Category Archives: Writing

A new and interesting assignment in this week’s Flash Fiction Challenge! The usual 1,000 words, any genre — but break it up into ten chapters. Ooooh, a challenge, sounds fun!

As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

TEN HANDS

ONE

It had grown strong and straight on the northern slope of Burke Mountain since before the town in the valley below had been built. The arborist caressed the rough bark of the trunk, trying to touch the heart of the ancient sugar maple.

This was the one. It felt perfect. He marked the trunk with spray paint before turning to hike back down the mountain.

TWO

As the billets came out of the mill, all a uniform square cross section and length, they were inspected carefully by the foreman. He watched intently as they trundled past on the conveyor belt, examining the grain, searching for the perfectly cut piece from the center of the tree’s heart.

A dozen he pulled out for closer inspection. One at a time he tested their balance, the rough wood cool to the touch. While looking for knots or imperfections, one of the billets stung him with a sharp sliver into his palm. That was good. He liked the feisty ones. This one would do well.

THREE

The kiln operator had carefully stacked the prime billets on the drying racks, leaving just enough space between them to allow air to circulate. He ran his hands over them quickly to remove any sawdust or debris that might ignite.

When he was ready, he pulled open the kiln door. The air inside carried out the slightest scent of wood smoke. With help from two assistants, he rolled out the finished rack of dry billets from the previous firing. Once the kiln was empty, they wrestled the new rack of billets into place and securely dogged the door closed. A few keystrokes started the slow, computer controlled cycle of heating and drying.

FOUR

The lathe operator used a laser jig to mark the precise center of the grain at each end of the billet before mounting it gently between the live center and the dead center. As she leaned in to double check the alignment, she could smell the so familiar, dry, wooden scent of the piece.

The flip of a switch spun the lathe up to speed. She picked up a one-inch gouge and slowly started to push it into the whirling wooden dervish. The room filled with a loud clatter of the rough edges being reduced to sawdust.

FIVE

The master craftsman mounted the rough-cut wooden blank into his lathe, guided by the existing markings and holes in the still-square end pieces. After consulting a specification sheet for this order, he meticulously measured the rounded sections of the blank with a pair of calipers, making marks on the wood as needed.

When he started the piece to spinning, it was at a far higher speed than had been used in the rough shaping. The craftsman used a series of smaller and finer scaled chisels to take off the tiniest wisps of material, constantly checking the shape and size. At each step he took a moment while the blank had stopped in order to run his hands down the length, searching for imperfections his calipers might miss.

Finally he used sandpaper to smooth the wood to a perfect surface, before using a band saw to cut off the end blocks.

It was perfect.

SIX

The almost completed bat was brought into the finishing room along with dozens of others. The painter repeatedly dipped the fat end of the bat into a vat of dark stain, before letting it dry, sanding it down slightly, and repeating. Once that was done, she applied several layers of clear shellac in the same way, sealing the surface and leaving it shiny. Finally she used red hot branding iron tools to engrave the player’s name and the bat’s specifications onto the barrel.

SEVEN

Many hours before the game, the equipment manager got to work as the shipment of new bats arrived. He carried them into the locker room, placing them in each player’s locker. He double checked each, looking for any imperfections,  verifying the dimensions and weights.

EIGHT

When Hamilton went up to the plate, the bat boy pulled one of the spare bats from the bat rack. Only after verifying that it was the correct bat did he take it out next to the on-deck circle and go to one knee, waiting. It was no time to mess up.

While he watched and waited, he absent-mindedly rolled the bat in his hands, the nerves getting to him just a bit. He needed to be invisible, not a part of this game itself, but a minor bit player hovering ever so close to it.

NINE

Hamilton was looking for the curve ball low and away. It was a surprise when he got the pitch up and in, just where he liked it. He flailed at it, off balance. He was lucky to get a piece of it, fouling the ball back up and over the backstop. But his bat cracked as he hit the ball off of his hands.

Hamilton took a couple of steps out of the batter’s box and took the replacement bat from the bat boy. He put a bit of pine tar on the handle, tested it, took a practice swing, and then stepped back into the box to face another pitch.

As the pitcher went into his windup, Hamilton took a calm breath and let his reflexes and decades of practice take over. Bottom of the ninth, game seven, a 3-2 count with two outs – it might as well had been set up that way by Hollywood.

The pitcher made a mistake and threw a sinker that didn’t sink. The 32-ounce bat was perfectly balanced and ideally fitted to his hands as he sent the ball over the fence and into history.

TEN

The Hall of Fame curator knew he was only supposed to handle the exhibit pieces with gloves on, but when a new piece such as this came in, he indulged himself, allowing one slow swipe down the length of the bat, letting the touch of history vibrate through his palm and fingers.

We’ve done this week’s Flash Fiction Challenge once before, and I remember my contribution as not being my favorite. And it’s already 22:45. And there’s been a whole bunch of suck going down, so I’m more in the mood to go skeet shooting or kick boxing just to vent. Which, of course, is why I have to slap something together in less than an hour while I’m about 90% asleep.

So, it’s time for another “something-punk” story. What the hell, as long as it’s right there in front of me and I’m watching it anyway, how about “clock punk,” whatever that might conceivably be. As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

CLOCKPUNKER

(22:56) He had no idea what he was doing here at this hour, but she had said it was critical and it would end up being the most exciting night of his life. He had been infatuated since he first saw her at a monovidual party a month before. He had gone as a dexterphile, inspired by a roll of ancient plastic wrap he had found at a dilapidated thrift store near the river. She had been into the chron thing but was still transitioning from her previous nudepunk phase. With her body partially covered with strategically placed watches and stick-on clocks, both digital and analog, he and every straight male there had been circling her all night like sharks around a school of groupers. But she had been the shark.

(23:04) I had called him, knowing that he would come. He had drooled so much over her he had almost gone home dehydrated from that party where they first met. Long after all of the other boyfools had run off to lick their wound or feign disinterest, he had kept coming back. He no doubt thought it was a sign of devotion, or at least lust. She thought it more likely that he was a closet undiagnosed maso, but that didn’t matter for what she needed him for.

(23:08) He saw her right where she had said they would meet, slouching in a dark doorway of a closed Thai restaurant with a “C” rating sign in the window. It was chilly enough that she was dressed in her long coatcloak, which had dim vidart oozing over its surface, as well as a few small hardreal digital displays tacked on. As he walked up to her, she stood and the front of the coat fell open, revealing just how little she was wearing underneath. His pulse started to race as she reached out to him and pulled him close.

(23:18) I hadn’t asked how old he was. I already knew. It had taken some hunting to find a soul with the perfect chronstats. But once I knew he was out there, he wasn’t difficult to meet and manipulate. Now it was his time, and mine.

(23:21) The welcome she gave him went well beyond warm. After a moment of surprise, he enthusiastically responded. As she pulled him into the doorway and invited him to play with what she was offering, she began to wrap the oversized coatcloak around him, letting the external vidart fade to black. He briefly noticed what was going on as the garment enveloped him and its internal surface began to display the spinning and dancing psychographic timepieces, but he was really much too busy to pay much attention.

(23:27) I let him taste what he had hoped to find, allowing myself to only distantly feel the contact of his lips and hands. From a small pocket I pulled out the stinger and lit it up, allowing it to synch with the cloak. The timing would be critical if this were to work.

(23:30) He was lost in the rush of hormones and lust, his eyes closed and his senses of touch, taste, and smell heightened, when some small part of his brain wondered absently what the flashing was. He paused in his sexual exploration as the vidart chronographs caught his attention. All of them had flashing time displays, some showing the time, some counting down, all beating in time with his heart, the displays pulsing in a silent synchronized display, the accompanying drumbeat being the blood rushing in his ears. He had thought that this sort of thing was a myth.

(23:33) I felt him stop and tense up, but it was too late. I had reached inside and placed the stinger on the back of his shirt while he was distracted.

(23:38:55) He felt the needle go deep into his spine and the hot gush of the DNA and nanobot cocktail as it was injected. His consciousness simultaneously contracted to a microscopic point and opened up to encompass the entire cosmos. He saw pulsars spitting off spinning pulses with the regularity of an atomic clock. He saw his heart continue to beat with the regularity of a metronome, while the invading mixture coursed through his system and rebuilt him. He saw the entire universe collapse and coalesce into another being, a someone who in a heartbeat swooped down to hover before him. As the other materialized from the void, he felt himself expand in an instant to dissipate and drift off into a timeless nonexistence.

(23:38:56) I felt him transform. Where a second ago there had been the pawing and slobbering of a stranger, now there were the tender caresses of my no longer lost lover. I pulled him to his feet and held him as he looked around, groggy and confused. He recognized me and the realization of what I had done hit him. His eyes grew wide, he smiled, and he took me in his arms.

(23:49) “I knew that you would be able to do it,” he said. “But what took you so long?”

(23:50) “The timing had to be right, and I had to find your doppleganger for it to work,” I replied, taking his hand and leading him toward our home.

(23:51) “Tell me what it’s like to be dead.”

We’re back to a more “traditional” Flash Fiction Challenge this week, picking two random items, one each from two lists. My random numbers were six and eight, so my story elements are “an ancient tree” and “a plane or train ride.” My story might be a bit derivative, but not

As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

RESTING PLACE

The ancient Beaver’s rotary engine growled as the pilot descended toward the choppy surface. Lines of whitecaps marched toward the horizon, kicking spray into the air. Levelling off at a hundred feet, the plane started a lazy left-handed three-sixty of the small island, staying about a half-mile offshore.

The coast was rocky, consisting of steep cliffs rising vertically from the deep blue waters, gigantic shards of sharp, black stone at the cliff’s base breaking up the surf as it struck. On top of the cliffs a dense tropical forest covered every available inch of ground, the jungle spilling over the edges with orphaned plants clinging to niches and cracks high above the sea. Sea birds circled everywhere, their rookeries disturbed by the noise of the plane. A few hunting gulls, far out from the shore, rode the trade winds before diving after prey.

The island was crowned by a tall spire of rock. Rearing up from the jungle’s canopy for hundreds of feet, its sheer sides gave little purchase for any kind of vegetation. A handful of grass clumps had managed to grab onto their own spots, many also offering shelter to nests. Above everything at the summit, a sole gnarled and lightning-blasted tree hovered, spreading its remaining branches over the precipice.

As the pilot had nearly completed his circumnavigation of the island, his passenger pointed to the small cove and beach, a half-moon of shelter from the elements. An offshore reef also protected the cove, huge breakers dying on its arc, leaving the interior waters of the cove calm. The pilot did one more loop over the cove to judge the winds, before lining up to land just inside the reef.

Once down, the plane taxied across the cove toward the beach. Moving slowly into shallow water, the pilot squared up perpendicular to the sand and nudged the pontoons forward until they stuck. The engine roared to full power one last time before fading to silence, leaving only the sounds of the distant surf and screeching gulls.

As the propeller stopped, the pilot jumped down onto the pontoon and made his way onto the beach. He hooked a rope onto the fronts of the pontoons and anchored them to a hook which he drove deep into the sand ten feet above the high tide line.

The passenger got down more gingerly, balancing gingerly on the bobbing platform while carrying a backpack over one shoulder and a machete in his right hand. When he carelessly put his left hand on the hot engine cowling for balance, his arm jerked back and he splashed into knee-deep water before finally making it back onto dry land.

The pilot looked at him from behind his mirrored aviator glasses, then looked up at the wall of jungle starting twenty feet up the sand. “You’re really going to do this, huh?” he asked.

The passenger squinted up at the stone monolith rising nearly a thousand feet above, crowned by the lone scraggly tree. “I have to,” he said.

A light helmet was pulled from the backpack, fitted with a small video camera on top, and buckled on. He reclosed the pack and shrugged it onto his back.

“We have about eight hours until dark. It’s over two hours back to the base, so we need to be out of here in five hours. Can you do that? Otherwise we’re stuck here until tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be back down in four hours.” He patted the radio on his belt. “I’ll keep in touch.”

“Okay. Don’t kill yourself. There are probably a lot of ugly ways to die doing this.”

The passenger nodded and set off into the trees. The pilot retrieved a tarp and beach chair from the plane and found a shady spot to wait in what comfort he could find.

The undergrowth in the jungle got thick quickly. The passenger’s arm was tired of swinging the machete before he had gotten a quarter mile. Despite that, he soldiered on, looking for his landmarks, occasionally consulting a small GPS unit.

Soon he was at a small waterfall where the base of the island’s central summit started to rise. Confident that he was where he was supposed to be, he called the pilot to give him a progress report before resuming his trek up the slope.

It wasn’t long before the slope became almost vertical. The volcanic rocks were broken and sharp, but he had trained hard for this. Donning gloves and a helmet, he started free climbing the slope, breaking clear above the jungle canopy after less than a hundred feet.

He climbed steadily, occasionally taking small breaks for rest. The sun was hot as the day progressed and the climbing was hard, but there were plenty of handholds and ledges for his feet. The slope wasn’t quite vertical and there were no overhangs to be maneuvered around, making it mainly an exercise in endurance and not doing anything stupid.

After over two hours of climbing, he pulled himself over the edge onto the narrow summit. He gingerly sat near the base of the ancient tree, moving slowly as he unbuckled and removed his backpack.

He took a few minutes to soak in the view. From one side of the horizon to the other, there was no sign of any other land. No contrails bisected the sky. No ships plowed along toward distant destinations.

He finally took a small box from his pack and put it on the ground near the base of the tree. The side of the rosewood container had a few simple carvings surrounding the word “Noland.” He lifted the lid and let the breeze at the top of the hill take away the first few grains of the dark powder within.

Standing, he unzipped the main compartment of the pack, partially exposing its carefully stuffed contents. He secured the pack’s harnesses tightly around his chest and crotch before standing, holding onto the tree. He looked down at the rosewood box one last time.

“Goodbye, Dad. You’re back, just as you wished.”

He jumped, spreading his arms wide as he embraced the rush of gravity.

He fell for several seconds before pulling the ripcord so that he would be clear of the tree’s branches and away from the cliff face. As the parasail inflated above him and jerked him back upward in his harness, he took one last look upward at the tree, before starting to circle back down to the beach and his ride back to the real world.

This week’s Flash Fiction Challenge is short and simple. It is “not a flash fiction challenge so much so much as an experimental writing exercise.” Take a thing (an object, a person, an emotion) and describe it in ten different ways, one sentence each. Okay, I can do this. Remind me to tell you some time about my art classes at UC Irvine in the late 1970’s…

As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

TEN VIEWS OF A PENCIL 

1. It was painted yellow, not quite sharp but not quite dull, Dixon-Ticonderoga #2, about five inches long, and had been found embedded in the eye of the victim all the way up to the green, metal cap on the end.
2. I found it in a drawer along with a handful of pens, but when all of the ink came up dry and the pens useless, the pencil still worked just fine for scrawling a warning on the wall.
3. Eventually the cat and I settled on an old stub of a pencil as a crude but effective cat toy, something I could mindlessly flick across the room to be pursued and briefly batted around by her before she resumed her aloof disdain of everything except for her bathing.
4. Clarity came when she realized that her life was like an old pencil with a rock-hard eraser, unable to correct errors without making an even bigger mess, but if she got a new outlook on life it would be like putting a new eraser cap on that pencil, bringing about a resurrection of purposefulness through a single, simple change.
5. Six sided around the longitudinal axis, pointed at one end with a protrusion of graphite at the core, a metal cap and pink rubber tip at the opposite end.
6. Bored to tears in the class, she had used a red pen to color the pale white wood at the pointed end of the pencil, the part on that frustum between the lead and the yellow paint — only to see all of that effort ground away the next time she sharpened it.
7. Urban legend says that the Russians used a simple, reliable, perfected technology pencil on their early spacecraft when the United States spent millions inventing a “space pen”, but no matter how good of a story that was, it simply wasn’t true.
8. Given identical boxes of ten thousand new, sharpened pencils, the researchers found that many of the fine arts majors gave them away to local grade schools, while almost all of the engineering majors used them in contests to see how many could get embedded in acoustic ceiling tiles.
9. Inanimate, non-sentient, nothing but a simple tool with ancient roots, alone by itself it’s a glorified stick — but when picked up by a poet or artist, from the pencil’s tip spills out a sonnet, a sketch, an invention, a love letter, a landscape, an insight, a portrait, a novel, or a symphony.
10. Forced to stay inside, the children were becoming restless until we found a large box of long forgotten pencils, of all colors and lengths and types, which worked wonderfully well for an improvised game of “pick up sticks.”