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Category: micro short stories

Of course I forgot about crossing Day 300.

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Talk about consistency eh? Was so angered by the refrigerator acting up for the fourth time I totally spaced on crossing day 300 of my writing challenge. Which is a milestone for sure. Perhaps when I get into the whole self indulgent year in review mood, I’ll get a final word count for every single post over the 365 days. What do we think the total will be? My early guess will be around 250,000 words for the year. Nothing too insane, given I wrote about 100,000 for my second book in the early part of the year.

I have definitely not been anywhere near as consistent with my working out, but I’m still working on that. I need to find some additional exercises to do in order to keep things fresh and add a hint of fun. Or, now hear me out here, make it more exciting. Standing still while using dumbbells is not a thought that inspires me to action. Though I feel better now after doing it more often than not. I do miss my olympic lifting sessions. I just don’t have the room for a squat rack, full complement of bumper plates, bars, and kettle bells, and essentially a full box gym. Which is a shame. But that’s the reality. I also don’t want to pay to join a gym I won’t go to as much as the expense would demand. Wah-wah-wah. I get how this all sounds.

With the recent big clear out of the shed, by sending the pergola to the cottage, and gifting our Barbie Corvette power wheels vehicle to my niece I was able to move all four bicycles out of the garage and into the shed. You can now move freely inside the garage for the first time in many months. I took some time during our holiday weekend at home to rearrange some elements in the garage. Giving me the ability to make some longer cuts on the table saw before I have to rotate the whole saw in the space for really long cuts. Or anything over four and a half feet long. Which is pretty rare for me. I work in the two to three foot long space most often. When I build boxes and end table and such, I keep my projects on the smaller side. As much as I would love to, I just don’t know if I could do a whole dining room table build. Would get awful tight in the space I have. I’m thinking on whether I could replace my radial arm saw by getting a larger and more robust sliding double compound mitre saw. One with a twelve inch saw blade to it. I’m hearing conflicting reports about the veracity of that statement, but I think a chunky well made mitre saw would do what I need, and save me even more floor slash wall space. I need to somehow regain some assembly space, which I don’t currently have. I don’t like having to leave partially assembled bits on my work bench if I still have more building left to do. And constantly moving things between the bench, the floor, or the table saw top is a hassle. Again, more whining. But, in this case I am doing something about it, albeit slowly. Piece by piece over months or years. Playing the long game here with this one folks.

The youngest is home under the weather again. I think she’s pulled a groin muscle after tripping on a dining room chair, falling at the park, and falling over at school all within a 48 hour period. Then swimming for two hours last night to aggravate it. So she’s doped up with kids Tylenol for the ache, and is watching the Spongebob movie for the hundredth time. On the plus side her cough is settling down again. She’s self contained, bundled in bed with drink & snacks. Which means I’m able to work, glad I’m not as busy as the last four weeks had been. Stay well out there. Ciao Bella!

Tomorrow is Day 250.

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How do you describe to someone what it feels like to have fundamentally changed a behaviour of your own. Nothing as monumental as say, quiting smoking, or getting sober. But, rather adding one tiny element into every single day, rain or shine, power or no, connection notwithstanding.  Feels a little self indulgent. Sounds a tad self righteous. Kinda seems more like a small shadowy facet of OCD. But no!, we call it discipline, and over the long run you get better at the thing you do a little of every single day, regardless of quality. Or not. I don’t think I have it in me to read all of the posts from Day 1 through Day 250, to see if I formulate better sentences, or have become more concise. Or even if my vocabulary has shrunk or grown during the process. A word art map would likely tell me which words I use most often. That would be funny to see. May show some insight into the inner working, bias of my mind. I’m sure that I write too passively. That I switch from first, to third person constantly. That all of my characters sound like me, saying the things that I woukd say in every single interaction. Snark, nonsense and all. I still find it fun though, so there is that.

In other news, I managed to bulk out my Ninja Turtle and add the shell to the main body. It is giving me some grief. But I don’t do free standing full figures any more. I have been focused on chest and head busts for the last few years. Also Apoxy Sculpt is really different from the clay, or sculpey that I’m used to working in. Hell of a learning curve with this stuff. However, forward progress is being made! Yahoo! When I get the shell covered, and the face put together on the skull I will show pictures of it. The WIP is just a bit too rough, if you know what I mean. Next time, perhaps.

230 days of writing just a little bit.

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I’m fairly certain that if you were to analyze the content, style, structure and execution of my writing over the previous two hundred and thirty days, I don’t believe you would find much improvement at all. My writing is choppy, sloppy and at times semi incoherent. But on the plus side, I have stuck with it for nearly eight full months! Wow! Look at me, just going for it. Had a few scares here and there. Forgot about writing once or twice, had a fair few power outages, plus a complete nation wide communications service provider outage that nearly cost me my streak. But Bell was there to see me through at my in-laws place. It has been a ride, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t recall a lot of what I’ve written, stream of consciousness and all. Only a handful of posts have been pre-planned and those would have been a part of my collected works of short fiction/science fiction. Which reminds me, I never did post the finalized book two to Kindle Unlimited. Oh well. I may just revisit both books for a style check, and print them out myself at home, just to have a paper copy. A good enough reason to buy a new working printer. Or so I think.

“Why do all of these hallways…

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Smell like shit? I had never noticed it before, but now every one we get called out to stinks like hell.” Moans the slight framed man with a wispy beard. “Probably due to all the piss and vomit, would be my informed guess there Garreth.” Replies the short heavy set woman with cropped grey hair. “That and the dead bodies.” She chimes in a second later. “Yeah – the dead bodies would most likely be the culprit for the stench.” Chuckles Garreth, his weak shoulders jumping as he laughs. “So how the fuck do we keep finding these bodies after they’ve been dead for so long?” Garreth whines as the two officers walk deeper into the dilapidated tenement building, wandering the labyrinthine halls lit by flashing yellowing bulbs. Everywhere you look is cracked dry wall, mould patches, and peeling paint. Ceiling tiles with greasy brown water stains, and puddles of urine gathered at the edges of the red well worn carpets. “Well Garreth, in these instances most of the neighbours are junkies, extremely poor, or illegals. Nobody wants us here, they want as little local law enforcement scrutiny as possible. So shit goes from bad to worse, until they can’t stand it. And we turn up, bother people by asking questions which nobody will answer, and then cart off the rotting corpse. Rinse and repeat. Feel me wee man?” The large woman croaks through gritted teeth. “How many does this make for us Garreth?” The female officer asks as they get within visual range of the slumped body. Previously laying on the floor where it meets the wall. Turned inwards to face the baseboard. From the angle they are standing at they can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. There is a definite unusual twist to the torso, like it had tried to scratch an itch went too far and died after snapping it’s own spine in twain. Various fluids and puddles seep out from under the grayish blue body. The smell is thick in the air. A humid and pungent overly rotten orange twinge to the air. “At last count we were up to six this week. Not counting the four last week left in a similar state.” Garreth replies quietly. “Looks like the last apartment on this floor. Shouldn’t this hallway have a window or fire exit or something?” Garreth asks as he kneels down to poke around the body with one latex glove on, and a thin metallic rod he uses to lift a collar here, and a jacket pocket flap there. “I’d be surprised if any of the rooms had more than a port hole sized window per unit. These bastard builders cram as many bodies into these apartments as they can. What a shit hole.” Grumbles the larger officer turning away from Garreth while he conducts his first pass over the prone body. “Something tells me we won’t find a listing for this victim in this apartment block. Not sure why, just a vibe I’m getting.” She offers offhandedly. “Whatever you say boss lady. I don’t see any Id on the vic, and the coroner’s folks will get here soon. We can get some fresh air and wait for the retinal scan from doc’s people.” Garreth answers standing up while peeling off his lone glove by the heel of his palm. “Want me to go grab us a bite?” He offers. “Yes. We passed a Longo’s on the way in here, grab me a partial rotisserie chicken.” “No problem Priss, what you eat for breakfast is no business of mine.” He chuckles as he walks back out of the dim pungent hallway.

“Don’t die on me Bob…”

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“You really won’t like me if I gotta resuscitate you with a boat battery and a set of rusty jumper cables.” Growls the monstrously obese woman in a roughly worn denim dress. Slowly she circles the badly battered man tied to a wicker chair. Sweat trickling down her brow and collecting in pools along her waistband at the back of her skirt. Her wedged heels are cracked and smudged with a mixture of dirt and Bob’s blood, among other things. “Stay with me Bobby, I know the room is hot and all, but… just hang in there big man.” After walking a full circle around the restrained Bob, she leans over at her thick waist to lift his head by the sweat soaked patch of hair. A straggly tuft of grey brown crusted with his own blood. Lifting his chin with her greasy sausage fingers Bob grins through cracked lips, showing off the remains of shattered teeth. He spits a thick glob of bloody phlegm onto the fat womans skirt. “Don’t you worry ’bout me Doris, I’ve got you pegged – babydoll.” With a grimace she drops his head and watches it hang and sway under it’s own weight. Stepping away from the chair and the small violently hot room, she nods at the guards just outside the heavy metal doors. With a scrape the two men get up from their seats, one cracks his knuckles and the other wipes off his glasses with a corner of his t-shirt. Doris shuts the door behind her as the guards step into the room. Not a moment passes as the sounds of a fight break out.

“You fucker! I almost laughed when you called me Doris. Dickhead. You were supposed to call me Delores.” She barks out in a raspy laugh. Bob, a medium sized man with an array of bumps, bruises and lacerations covering his body looks up from his White Castle burger and grins. “You didn’t exactly pull any punches yourself – shit teeth. I gotta find a dentist or something, right fucking quick. Why’d you use a bat anyhow? I thought we agreed on fists only. Cunt.” Bob gums on the last few swallows of his mushed burger. Taking his time dunking the bread and meat patty in his Cola cup. Taking a gulp of his drink and squashing his waffle fries in his hands before slurping down the paste. “Christ almighty this hurts.” He warbles through a mouth full of mush. “Dust your gums with a little coke, and nut up.” She replies tossing a massive ziploc bag of nose candy into Bob’s lap.

After a long, and mostly silent drive out into the desert of Arizona along the historic route 66, Robert and Mary Hutchins pull into a pock marked parking lot of a Motel 6. The vacancy sign flashing a dim neon pink intermittently showing swarms of winged insects. The back end of their nineteen ninety four Ford Taurus is riding decidedly low. Straining as it is, under the weight of various bodies tied up and bound together in the trunk. The late evening sun making the trunk hot to the touch. “How long you think they got?” Asks Bob, chucking the keys over hand out into the field beyond the now dim parking lot. “I don’t know? Why? You really give a shit?” She drawls in response. “No – no I don’t. I do however, gotta see a dentist. Fuck.” He spits out a thick glob of blood, and a tooth chip. Reaching into the back window Bob pulls out a dazzlingly turquoise leather Gucci bag, it has some heft to it.

The couple exit the parking lot on foot, cross over the sun baked black asphalt of route 66 to a small lot set beside a CVS. Open the doors to a pewter coloured mini van and drive off back towards Las Vegas Nevada. With the windows down, and the ac cranked, Mary turns on the radio. They drive off with the sound of Bob Seager trailing behind them in the sweltering night. The sky is a pink, orange, navy blue combo, and the stars begin to twinkle.

My life as a contract killer.

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Image Credit: Thomas Dubois

It started in the early winter of 2199. I was working sixteen hour shifts piloting my cab-barge over Sante Feyokyo ferrying people around the vast sprawl of the newest metropolis in the midwest. The ash that falls like snow in mid February makes you feel every subzero degree of the blistering and cutting winds. Especially in the open are cab-barges that became the go to cheap transport options for the working class and those just above destitute. I pulled my waxed canvas coat tight around my face, the harsh material of the collar grazing my rough cheeks.

I was hauling empty bread crates by the tonne over a thirty mile stretch between eleven pm and five am. I’d had a few calls to let actual people hop onboard with the crates to double dip on fares when my phone chimed. I was worried it was my guild calling me on my double dipped fares but it was a private number on the line. As I pulled up to the sixty fourth floor dock I heard a woman exclaim “No way! I’m not getting on that thing, it’s a death trap!” But her date, or companion told her just how expensive a covered cab would be, and she balked and squeezed onboard with the icy, ash covered black bread trays stacked twenty five high across the deck of the barge. I indicated with my chin that they should hold onto the crate tie downs and not move around once we were on our way. With a swell like a rising tide, we bumped off the dock and floated out along the dark high rises, and the vivid neon advertisements. I used my gravity paddle to steer us around the traffic buoys, and out onto the main traffic thoroughfare. The insistent drone of the advertising jingles slowly drowned out by the engine hum, and the whipping winds full of ash.

The phone was quiet while I tagged their chips to pay for transit when the phone line crackled. A message appeared then slowly faded away. Then I recieved nine more messages, from the FBI, CIA, INTERPOL, NMPD, and various other agencies requesting I terminate both guests on my cab-barge. The last message was an invoice, paid to me for six thousand dollars. Looking around the cab-barge I couldn’t really see the companion riders I was hauling. But every so often when we hit an air stream, or heat swell I could see the tension pulling on the line, from the riders holding on for dear life. So I untied the tie downs, and hit the gas into an eddy, and watched the lines spill out and a barely audible gasp escape from the falling riders.

I slowed down and crawled around the front of the dark barge to re-secure my empty bread crates as I floated four hundred feet in the cold night air, and toggled over to my banking app on my phone and watched the funds deposit from INTERPOL.

From that day forward I continued on as a cab-barge hauler, and executed anyone that the various agencies paid me to.

Amazing how much better everything looks…

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When the leaves are out on the trees and the blooms are all as colourful as ever. A slight sheen of rain on the grass, and a shine on the rustling leaves in the breeze. A quiet morning, rich with the scent of damp earth and wet pavement. The slight crunch of grit on the asphalt as you walk about your day. Peaceful and serene.

It is Thursday, and I haven’t put any work into my childrens book in about seven or more days now. I think on it some times, but not enough to move forward with it. I have three backgrounds left to paint, and then the characters left to populate the scenes. It all feels oddly disjointed, but that’s how things are these days. I am slowly coming to terms with building over days, weeks and months, rather than rushing to complete a task in a day. I have to actively stop myself when I feel that draw to rush ahead, move faster, just “get it done”. Not that by being slower I’m getting closer to perfect. I just don’t want to take short cuts because I feel pressed for time. Take the time I need to complete the task properly. Not just to get it finished.

The screen door is now built and assembled. I need to measure and cut my hinge slots. Do the same for the frame where it will reside, and then hang it up for good. I pre cut some internal trim, to keep out bugs and such, and have a latch to attach, but I am otherwise very close to done.

I started to cut strips for my kitchen window screen as well, so that is progressing along side the door. The window is a combination of Cedar and Walnut. An odd combination, to be sure, but one that will hold up over time, I hope! These will be mitered and require a little more finesse than the bulky, chunky Ash door, that is outward facing. Thus, not seen as much as the kitchen window over our sink.

When you come for the Devil, you’d better not miss…

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Or aim for his back so he can’t see what you’re up to if you flub the attempt.

The mornings are warm and sunny, and I’m taking my beverage in the partial shade of our back deck. The kids are fawning over their pea pod plants, anxiously watching them sprout and grow over the last few days. It is slow going, and full of childlike anguish. Pleads for the plants to grow faster, and the whole process to speed up abound. Soon they will tire of the hardening and will begin to squabble loud enough to disturb the neighbours and I’ll have to send them inside. Hidden amongst the chatter of our children playing is the insistent hammering of a giant wood pecker somewhere further down the street behind us. The murmur of passing cars drifts softly through the trees as we are set back a fair ways from the road. A warm and richly scented breeze rustles the leaves of our Lilac bushes, bringing the smell of freshly brewed coffee to my nose. It is a Saturday in May. Things, such as they are, are good.

I forgot to mention (not really) that today is Day 150!

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Which I think is a pretty decent milestone to reach for having written something here on my blog every single day. Weekends, illness, good times and bad. I’m pretty happy with that. Not only that, but the discipline to keep writing has helped me develope a commitment to lifting weights and exercising again. Which my heart will thank me for in the long run. If I can psyche myself up to run or bike that would potentially go a long way to help reduce my waist line. It has made it easier to pick up something new and do a little of it more often than not. I switched to home reno projects, and away from my children’s book last week, and this one. But I did manage to get an awful lot of it onto paper, and I’m in a great spot when I go back to it. I’m reading proper books again, not just twitter and the news, which is great. I miss reading when all I do is scroll twitter and read about politics 280 characters at a time. I’m currently painting my screen door frame, waiting on primer to dry actually, if you must know. Then I need to cut down Cedar strips and keep this bad boy rolling. I want to have it hung up before June 1st, which is attainable, if I don’t all of a sudden become paralyzed by fear of fucking something up. I’ve even made plans on an interior window project next. So I need this one to go fairly smoothly, now that I am committed to finishing. The trim will have to be cut twice, into 8ft long strips from a 6x1x8, and then taken to a .75 down from an inch in width. My door, after sanding, planing and lots more sanding, is no longer two inches thick where the mesh screens will be inset. So slight tweak there, but nothing too awful. Maybe i don’t have to take it to .75, i could potentially go thicker. I need to double then triple check my measurements before I cut it down too far.

So Day 150 huh. Seems like a lot. But isn’t really all that much. Not even a full half a year yet. My “streak” began about two weeks prior to Christmas when I was panicking about how little I had written last year vs. The year before. Far more traffic with short/micro stories than my regular blog jabber. No surprise there. I’m not an interesting person, nor am I famous or grotesquely handsome. Just run of the mill me. Running my mouth and thinking thoughts like a person.

“He’s strange, eccentric and terrifying.”

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He talks in a sing song but staccato manner, with emphasis wherever he pleases. He dances with grace and the fluidity of an otter. His pale visage, and croaked rasp will send you running for the hills. A more vile and vulgar an individual you will never see. Wrapped up in himself with a blood soaked cloak of spies and slaughter.

You don’t get to become supreme leader without having killed entire opposing bloodlines and all of their heirs. It’s thirsty work, and the Blood Gods will not be sated.

Take heed young noble men and women. When you look the emperor in the eye, know that he has both a blade at your back, and arms aimed at your families across the imperium. No one is safe, until everyone is safe. And no one is safe from the wrath of a god king whose sworn an oath to the Blood Gods.

Our life’s milk shall be drank by the altars of blood this day, and every other! Rest not until you have carved rib bone with your saber. Rattle them not. But plunge them deep and swift into the heart of madness at the center of struggle. Go forth, and die with honour! If not for your sake, do it for me! May the gods have mercy on your souls.