Clam Digging with Little Jon

Jon spent the morning in the hot sun digging clams on the island.  Maybe this trip would bring some happiness back.  Their life was a drab, joyless haze since the fever took their son.  He didn't fear the ghost stories about the island.  He came because of them.  Jon thought sorrowfully of digging with Little Jon on this same beach.

Excerpt from The Book

Posted for FlashFriday #50

Writing Prompt

The dark desert was still radiating heat from the day. The sand and rock still warmed through the soles of her shoes. The sun herself, not yet giving up defeat, lit the western hills like glowing embers. It was the time of day when the nocturnal creatures woke and began their search for food. Rustling of the brush and swishing sands were the only clue that these creatures had awakened.

Janet watched the rusted pickup truck that had carried her this far drive away, the roar of its gas engine making it obvious just how old it was. They were very concerned about leaving her out here all alone. “A little thing like you will be just a little snack for the coyotes”, the drivers wife scolded her.

“I’ll be fine. My friends are meeting me here within minutes. They might already be waiting for me”. Janet’s Spanish was good for conversation, but, she was definitely not fluent and she could tell by amused look on Mr. Driver’s face.

They left her here on what looked like a dirt road when the sun was up, but it now looked more like the middle of nowhere during late dusk. She waited until the red taillights had vanished in the distance and began jogging further down the road, the pack that Gray had left her bouncing roughly on her back.

“Another mile, and look for the crossroads.” She repeated Saul’s instructions silently to herself. By this time it was completely pitch black and the noises around her grew louder and more aggressive. The light from her headband LEDs was the only thing illuminating. The moon was taking it’s time getting high enough in the sky to light the path. She found the crossroad. Less of a road than the one she was on. She headed south, it was only another mile and she could see a speck of light in the distance already.

The Book

The book I've been working on for over a decade is almost done.  I've not spoken of it publicly before because I've always thought of it as a hobby.  I've shared very early copies of it with some family and friends and they've encouraged me strongly to get it out in the public.

I've been working with my editor Jill Oldham on and off for the last couple years as we've both had time to work on this hobby project.  I also have a friend @patrickrlaurent who's worked on some cover art with me.  This isn't the final form, but I thought I'd share the first draft  of the cover.  I may post some samples here as I get sections worked out.

When he woke up Saul expected to spend his day programming The World.  Instead, he discovers the young hacker he'd been chatting with only hours before is the latest victim of a serial killer.  Before the day is over, he will discover that he is not only the killer's next target, but he is also the FBI's prime suspect.  Saul's world begins to change in ways he never expected as he reaches out of his isolation for help.

Makeup!

“Cut!” the director shouted.  “That was horrible!  Where are the writers?  When I said I wanted more non-verbal communication, I wasn't talking about some kind of circus mind reading act!  Fix it!”  he barked as two disheveled men ran up to him during his fit.

“Sir?” The taller man asked hopelessly before the director could storm completely off the sound stage.  “Are we still limiting the number of spoken words for the whole movie?”

“Yes!  No leeway.  The movie is Two Hundred Words not Two Hundred and Seventy Six Words!”  The director completed his tantrum and left.

The men looked at each other sighing deeply in unison.  They had spent endless nights trying to tell this sad drama in an hour long screenplay with this ridiculous constraint.  “You think he’ll count French words?” the shorter man asked rhetorically.

“We've used up all the words in the finale. How are we supposed to explain that Mark is John’s long lost brother and that he had amnesia after a war injury or he would have been home to help with their dying father?”  The taller man complained.

“Oh!  We need a head wound.”  The shorter man was suddenly excited.  “Makeup!!” He yelled.

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Entry for Flash Firday #47
200 Words Exactly

Finding Enlightenment

“This is stupid.” he blurted out, opening his eyes.  The view up here was certainly life changing but after a week of shivering in his tent all night, and meditating all day, Dan was done with the whole “find enlightenment” thing.

“I bet those monks are laughing their butts off right now.”  He mused aloud, “Hey let’s send the dumb one up the mountain and see how long he stays.” Dan mimicked the monks accents poorly.  “Well, I fell for it!”  He stood frustrated, stretching.  He now knew the answers he wanted were not up here.  Meditating wouldn't bring his father back or fix his sister.  He sighed deeply and and froze hearing a new sound.

He had been utterly alone on his island in the clouds, just Dan and the grass that sighed wistfully in the wind.  Heart pumping at the sound of footsteps, he turned, half expecting to see an orange robed monk with a mischievous grin.  Instead he saw a dog jogging towards him gleefully.

Dan used his best doggie voice “Well hello there buddy.”  He rubbed its neck checking the collar for a name.  In the same voice he added “If you’re name is Enlightenment then somebody up there has a really sick sense of humor.”

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Flash Friday 45 Entry

Word count: 210

Persistence

"Who let all the kids in here, Max!" The grizzled man growled at the bartender. The noise was deafening.

"They're all celebrating.  Just got diplomas and jobs.  Not gonna turn away business, Lu.",  Max replied.

"Hey, I need a screwdriver, a kamikaze, and a zombie." a kid elbowed up to the bar jostling Lu and barking rudely.

While Max set about mixing the trendy concoctions the boy turned back to his friends elbowing Lu, oblivious.

"Easy there, Lu.  If you fume any harder there'll be smoke."  An old man with a white beard took the stool on the other side of Lu.

Contraband

Story Prompt

In the end it was a good that the Hat Head Club drank our own water.  Teachers just ignored us when we complained about the taste of the fountain.  It was Monday and the HHC was meeting near the fountain.  All five of us wearing our crazy, custom knitted hats and watching the gym class let out, each kid taking turns gulping the water, making a face, and turning away.

Sarah gave us the new hats she had finished.  Mine was an owl!  She knew it was my favorite.  Jenny got the three eyed alien, Sasha the panda, and Mica now had spiky, yellow, yarn hair.  We giggled over our new prizes, fawning over Sarah’s gifts.  Then Mica’s face turned serious as she covertly handed us each a bottle of water like it was contraband.  We nodded solemnly reminded of the reason for our hats, our solidarity with Mica’s baldness.

Friday Flash Fiction Entry at: http://flashfriday.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/flash-friday-44/comment-page-1/#comment-5130

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Knock me over with a feather. There were so many excellent moving and entertaining entries, I am humbled that I should be picked. Thank you to the judge Beth Peterson and our host Rebekah Postupak. http://flashfriday.wordpress.com/winners/ben-miller/

Cool! An official interview and everything: http://flashfriday.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/sixty-seconds-with-ben-miller/

Wrath

Wrath
358 Words
@NomDeBen
Posted to FlashFriday#41

Mac and I saw the whole thing.  We was out back by the woods and had just settled down to sleep.  We wasn’t under the trees cause we wanted to see the show.  His folks had bought him that fancy sleepin' bag last year, but I jes grabbed my blankets.

Northwest

The black rubber of the mask dug into her face, the weight of it making her head heavy and slow. By now she was used to the effort required to breath, the constant feeling of being out of breath and the hiss of air sucked through the filters. Looking through the glass of the door, she could see the fog glowing orange with the last rays of the moon's reflected light. It swirled and coiled around the ground as if looking for prey.

A new story of John

My grandfather was born in Germany and was moved to America as a child.  Here in America he fought in WWII.  This picture just turned up in my Grandmother's things, hidden in the paper backing of a old cheesy paint by numbers picture.  The story is still unfolding, but this picture appears to be of John while he recovered from an injury at a hospital in England.  Five days before this picture was drawn while John recovered from his injury, his entire regiment was lost at D Day as it was the first to land on the beach at Normandy.  The artist that signed the picture here appears to be a famous artist of the period.  We're doing more research on the whole story, but I had to share the picture.  I will post more about this as the story unfolds.

The

Free Fall

The catwalk crumbled beneath him dropping him to his death through jungle canopy below.  His scream was all he could hear as he plummeted tearing through leaves and ripping at small branches.

Below him the sky opened up as the jungle receded to the edges of the world, the ground, still a distant circle of brown was rapidly growing.  This time, it was the end.  This time they would not be able to fix the damage.  Touching the sky once before cost him his leg, this time touching the ground would cost him everything.  He had escaped one world full of hidebound, petty tyrants to plunge to his death in the next.

Worth

The scaled hand set the deep red gem on the counter.  It was a breathtaking specimen, the size of a fist or heart.  “How much is this one worth?” the raspy voice hissed from beneath the cowl of the cloak.

The judge looked up casually eyeing the obscured figure.  He lifted the gem and carefully examined it through his loop.

"I'll give you 10 years."

The breath hissed angrily in and out somewhere in the shadows of the cloak.  The judge looked nonplussed, almost bored as he stared at the figure waiting for the answer.

"Done," the voice finally hissed.

The word was barely finished when the judge lunged forward grabbing it's claw.  The creature hissed in pain or rapture as life flowed back into it.

"Begone." the judge said pushing the creature's claw away from him with disdain.

It turned and left without another word setting off to hunt for its next fix, the next soul.

Word Count: 157
@NomDeBen
Entry For: ThursThreads Week 85

Three

Her heart pounded fiercely under her ribs.  She clutched the rope in desperation knowing that the black maw waited below to consume her again.

"Carmen!" James voice rang out above in panic.

"Still here!" she shouted.  "The harness broke."  She tried to remain calm.

"What!?  You're OK?" he sounded incredulous and hopeful.

Deep Space Hunger

The ship deftly rounded the spinning asteroid sighting the alien cruiser as it attempted to elude

Week 84 Honorable Mention

destruction.  The photon capacitors discharged into space and the fleeing vessel blossomed into oblivion.   The black of space consumed the explosion with a quick snap.

“Nice shooting B9”, squelched the tinny voice over the radio.

“Thanks C7, you keep flushing ‘em out and I’ll take ‘em down.”  He replied performing a nose over and reversing direction in less than a heartbeat avoiding the spreading debris.  “This never gets old.”

It Only Takes One

The nanos had healed his fractured skull and ribs but had left the searing brand on his back untouched. The burn was the last thing they did to him before he lost consciousness. He was wide awake during his brutal beating. The guards took turns trying to one up each other. They knew the rehab-stick would not allow them to kill him, but they swung it like they were trying. Somehow their poison laughter was louder than his agony. “Gotta teach you citizens a lesson” they jeered, “It only takes one bad apple to spoil the lot.” they taunted.

Old Stuff - The Last Say

Ok, to kick things off, I went through some old stuff I'd written as a reminder of how far I've come.  This is an old poem I wrote back in college.  Yes, they had word processors back then.  Only we called it WordPerfect (is that even a thing anymore?).  I promise, I'll get some new stuff up here soon.

The Last Say

A rock tends not to talk too much
and a stone, being simple, says very little.
other than this they are thoroughly the same.
small stones are older than boulders.
But mountains, much more aged than rocks,
simply scream their slow thoughts to the sky.

Writing

In my day job I do lots of business writing.  For fun I enjoy fiction reading and writing.  I am a techno-geek at heart and have grown up on a steady diet of hard core scifi and fantasy.  Growing up I was never seen without a book.  Now, I've written one.  Right now it's in editing/re-writing mode I'll post progress and maybe even a few pages or chapters here as I get closer to some kind of publishable work.
For the most part, I intend to use this blank page to post and write about writing; to practice smaller works and maybe even share some short stories.

Enough said as an intro.