Garrett & Alex: Super Special Awesome Writing Blog

Welcome back! This will be the last post for a while, since Alex and Garrett will be taking November off to do NaNoWriMo. Enjoy some spooooooky Halloween tales in the mean time!

Halloween Night

By Alex Davey

Second were the solstices and equinoxes. No Context Objects like boundaries, or something. Though he did have to admit that the problems on those days were a little more benign than usual.

Third were Friday the thirteenths. Somebody has explained the importance of thirteen as an occult number to him in training. The occult likes asymmetry, apparently, so it couldn’t be an even number. In fact, it couldn’t be divisible at all. So that left prime numbers. Three, five and seven were all too small and had their own significant meanings. Eleven had its own kind of symmetry, so that left thirteen, at least as a common number. Friday, again, a common boundary.

Finally was Halloween. It didn’t used to be so bad, but since the rise of mass media, the idea had become tenacious. Now the entire month of October had everyone on high alert, at least in the Anglosphere West. Anything could happen anywhere at any time.

Like tonight. Janus was out in a car, watching the supposedly abandoned factory. His partner, Morgana, was inside, investigating. Which made it a surprise when she came running out at a dead run. Janus knew that was a signal to start the car.

Seconds after she ran into view, her pursuers rounded the corner as well. At first, it looked like a swarm of large rats. On closer inspection, they were human-shaped. They were dolls, living homicidal dolls. Morgana made it to the car, landing into the back seat. “Go.”

The car squealed and lurched forward, picking up speed. Morgana was counting down. When she reached one, she pressed the button of the device she was holding. The factory lit up, sending a fireball into the sky. Blackened dolls dropped onto the windscreen, writhing in pain.

Janus took a look to his side. “Morgana, we got runners.” Some of the more intact ones were on all fours, running like feral children. Their faces were unmoving, as were their knees and elbows, but still they moved. They jumped into the path of the car with demonic force, but only dented it.

“Fantastic.” She opened the compartment under the back seat, reaching around for something. It was an extendable leash, not unlike the ones used by dog catchers. She carefully wound the window down, keeping her pistol handy to deter anything that tried their luck.

Picking her target, she leant out extending the leash to be in parallel with its neck. The ones behind them were gaining, but the car was out of jumping range from most of them. She looped the head through, then pulled the cord. The thing started shrieking as she pulled it in and wound the window back up.

Then is started to cry. To somebody unprepared, it would hit parental instincts honed over a billion years of evolution. Janus and Morgana were having none of it, so the doll went back to shrieking. Its lack of facial movements only made it more disturbing to look at. Morgana wrestled the doll into a lead-lined box behind the gear stick.

Overhead, helicopters flew towards the factory. The agents had done their job, now the rank and file would do the clean-up. Tomorrow, public relations would spin the story into faulty gas lines and everything would be right with the world.

Halloween Masks

By Garrett Brown

“Look tonight is perfect. Lots of people in the streets, everyone is dressed up in masks, and people will open their doors to anyone.”

“Look, I don’t know how I feel about it…. Like B&E is one thing but we’re talking about strong arming someone.”

“I mean it’s a risk. But that’s the whole point. Besides, we don’t have to carry real weapons. We can just grab some shit from the Dollar Tree and cover the orange tip with some spray paint. The average house wife won’t know the difference.”

“I still think a judge will try us as if the gun was real.”

“Only if we get caught.”

“Okay so we go up to a house dressed as storm troopers, and then what? Say ‘Trick or Treat?’ Just barge in?”

“Hell yah. Just barge in and take whatever we want. And then we can just blend in with all the other costumed freaks walking around the neighborhood.”

“Okay so what costumes do we use?”

“Well I picked these ones up from Goodwill.”

“Jack these are kid size costumes.”

“Well they need to be the same so people can’t tell us apart!”

“It’s Waluigi.”

“I don’t know-“

“You bought fucking Mario costumes so we can rob houses. Everyone is going to know who we are. Not only does it not cover our faces it also looks ridiculous and stupid.”

Woooo! Here we go! As always, Alex Davey is first followed by Garrett Brown.

Newsworthy

By Alex Davey

It was not so much sold as given away at buses, tube stops and train stations. The paper had sustained itself for years on ad revenue alone, citing the millions of commuters as potential eyes. I picked it up as I always did on my way to work.

By some miracle, I actually had a seat. I settled in and looked at the front, it was an advert for something I couldn’t afford. I turned the page, and the newspaper was blank. Nothing on the front page. Nothing in sports. I flicked through, each page just blank. I looked around, there were other people reading the same paper, but they were blank all the same. This didn’t appear to stop people reading them.

Instead of the paper, I’d have to look at my phone, then. But the news app wouldn’t load. I didn’t even notice that I didn’t have any news accounts coming up on my Twitter feed until I tried to find an article I found the night before. The entire account was deleted. Same for their Facebook page. There was nothing on Google - and by that I mean the sites didn’t turn up at all. They still had Wikipedia pages, but every news site was down.

Again, there were people just scrolling through blank screens. Before I could think about this further, my stop came up. The rest of the journey was made on automatic, apart from the TV screens in the electronics shop showing the blue of a dead channel. That caused me to pause, but I was cutting it fine as it was.

As I settled at my desk, one of my co-workers came up and ask if I saw the news. I said no, I was in a bit of a rush. She told me. I know she told me, but I couldn’t tell you what she said. It was like she had spoken in white noise, but interspersed with actual words. I just nodded and said “oh right”.

Jessica controlled the radio again, set to Radio 2. On the hour, it was just dead air that nobody seemed too worried about. I quickly checked the BBC homepage, it was up, but there were no news stories still. I could see some things about my favourite shows and programmes on my list.

I tried to push it all to the back of my mind. The local paper’s website was still up, but I most of the stories didn’t load. Thanks goodness the industry news website was still up, and I could read the magazine, or I couldn’t do my job.

I managed to muddle through the day, one of white noise and blank pages. My manager asked if I wanted to go home, because I looked unwell. I said I was fine, just having one of those days. He knows what that means, but it wasn’t actually one of those days. Come the end of the day, he made me go home instead of finishing my report. I was secretly thankful.

At home, I pulled out a magazine, one about computer games from last month. Some of the pages I remember reading were blank, but many of the articles remained. The magazine of my favourite tv show was almost full, though lacking adverts. The writing magazine my parents got me was mostly empty. I think I was starting to see the pattern.

When my girlfriend got back from work, I asked her about her day. Her reply was tinny and far away, like bad earphones, but I could hear the words. When she asked me the same question, I could see she had seen a look of concern on my face. So I told her. If I couldn’t trust her, who could I trust?

She didn’t believe me at first, adopting that sceptical look she gets whenever I tell a tall tale. But as I went on, she grew concerned. I pulled the free paper out of her bag. I told her it just look a sheaf of blank pages. She read it out loud, at my request, but it was just static, white noise again.

We experimented. She could see posts from Facebook ‘friends’, people I hadn’t seen in over a decade, on my phone. However, I could not hear her when she read them out. She read a post by an actual friend, and that went fine. News channels were dead channels.

Days passed and nothing changed. That’s a lie, adverts started to fade either away or back into focus. The same happened to a number of articles. I found it tended to be what I was interested in personally, or what would personally affect me and I could do something about. I also started to see things my friends cared about, although they’d sometimes be fuzzy.

Ultimately, nothing of value was lost.

A Day In The Life

By Garrett Brown

I turned the page and the newspaper was blank.

Not because there wasn’t any news.

They just had nothing to say.

Sure there was still war, and famine, and death, and birth, and life.

But nobody cared anymore.

Nobody noticed a man collapse in the street.

Foaming at the mouth, gaping helplessly up into the sky.

An old man whispering

“It’s them. It’s time.”

And his body being carried away by a swarm of starlings.

Being held aloft like a package.

As the blob of feathers, beak, and the flesh of a barely dead man

Gently drifted into the distance.

Until it was swallowed by the setting sun.

The paper didn’t say anything about that.

The blank page didn’t tell me about the man in the tan suit.

The man sitting on the train, to head home from work.

The man who grasped onto his brown leather briefcase.

The briefcase that sat in his lap.

And held evil secrets.

We never knew anything.

Eyyyyy another week another prompt. As usual Alex Davey is first, followed by Garrett Brown.

Fishing

 by Alex Davey

The heat of the air mingled with the coolness of the water across his skin. It was a dry summer day, the sun slowly sticking his skin with needles. He could see children around the small pond, splashing under the watchful eyes of parents.

The line was cast wide, far into the lake. The fact that there were no fish in this lake didn’t phase him. Neither did the fact that the silt at the bottom of the lake was one of the most radioactive places on the planet. That wasn’t the important part. It was the peace.

Long ago, this was a testing ground. Other than the lake, there were reminders all around the landscape. Tall concrete towers with small slits where officials used to sit and observe reach out of the ground like ancient giants.

That was long ago. Different men were in power, but he hadn’t really noticed in all that time. He had a new lake to fish in though, so things weren’t all bad. His father fished. As soon as he could be relied not to drop the good rod and not drive a hook through his finger, his father had taken him out. Every Sunday, after dinner, they’d fish in the river until the sun went down.

One day, they took his father away. Mother wouldn’t talk about. His neighbours didn’t talk about it. Another man took his place at the commissioner's office, but nobody talked to him. New people coming in were always government men.

A quarter of the world away a wall came down and a superpower collapsed. The day after was very much like the day before. But soon the town realised that nobody was coming, not for awhile, not this far out. So they took back control.

Unlike his mother, he had never thought his father was dead . Of course, no son of a traitor would ever hold a position where he could get close to official records. But a friend of a son of a traitor could. While others raided the private stores of the local commissioner, he poured over arrest and prisoner transport records. He then found the old commissioner, and five broken fingers later, found out where his father was taken.

The town he grew up in was in the middle of nowhere, that was demonstrably obvious. But this was on no map. The only sign of where he was going was a sign saying ‘do not enter’ and a stylised angel. Concrete towers reached out of the ground like buried giants.

There were only plants here. No birds, no insects. The only sound was the wind as it played between the towers. He came to the lip of a crater, filled with rain water the colour of the river that ran through town.

Miles from the crater was an office. It looked abandoned, long before the recent change in power. Most of the papers had been shredded and rotted away. He was there for days, only going back to town for supplies. It’s not like there was work going. People were still trying to figure out what was going on.

About a week of digging through forgotten tests, he came to something promising. He father wasn’t mentioned, but other men, part of the same group were mentioned. His father’s name lay rotting under mould, he decided. ‘Studying the long-term effects of nuclear fallout on the human body’. That was their excuse.

The symptoms didn’t sound pleasant. The lucky ones suffered hair loss and nausea. No, he later thought, the lucky ones were those closest to the bombs.

The Smell

By Garrett Brown

“Who the fuck put fish in the microwave?!”

“Jesus, no need to shout, the whole store can hear you.”

“That’s my gooddamn point, the entire store can smell this infernal smell. Who ever put these sardines in the microwave is going to get a boot up their ass. The breakroom smells like Dan when he doesn’t do his laundry.”

“Hey Dan’s your co-worker, don’t speak about him like that.” “You said the exact same thing to me last week.”

“That’s different. We were outside of work, grabbing beers and playing pool. We are in the workplace. And right now this workplace smells like ass. Can one of you open a window?”

“Do I look like your servant?”

“Do you want to be breathing in this delightful stench?”

“Fair point…. Grab me some febreeze…. Customers are going to think that we killed a dude and left his body in the store.”

“Well when I find out who did this we will have a body to hide.”

“It was probably Dan to be honest… he always bring in fish to eat.”

This week the topic is Airplane! They fly in the sky and are great writing prompts! As always, Alex Davey is first and Garrett Brown is second.

Airplane!

by Alex Davey

“Before we go on, in film classes we banned the phrase ‘how have you not seen’ such and such a movie. It stifled discussion.”

“But then you saw that movie right? You went out of your way to do your research and come back with a deeper understanding of the discussion?”

“I’d look it up on Wikipedia and TV Tropes. Which is not nothing. You can imagine we had a lot of films to watch on that course.”

“And Airplane wasn’t one of them?”

“No. What’s it about?”

“It’s about a plane where half the passengers and the pilots get ill from eating salmon mousse.”

“Oh. So it’s one of those boring air disaster films?”

“It’s a parody of those films. Almost word for word from this really old one. But it’s hilarious.”

“Right.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say? .Right.?”

“Like, I said, I’ve never seen it. What do you want me to say? Do you want to talk about Vertigo?”

“Blurgh, Hitchcock. What’s next, you want me to watch Woody Allen creep on his daughter-wife? How about we watch re-runs of the Cosby Show?”

“I see, you’re turning this into a discussion on the separation of art and artist.”

“I blame you for not understanding a famous reference. How has nobody used the ‘I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley’ on you in your entire life?”

“I guess I don’t use ‘surely’ enough.”

“That’s probably it. It is a good movie though.”

“I don’t doubt that. But there are so many films to watch. And TV shows. And books to read, podcasts to listen to and games to play.”

“Yeah, we are sort of spoilt for choice. Do you think it’s distracting?”

“All that stuff? Maybe. But someone who immerses themselves will come across something… meaningful. Eventually.”

“You think?”

“Plus, it’s not like people exist in a vacuum. Social media is still media. We’re talking to each other so much, ideas can flow freely.”

“But what happens when they get diluted? Or mutated?”

“I don’t know man. Just enjoy the scenery.”

Airplanes

by Garrett Brown

I always cry on airplanes. I try to prepare myself before I go on: take an ambien, look at some puppy videos, just try to focus on myself. However, I start crying without fail on take off. I don’t even make it to the in-flight movie.

I read somewhere that everyone cries on planes (well, everyone who has a soul cries). It’s difficult to say why. Some studies have said it’s that everyone is crammed together in a metal tube which makes them more susceptible to emotions. Others think it is because people hate being reminded of their mortality as they know that they have a small chance of surviving if the plane crashes. Others just hate flying.

I don’t have an opinion on what is correct or not. All I know is that I prefer trains.

Sometimes you don’t have an option though. Sometimes work needs to go to a conference in New York and they need you there tomorrow. Sometimes someone you don’t love dies in a car accident and you have to go because even though they were a right bastard, society makes us pretend to be cordial and respectful. Even though that man who is now laying on a coroner's table in a cold dark room beat you within an inch of your life.

So I cry on airplanes: so what? I don’t pretend to be anything other than human.

I remember that man, the man who’s dead body is now being prepared to be placed in a coffin, when he took me on my first plane ride. I sat in the middle seat, squeezed between him and a woman who wasn’t my mother.

I think about how much he sweat that day, wearing a suit, bygone evidence of a bygone day where respectability and formality meant something to someone. A suit jacket at work. Khakis at home. A white button up shirt splattered with blood. A leather belt folded over in his hands. A white and red speckled shirt that hid the scars that he inherited from his father, the scars that he would one day pass down to me. The scars that were my birth right.

He noticed how nervous I looked on the plane. He looked over a squeezed my hand.

“It’s okay champ” he soothed, as to not wake the woman next to me. “Everyone cries on planes.”

He leaned in and whispered in my ear. “If you cry though, I swear to god I will beat the shit out of you when we land. No son of mine cries like a fucking little girl.”

He leaned back into his seat, smiled at the stewardess, and went back to his magazine.

I heard about the car accident as I was about to board for a business trip to NYC. Went and changed my flight to make it home for the service.

I sat next to a little child who was traveling alone. He looked sad, and his eyes were on the verge of tears.

I bought him a soda. As I gave it to him, I told him the open secret that everyone knew but no one wanted to admit to others. “It’s okay champ. Everyone cries on airplanes.”

Here we go again after a little break! As usual Alex Davey is first while Garrett Brown is second.

The Mask Collector

By Alex Davey

ʜᴇʟʟᴏ. The voice was completely without breath, from right behind River’s shoulder. But what he was here to see stood before him. A shape, half again as tall as River, reached out of the swamp. It was water and algae flowing constantly, rising and falling. ᴄʜɪʟᴅ, ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʙʀɪɴɢs ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴍʏ ʜᴜᴍʙʟᴇ ᴀʙᴏᴅᴇ? ᴅᴇᴀʀ ᴏʜ ᴅᴇᴀʀ, ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ɴoᴛ even ʜᴀᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛɪᴅʏ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ.

The stories were true. “I have come to seek your help, Collector.”

A bone white shape began to, for want of a better word, surface from the top of the shape. It was a mask in a rictus grin, eyes wide in constant mockery. ᴏʜ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ? ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴊᴏʏ. ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴀʏ ɪ ʜᴇʟᴘ ʏᴏᴜ?

River steeled himself. “A girl, Collector. She loves another.”

Between seconds, the mask changed to a stern expression with narrow eyes, brows extending out nearly a whole palm’s width. ʏᴏᴜ ᴋɴᴏᴡ, ᴄʜɪʟᴅ, ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪ ᴄᴀɴɴᴏᴛ ɪɴᴠᴀᴅᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪɴᴅs ᴏF ᴛʜᴏsᴇ ɴᴏᴛ ʜᴇʀᴇ. ᴇᴠᴇɴ ɪF sʜᴇ ᴡᴀs, ɪ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ʀᴇᴍᴏᴠᴇ ᴛʜɪs ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ FROM ʜᴇʀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ.

“No, Collector. I wish for you remove her from me. Remove them all. All of my feelings for other people. It leads only to ruin.” River looked to be on the verge of tears as the mask became a concerned face, although there was a certain look of mockery. Obvious, at least to an outside observer.

ᴀʜ, ɪ sᴇᴇ. The humanoid shape moved to become smaller, to be level with River’s head. It grew fingers, the outline of clothes, like a person pressed against a sheet. But the face remained the same throughout. ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ sᴜʀᴇ? ᴏɴᴄᴇ ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴀᴋᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇᴍ, ɪ ᴄᴀɴɴᴏᴛ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ʙᴀᴄᴋ.

River nodded. Anything to be rid of these thorns around his heart. He closed his eyes as the Collector’s hands moved ever closer. He could already smell the stale water and pond scum, the subtle sound of someone wading through water slowly.

The hand felt oddly warm and dry. When it came away, River saw his face disappear into the Collector’s body. He felt hollow, but at least he was no longer in pain.

Memories

By Garrett Brown

Someone once said that comedy is just tragedy plus time. I can’t remember who. Apparently if you just wait long enough to process raw emotion, you can just look back and laugh at the terrible shit that happened to you.

That’s a pretty tall order when you are sitting watching your house burn down with generations of your family history going up in flames.

Walking through the smoldering ashes I look around at the wreckage. The splinters of the rocking chair my great grandma use to rock her daughter to sleep in. The melted linoleum where I used to play with trucks and cars while my father made dinner.

Apparently I should be able to joke about this eventually. Or even just find the humor in little things. But all those little things are now ashes, and trying to piece them back together into functional memories is futile. Like trying to put together a shredded wedding photograph, there is nothing to recover here.

I am the only one who carries the memories of inside this house. And when the wreckage is bulldozed and built into an apartment building, and all the neighbors are forced out by artisan doughnut shops and boutiques, I will be the only one left who remembers what built this foundation. And when I die, there will be no one left to remember. To carry on the stories of being rocked to sleep, or playing with cars in the kitchen, or of church bells at a wedding we knew would end in heartbreak but went through anyway.

Welcome to Week 14 where our prompt is “Three Legged Stool.” As usual Alex Davey is first followed by Garrett Brown.

Regular Crowd

by Alex Davey

“Let me tell you something about that stool.” He looked up, bleary eyed from the gin and tonic. The bartender, an almost spherical man topped with thinning hair, was drying a glass before placing it below the bar. He said nothing to indicate he wanted the bartender to continue, but continue he did. “See, that stool is from the old place, before it burned down. Different cushion. And, if you notice, it has three legs instead of four.” Again, he stared into his drink instead of answering. “Folk that sit on that stool, they got a story to tell.”

There was a moment of silence. “We all have our own stories. I’m just passing through.”

The bartender continued to clean glasses. “Most folk do. Or say they are. Some of them end up sticking around. End up becoming part of the regular crowd.”

He raised his head. Most of the patron were like him. Washed-out looking men in crumpled suits. Apparently this place didn’t have a smoking ban, as cigarette smoke swam around the stagnant air. The only real movement were from the waitresses in bright pink too-short dresses picking up glasses and delivering drinks. The oldest waitress was easily half the age of the youngest man. Their passing earned slow leers from grey faces.

“I’ll try not to.” The bartender shrugged. Up on the stage a man in a blue suit played a piano. Whether it was the drinks or the lights, the player was hard to focus on. Did he even have a face? What was he singing? Was he singing at all? “It’s about a woman.”

The bartender chuckled. “It always is. Usually. Almost always. What was she like?”

He leaned back, trying to conjure her. “Apple in her eyes and flowers in her hair.” She was already fading from his memory, but he could clearly see her eyes and flowers in her braids. “A laugh like light on a summer evening.”

“You fell for her?”

“Like a sack of hammers.”

“They always do.” The bartender switched cloths to wipe down the bar. “What happened?”

“She was with someone else.”

The bartender smirked knowingly. “That’s always the way.”

“He was a nice guy as well. A person you could get on with. Not like one of these terrible boyfriends in a rom-com. He was perfect for her.”

“And who are you to mess up perfect?”

“Exactly.” He looked down into his tumbler, a slice of lime and two half-melted ice cubes met his gaze. “How many of these have I had?”

“I don’t count. Not here to judge. Another?” The bartender waved as he reached for his wallet. “No, no, on the house this time. Maybe something with a little more kick.” From the back shelf, an embellished bottle of golden liquid. Scotch whisky. It tumbled from bottle to glass, mere millimeters but cutting his nose immediately. “You don’t look like a guy who takes it on the rocks.”

“You’d be right.” He took the most minute of sips. It burned down his throat, but sat just right when it hit the bottom. The smell overpowered the smell of cigarettes and the silken perfume as a waitress passed. “It wasn’t like I was in a good place at the time. Dead-end job, coffin-sized room in a damp house. Not exactly what a woman wants.”

“In my experience, and you might be surprised,” patting his prestigious belly, “women decide what they want. They know Prince Charming doesn’t exist.”

“Well, they broke up. And before you say that’s when I moved in, there was already somebody there. Kind of. It’s not…” He stared at himself in the mirror behind the bar. “It’s complicated.”

“You think you have a chance? But you’ve been friends with the lady for so long, you’re afraid of losing what you have. You got two choices to make in the darkness. You tell her, or you don’t.”

“I think knowing the answer is worse than maintaining the status quo. Saying nothing of if she doesn’t feel the same way, what if she does?”

“Of course. What if you get what you want? You look like a guy who isn’t too accustomed to that.”

The whisky sat finished, save for the impossible last drops. “What now?”

“I guess that would be up to you. There’s always room at a table here. As you said, you hoped you were just passing through. You wouldn’t be the first to stay.”

He took another look around at the gargoyles that lined his future. He got up from the three-legged stool and walked out the door into the cool evening.

Three Leg Stool

by Garrett Brown

“Look” he drunkenly slurred. “There is three legs to this stool, three avenues in this plan.” The man fumbled for a pencil on the bar, and grabbed a dirty napkin.

“Look” I slipped in, I don’t want to be a part of any pyramid scheme or anything.

“No, no” James laughed. “Believe me this isn’t a pyramid scheme or anything. It’s a foolproof plan, something that has a guaranteed profit for both of us.” He was scratching lines into the napkin with nonsensical numbers. “We just have to put in a little work and believe me, people will be lining up to dump money in our laps.

He slid the napkin across the table. I looked down at his chicken scratch and sighed.

“Step one involves robbing a blank James.”

“Shhhhh not so loud” James hushed. He leaned forward and whispered “Duh. That’s how we get the capital for step two.”

I pushed the napkin away from me. “James you know I can’t do this. I can’t afford to go back. My family can’t afford me being away for another 20 years.”

James chuckled and took a swig of his drink. “You only have to worry about that if you get caught.”

I frowned. “Given our past, I’d be more worried about you and that bottle getting us caught.”

Within an instant, James had soured at my remark. “I’m a professional. What happened that day was an accident.” He flashed a smile riddled with yellow teeth. “Besides, I know that you’ll have my back.” He pushed the napkin back onto my side of the table, forceful and sure.

I looked down and the three step plan stared back at me, like it was burning a hole in my face. After a moment, I raised my gaze.

“Fine,” I answered. “I know my answer.”

This week we are switching things up! And having Garrett Brown go first, and then Alex Davey.

Pair of Shoes

By Garrett Brown

“A parachute! I thought you wanted a pair of shoes! YUK YUK YUK!”

I stared the Buzzo the Clown down, burning holes into his patchy, grease paint makeup. The wind rushed violently past our heads. I couldn’t understand why I, a Special Black Ops Agent who had run over 25 successful missions, had to protect this chucklefuck. Buzzo the Clown: what an asshole. Even my greenest recruits had more balls than this pathetic excuse for Stephen King villain wannabe.

“Are you joking with me soldier!” I scream in his face. I yell to be overheard with so much wind rushing by. The bay door is opening, we are almost over the drop zone.

“Joking? No, no my airwave is clear, yuk yuk yuk!” Buzzo chortles, grabbing his neck. “I will be clear though that I do not have a parachute device.”

I held back my anger and grabbed some straps and fastened the clown to me. “I can’t believe I’m dealing with this right now! We’re going to have to do an assisted jump! For some reason, the brass needs you to infiltrate the enemy, and make the assassination.”

“Oh ho assassination? That’s no fun! Buzzo proceed to pull a slide whistle out of his hands, but the wind ripped it out of his hands and flung it to the back of the cabin.

I groaned, and waited for the green light. How in Earth did I end up with these sort of jobs?

Cooper

By Alex Davey

I’m falling.

I’m falling fast. The world is coming up below me. It’s a clear day, save for single wisp of low clouds, soon to become a light drizzle when it hits the hills I can see out to the west.

I can’t see them any more. I am falling.

Six hours ago I was in Windfield skyport purchasing a ticket for a flight north to Pine Rivers. It was easy enough, there were no checks for such a short trip. I used a fake name of course. It was all so easy.

The Eclipse Beast was finishing the last of its mutton as we approached it on the tarmac. It had flown all day and this was the penultimate stop. The great reptile surveyed the boarding passengers. In its animals eyes, I thought it could feel my trepidation. But it bowed its head, uncaring. The Princes were good to me.

On its back was a light metal cabin, shaped not unlike a bird’s skull. At the front I could see the pilot and co-pilot checking their reins and their instrument. Behind was the passenger area, which I was then approaching. At the top of the stairs stood a pretty flight attendant. She smiled, her painted lips splitting to reveal bright white teeth. “Good afternoon, welcome aboard.” Under any other circumstances, she would be a perfect recruit for the Prince of Pleasure’s court, or a sacrifice for any of the others. But today, I had a different task.

I found my seat, though I could have sat anywhere, as the cabin was only about a third full. I kept my briefcase on my lap instead of the overheads, which wasn’t too unusual on short flights like this. The captain announced over the tannoy that we had clear skies to Pine Rivers and a good wind, which meant we were going to be a few minutes early.

With a brief sudder and sudden acceleration, we were off. Before we cleared the airfield we picked up the short haul fliers in a separate cabin held in the talons. The price between the two was minimal, but I needed the access to the pilot.

Minutes into the flight, I pulled aside the flight attendant as she walked past. I gave her a note, which she slipped into her pocket. “Miss, you might want to read that note,” I requested. Her eyes widened as she did and came back over. I opened up the briefcase, just enough for her to see the glowing blue-white stone hooked up to alchemical powder. A bomb.

She hurried to the pilot’s cabin. I could see her knock on the door, imagined her hurried explanation to the pilot. She came back and told me to follow her. I took my time, savouring her fear. Her eyes kept going to the briefcase, as if it could go off at any moment.

The pilot’s cabin was cramped, filled with instruments. The co-pilot kept his eye on the skies, while the pilot turned to examine me, along with the flight rune master, keeping the arcane machines working. I offered the briefcase bombs for inspection, which they confirmed was real.

The pilot narrowed his eyes at me. “Alright sir, what do you want?”

I savoured the moment of power I had. “Two hundred thousand Imperial crowns in unmarked non-sequential bills. Four civilian-grade parachutes, two primary and two reserve. Enough food to recharge this guy to get us to Honu Island.” A popular destination for hijackers, enough to throw off the scent.

“Anywhere you want us to land?”

I looked at the live map between the two pilots. “That’s the Hereson Military Base-”

“We can’t land there, not with civilians on board,” the rune master interrupted.

“If you’ll let me finish.” He shrank back. “We’re near Cavern Coast. We land at the skyport there. Make sure they have what I require within half an hour. Or I blow us up on the tarmac.”

I returned to my seat. I didn’t need to hear them talking to the authorities. I enjoyed my Holu cigar and my brandy. I could feel the Eclipse circling. I wondered if the other passengers were confused. The attendant came on the tannoy “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re making an emergency stop at Cavern Coast due to an arcane error. We do apologise for the inconvenience and we are finding the quickest route to your destinations. I will now be on hand to answer any questions.”

She went down the aisle, answering the questions. Another attendant would be doing the same in the lower cabin right now. And then I felt the Eclipse descend, dropping its lower cabin. Maybe then the thirty or so other passengers I was with noticed that something may be wrong, when they didn’t get off the Beast.

I stood before them all. “Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you all for remaining calm. I regret to inform you that I have in my possession an explosive device that is quite capable of reducing you to arcane dust. In a few moments we will see if the authorities have done what I have asked. If so, you will all leave safely. If not, well.” I tapped the side of the briefcase. They all flinched. A child started to cry. I made my way into the pilot’s cabin.

I pointed to an area of the skyport. “Land over there, in the lights. Get all the blinds closed as well. I imagine they already have snipers on the roof.”

As soon as the creature’s talons touched the tarmac, I could see an old man approaching the Eclipse. He carried a briefcase a lot like the one I was holding and four backpacks. The attendant brought them on board. I counted the crowns, they were all there. I couldn’t see anything unusual about the money, but it ultimately did not matter.

The passengers and most of the crew were allowed to leave. I only needed the pilot and the rune master. While we waited for the Beast to finish eating, an investigator asked over the radio if he could ask me a few questions, face to face. I denied him the request.

The Beast was soon finished. I instructed the pilot to start towards Holu Island. He warned me that, even on a full belly, the Eclipse Beast would never reach Holu without touching down elsewhere first. I told him that didn’t matter, but to keep as low and slow as possible. He looked at me as if I had no idea how to fly.

We were somewhere over the wilds when I asked the rune master to override the cabin door controls. He was horrified, but it wasn’t deadly at this height. While he got to work, I chose the two parachutes. There was a chance that they had sabotaged them in some way, or had them tagged. I chose two and left the other two.

When the rune master was done, I asked the pilot where we were. Somewhere over the wilds. That was fine enough. The Princes would protect me.

The door opened, and I jumped.

Here we are with week 12! The theme is “mosaic” and as usual, Alex Davey is first and Garrett Brown is second.

Teserrae

by Alex Davey

You could only appreciate the mosaic from above. The plaza of the forum was a record of first contact with the people that called themselves the Maya nearly eight hundred years ago. Coming from the east in his mighty carrack Sancta Lania, the great explorer Oppius Sornisent Porina, extending a hand of welcome to King Axoacac. These days it was accepted that Oppius met Axoacac in the capital, Teotumba, and that the meeting was not nearly as cordial as the mosaic made it seem.

Agent Alcantar had been to many different Romes over the years. Some were in ruins, some were backwater towns. Very few were like this, Florentia-Roma, population in excess of 8 million. The heart of a truly global empire.

“I thought I’d find you here.” Agent Rackham appeared from behind him, carrying her own plate of cheese and meat, with a goblet of local wine.

He continued eating. “Best dodo in any timeline,” he managed between bites. “Trust me, when Romans discover them, they don’t let a good thing get away from them.”

Rackham rolled her eyes, setting down her plate. “You said the same thing about giant tortoises, where was it? Nahuatl?”

Speaking with his mouth full, Alcantar replied “Vinland. With the Europe-equivilent American civs. Oh man, I want to go back. You think I could get transferred there?”

“Just for domesticated tortoise meat? I doubt it. Mostly because that means going with you and seeing you come back to the safe house smelling of that fermented tortoise soup. Speaking of, how’s our guy?”

Alcantar pointed to the bar across the plaza. “Been in there all morning. A few people have come and gone that our friends over here have some tabs on.” He passed a few papers over towards Rackham. “From a one ‘Cult of the Christos’, out of Judea.”

She looked over the files, including a potted history of the Cult. “Nearly a millennia and a half. The idea is tenacious, I’ll give it that. I’m guessing our guy is here in to support their efforts to,” she flipped a page, “overthrow the senate. Bold, I like it.”

Her partner shovelled a few more mouthfuls of dodo into his mouth, cleaning off the plate. “He’s done this before as well, he’s supposed to be on the no-step list. Which means he’s turning to the less-than-virtuous to get places.”

“That’ll be a fun shake-down. Who do you think? Russians? Triads?”

“No, he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He’ll probably look close to home, which means- Wait, there he is.”

A thin, pale man excited the bar. He looked out of place amongst the mediterranean people crossing the plaza, but not too much. There were enough Britons or Saxons or Celts around that he could pass as one of them. His clothes were very much out of place though. Far too much like Home, he hadn’t got the details right.

Rackham stood and started a curve to get ahead. Alcantar put her meal in a bag, checked a few seconds off his watch, and followed to get behind him. The pair kept equal distance away from him, but the man was paranoid. He made a sharp turn down a side street, heading toward a train station. Alcantar signalled that Rackham was no longer in front, that he was following.

This street was caught between street and alley, pedestrian only to get around an ancient city not built for cars. Their target started to run, using a longer stride to his advantage. But Alcantar was better trained, with better stamina. The gap closed pretty quickly, but the target toppled some nearby crates. He nearly got away when Rackham came around the corner and clocked him in the face.

In seconds, Rackham had him in handcuffs. “Dorian Dituri. Hello again. You are under arrest for the attempted outside disruption of other timelines, failure to comply with bans on trans-line travel and I’m sure the boys back Home will come up with a few more.”

Dituri struggled but stopped. “Apostates,” he spat.

Alcantar bent down to get level with Dituri. “What was that, friend?”

“You apostates have no idea of the larger view. There are things bigger than us all at work The Word of the Lord must be heard across all times, all places, to save the souls of all mankind! You have no idea what you are doing.”

“Sure Dorian. Let’s get you Home.”

Shattered

By Garrett Brown

My life as a mosaic is a collection of shattered items, cobbled together with Dollar Tree glue. The picture seems ideal, but doesn’t hide the jagged cracks, ever expanding and threatening to grow larger.

For instance, the upper left hand corner is an out of focus image of my family. My mother is spread thin, and translucent, something you can see through easily as she tried to do everything for us but accomplished nothing. You won’t see a father in this mosaic, and that perhaps is the largest crack of all, revealing the emptiness of all.

The lower left hand corner is dark. It’s not a perfect black, because then that would just be a wall. It is however a darkened window, one that neither party can see out of, without straining the eye. This is the story of a childhood I would like to forget. A report card marked with red. A broken beer bottle. Untied shoelaces. An area marked by absence, and loss, and failure. And enough said about that.

The middle is a jumble of a bunch of things. A broken condom. An ultrasound. A marriage license. A freshly dug grave. A tiny coffin. A divorce agreement. All are linear, but all are the same in time, occurring simultaneously and never occuring at all.

Welcome back everyone! This week the theme is ‘flowers.” Alex Davey is first followed by Garrett Brown.

Wredon Garden Centre By Alex Davey

“Stevie. Stevie.” Stephen looked up, but Stevie was nowhere to be seen. Meaning he’d not been watching the trolley like he had asked. “Stevie? Where are you?”

He reappeared from the next aisle over, carrying a plastic bearded man in a pointy red hat and a fishing pole. “I found the perfect present for your mum.”

“A garden gnome? It’s a bit-”

“Tacky. Yes. That is the idea.”

Stephen stared at the love of his life, playing through the events that led to this situation. “I actually love my mother, Stevie. We’re getting her something she can look after.”

“Most people would get a pet. A parrot? Cockatoo? Maybe a bird-house? Something to deal with her empty nest. So to speak.”

Rolling his eyes, Stephen pushed the trolley down past the shelves of flowers. He stopped in front of a cascade of lavender. “I want something easy to look after, and gives her a sense of accomplishment.” He picked up a tiny potted lavender. “And something that won’t be too sad if it dies. Which, knowing mum, it inevitably will.”

Stevie smiles. The wide, pearly white grin that Stephen fell for. “Yeah, you’re right. Just the right amount of responsibility. How she ever raised you I shall never know.”

“Mostly through crystals and auras and the like. Dad would sneak in the occasional chicken nugget.”

For the first time, Stevie noticed what was already in the trolley. “What are these? Where are we going to grow these?”

Stephen shrugged. “We’ll get an indoor greenhouse or something. I saw some of those little tray things, maybe put it on the balcony.”

“Get mud on my carpets? No thank you. Plus there’s definitely not space for all this.” Stevie waved his hands over the variety of vegetable and edible plant seeds.

“We’ll find space. Or I’ll go to an allotment.”

Stevie shot his partner a look. “An allotment? We live in the middle of a city. People rent out car parking spaces for a hundred pounds a month, how much do you think arable land would be worth?”

“It was just an idea. I’ll put them back if you’re that hung up about it.”

“I’m not hung up, I just want to make sure you’ve thought this through.” Instead of answering Stevie, Stephen pushed his trolley back the way they came indoors. They reached the seed aisle, and Stephen started to carefully return the seeds in the trolley to the correct rack. “What are you doing?”

“Putting them back, like I said.” Pumpkin seeds, carrot seeds, lettuce seeds.

“You don’t have to put them back. I was just… trying to follow your logic.”

“Thanks to you, I followed my logic as well.” Stephen finished putting the seeds away. “Let’s just go, we’ll find another hobby mum can do. The wonderful world of ‘art therapy’ maybe. That seems to have passed her by.”

Stevie ran in front of the trolley, stopping it. “What is this really about?”

“I don’t know Stevie, I just wanted something. Something to call our own. We rent a flat, who knows if we can afford to get married or have kids.”

“You want kids?”

“I don’t know. At least it won’t be a complete surprise, we can plan. Don’t you?”

“I’m fine just being an uncle for now.”

“For now, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. This is all for now. But what about the future?”

As his boyfriend let up on the pushing, Stephen could swing the trolley around. Stevie was thinking. “Wait, is that what this is about? Some sort of living metaphor?”

“Don’t read too much into it. I just want a project to work on that’s all,” replied Stephen, shaking his head.

“On top of everything else? I don’t want you to burn out.”

“You can’t burn out on plants.” A pause and a slight smile. “Are you concerned about me?”

“Why would I start now?” They both laugh, and walk through the automatic doors hand in hand.

“Oh Hi Mark”

By Garrett Brown

I timed it perfectly. “I’d like a dozen red roses please! Oh Johnny you’re my favorite customer!”

“Will you be quiet!” Jesse asked. “I’ve never seen The Room before and I can’t hear anything over your yelling.”

We were sprawled out over the couch, Jesse’s head on my lap, with Conner sitting on the floor with his back against my legs. I had seen The Room more times than I could count, and I knew Connor had a personal autographed poster from Tommy Wiseau. After putting up with our incissant fandom and quoting, my girlfriend Jesse had finally given in and agreed to watch it with us.

“I don’t understand how you can memorize this stupid film”: Jesse groaned, adjusting her neck. “You sang the lyrics to that song.”

“It was a good song!” Connor retorted.

Jesse scoffed. “It was playing during the terrible sex scene! And it lasted for like 25 minutes!”

Welcome back! The theme this week is Camera, and as always Alex Davey goes first, while Garrett Brown is second.

Album

by Alex Davey

Ruddy skin and eyes closed against the first light. Minutes old, tired mother. A lineage a billion years long from the simplest organism in the deepest areas of the ocean. He is born in a time of plenty. He will not know famine or plague or war, at least as this tale is told.

Wide blue eyes, mouth open with the hint of a first tooth. What hair he has already has the stubborn tuft that will define his childhood. In the background, a grandfather and uncle talk out of focus.

An elephant in the background, thousands of miles out of place. The slate grey of an urban zoo. Wrapped in amorphous purple, a boy points toward the beast, mum bending down to see from his perspective.

Bright red jumper and black trousers. He beams with pride. The first day of primary school, first day of a new chapter. He’s not looking at the lens, but somewhere off camera.

A family holiday, a caravan on the south coast. Six are still in their pajamas, four boys and two girls, a mixture of siblings and family friends. They have some to the south coast for sea-side holiday in a caravan too small for both families. The cluster pokes from a blanket watching holiday television.

The four boys now stand over a medical cot, looking down at their baby sister. There are ten years between that first baby and this last. He is the only one who notices their picture being taken.

A wedding day or christening, all done up in sharp white shirts and polished shoes. He already looks out of place, hands on hips, a scowl instead of smile.

A school performance. His puberty makes him look half-formed, with one long sideburn from not knowing how to take care of it.

Another performance, but set in a school. Here he is, a full adult. He’s in character, staring out into the audience. He looks pale and too round, and begs the question about why is he here and not elsewhere.

Elsewhere now, far from home. Flash on to compensate for the dark club. He’s with a group of friends, one of a crowd. He’s grown a beard, making him feel better about pictures.

A field, hotter than any can remember. Pale clothes just to keep off the sun. These friends are better friends, needed in this time of uncertainty. Capped for shade, he looks into the distance.

Shutter

by Garrett Brown

“Smile” he says,

The flash blinds me, and I blink the spots away. The suit jacket feel heavy on me, and I wish I had chosen a liter top. The blouse maybe, or a tank top.

“How many more photos do you need?” I ask through my forced smile as the set lights burn me vision.

“Just a few more sweetheart,” the photographer says.

I sigh, and shift my pose.

“I love it,” the photographer growls. “Give me sex. Give me fire.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I ask.

He sighs. “You know that feeling when you eat a really good piece of doughnut? Like that feeling of ecstasy.”

I sit on the ground, my face pouting. “Like this?”

The photographer, pauses, then lowers his camera. “You look like you are constipated,” he sighed.

“Well I’m sorry you suck at directions.”

“Don’t forget you are the one that hired me,” he pointedly replied.

Alex is recovering from some health things, so just Garrett this week. Locked Up

by Garrett Brown

A day late, but it has arrived. As always Alex Davey is first, Garrett Brown second. Amber Waves by Alex Davey “Well that was disgusting.”

“What’s disgusting about the skeleton of the original siamese twins?”

“Conjoined. That was a cast. It wasn’t just them. It was all the tumours and deformities… You think this sort of thing is fun?”

“That was fun. Seeing all those things in jars. They were once alive. All though in case of the children I guess it wasn’t that long.”

“You’re terrible, you know that? When you said we’ll be stopping in Philadelphia I thought we’d be going to see the Liberty Bell or somewhere else from It’s Always Sunny. This is the birthplace of America, after all.”

“Wasn’t that Boston?”

“I don’t know. My memory’s fuzzy.”

“It’s weird.”

“The fact we spent an hour and a half in a house filled with bones?”

“No, just how European it all looks.”

“It doesn’t look European at all. All the roads are straight.”

“But the brick buildings, with the massive glass towers behind the facade.”

“Façade. I guess you’re right about that. Shortage of Gregg’s.”

“I could kill for a sausage roll.”

“Careful. They don’t get sarcasm here. A good guy with a gun might appear.”

“Haven’t seen that many guns yet.”

“Probably as we go further west. So is this the whole trip? Cabinets of Curiosities and modern-day sideshows?”

“Not… all of it. Like I said, we’re winging it. Look, tomorrow we’ll be in DC. We can go to the Smithsonian, a proper museum.”

“Urgh, fine. Shall we get one of these cheesesteaks? I hear they’re the thing to get here. When in Rome and all that.” Leaving on a Plane

by Garrett Brown  I hate planes. I hate being millions of miles off of the ground, knowing that everything could suddenly crash down in a moment. I hate that because of a few assholes, I have to take my shoes off and be wanded by a rent-a-cop security guard. And because I left my belt on, they make me do a strip search in a private room off to the side.

I am always stuck in the middle. On my left, a woman who always needs to use the bathroom, even when the seatbelt light is on. To my right is a man who is snoring and refuses to move or even wake up.

I climb on the plane, and I look around. I sigh and walk down the corridor, nodding at the smiling flight attendants.  I sit down and sigh. I grab my microphone, and take a deep breathe.

Here is week 7! As always, Alex Davey is first, followed by Garrett Brown

Squirrel by Alex Davey

Gery burst into the council chamber. The councillors all turned to see the out-of-breath youth leaning against the door frame. “A squirrel masters, out in the dry!”

“So what? We agreed, it is not worth the risk. Our numbers still haven’t recovered. Did you run all the way from your post to tell us that?” Ewis the master of beasts never liked the young jumpy scouts.

Shaking his head, Gery managed to get out “No sirs, it was hit by one of the Titan’s chariots. It’s dead on the dry and night approaches.”

Jesse, master of scouts, rose. “Are you sure? We can’t risk anyone on the dry.”

“It’s close to the grass. A few of us could lift in from the dry and bring it home.”

The council looked at each other and made a vote.

With practised ease, the group moved through the thick grass between the tree and the dry. As Gery had said, it was starting to get dark, so the Titans and their strange beasts were starting to leave. They ignored worms and ants, only stopping to pick at some daisy petals.

A cluster of dandelions marked the end of the grass and the expanse of the dry. There was the long flat bit, the great trench where the Titan’s chariots rode, to the other flat and grass on the other side. Gery brought them to where he saw the squirrel.

Over the edge of the dry they saw it. Just over twice the size of any of them, a squirrel. It’s head was bent too far backwards and there was a small split along its belly. The senior hunter, Delard, studied the creature. A glassy stare was his only reply.

Delard had Gery and another scout, Ellyn, check the skies. Owls and bats might be starting to come out. The others gathered on the ledge, readying their harpoons. One by one they released and returned until each was embedded in the squirrel’s flesh. Sarand, one of the younger hunters, fell off the ledge but landed on the beast. With help, he managed to make it back up.

The team started to haul the squirrel up the ledge. The Titan’s chariots continued to race like passing thunder. A trail of blood followed where a stone cut the flesh. When the group had reached the grass again, Ellyn called out for an approaching Titan.

The great figured moved with the purpose of all Titans. Like so many, this one had a dog chained by the neck. As the pair passed, the dog stopped to investigate. The smell of the dog overpowered the ripening squirrel. As it got closer, the hunters could see mucus drip in the caverns of the nose, teeth as long as any of them protruding from the lips and insects crawl across its fur.

A voice filled the air. “Stop that Jocasta. Come on girl, don’t touch that.” The dog was yanked away with incredible force, its front paws leaving the ground and making a yelping sound. The Titan and the dog continued their way across the dry.

The hunters returned to the burrow to an adoring crowd. This squirrel boar would feed the clan for over a week, its fur would clothe them and its bones would make good tools. This was a good day. The Squirrel

by Garrett Brown

The squirrel was fat as hell, and was only getting fatter by the day. Every morning I would watch from my dining room window as it shoved in acorns into its cheeks. 

One morning, I looked up from shoveling plain, bland oatmeal into my mouth. The little fucker was back again, sitting on the ledge of my restored 1929 Tudor House. He locked eyes with me. The tiny little rodent gazed into my eyes, almost willing me to try and come after him. Without breaking his gaze, he popped another acorn into his mouth.

That motherfucker.

I grabbed my bowl of oatmeal and chucked it across the room towards the window. The bowl shattered, and the sludge trailed down the wall, staining the sickly yellow wallpaper. The little beast wrinkles it’s nose at me, then scampers off.

I hate that squirrel.

The next morning, I take my tasteless gruel outside on the patio, where I have a great vantage point of the window. As a trap, I have left a pile of acorns, fresh and new. I mindlessly spoon my breakfast into my mouth, not tasting even the little taste there is. I don’t sense anything. I’m waiting for my enemy. Suddenly, I hear a click, clack, clatter of tiny paws against brick, and I prepare myself. I grab a tiny mesh net from off my table, and prepare to capture my foe.

SMASH.

Next week our theme will be “squirrels”. That’ll be..... nuts! :)

To The Fire

By Alex Davey

A fire burnt at the centre of the camp. Roki flicked the remains of a cigarette into the inferno where it quickly shrivelled to ashes. The entire thing was a giant middle finger to government forces. Here we are, it said, come and get us.

Some of the local fighters looked uneasy, but this was Hara Roki, so they kept quiet. Partly out of fear of the man, but mostly out of respect. Whatever you thought of his methods, they got results. Roki was a guerilla-for-hire, going from warzone to warzone to offer his expertise. Fanatics hated him for a profiteer, but they soon realised that he worked for his own agenda over money.

“A forest fire cleanses the habitat - removes dead vegetation and thins the population of animals that were too weak to escape. Society is no different. Governments become ossified, no longer fit for purpose. We learnt that in the early twenty-first century. But the people would not rebel like their forefathers. They were too comfortable.

“But remove that comfort - disrupt supply lines, jam media signals, make them angry. You could get the most straight-laced supporter on our side. Be the spark of that fire, cleanse your world.” So began Roki’s ‘The Little Anarchist’s Guidebook’, an almost universally-banned text.

There was some commotion on the edge of the camp. Roki returned to his own tent, rolling himself another cigarette. The leader of the locals, one Diego Wildner, entered. “Roki, got a lady here who wants to talk to you. Says she’s a journalist or something.”

“What did you do to her security?”

“That’s the thing, she doesn’t have any security.”

“She just walked up to the camp? None of the sentries saw her?”

“A sentry captured her.” Diego had been against the outsider from the beginning. The fire, not understanding basic concepts, that sort of thing. But his superiors said his methods were working, so play nice.

“Well, bring her in.”

Moments later a copper-haired woman entered, to her credit dressed for the occasion in a gunmetal biker’s suit and an armoured jacket. What skin Roki could see was covered in circuit tattoos. Her eyes were tinged red, recording she saw.

“Mister Roki. You’re a-”

“Hard man to find?”

“Surprisingly easy. A few dollars to the right person, they pointed right towards your massive fire.”

“And you came here with no security?”

“Your man told me not to.”

“What man?”

“Maxwell something? Auburn hair, amber eyes. Speaks a lot of nonsense and a scar on his-”

“On his arm? Yeah? Never heard of him.”

“Oh. Well. There we are then. I’ve been looking for you.”

“For a little chat?”

“Exactly.”

To Be Continued…

Fire

By Garrett Brown

I swerved the car, and we jolted back into position. The old Chevy pickup continued cruising at 75 miles an hour down the dusty road. The raccoon scuttled away, shaken but unharmed.

“You didn’t have to miss him,” my dad said. The old man slumped in the passenger seat. His sunglasses obscuring his eyes, his cowboy hat obscuring the glasses.

“What did you want me to hit him?” I asked.

He grunted. “Wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and flicked one out. “Earth is God’s dominion, and he gave Man dominion over the animals. So if they don’t want to get out of the way of Man, well fuck them.” He lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and exhaled, filling the cabin with smoke.

I coughed. “Can you please not smoke in here?”

He grunted again. “God has dominion over the Earth, and I have dominion over this goddamn truck.” But he rolled down a window and tossed the butt out.

We zoomed down the road in silence, not a car to be seen. We passed by buildings that once housed road stops and side attractions, long since boarded up: a diner, a toy museum, a bar, the buildings long since looted and stripped for parts.