dates back to May of 2015.

Garbage Cans

I knew we were in trouble when the garbage cans started moving about on their own.  It just turned out that it wasn’t exactly the trouble I thought we were in. I mean, I spotted them first, and made the usual resolve. You know, to swear off the moonshine, give up the mason jar, and dry out.

The first thing wrong with that reaction was that I don’t drink.

The second thing was that I wasn’t the only one who saw them. Oh, lots of people had noticed that their trashcans weren’t in the same place in the morning as they’d been the night before. There were lots of reasons for that. “It’s raccoons. Those things will do anything for a meal.” “Teenagers. They’re playing pranks again.” “Minor earthquakes are vibrating them so that they move about.”

Then there were the whacko reasons: “There are magical fields in this neighborhood.” “It’s the aliens again. I told you they’d be back.” “Poltergeists.” “Isn’t this on old Indian burial ground? Bet their spirits are angry.”

But when I saw the cans moving—actually saw them in motion—I had to discard the most reasonable theories. There were no raccoons or teenagers around. The USGS confirmed that there had been no earthquakes, however tiny and localized. That left me with the more unreasonable explanations.

Magic? I didn’t believe in magic. Every single supposedly magical happening ever had been proven to be caused by natural phenomena. Or illusion. Usually illusion, with a good dose of fakery.

Those garbage cans were no illusion. They stunk too much for that.

Ghosts and poltergeists were likewise out. No way to prove them, and no good grounds for believing they existed. That was when I took the step that led to all the trouble.

Well, that’s what they said. If I’d left well enough alone, there wouldn’t have been trouble. I’m not sure I believe that. Like I said, I knew that we were in trouble when I saw the cans moving, even before I started thinking through the possibilities. The one explanation I kept hearing, and that kept coming back to me, was the aliens.

But why, by all the green cheese on the moon, would aliens want to mess with our garbage cans?

You know how your Mom used to tell you that some questions just shouldn’t be asked? She was talking about how bologna was made or what makes members of the opposite sex tick, but she might as well have been talking about the motives of aliens visiting Earth.  Not only do you not want to know, but it’s not safe to know. Everyone would have been better off if I’d just let it go. But I couldn’t.

I set up cameras, the sort biologists use to take photos of wild animals at night in the wild. And I got my photos. Even that wouldn’t have caused much trouble if I’d not published them. But really—what would you have done? I’d been unemployed for a while, so the cash was awfully handy. I sold the pictures to a certain unnamed news agency. That started the panic, though I was too absorbed in the aliens to notice.

I spent the next few weeks watching the aliens, and gave up looking for work. I set up a video feed, and stared in fascination as the—forgive the cliché, but they were—little green men shifted garbage cans around like pawns in some kind of chess game. Though they might have been dance partners. I couldn’t tell for sure.

That was why I went outside: to ask. I knew better. Like I said at the start, I knew it was trouble from the start. But by this time I had visions of being the person who made first contact with people from space, and I couldn’t give that up.

I'm not an idiot, so I didn’t just go charging out there and hold up my hand and say “Take me to your leader.” I recorded every sound they made. Then I invited my friend Anita to join me. She’s unemployed too, and she’s a linguist, so I figured she’d have time and interest. I swore her to secrecy before I showed her the videos, and we spent another week working on their language.

Maybe we should have spent longer. I thought we really had it, at least enough to make a greeting. After all, it was what they said every time they met in their garbage-can dance.

We flipped a coin to see who would go out and talk to them, and who would stay in and monitor it all on the cameras. I won. Or maybe, as it turned out, I lost. Either way, I was the one who headed out the door with my phrase book.

I don’t suppose I could have changed things by having better linguistic skills, but the row that started when I spoke to them was something else. I was lucky to escape with my life, which I did by climbing up the downspout.

And when it was all over, and trash was scattered up and down the streets, the aliens took me away anyway, luring me down from my perch with—well, never mind that. They took me with them when they Earth, and left the garbage cans to get on with the take-over. They’ve been teaching me their language, starting with the instruction not to use their greeting in polite company. I’m not sure, but I think it had something to do with beings who like to reproduce with inanimate objects. Which is what they were doing, except…

If Anita and I had waited another week, we would have seen the sudden proliferation of small garbage cans. Then we might have acted differently. Though we could have done worse. Those little garbage cans are cute. Cuter than an awful lot of humans, and they don’t really smell any worse.

Anyway, it’s their world now.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2018
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Friday Flash Fiction: Whither the Garbage Cans?

Though as you know I usually get my flash fiction prompts from Chuck Wendig, I didn't care for this week's challenge. So instead I got my story starter  from Jemima Pett, who sent me the opening line (I changed it a little). Just a hair under 1000 words, and maybe just a hint of ribaldry at the end.

Garbage Cans

I knew we were in trouble when the garbage cans started moving about on their own.  It just turned out that it wasn’t exactly the trouble I thought we were in. I mean, I spotted them first, and made the usual resolve. You know, to swear off the moonshine, give up the mason jar, and dry out.

The first thing wrong with that reaction was that I don’t drink.

The second thing was that I wasn’t the only one who saw them. Oh, lots of people had noticed that their trashcans weren’t in the same place in the morning as they’d been the night before. There were lots of reasons for that. “It’s raccoons. Those things will do anything for a meal.” “Teenagers. They’re playing pranks again.” “Minor earthquakes are vibrating them so that they move about.”

Then there were the whacko reasons: “There are magical fields in this neighborhood.” “It’s the aliens again. I told you they’d be back.” “Poltergeists.” “Isn’t this on old Indian burial ground? Bet their spirits are angry.”

But when I saw the cans moving—actually saw them in motion—I had to discard the most reasonable theories. There were no raccoons or teenagers around. The USGS confirmed that there had been no earthquakes, however tiny and localized. That left me with the more unreasonable explanations.

Magic? I didn’t believe in magic. Every single supposedly magical happening ever turned to be caused by natural phenomena. Or illusion. Usually illusion, with a good dose of fakery.

Those garbage cans were no illusion. They stunk too much for that.

Ghosts and poltergeists were likewise out. No way to prove them, and no good grounds for believing they existed. That was when I took the step that led to all the trouble.

Well, that’s what they said. If I’d left well enough alone, there wouldn’t have been trouble. I’m not sure I believe that. Like I said, I knew that we were in trouble when I saw the cans moving, even before I started thinking through the possibilities. The one explanation I kept hearing, and that kept coming back to me, was the aliens.

But why, by all the green cheese on the moon, would aliens want to mess with our garbage cans?

You know how your Mom used to tell you that some questions just shouldn’t be asked? She was talking about how bologna was made or what makes members of the opposite sex tick, but she might as well have been talking about the motives of aliens visiting Earth.  Not only do you not want to know, but it’s not safe to know. Everyone would have been better off if I’d just let it go. But I couldn’t.

I set up cameras, the sort biologists use to take photos of wild animals at night in the wild. And I got my photos. Even that wouldn’t have caused much trouble if I’d not published them. But really—what would you have done? I’d been unemployed for a while, so the cash was awfully handy. I sold the pictures to a certain unnamed news agency. That started the panic, though I was too absorbed in the aliens to notice.

I spent the next few weeks watching the aliens, and gave up looking for work. I set up a video feed, and stared in fascination as the—forgive the cliché, but they were—little green men shifted garbage cans around like pawns in some kind of chess game. Though they might have been dance partners. I couldn’t tell for sure.

That was why I went outside: to ask. I knew better. Like I said at the start, I knew it was trouble from the start. But by this time I had visions of being the person who made first contact with people from space, and I couldn’t give that up.

I'm not an idiot, so I didn’t just go charging out there and hold up my hand and say “Take me to your leader.” I recorded every sound they made. Then I invited my friend Anita to join me. She’s unemployed too, and she’s a linguist, so I figured she’d have time and interest. I swore her to secrecy before I showed her the videos, and we spent another week working on their language.

Maybe we should have spent longer. I thought we really had it, at least enough to make a greeting. After all, it was what they said every time they met in their garbage-can dance.

We flipped a coin to see who would go out and talk to them, and who would stay in and monitor it all on the cameras. I won. Or maybe, as it turned out, I lost. Either way, I was the one who headed out the door with my phrase book.

I don’t suppose I could have changed things by having better linguistic skills, but the row that started when I spoke to them was something else. I was lucky to escape with my life, which I did by climbing up the downspout.

And when it was all over, and trash was scattered up and down the streets, the aliens took me away anyway, luring me down from my perch with—well, never mind that. They took me with them when they Earth, and left the garbage cans to get on with the take-over. They’ve been teaching me their language, starting with the instruction not to use their greeting in polite company. I’m not sure, but I think it had something to do with beings who like to reproduce with inanimate objects. Which is what they were doing, except…If Anita and I had waited another week, we would have seen the sudden proliferation of small garbage cans. Then we might have acted differently. Though we could have done worse. Those little garbage cans are cute. Cuter than an awful lot of humans, and they don’t really smell any worse. Anyway, it’s their world now.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

Chuck Wendig 200 Word Challenge--week 4

We're coming down to the end on this--just one more week to go.  It wasn't easy, but I managed to find a story I could work on that no one else had gotten to first (I should have been faster!).  This is called "In Too Deep," and was begun by Jim Franklin, continued by Lynna Landstreet and then by H. Petterson.

Parts 1-3 are here.  As well as below, because I'm not cruel.  I did notice that Part 3 is written 1st person, while the rest is 3rd person.  I chose to stick with 3rd person, since that was the majority.

In Too Deep

Jim Franklin’s original:

   The plunge into the ice-cold water hit Derry like an avalanche. A fading knowledge of the film Predator had informed him to lower his body temperature so that the alien wouldn’t see him. Though he hadn’t realised how cold the water would be, how the flow of the water would drag him away from the bank, or how his thick woolen coat and boots would become the rocks that pulled him down.

   It’s worth noting at this point that in Predator, the hero was a hardened military veteran with experience in guerrilla warfare, while Derry worked in the Accounts department for a large national fish exporter, and the most alien thing he had encountered in his life so far was the perpetual lack of sticky notes in his office. Being woefully terrible at making quick decisions, preferring an hour or two to mull over every eventuality, also goes some way to explain his poor choice of hiding place.

   His limbs stiff, his breathing now wheezy gulps, and his head now spent more time underwater as his legs struggled to move. Derry panicked, with a thought that he didn’t have hours to mull this over…. he was going to die.

Part 2, Lynna Landstreet’s continuation:

   As he floundered, the creature loomed over the water’s edge, staring down at him — so much for the hope that it wouldn’t see him! It raised some sort of complicated device to its — those were its eyes, weren’t they? Undoubtedly a weapon of some sort, and he found himself wondering which would be worse: drowning, freezing to death, being vaporized, or being eaten. But no laser bolt came, just a light that illuminated his sodden head as the creature peered through some sort of lens. The hell –? Was that some kind of camera?

   The thing opened its terrifying maw, and let out a sound somewhat like a cow being fed through a woodchipper. Or at least what Derry imagined that might sound like, not that he’d ever needed to before now. Then it made some adjustments to a device affixed to its throat, and a strange mechanical voice accompanied the bellowing: “Good evening. I observe that you have placed yourself in a context|challenge|predicament causing respiratory and circulatory distress. May I inquire as to the significance of this act among your tribe|culture|species? Are you attempting to terminate your existence, or this is an artistic performance|athletic event|mating display?”

Part 3, H. Petterson’s continuation:

    I broke the surface of the freezing water and gasped loudly. After grabbing a half of a lungful of air I retched out the other half lungful of water I had ingested under water. I looked at the creature as I crawled to the bank.

   “I didn’t understand/comprehend/grasp what you just said.” He tilted his head at me and I said slowly.

   “What do you want….why are you chasing me?” I steadied myself and stayed in a sitting position, although still freezing it was better than the ice cold water.

   “I need/require/want information from you….are you familiar with this continent?” Its translator took on a softer feminine tone. As I looked at its attire I guessed it to be female.

   “I…I live a mile away….what are you doing here?” I slowly stood up and wrung the water from my hair and wiped my face with a soaking jacket sleeve. 

   “I mean/present/offer you no harm….I…We are lost.” It looked up to the sky and seemed to be visually charting the early night’s stars. I was tempted to run, but knew it would catch me pretty instantly in my exhausted condition.

   “We are crusaders from the Freeman sector and need/require/beg your help…unfortunately.”

My continuation:

Derry gulped, and thought resentfully that the creature needn’t have been so dubious about his ability to help.  He’d been voted Most Valuable Employee in the company’s accounting department three years in a row.  He was good at what he did.

What he did had nothing to do with helping lost aliens find their way home.

“Um, where exactly did you need to go?”  Derry’s teeth were starting to chatter and his clothes were stiffening with frost.

“It is unclear/difficult/challenging. . . .”

Derry made a quick decision.  He couldn’t escape the thing, and he had to get home and get into warm, dry clothes.  “Come with me,” he said.  They made a curious pair, trudging through the snow back to Derry’s house.  The creature—she?—kept asking him about landforms he knew nothing about.  He put it—her—off with promises. 

He just had to make it home before he froze to death. He would deal with the alien later.  He had a good collection of Triple-A maps.  Surely something would do the job.  With a sigh of relief, Derry staggered in the back door, pausing only to push the thermostat up to 80 before racing for a hot shower.

 ###

Okay --someone else gets to finish this off in 200 more words!

###

Kid Lit Blog Hop: Seventh Grade (Alien) Hero (Review)

It's the one-year anniversary of the Kid Lit Blog Hop, so hop on over and check out all the great kidlit offerings--just click on the badge above to see the list!

Seventh Grade (Alien!) Hero, by K. L. Pickett.  114 pages.
Published: MuseItUp Publishing, 2013
Source: Free day, I think.  I can't really remember when I put this on my ereader, but there it was.

Science fiction.

Summary: 
Seventh-grader Dustin Cotter is struggling.  His mom and dad have broken up, and he and his mom have moved to boring Cactus Flats, Arizona where he doesn't know anyone and no one (he thinks) is interested in astronomy.  Then he goes out chasing a meteor, finally meets the cutest girl in his class, and starts to find his place. . . all the while protecting an alien and avoiding some scary individuals who would like to take it away.

Review:
I was a little worried when I first started this book.  The first chapter is heavy on exposition, back-story, and scene-setting, and the tone doesn't ring quite true.  But once the action begins (in the second or third chapter), the narrative style smooths out and I was caught up in it.  In fact, the action is fast, fun, and just exciting enough (a hint of danger, but little sense of serious peril), and kept me zipping right through this little story.  My biggest complaint, aside from the awkward beginning, was a sense that things were working out a little too smoothly--not in the rescue-the-alien story, but in Dustin's social life.  It ended up feeling not only a little too easy, but a little too much like a "lesson" about making assumptions about others, getting to know people before judging them, etc.  All good things to do, but the easy route to friends made the lesson just a little too clear.

I'm not completely sure what age this is aimed at.  The writing seems a little simple (and the story short) for Junior High (where the characters are), so maybe upper elementary.   At that age, the hint of "romance" shouldn't be a problem, and the easy reading might go down well.

A decent read, but not one that blew my socks off.  Just a fun story with a not-quite-predictable ending.

I picked up  Seven Grade (Alien!) Hero  on a free day at Amazon, and received nothing from the author or publisher for this review, which is my opinion and only mine.

Flash Fiction Friday: On a Distant Island, Far From Home

This week's flash fiction challenge from Chuck Wendig involved a list of 20 settings, and a random number generator.  Write a story set in that setting, 1000 words max (I hit 880) .  Totally straight-forward. I liked several of the possible settings (I may come back to "a Starbuck's during the Apocalypse").  I got lucky.  The RNG gave me:

A Distant Island, Far From Home

Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer had been reading.  Not much was happening in his sector, and the Wanderlust's computer held every book written in human space.  So Xavier'd been wandering blissfully through what the computer called "adventure narratives of Earth's pre-space century."  Treasure Island, Shipwrecked, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson.  The list was long, and most of them seemed to involve islands in a warm sea.

So when he found the little moon off of SLVD 3246, what Xavier saw was a little Island paradise.  The Wanderlust scanned the databanks and the moon itself, and told him it had warm oceans, sand beaches, a breathable atmosphere and no intelligent inhabitants.  Everything he needed for a holiday, though some faint hint of caution lingered, no doubt put there by Larry, the disembodied telepathic eyeballs which were the computer's manifestation in his own head.  Larry always was the cautious part of the crew, as well as best at repairs in enclosed spaces.

Xavier ignored Larry's worries and sent the boss a hyper-space message to say he was taking some vacation days.  Then he set the ship down.

For the first day or two he lived his dream.  With no treasure map and no storms or cannibalistic natives, Xavier enjoyed his island more than most of the characters in the books he lay on the beach reading.  He didn't have a robot, so he had to go into the ship for the little drinks with umbrellas that his historic guide to the island of Fiji, somewhere on Earth, indicated were necessary to the proper enjoyment of a beach, but aside from that minor inconvenience it was perfect.

The first signs of trouble, or at least annoyance, came on the second day.  The little furry creatures--odd that they would be furry, like Earth squirrels, in such a warm place--found him where he lay on the beach and began scampering all over him.  One stuck its nose in his drink.

"Hey!  Geddoutahere!"  He brushed them away, laughing.  They kept coming back, but they were kind of cute and didn't bite, so after a while he ignored them and went back to reading.

It was the third morning that he discovered that the little creatures weren't just cute and furry, and that the scanners were wrong when they said there was no sentient life on the  little moon.  That was when Xavier came out of his ship after breakfast, armed with coffee cup and reader panel (connected wirelessly to the ship's computer, of course, so he could go on reading that endless supply of Earth novels) and caught one of the critters hauling off something that looked suspiciously like a chunk of his right retro-thruster.

"What?  Hey!  Put that back!"  The little fur-thing gave him the sort of look that said he was in trouble, and kept right on going, back to the distant clump of vegetation he'd been too indolent to explore.  Xavier started to follow, thought better of it, and went back into the ship.

"Larry, are all systems operative for take-off?"  The computer was silent for a long moment, which Xavier considered a bad sign in something that thought at more or less the speed of light.

"No, Captain Xanthum."  The computer managed to sound apologetic.  "I regret to report that the retro-thrusters are non-responsive."

"That's because some kind of local rodent has hauled them off! Can we take off without them?"

"No."

"Well, dammit, you'd better think of something, because while I enjoyed reading about Robinson Crusoe, I have no desire to spend the rest my life on a desert island!  I want to go home!"  It didn't matter that the ship was all the home Xavier had.  It was the principal of the thing.

Offended, the computer fell silent, and Xavier went back outside, leaving Larry to himself.  Larry couldn't function outside the ship, anyway.  What had gone wrong with the automatic perimeter defense?  Had the nasty creatures hauled that off, too?

There was only one thing to do, and Xavier did it.  He went back inside.  "Ship!" he commanded.  "Another pina colada!"

Six little umbrellas later, Xavier Xanthum knew what to do, and had the means to do it.  He had managed to keep the furballs away from the remaining retro-thrusters, and tracked them to their lair. Definitely intelligent, and so much for the computers, scans, and everything else that had promised an uninhabited paradise.

Armed with a bottle of tequila and a handful of shallow dishes, he headed for the grove of trees where the creatures had their base.  An hour later, Xavier emerged, weaving slightly, but carrying the parts purloined by the local inhabitants.  Behind him, the fur-covered natives slept the sleep of the inebriated, as Xavier crawled under his ship and reinstalled the essential parts.  His head throbbed by the time he finished, and he cast a quick look in the direction of the trees.  No movement yet.

Climbing back inside, he addressed the computer.  "Get us out of here, fast.  Before they wake up."  He didn't take his eyes off the grove of trees until they were out of sight.  Those furry things had appreciated the introduction of alcohol into their lives.  He just didn't think they would be as appreciative when they discovered the hangover.