Strange Skies

The sky was strange in the Cursed Land that day. The people shielded their eyes and asked the hero Petromir to sort it out. Petromir was a hero in the traditional sense, which meant he had more swords than braincells and solved his problems by hitting them, which worked well when your problems were monsters but not when they were strange things in the sky.

Petromir sought out the wisest woman he knew and after knocking down her door so people didn’t think he’d gone soft, he asked if she knew what the thing in the sky was.

“It’s called the Sun,” she replied.

“And the colour?”

“Skies are supposed to be blue. You just can’t normally see it with all the ominous cloud in the way.”

“What does it portend?”

“We’re having a patch of good weather. I wouldn’t worry. Give it five minutes and the rain’ll be back.”

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Word Count: 150

This is for FFfAW. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and Jodi McKinney for providing the prompt photo!

My short story, “The Lazarus Riddle,” was published on Crimson Streets earlier this week. You can check it out here. 

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The Boy Who Would Not Shoot At Birds

They laughed at the boy who would not shoot at birds, who would not even hold the gun in his hand. They laughed as the birds came crashing down, one, two, three, squawking bloody messes of broken bones and crumpled feathers.

It’s weakness, the instructor said, hand like concrete on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing bones brittle as the broken birds. Weakness to be afraid of the gun. Of the noise. Pick up the gun and fire. Kill something.

But he wouldn’t.

They laughed at the man who did not believe in war, at the boy who would not fight. Traitor, they jeered. Coward.

When the men came with riot shields and rifles and torches, they were cheering or they were silent.

And the boy who would not shoot at birds stood in their path.

You want them, he said, you go through me.

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Word Count: 143

For FFfAW. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and Yinglan for providing the prompt photo!

The Sorcerer’s House

He made his house from old stones. One came from an arena, stained with the blood of a thousand fighters, echoing still with the laughter of the crowd. Another was from a pyramid, worn by wind and sand and silence. A third was part of a tower, drinking tears and hearing laments.

They were stones full of memory, stones full of power. He made his walls of them, a fortress to keep out his foes. Spells dashed themselves against the rock and he was safe from their touch.

But when night fell and he lay in his bed, surrounded by old books, he heard the stones whispering and groaning and shifting. He tossed and turned but they would not be silent. Incantation after incantation he tried, but still the stones would not be tamed, would not be broken.

He had made his fortress, but it was a prison too.

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Word Count: 149

This is for FFfAW. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and Jade M. Wong for providing the prompt photo!

The Nowhere Road

The map was utterly blank for five miles: no services, no towns, nothing but the road winding through the misty moor. It was an odd sort of road, a lonely road, laid without any real need or purpose in a fit of infrastructural zeal, stringing together little towns like paste-fake pearls.

Hardly anybody used the road. It was a nowhere place, the last-ditch suggestion of an eccentric GPS. But those who drove it felt a chill as the white wisps of mist curled around them.

On the far side of the mist, past the roadside fence, they saw the houses: flickering lights like old candles in timber-frame windows. They loomed over marshy fields and shrank in the shadows of ancient trees.

The map was utterly blank for five miles: no services, no towns, nothing but the road.

Where the houses came from and who lived there, none could say.

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Word Count: 149

This is for FFfAW. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and Jodi McKinney for providing the prompt photo!

Places to Visit After the End of the World

If you ever find yourself near the Cinder, the Museum of What Was is a must see. Marvel at the recreations of this bygone world. Weep when you see the remnants of this noble civilization, reduced to ash in a single afternoon.

We have in our collection numerous objects of interest to the discerning traveller. Taste a replications of the humans’ sacred drink, which they believed gave them wings! See their many household gods, taking forms as varied as bat-men, dogs crowned with rings, and cloth banners! Participate in human games where players fought to the death over a leather ball! Take a look at our reconstruction of the human holy city, where the priests of the mouse god presided over pilgrims from their tall castle.

All this and more with an afternoon ticket to the Museum of What Was! (Reduced prices for 4D-war veterans and patrons over 3000 years old.)

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Word Count: 150

This is for FFfAW. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and Yinglan for providing the prompt photo!

Last Ones on the Ferry

The ferry captain prided himself on regularity.

“Keep to a schedule, that’s the main thing,” he said. “Everything else will fall into place.”

The ferry made its passage across the channel three times a day, four times on Saturdays, and never deviated from the schedule by so much as a second, rain or shine.

Naturally, the captain didn’t see why the end of the world should be any exception.

“There’s still room!” called a woman from the shore as the gates closed and the bridge rose.

“Wait for the next ride across!” the captain shouted.

As the ash cloud brewing overhead would reach them long before the next ferry, the people stranded on the shore found this of little comfort.

The woman looked at the cloud, at her children, at the ferry moving slowly away.

“Nothing to lose,” she muttered, and slammed her foot down on the accelerator.

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Word Count: 148

This is for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and Ted Strutz for providing the prompt photo!

A Sky Like This

They are young and the sky is wild and swirling grey, electric with dreams of storm and thunder.

“We should get inside,” she whispers. “It’s going to rain.”

“Then let it rain,” he answers. “We won’t let it spoil our day.”

They are older and the sky is clear and blue and empty.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

But he’s already turned away.

They are old and the sky is fluffy white as ground and water, a world painted in winter’s monochrome.

“After all this time,” he says. “Here. Still here.”

“Where else would I be?” She smiles – snow-white, clear, electric as lightning. “Where else can you see a sky like this?”

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Word Count: 110

This is for FFfAW. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and wildverbs for providing the prompt photo!