Trunk Stories

Bucket List

prompt: Write a story with the aim of making your reader laugh.

available at Reedsy

“I haven’t, but it’s on my bucket list.”

– “Wot’s a bucket list?”

“You ogres have no culture at all, do you?”

– “You wot? We gots a lots of culture.”

“Like what?”

– “Like da Log Drum Festival.”

“What’s that?”

– “You don’t know wot a log drum is?”

“Of course, I know what a log drum is. A hollow log you beat with a stick.”

– “Right. Dat.”

“The festival, what is it?”

– “Oh. We builds a bonfire, beat on da log drums, dance around, and den go kill somefing to frow in the fire for eats.”

“One festival hardly makes a culture.”

– “Dere’s also da Skin Drum Festival.”

“The same thing, only with skin drums?”

– “No. Totally different.”

“Really? Is there a bonfire?”

– “Yeah.”

“And you beat on the skin drums?”

– “Yeah.”

“Dancing?”

– “Yeah.”

“Then you kill something, cook it in the fire and eat it?”

– “Exactly.”

“It’s the same thing!”

– “No! Totally different. Skin drums is not log drums, so not da same fing at all!”

“I’d sigh in exasperation, but you wouldn’t get it.”

– “Get wot?”

“Never mind. Any other cultural festivities?”

– “Oh! Children Drum Festival.”

“No. Tell me you don’t beat on children.”

– “Of course not. Da children beat on da drums.”

“Oh. Bonfire, dancing, and then you kill something, yada yada yada?”

– “Yeah.”

“Do you have any festivals that don’t involve killing something?”

– “Da Chieftain’s Festival.”

“Bonfire, drums, and dancing?”

– “Yeah.”

“Then what happens?”

– “Da chieftain shares da meat he brung for da feast.”

“Is there any cultural thing you do that doesn’t involve a bonfire, drums, dancing, and optionally very fresh meat cooked in that same bonfire?”

– “Da Midwinter Festival.”

“No bonfire?”

– “No. Too cold. We has it in da community center place.”

“Drums?”

– “No. Too loud inside.”

“Food?”

– “Yeah. Potluck.”

“Okay, that’s a little better, I guess. Then what?”

– “We plays bingo!”

“Ugh. Do ogres have any cultural things? More … highbrow. Like poetry, music that isn’t just drums, plays, anything?”

– “I told you. We plays bingo. We also plays hopscotch a lots.”

“Hopscotch? Surprising, that. But plays, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet?”

– “I ain’t played dose. Dey fun?”

“Forget it. Look, I’m just trying to find some kind of cultural connection here. What about clothes? Like, this kilt I’m wearing is Scottish, like me, and the pattern is my clan tartan.”

– “We has fancy clothes, too. Dis is my festival dress. I dressed up for you.”

“It certainly is a lovely brown.”

– “And look, I can wear like we does when festival start.”

“Oh, you can just pop those right out, can’t you?”

– “Better for hopscotch, see?”

“Don’t injure yourself.”

– “Feels good when dey is loose.”

“It, uh, looks rather mesmerizing, although perhaps dangerous.”

– “You funny little human. Not dangerous. I protects you.”

“Oh, that’s sweet. I…uh…can’t breathe…you’re squeezing too tight…and I’m right between your….”

– “Dat’s all da protects you get for now.”

“Thank you.”

– “So, wot is bucket list?”

“It’s a list of things I’d like to do before I kick the bucket.”

– “Why you kick da bucket? It leaks?”

“Not a literal bucket. It’s a euphemism for dying. You know what a euphemism is, right?”

– “I know euphemism. It’s wen da youf say one fing but mean another when dey being sneaky.”

“Not…exactly, but close enough, I guess.”

– “You sick? You looks healfy.”

“No, I’m not sick. I’m healthy and doing well.”

– “Den why you dying?”

“Oh, I’m not — at least not any time soon, I hope.”

– “Den why da bucket list?”

“It’s just things I think I’d like to try while I’m able. If I do them now, while I’m young and healthy, I won’t look back someday when I am dying and regret not doing them.”

– “Dat’s a good idea. I fink maybe I could makes bucket list and do fun stuff.”

“What are you — oh, your dress has pockets. I guess that counts as culture.”

– “Needs pockets for carry extra meats home.”

“Indeed. I see you have pencil and paper in there, although it appears stained.”

– “And dese.”

“Oh, yes, those would come in handy at a festival.”

– “Okay. I started bucket list.”

“What did you put on it?”

– “Is private.”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to pry.”

– “Wot cultures you got?”

“We have the Highland Games, where we compete in traditional sports like caber-toss, listen to traditional bagpipe music, and eat traditional foods, like haggis. My favorite, though, is Scotch eggs for breakfast.”

– “No bonfire?”

“Not usually, no.”

– “Boring. Wot else?”

“Poetry. Of course, there’s Robert Burns … but there’s others as well.”

– “Robert burns wot? Bonfires?”

“No, no. That’s his name, Robert Burns.”

– “Dumb name if he not burns somefing. Anyfing else?”

“Highland music; the bagpipes and the….”

– “Drums?”

“Uh, yeah, the bagpipes and the drums.”

– “Even silly humans know drums is good.”

“But don’t forget the bagpipes.”

– “Dey sound like dying sheep stepped on by troll. Hurt ears.”

“That’s … that’s fair, I guess. But don’t forget the fiddle.”

– “Fiddle is fing wit’ squeaky strings?”

“It can be, if the player’s not very good.”

– “No good players, den?”

“Ugh. Never mind.”

– “Anyfing else?”

“There are Scottish playwrights, authors, musicians, artists — like Sir Henry Raeburn. He’s a bit famous.”

– “He not burns nofing too?”

“No, his last name is Raeburn.”

– “Why name people wot dey don’t do?”

“It’s um, a cultural thing?”

– “I knowed it. Culture is dumb. Except best ogre culture of all.”

“What’s that?”

– “Culture for making goat milk cheese.”

“Hah! That’s funny! You’ve got a keen sense of humor.”

– “And smell. You petted dog on way here, it rubbed on your left leg.”

“You can tell that by smell alone?”

– “Dog I can smell, dark fur on light trousers I see.”

 “I’m wearing a kilt, those are my legs — you’re having me on!”

– “Dat’s da goal.”

“I didn’t expect you to be so humorous. You just keep impressing me.”

– “Okay, if you says.”

“I…can’t…breathe.”

– “You said to press.”

“Oof. I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

– “Kind of serious. If you wants.”

“Well, it’s possible. You’re very attractive. Not just for an ogre, but in general. Big strong woman like you, I’m sure you’ve had your pick of humans. So, to turn the original question back on you, have you ever had sex with a human?”

– “Not yet, but you’re on bucket list.”

“Seriously?”

– “This serious.”

“That’s — a whole roll — what, a dozen? You think we’ll need that many?”

– “For starts. I has more at home.”

“Oh, I hope I can keep up. And there goes the dress again. They really are magnificent.”

– “If you no keeps up, at least it’s one fing off your bucket list.”

“Too true. Lead the way — oh, right here? Okay.”

Trunk Stories

Anomaly

prompt: Center your story around two (or more) characters who strike up an unlikely friendship.

available at Reedsy

Kaidra pulled on the new over-tunic he’d grown from the soft, strong fibers of civilian-grade cloth bacterium. Growing clothes was one of the skills every man picked up during military service, along with cooking, housekeeping, gardening, and killing.

The deep blue stripes on the sleeves and around the neckline accented his pale skin, making the blue undertones more pronounced. It reflected in his eyes, making the light grey appear blue. His tar-black hair was tied back in a professional bun exposing his tall ear points. He’d cut it all off once but got tired of being labeled as “womanish.”

There were worse research assignments, Kaidra was certain, but he couldn’t figure out what they would be. Why did he get stuck with the smelly beasts? He had asked to be on the team that was uncovering what may well be the lost city of Ublar. The chance to explore the oldest known writing would have been….

Kaidra shook his head to clear it — hard enough to feel it in the points of his ears. The others his age were twelve years ahead of him in their career. He had a job, and he would do it. As a linguist, he would learn the language of the brutes. What good it would do was anyone’s guess, but they had nothing to offer modern civilization.

He’d followed in his great-grandmother’s footsteps. Her stories about decoding the language of honey bees in their dances had enticed him. That, and the shiny, gold plaque that marked her as a winner of the highest honor in the sciences. He told her he wanted to win one, and she said he might just be the first man to do so.

Times had changed since then. Men were allowed into the sciences and medicine, allowed to vote, and began to hold positions of power, including in government. The masculinist movement had taken decades to reach the place it was at, and it wasn’t over.

Still, the anti-masculinists’ biggest bogeyman hadn’t happened; no draft for women appeared. There were no more women in the modern military than there had been in his great-grandmother’s day. Kaidra, like all men, had been drafted to serve twelve years in the military. That meant he was still on the bottom of the pile and forced to take whatever he got. Besides that, there was still a chance his great-grandmother might be right about him being the first male to win a Bright Oak Commendation for Science.

Physicists were still puzzling over the anomaly. It opened their world to that of the crude creatures he was to study. Whether it was a wormhole to another galaxy, or a rift between universes was still up for debate. What wasn’t up for debate was the near-perfect match between their world and the other.

Twenty-four-hour days, 365.2422 days per year, and a matching latitude of the anomaly on the two worlds. The biggest difference was the climate. The other world was hotter with wilder weather. It was believed this was due to the pollution the beasts had poisoned their air with.

Kaidra took a deep breath and stepped through the anomaly. The heat hit him like a hammer. There were no trees here to shade the summer sun, and the strange black, synthetic surface the beasts had covered the ground with stored and radiated the heat in waves.

The beasts had grown a fence around the anomaly. Built, he reminded himself. They didn’t have the technology to grow even the simplest tools, much less infrastructure. There was some sort of structure inside the fence, but the walls were straight and the corners sharp.

Two of the beasts motioned him toward the structure. Kaidra knew from those that had come before him, that the things they had their hands on at their hips were weapons. He entered the structure and was met with a cool breeze. The air inside was far more comfortable than that outside.

He was greeted by one of the creatures. Based on the animalistic fur on its face, it was an adult male that wore its hair short, like a woman. The clothes it wore looked like nothing Kaidra could grow. The artificial furnishings together with the creature and the inorganic walls gave the whole thing an uncanny, off-kilter feel.

It took some miming, but they finally learned the other’s name. Kaidra struggled to say the creature’s name, “Jim,” but once he found the trick to making the first sound, he had it down pat. For the creature’s part, he had no trouble saying Kaidra’s name.

Jim wrote out both names and showed Kaidra the letters in a beginning reader that started with the alphabet. With a lot of miming and example, Jim showed Kaidra how to use a device that played sounds and showed images and text to go with them.

Along with the device, Jim gave Kaidra the beginning reader, and a huge book that was not grown and written but built. What it was built from was beyond his reasoning, but it felt like a sturdier wasp nest. Maybe from wood pulp?

Based on the way the text appeared in the book, it was likely a lexicon. Kaidra was holding a linguist’s dream. They may be barely civilized animals, but they had a rich, well-formed language.

Jim made two cups of something he called “tea” and offered one to Kaidra. He watched as Jim sipped at his and followed suit. It was slightly acidic, with an odd tang. Jim offered a white, glistening powder to mix in, but Kaidra wasn’t sure. Then, he offered something Kaidra recognized, honey.

After adding a generous dollop of honey and mixing it in, Kaidra found the hot drink pleasant. He still didn’t trust the beastly thing, and the beast’s mistrust was plain on his brute face. At least it was a male, though. Kaidra thought the creatures probably gave the job to a male since they felt it was as unimportant as his people did.

Jim let him keep the books and device, and Kaidra spent every waking moment burying himself in the language of the beasts. Daily visits that started with trying to find words for things around them, turned into broken conversation. Over the course of nearly two months, that turned into casual conversation.

Jim was gruff, as Kaidra expected of a beast, but not violent. This day, however, he was being curt, and waves of annoyance radiated from him.

Kaidra looked at him. “What is the wrong, Jim?”

“What’s wrong? The goddamn Army’s kicking me out of here.” Jim sighed. “I’m sorry, K, didn’t mean to take it out on you. The physicists are coming next week with some top-secret equipment to measure the anomaly — again.”

“This angry you?”

“Hell, yeah, it does. It means at least two weeks where we can’t see each other.”

“I did not know you happy when I here are,” Kaidra said.

“Heh. Guess I’m not all that friendly,” Jim said, “but I do enjoy your company.”

“But we males, must do female orders.” Kaidra sighed. “We am both here because we am male, yes?”

“We what?”

Kaidra explained, as best he could, about his culture. The more he explained, the more surprised Jim seemed. Surprise turned into agitation and then anger when Kaidra explained the twelve years mandatory service for all men, and the fact that all the officers and commanders were women.

“We have it the opposite here,” Jim said, “but women’s rights are far better than they were in the past.”

“You not forced here?” Kaidra asked.

“No,” Jim said, “not at all. I just wanted a chance to talk to a distant cousin, get to know them.”

“Cousin?”

“We ran DNA on the first few of your kind to cross the anomaly. We’re more closely related to you than to chimps and bonobos.” Jim pulled up an online entry on Kaidra’s people. “See here, they’ve named your species Homo tolkiensis after Tolkien, a writer, since you look exactly like the elves he wrote about.”

“But, how?”

“That’s what the physicists are coming here to figure out. At some point in the past, the anomaly was open, then it was closed, we guess around 1.4 million years ago, based on genetics.”

“No, how writer know about people?” Kaidra asked, pointing at himself.

“Oh, no one knows.” Jim shrugged. “My guess is that the anomaly opens up from time to time, and stories get passed down about whatever comes through, whether it’s elves or humans.”

“Make smart, I guess.” Kaidra poured tea for both of them.

“Makes sense,” Jim said. “What kind of stories do your people have about mythical creatures?”

“We have story hairy brute animals people. Take food, eat babies, kill many.” Kaidra looked down into his cup of tea. “You look like. But not like.”

“No, not like.” Jim sighed, then in Kaidra’s language said, “Sorry I am.”

Kaidra’s head popped up at the sound of his language coming from Jim. He switched to his native tongue and asked, “When did you learn that?”

Jim smiled and answered back in the same language. “Good listen I do.”

Borrowing a phrase from Jim, Kaidra raised his cup and said, “Goddamn right!”

“Goddamn right!”

They drank in silence for several long minutes before Kaidra set down his cup and looked at the almost man across the table from him. “This order bad.”

“Very much so. However,” Jim said, “is there anywhere in your world I can stay while the anomaly is off-limits? I’d very much like to see it.”

“True? Jim come to people world?”

“Yes.” Jim pointed to a bag behind himself. “I’m already packed, including plenty of tea. I promise I won’t eat any babies.”

“Yes. I grow you shirt,” Kaidra tugged at his tunic, “and we talk more lot.”

“I look forward to it, and to learning more about the people and your technology.” Jim smiled. “I’m a biologist, so I’m keenly interested in how you grow everything you need.”

Trunk Stories

IX Incarcera

prompt: Write a story with a number or time in the title.

available at Reedsy

Nonum Incarcera — Ninth Prison — also known as Nonum Infernum, Ninth Hell, The Pit, The Devil’s Asshole, and more frightening names, kept its secrets and prisoners bound up tight. The only sentence served at the Ninth was life. The prison sat in a volcanic valley, sealed by magic, auto-blasters, and the heavily guarded borders of the no-man’s-land where it was located between Dwarven, Elven, and Orcish nations.

Its founding during the Neoclassical boom of the early 18th century was evident from its architecture, its Latin name, and the Latin titles for many of the personnel. Those historical holdovers were slowly being eroded, but with the long-lived races in charge, the pace of that change was glacial.

While all the races shared in maintaining the prison, the bulk of the inside guards were orcs, ogres, trolls, and hill giants. Outside, centaurs and fleet-footed elves patrolled the dead-end valley and cliff walls, while dwarves and dark elves manned the caverns that provided the only outside access to the valley.

Only the worst of the worst were sent to the Ninth, and the dwarves guarding the in-valley cavern entrance saw them all. Mad fae enclosed in cages of iron, power-corrupted sorcerers bound with magic dispelling chains, blood-thirsty warlords of all sorts bound hand and foot, some even hogtied. In short, prisoner transport was entirely safe for everyone but the prisoner.

That’s what made the entrance of the latest prisoner so odd. Dark elves walked alongside a human in prison garb, the three of them chatting and laughing. She wasn’t bound in any way and wasn’t brought in a wagon or cart. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the prison grays she wore, it would seem to be three friends out for a stroll.

Blasters whined to their ready state as the dwarves standing guard drew on the trio. The guard commander called out, “Stop there, and stand by for inspection! Lethal force is authorized.”

The three stopped, one of the dark elves holding out a clipboard in one hand, cuffs and shackles in the other. The second nodded at the human woman, who put her hands flat on top of her head. “Would you like me to get on the ground, or anything like that?” she asked.

The guard commander stroked his beard. “No, that’s not necessary, just don’t move.”

“You got it, boss,” she said.

The dark elf guard with the clipboard offered the cuffs and shackles to the dwarf guard. “If you think you need ’em, you can have ’em. She’s bein’ good, though. Hell, she volunteered to walk in when the transport wagon broke down outside the east gate.”

“You walked five miles to get here?” the dwarf asked.

“I did, sir,” she answered.

As the dwarf began looking over the paperwork for the prisoner, he was interrupted by the warden. “Praetorius, I need to talk to the prisoner in your office, please.”

“Aye, Dux Custodiae,” the guard commander said. “Would you like me to bind her first?”

“No, thank you. I will take those shackles and cuffs, though.” The warden, one of the only elves to work inside the prison, and perhaps the smallest employee in the entire complex, smoothed her uniform jacket and turned toward the human woman. “Please step through the metal detector and magic detector, then step into the office here.”

The woman did as told and took a seat across the desk from the warden. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“Ms. Palmer,” the warden said, “I’m Chief Warden Highoak. I’m in charge of the women’s wing of the prison.”

“Please, ma’am, Trish is fine.”

“Ms. Palmer, I’m confused by your record.” Highoak flipped through the papers that had been passed along by the dark elves. “Normal life for thirty years, then six ex-boyfriends murdered in two years.”

Trish shrugged and smiled. “I was set up. Didn’t do it.”

“Poison — utterly cliché. It seems like a severe lack of impulse control. You aren’t going to be a problem, are you?”

“No, ma’am. I just want to keep my head down and do my time.”

Warden Highoak leaned across the desk. “You understand, you are here to ‘do time’ for life, right?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. At least, until my appeal makes it to court. I’m sure my defense team can find the real killer and I’ll be exonerated.”

Highoak cuffed and shackled Trish and led her into the prison proper herself. Once there, she handed her off to intake with her paperwork. After a search, she was issued a uniform, mattress, blanket, pillow, and hygiene kit, and allowed to keep her notebook and soft-tip pen.

Based on the nature of her crimes, she wasn’t deemed a danger to other prisoners. As such, her new cell was in general population. Her cellmate was an ancient ogre, missing a hand and one eye, thinning grey hair hanging limp over a heavily wrinkled face.

“Bottom bunk’s mine,” the ogre said.

“Sure thing. The name’s Trish.”

The ogre simply grunted in reply.

Taking the hint, Trish kept quiet as she made up her bunk and set her sparse belongings on the little shelf next to her bunk. Once she was settled in, she wandered the common area. Those that seemed somewhat friendly she greeted.

A hill giant guard stepped in front of her. “Hey, fish! You need to understand something.”

Trish looked up at the guard’s face. “Yes, ma’am. What do I need to understand?”

“Gumgrut runs the floor here. She tells you to jump you ask how high on the way up.” The guard cleared her throat. “Unless she asks you to do something illegal.”

Trish looked at the guard’s nametag. “I don’t know Gumgrut, Officer Parumpf.”

“Your cellie,” Parumpf said.

“I thought that was the guards’ job? Or the warden?”

“If a guard tells you to do something, you do it or go to solitary.” The guard crouched down to put her face on a level with Trish. “If Gumgrut tells you to do something and you don’t, you might end up dead. Just stay clear of the troublemakers and contraband, and you’ll be fine. If you have a question or a problem, look for me or Officer Wallford. We won’t steer you wrong. If you just want to bitch about something, I’d recommend the bitch in the mirror.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Trish said. “Got it. Um, what time’s dinner?”

“Six. You’ll hear the call.” Parumpf stood. “Now get out of here. Library’s open, if you’re into that.”

Trish wandered around some more, making her eventual way to the library. Her eyes took in everything without any obvious ogling. It was clear that notes were being passed between the women’s section and men’s section through the library. The prisoners working in the library were in on it, and it didn’t seem the lone guard, a bored-looking orc, was paying any attention.

At dinner, she found a quiet corner in which to sit, where she was joined by a boisterous dwarf. She smiled and nodded along as the dwarf woman regaled her with grossly exaggerated stories of how she killed a dozen giants with a spoon because they annoyed her.

Trish knew better than to engage too much with someone so clearly unhinged. Instead, on finishing her dinner, she returned to her cell, where she found Gumgrut already asleep.

As quiet as she could, she climbed into her bunk, pulled out her notebook and pen, and began writing a letter. It was filled with the sort of boring inanities that one might expect of a woman with little hope of freedom trying to stay connected to family.

Beneath the inanity, though, was the real message. Encoded in the letter, she wrote:

Day 1: Arrived. Outer perimeter guards let me walk in without cuffs/shackles. Inner perimeter guards would have let me continue but met with warden who shackled me.

Smuggled in lock pick set, 4 100 krown notes — not internally! — sleight of hand only.

Notes and contraband passing through library. Officer Stormtooth ignored it all.

My cellmate is mob boss Hilda Gumgrut.

Officer Parumpf says Gumgrut ‘runs the floor’ — says I’m to speak to Parumpf or Officer Wallford if I have an issue. Have not met Wallford yet but expect they both defer to Gumgrut.

Expect to find ingress for contraband within original planned 90 days.

Bonus: I will try to find out how Gumgrut continues to run the family from inside.

Trunk Stories

Gap Year

prompt: Situate your character in a hostile or dangerous environment.

available at Reedsy

The haze blocking out the morning sky was the color of infectious decay. The weak sun, faint behind the fetid smog was an omen — of what, Zeke couldn’t tell.

Mask secure and seals checked, Ezekiel “Zeke” Rankin, self-appointed scout, let himself out through the airlock to the cool, damp morning air. The silent alien city extended endlessly. What used to be a thriving ecumenopolis had been turned into a graveyard. Continent sized chunks of the city had been flattened, while others stood with no visible damage beyond the poisoned sky.

The mission, including Zeke’s family, had set up in a hospital in one of those “undamaged” sections. His mother came to help any survivors and care for the other volunteers, his sister came to help clean up the chemical weapons fallout. At fifteen years of age, Zeke wasn’t given much choice.

He climbed down the access ladder to the tunnels beneath the city. A nearby area had lost power, and he was determined to find the hospital’s power source before it sputtered to a stop as well.

Aside from three doctors at the hospital, all the aliens Zeke had seen had been dead. He’d come across hundreds, if not a thousand, so far. Conventional wisdom said there were likely no other survivors that hadn’t been evacuated from the planet. Which made the sound in the tunnel more concerning.

He thought about giving up the search for the day. The thought of his mother treating the volunteers who’d been exposed, and his sister in her lightweight flyer, piercing through the smog itself to test various neutralizers in the atmosphere firmed his resolve.

“Hello?” he called out. He continued on toward the sound he’d heard.

He turned the corner and felt something hard against his ribs. He didn’t speak much of the alien’s language, but enough to understand the words “stop” and “alien.”

He raised his hands to show them empty. In his best attempt at their language, broken and halting, he said, “Good morning. My name Zeke. Mission, me…here, uh, today.”

The alien switched to Interstellar Trade Language. At least it was a required subject in school, and he was almost as proficient as he was in English. “Where did you come from? You are not the aliens that attacked us, what are you?”

“I’m human, from the Sol Federation. I’m here with my mother and sister who are helping with the recovery mission.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry I messed up your language. My name is Zeke, what’s yours?”

“Abref.” The hard object was removed from his ribs and the bearer stepped in front of him. In the dim lights, at a distance, it would be easy to mistake the alien for a tall, slender person with a long tail.

Zeke caught his thoughts and corrected them. That is a person, and I’m the alien here.

The hard thing that had been pressed against his ribs turned on. It was a torch. In the wash of light, the creature — person — holding it had grey-blue skin with a disheveled mane of muddy orange that began between its eyes and lengthened at the crest of its head. He knew that the mane continued down the center of the back to join in the fur on the tail. The mane said male, but the coloration said female, at least as far as Zeke knew.

Abref’s nostril slits flared, then relaxed. “You’ve been on the surface.”

Zeke nodded. “I have. Is the air in here safe?”

“It is. For my kind at least. What do you aliens breathe?”

“Oxygen, same as you.” He lifted the mask off, and the smell of something rotting hit him like a wall. “What is that smell?”

“The farm. You get used to it.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Sorry, but I have to ask, are you male or female?” Zeke was about to apologize for his rudeness, but Abref stopped him.

“I’m a maned female. Never seen one? You’re pretty new here, huh?”

“We’ve been here for eighteen local days,” he said. “How long have you been surviving down here? Why didn’t you evacuate?”

“Those of us at the farm closed up tight when the sirens went off the first time,” she said. “That was sixty-one days ago. Some of us braved the surface to evacuate, but with the reports of bombardment, the rest of us decided to stay put.”

“The city right above you is still untouched,” Zeke said, “except for the poison. The mission is set up in the hospital.”

“How are you set for food up there?” she asked.

“We’ve got emergency rations for about ninety days, with more coming whenever the next supply run happens.”

“Any fresh food?”

“Nothing like that.”

“Follow me.” She walked off without waiting for him. The torch provided something to follow in the dim tunnels that often turned completely dark as they went further from the main utility access.

The farm was a well-lit chamber the size of which would embarrass a stadium. Water flowed in from one side, trickled through fields the size of football pitches, and out the other side to continue on somewhere.

Those fields were rich with what could best be described as mutant mushrooms with different fruits and vegetables sprouting from the same base mycelium. Half a dozen others worked fields, stopping when they realized their compatriot had not returned alone.

After filling the other workers in on who Zeke was, and what was going on with the mission, one of them asked him, “Which hospital?”

Zeke thought for a moment, “It’s Pabor-something.”

“Paborabal?” one asked.

“No, that’s not it.”

“Porablorial?” another asked.

“No, no.”

“Probiraporo?” Abref asked.

“That’s the one!”

They talked among themselves in their language, before Abref tapped him on the shoulder.

“Yes?”

“Would you help us deliver some food to Probiraporo?” she asked.

“How will you get it there? Do you have gas masks?”

Abref pointed at a cart loaded with produce. “You grab that one. The farms all have delivery shafts to the nearest markets and hospitals.”

Zeke pushed the cart, following the workers and the six carts they pushed. “I meant to find out where the power for the hospital is generated. The power’s out a short distance away.”

“We turned off the power there,” Abref said. “One of the filters failed and it was pulling the poison into the undercity.”

“Oh. How long can we expect the power to stay on here?”

“Without regular maintenance, probably sixty or seventy local orbits.”

They pushed the carts into an open-sided lift that started to rise. “That’s good to know,” Zeke said, “since they say they’ll have the air clean within the next two orbits, and people can start coming home.”

“Won’t the gurgrons just attack again?” she asked as the floor of the receiving bay opened above them.

“We won’t let them.” The man that answered her question relaxed, dropping the aim of the rifle he’d had pointed at the lift. “We’re glad to see there’s still survivors.”

“Abref, this is Clint. He’s the head of security for the mission.” Zeke gestured to the others with him. “Clint, Abref and the others are from a farm beneath the city.”

“I’ll alert the other missions to keep a look out for more survivors in the farms,” Clint said.

“You said you won’t let them attack again. How can you stop them?” Abref asked.

“Major Clint Collins, Sol Federation Forces, here with the Interstellar Trade Union Peacekeeping Task Force.” He moved to grab one of the carts. “The Task Force, along with Sol military, is chasing down the remaining gurgron fleets. Their home world is already in a blockade until they unilaterally disarm.”

“Why would you do that?” Abref cocked her head. “We aren’t even members of the Union yet.”

“Ah, but you’ve applied and there are already trade deals in the making.” Clint pushed the cart toward the kitchens. “That’s close enough as to make no difference.”

As they unloaded the carts in the kitchen, Abref paused and looked at Zeke. “I understand why the Major’s here — military orders and all, but what about the rest of you?”

“Well, my mother’s a doctor, so she’s here to do that, and my older sister is an atmospheric pilot with the ITU Disaster Relief Association.”

“And you?” she asked.

“I’m only fifteen, and I graduated two years early. I’m too young to be allowed to be on my own for an entire year, and it was either take a gap year here with my mom before University or start right away with a state-appointed guardian.”

“You’re not an adult yet, and you chose to do something so dangerous?”

Zeke shrugged. “It’s not the worst thing ever, getting to spend time with my sister that I rarely see. Besides, I’ve been looking forward to my gap year since I was seven.”

Clint laughed. “Good kid. What’re you planning on going to school for?”

“I still haven’t decided.” Zeke began emptying the next cart. “That’s what a gap year is for, yeah?”

Trunk Stories

Portal From the Underworld

prompt: Write about a portal or doorway that’s hiding in plain sight.

available at Reedsy

Angel watched the restroom door. A small, stout woman, barely taller than the doorknob’s height, with lime-green hair and a bright, reflective safety vest had gone in several minutes earlier and still hadn’t come out. She hadn’t locked the door, so the green “Vacant” still showed. Angel was so busy watching the door that she didn’t see the woman with the squirming baby until she was already at the door.

Angel opened her mouth to warn her that the room was occupied, but before she could say anything the young woman had gone in and locked the door. With the red “Occupied” showing, Angel wondered what was going on. Was the other woman still in there? Little person or no, she’d be hard to miss.

When the young mother re-emerged with her baby, Angel decided she couldn’t wait any longer. If the green-haired lady was still in there, that was on her.

There was room for a toilet, a sink, a baby-changing station that folded down from the wall, a waste basket below the paper towel dispenser, and just enough room and handholds for wheelchair users to qualify it as “accessible.” What there wasn’t, was a stout, little, green-haired woman in a yellow safety vest.

Angel looked at herself in the mirror above the sink while she washed her hands. I must’ve not been looking when she came out, she thought, or maybe she didn’t go in and I didn’t see it right.

There was a smaller voice that she ignored, trying to tell herself that maybe she didn’t see the woman at all. Angel rubbed the stubble on her head as she walked out. Her coworkers had teased her about having a breakdown and “going full Britney.”

She pretended their comments didn’t bother her, but they did. They wormed their way into her brain like a parasite, infecting her with self-doubt. Her fingers touched the burn at the back of her head. It wasn’t serious, but the pain reminded her that she’d had a good reason to shave her head.

A kid at his birthday party with silly string, plus his auntie with her back turned was a predictable outcome, judging by the amount she’d already had in her hair. The introduction of the birthday cake with lit candles, though, turned the next spray into a flaming projectile.

She still felt awful that she’d ruined his birthday party. There’s something about a grown woman screaming with her hair on fire that puts a damper on the mood. The ER doctor that shaved the back of her head to get at the burn — mostly first degree with a patch of second degree — was kind enough to shave off everything else. It was that or leave the ER looking like a horror movie villain.

Angel returned to the bench to wait for the bus. She still had forty minutes to wait. It was the big downside to living in the boonies — spotty public transportation. She found herself watching the restroom without meaning to. A thin woman with ghostly pale skin and deep brown hair, wearing a safety vest like the one worn by the woman that had disappeared, stepped into the restroom.

When the woman didn’t immediately lock the door, Angel jumped up from the bench and burst into the restroom. She was ready to apologize but there was no one there she could apologize to. A faint odor of ozone hung in the air, as though an electrical appliance had shorted in the room.

She ran her hands along the sink. When her fingers touched a spot of water on the edge of the basin, a shock ran up her arm, making her jump back.

Even as she boarded the bus for the hour-long journey home, she was trying to rationalize what she’d seen and felt. Maybe she’d seen a man and he’d gone into the men’s restroom. That, combined with static, probably from sitting on the plastic bench, explained it.

Her sleep was fitful, and she woke unrefreshed. The oddity of the restroom bothered her. She didn’t have to work that day, but she packed a lunch in her backpack and took the bus to the city anyway. Ignoring that it made her look suspicious, she watched everyone that came by in a yellow safety vest. The men’s room had a conspicuous “Out of Order” sign hanging from the knob and police tape crossed over it.

She was halfway through a sandwich when a thin man in a yellow safety vest looked at the “Out of Order” sign and walked past to the women’s room. Angel did her best to not look like she was watching. She saw him knock, then duck into the women’s restroom from the corner of her eye.

The door hadn’t had time to close completely by the time she got to it and burst in. The air crackled around the man as he sprinkled water from the sink at his feet. Angel grabbed for his arm and heard a crackle and pop as she was blinded by a blue flash.

Her vision returned, albeit with spots. The man was gone, as was the water he’d sprinkled on the floor around him. She dropped the now-squashed half sandwich into the waste basket and looked at the sink. Feeling silly, she cupped a hand under the automatic faucet and let the collected water drip on her feet.

She felt the hair on her arms stand on end, then found herself standing on a flat stone at the edge of a spring. The air was warm and heavy with the scent of lilac. Hummingbirds drank from flowers on a vine that Angel couldn’t identify. As her gaze shifted away from the immediate surroundings, she found herself facing unbroken wilderness.

Behind her was a road, not of asphalt or concrete or cobbles, but appeared to be an unbroken, smooth slab of granite. She walked out to the center of the road and looked down it. Flanked by trees on both sides, it led straight into the hills where she could see a glimpse of a city.

The sound of wheels crunching over gravel came from behind and she spun around to see what had to be a car. All the parts were there, four wheels with inflated tires, windows, doors, and a driver and passenger. Beyond that, though, it was odd. There was no room front or rear for an engine, and with how quiet it was she guessed it was electric.

The mismatched pair got out. The short woman with green hair she’d seen the previous day, and who she guessed was the thin, pale woman she’d seen after. She hadn’t noticed then, but the thin woman had ears with tall points on them. The shorter woman had her hair pulled up and had smaller points on her ears.

The two approached Angel and the shorter one spoke. “I’m Arva, and she’s Elynia. You’re a human, ain’tcha?”

“Uh, yeah, yes I am.” Angel looked around her again. “Where are we?”

“On the highway between the village of Ost and King City,” Elynia said, “by the Underworld Spring. Who are you, and how did you get here?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Angel, and you both disappeared in the bathroom yesterday, so today I followed a man in—”

“An elf, you mean,” the thin one interjected.

“Elf?”

“Like me. He’s an elf, not a man. Man hasn’t been here for centuries,” Elynia said.

“So, you’re an elf.” Angel pointed at Arva. “Does that mean you’re—”

“A dwarf, right.” 

“Uh, okay, an elf, who was sprinkling water on his feet, and he popped away in a flash of blue light.” Angel shrugged. “I did what I saw him doing and then I was here.”

The small, stout woman said, “You shouldn’ta’ seen that. Ah well, what’s done is done. You’re the first human to cross in what … six, maybe seven-hundred years or thereabouts.”

“Um, cross? Cross what? You said the Underworld Spring. Is this the Underworld? Am I dead?” Angel thought she should be fearful, but all she felt was curiosity.

“No. This is the Overworld. You’re from the Underworld.” Elynia pointed at the spring. “That spring is one of the ‘matching places’ between our worlds. Humans built a city near it and turned the spring into a ‘Park and Ride’ as you call it. Beneath that parking lot and bus stop is the spring, and that’s where the water for your restrooms comes from. It’s the water that ties the realms together.”

“At least until it dries up on your side or ours,” Arva said. “You said he went into the ladies? Why didn’t he use the men’s? It works just the same.”

“Oh, it’s out of order or something. But there’s police tape, too, so—”

“Never mind, I don’t wanna know. The Underworld’s a mess.” Arva let out an exaggerated sigh and snorted. “I don’t suppose we’ll have time to make a crossing today, seeing how we got a human to take to the watch.”

“I can tell you’re all sorts of sad about that,” Elynia said. “Well, Angel, would you like to join us in the car, and we can head to the city? If not, we’ll call the watch to come get you.”

“They’ll just make us do it,” Arva said, flashing a badge.

“What if I just go back to the spring and sprinkle the water on my feet? Wouldn’t I return home?”

“You might, but the watch’ll still come after you.” Arva opened the car. “If you go with us, we can get your promise to secrecy and let you go. Otherwise, we noticed that humans don’t pay attention to people in safety vests. Especially when there’s a group of them, say, lugging all your belongings out of your home. No one would see the watch take you, and your neighbors would assume you moved.”

“Okay, so disappeared or go to the watch and promise to keep mum.” Angel thought for a moment. “Is it in the village, or the city?”

“The city, of course,” Elynia said.

“Well, I guess I could take a look at your city, but I’d really like to check out the village. The air’s so clean here, is everything electric like your car?”

“It’s not electric,” Arva said. “It runs on magic.”

“Right. Because that makes so much sense.” Angel crossed her arms. “I’m not a gullible child.”

“Yet you activated an ancient portal with a sprinkle of water, popped up to the Overworld, and think that everything still needs to work as it does in the Underworld.” Elynia laughed.

“Oh, yeah, that.” Angel got into the car and sat down, followed by the dwarf and elf. “Okay, take me to the watch.”

The doors closed and the car pulled onto the road and took off at speed. No one controlled it, and there were no controls to do so. “Mighty bold to just take command of my car,” Arva said.

“Take command? I was talking to you.” Angel sighed. “Sorry.”

“It shouldn’t take orders from anyone but me,” Arva said, “but you shouldn’t be able to activate the portal, either.”

“I told you I saw magic in a human yesterday.” Elynia wore a smug expression. “This is the one I saw.”

“I didn’t think it possible.” The dwarf stared at Angel. “I guess magic’s not completely dead in the Underworld, then.”

The city rose up before them, spires instead of skyscrapers, parks and green spaces everywhere, and the soft murmur of conversations without the noise of machinery. The watch building was a two-story stone structure that was clearly equivalent to a police station.

Angel entered to gasps as uniformed dwarves, elves, and others she couldn’t identify right off, turned to face her. She gave an awkward wave. “Hi. I’m a human and I got here by, uh, following a guy.”

After two hours of confused questioning, magical testing, and lots of ogling by the other officers, Angel signed a promise to not tell anyone else in the “Underworld” how to cross. She also found a common sense of humor in the dwarf and joined her and Elynia for an early dinner in the city.

Angel checked the time. “Crap. The last bus home is in ten minutes. I won’t make it back.”

“Why don’t you stay at my place tonight? We’ve got to put on the stupid vests and go back to the Underworld tomorrow anyway,” Elynia said. “You’ll get to see at least a little of the village.”

“Yeah, I could do that.” Angel thought for a minute. “What are you two doing at lunch tomorrow? I know this great place downtown. Little hole in the wall that does the best Mexican.”

They discussed their plans for the following day as they filed out of the restaurant and piled into the car for the drive to the village.

Trunk Stories

Day Labor

prompt: Write a story in which the first and last sentence are the same.

available at Reedsy

Adrian poured the clear liquid over the ice in the shallow glass, watching it turn white in swirls and eddies. He turned off the lights and carried the glowing glass to the mirror. Rather than the mysterious, cool image he was hoping for, the sickly blue glow left him looking pallid and cadaverous.

With the overhead lights back on and the black light off, the liquid had the appearance of skim milk over ice. Adrian checked his appearance in the mirror. Even dressed as he was in his best, he knew he wouldn’t fit in. The word ‘poor’ might as well have been tattooed across his forehead in bold letters.

The party was less than twenty-four hours away. He wondered if he should skip it. It wasn’t like they’d pick him, anyway. He looked at the refrigerator and the invitation hanging there under a magnet advertisement for the day labor office.

He gulped down his drink without thinking. The ice cubes in the glass brought him back to the moment. He hadn’t even tasted it. Perhaps another? No, that was his one a day he allowed himself. Instead, he took his time sucking on the ice cubes, getting every last bit of flavor.

When the last of the ice was gone, Adrian undressed, folding his trousers with care and hanging them under the jacket, next to the shirt. Those two hangars, a second-hand pair of sneakers, and his battered work boots defined the contents of his small closet. The dresser beside it contained every other garment he owned.

He grabbed the first t-shirt his hand touched and paired it with work jeans chosen with the same lack of care. It was too early to sleep, long past dinner, and he felt he might explode if he tried to sit still. He left the small apartment, checking that the door was locked, or at least as locked as it could be.

Wandering around the neighborhood was his entertainment on those evenings where he couldn’t sit still enough to read a book. The blue glow of TVs illuminated windows throughout the brownstones. No doubt, they were all watching the latest news about the aliens.

He’d watched on the TV at the day labor waiting room when they first showed up a month earlier. When they turned out to look like elves from fantasy, speculations ran wild. Without a job for him that day, the news station in the waiting room was as good as it got.

The aliens asked for humans that were willing to return to their planet as ambassadors or something. They even had a website set up to apply. Adrian had used one of the computers at the day labor office to apply. Not that he expected to be chosen, with billionaires, stars, and politicians all saying they’d applied.

Last week, he’d gotten an invitation to a party for final selection of those that would be chosen He thought about it as he wandered past the bodega. Would he have to get a passport? Could he even afford one? Maybe the aliens would pay for it. What would customs look like?

A rat startled him, rushing to return to its hiding place under the stairs of a brownstone. It dropped something as it ran by, and he picked it up. It was a ten-dollar bill. A little chewed on one corner, but good enough.

Adrian turned around and walked with purpose to the bodega. He waved at the cashier as he entered and made his way to the back. There, next to the beer cooler stood his target. Nestled between boxes of wine on one side, and bottles of liquor on the other, stood a rotating shelf of used paperbacks.

Relying on the cover art to determine the genre, he picked out three by authors he’d never heard of. He avoided the romance novels with bare-chested, long-haired men on the cover, that were churned out by the hundreds each month. He chose a science fiction novel, a mystery, and one that was likely a drama.

He had enough for the three books and a day-old, plain bagel. Purchases in hand, he returned to his apartment. Without a key but just a wiggle and twist, his “locked” door opened. The promise of new reading material made sitting still worth it.

Adrian put a chipped coffee cup with half an inch of water in the toaster over next to the stale bagel and turned it on. He wandered back and forth between the kitchenette and his bed until the bagel was warm.

Nibbling on the warm, somewhat softened bagel, he sat on the single chair in his apartment and began reading the drama. Somewhere in the middle of chapter four, he fell asleep.

It was still the middle of the night when a rap on the door woke him. He crossed the apartment to the door and peeked through the peephole. It was one of the space elves!

He opened the door, and the five-foot-nothing, grey-skinned, pointy-eared alien asked, “Are you Adrian Keller?”

“That’s me,” he answered.

“I’m Cruit,” the alien said, and hoisted a six-pack of beer. “Can I come in?”

“Sure, sure.” Adrian motioned the alien in and gestured to the chair. “Have a seat.”

“Where will you—?” Cruit trailed off as Adrian sat cross-legged on the floor. “Oh.”

 Adrian accepted a beer from the visitor. “Sorry about the apartment. It’s not much, but it’s home.”

“A place to sleep is a place to sleep.” The alien took a deep drink of the beer. “Guys like us — except I’m a female, is that still a guy? What was I saying? Yeah, workers like us have to be happy with what we can get.”

“You’re a laborer?” Adrian asked.

“Much like yourself,” she answered. “I’m a manager now.”

Adrian raised his beer. “Congratulations. Better paycheck?”

“Better accommodations.”

“That’s not nothing.”

Cruit leaned forward. “Why did you apply for a position with us?”

Adrian chuckled. “Hard to find work. A steady job would be nice.”

“I talked to the people at Reddy Labor. They say you’re not afraid of hard work, and you pick up power tools and equipment operation quickly.”

“True enough, I suppose.”

“Would you be opposed to working on the ship?”

“Doing labor?”

“Yes.”

“If it’s a steady position, I’m in.” Adrian carried the empties to the kitchenette, put ice in two glasses, and grabbed the bottle of Ouzo. “What about the party tomorrow?”

“That’s for the fancy people,” Cruit said. “I’m guessing that’s as much not you as it’s not me.”

“True enough.” Adrian returned with the glasses and bottle.

“If you want it, I’ve got a position for you. It’s permanent.”

“Sure. When do I start?”

“I could use your help getting the ship ready tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’m there.” He held up the bottle. “Care for something a little stronger?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Adrian poured the clear liquid over the ice in the shallow glass, watching it turn white in swirls and eddies.

Trunk Stories

What I Left Behind

prompt: Center your story around someone who realizes they’ve left something behind.

available at Reedsy

The bed I lay on was comfortable enough, but not plush. The walls were a pale blue with no windows. An IV ran into my arm, and a tangle of cables connected me to a device that quietly monitored my vitals. There was a white corridor outside the open door. The closed door on the wall opposite my head had a toilet sign. Hospital.

I sat up, putting my feet on the floor. I felt weak. At first, I wasn’t sure I was feeling it, but a faint thrum carried through the floor — deck, my mind corrected. Hospital ship.

I’d no sooner deduced that than a nurse — or what I assumed was a nurse — walked in. She was short, no more than 150 centimeters, covered in a fine, taupe fur with delicate limbs and graceful fingers. Large eyes set aside her head gave her a field of vision far beyond 180 degrees. A striped tail swished behind her as she walked, and she put on a smile that could melt the coldest of hearts. Something about her felt familiar.

“You mustn’t try to get up yet.” Her voice was somewhere between a purr and a growl. One of her eyes focused on me while the other seemed to be watching the device. “I’m Joxi, the night nurse. Now that you’re awake, the doctor and physical therapist will be in to go over your next steps — little joke for you.”

People of her species were called Gortian but called themselves anushi, in the same way we call ourselves human, but others call us Earthian. I wasn’t sure how I knew that — I just did. Just like I knew that this ship was a human design.

My voice was weak and raspy, and it took far too much energy to make a simple inquiry. “You … anushi … ship … human?”

“Exactly.” She helped me get my legs back on the bed and tucked me back in.

“How …?” I didn’t have the energy to get the words out. How did I end up here? What happened? The more I thought about it, the more I realized how little I knew. 

I am human. I am a man … I think. My right hand went by instinct to my chest where I traced scars on both sides with a patch of hair between. I am a man. I am a human. My name is … is … I don’t know. My job is … I worked in a pizza place in high school.

Memories newer than that elude me. I try to get the nurse’s attention before she leaves. Even with her back turned to me, she sees the slight raise of my hand and turns back around.

“I can’t …” I point at my head. “Who am I?”

“I’ll let the doctor explain, but it’ll come back to you, Mr. Jacobs.” She left without another word.

Jacobs, I wondered, is that right? It felt familiar, but something felt off, something missing.

The doctor entered. Her uniform designated her as a Captain in the United Federation of Sol Navy. Equivalent to a Colonel in the other services. I considered that I might have been in the military with how easily I picked that up.

“Ma’am,” I said with as much gusto as I could muster, which wasn’t much at all.

“It’s good to see you awake,” she said. “Can you tell me your name, rank, and serial number?”

“I, uh … no, ma’am. I know some things, like I’m human, the nurse is anushi, this is a human hospital ship, and you’re a Navy Captain, same rank as a ground-pounder Colonel, but I don’t know how I know them. She said my name is Jacobs, but I’m not sure.”

The doctor wrote some things on her pad, then looked up at me. “Your name is Ryan Jacobs, you’re a Corporal — at the moment — in the UFS Marine Corps, and you’ve been in a coma for forty-three days. We’re still a month out from home, but when we get there, you’ve got an award, a promotion, and an early retirement waiting.

“I’m Dr. Wells, and I’m the primary physician on your case. You suffered some serious head trauma, along with your arm,” she said, nodding toward my left hand.

I flexed my left hand. It felt half-numb. I looked at it … or tried to. It wasn’t there. My arm stopped at a bandage just past my elbow.

“My … where?” How had I not noticed? How bad did I mess my head up? What had happened to me?

“We’ve found that replaying your helmet cam footage can help bring back memories faster.” She looked grim. “It’s not pretty, it’s likely to be traumatizing, but it can help. Do you want to try?”

“I do … yes, ma’am, Captain Wells.”

“You don’t have to be formal here, Ryan. You can just call me Doc.”

“Thanks, Doc. How soon can I—”

“Tomorrow morning. You need a good night of non-comatose sleep, first.”

I nodded and let my head rest back on the pillow. After she left, I watched the hallway for a bit. Mostly humans in Navy uniforms, but at least ten percent of the traffic were anushis in civilian clothes. Something about that caused an ache in my chest.

Exhaustion overtook me and I let it, before the ache could become sobbing. It didn’t help. My own weeping woke me in the morning. A pair of warm hands held my right hand, a comfort when I didn’t know I needed it. I turned to see a rough-and-tumble looking Petty Officer, tears pooled in his dark brown eyes. “You’re not alone,” he said.

I looked at his name tag. “Thanks, Masoe.” I went to wipe my eyes with my left hand, and its absence made the tears start again, this time from frustration.

Masoe helped me pull myself together and eat the light breakfast he’d brought. He said two more meals and they could remove the feeding tube that went up my nose and down my throat.

After breakfast came the part I was both dreading and excited for. A chance to figure out what had happened, and maybe, just maybe, get my memories back.

In the reflection of the goggles for the immersion viewer I saw my bandaged, shaved head. I felt at the edge of the bandage with my hand, and Dr. Wells told me to be careful of it. Part of my skull was still out until the brain swelling was completely gone.

I won’t recount the nightmare I relived. It involved an attack on an anushi colony by an unknown enemy. We were evacuating civilians, including a hospital. That’s where I recognized Joxi. We were just getting going when the bombing started.

While the other squads began working their way up, I led my squad to the third floor to work our way down. The entire third floor was the children’s ward. Anushi kids are all eyes, teeth, and tails, and cute as hell because of it. They grow into them, eventually, but a ball of fluff with huge eyes and buck teeth… well, we got most of them out. The ones that could walk, and those that could be carried in our arms.

It was an incubator, the first of nine, running on battery power that I was lugging down the stairs when the bomb hit the wall next to me. My helmet recorded it all, even after the shockwave knocked me unconscious. My hand and wrist were mangled along with the incubator and the fragile infant inside. Then the third floor collapsed on me and the recording cut out until I was dug out of the rubble fifty-six minutes later.

The incubators! I had dragged them all close to the stairwell to speed things up. Had I doomed nine anushi children? What about the other side of the third floor? Would they have survived there?

I didn’t realize the questions I was asking myself, I was asking out loud. The voice I heard was that of Joxi. “You saved sixty-six out of sixty-seven children that day. The incubators were lucky. A bomb on the roof destroyed the other half of the third floor, and only the area above the stairwell collapsed. The incubators were sitting there in the open, dusty, but safe.”

I felt the fur of her hands as she lifted the immersion viewer off my head. “You Marines saved almost everyone in the hospital.” Her smile was bright, but I could see the sadness she tried to hide.

“Almost,” I said, “isn’t everyone.”

She held me as I wept for loss, hers and mine. The loss of innocent lives, the loss of friends and loved ones, the loss of her home. But what had I lost? What had I left behind, other than my arm? I knew, somehow, that I would never be whole. My memories would never fully return. I’d left a huge chunk of my past in the rubble of that hospital on a foreign world. I’d lost a part of me.

Trunk Stories

The Beard of Avon

prompt: Center your story around an artist whose creations have enchanted qualities.

available at Reedsy

Justin Smoot was known by his neighbors as the hippie who paints and has an overgrown plot full of weeds. The people of Bidford-on-Avon knew him as an eccentric that used a loophole in environmental laws to have his front and rear gardens declared wild habitat. The art scene in Warwickshire knew him as a painter of weirdness, best classified as abstract surrealism. The fact that there was an undeniable magic to his art, despite his being untrained as either an artist or a wizard, made them slightly more interesting to collectors than they would have been otherwise.

There were a select few who knew him by another name, one which they would only share with their most trusted friends or allies. It was based on that name that the couple who sought him out were walking up his garden path just before sunrise.

Before they could knock, Justin opened the door of his cottage and waved them in. He stuck his head out the door and looked for witnesses. Satisfied they’d been unseen, he latched and locked the door.

He motioned toward the shabby furniture in the sitting room, grabbed the burning joint that had been balanced on the edge of the mantle, and took a deep drag. “I’ve just put the tea on,” he said, the smoke curling around his full, wild beard flecked with spots of paint and unkempt, dishwater blond hair. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

The couple sat. A dwarf woman, her dun muscles straining against the sleeves of an otherwise loose sundress, and her partner, an albino elf woman in a similar style sundress that flowed like water around her.

Justin padded to the kitchen in his bare feet and prepared the tea. He returned to the sitting room with a battered but ornate, silver tea trolley laden with tea and biscuits and unmatched, chipped cups and saucers.

“Sorry it’s nothing fancy, just what I can get down at the shops.” He poured tea for all of them, offered milk and sugar, then offered a fresh joint.

The dwarf woman took her tea with a splash of milk. She peered at him over the rim of the cup with her deep black eyes. “How does this work, then?”

Justin laughed. “Buggered if I know!” He lit another joint and took a drag.

She stood and set the cup down, her arms flexing as she got into a fighting stance. The elf woman grabbed her arm with a delicate, pale hand. The dwarf seemed to melt under her touch and returned to her seated position.

“I think what she means is, what do we need to do? And, if it’s not too indelicate, what will it cost us?” the elf asked.

Justin blew out the smoke slowly, letting it curl around his head. “I don’t know how this works, or why it works, I just know that it does.” He pointed at the easel in the corner of the room with a painting turned around to face the wall. “That’s yours — or at least, it will be by end of day. You know my name, but what’s yours?”

“Sorry. I’m Rena, and this is Ellith,” the elf said.

Justin stood up ramrod straight. “Rena, Ellith, welcome to my humble home. I’m Justin, but you probably already knew that.” When he could no longer hold the pretense, he relaxed, flopping into an armchair with the joint and a handful of Tesco biscuits.

“Is there anything we need to do?” Rena asked.

“Just, like, be.” He let his head fall back, his eyes focused on nothing. “I don’t know how I know, but when I do, I know. I painted your piece last week and knew you’d be here today, before sunrise.”

“You said in the interview in the Globe that your paintings come to you.” Ellith leaned forward, interest clear in her expression. “Is that what you meant?”

Justin laughed. “No, that was just bollocks for the nosy journo. My regular stuff is just whatever nonsense I think might sell. Something that might match someone’s sofa.”

Rena sipped her tea. “You said you knew when we’d be here. What else do you know?”

Justin raised his head back to look at the women. “Just what I see in front of me. You’re both smitten with each other, but something’s got you scared.”

Rena let out a sigh and leaned her head on Ellith’s shoulder. “It’s complicated.”

“If I had a quid for every time I heard that, I wouldn’t be living in gran’s old place.” Justin offered the joint to Rena. “Why don’t you take a hit, love, and spill?”

Rena took a drag and handed the joint to Ellith before erupting into a coughing fit. “It’s — our families.”

Ellith took a drag and offered the joint back to Justin who waved it off. The smoke distorted her voice. “Her da works with my da, and that’s how we met. Both of our families are—”

“Old fashioned,” Rena interrupted.

“I was going to say they’re a bunch of horse’s arses, but that works, I guess.”

“Wait, your families are anti-gay in this day and age?” Justin asked.

“No, not that,” Rena said. “It’s, erm, worse.”

“How’s that?” he asked.

Rena started, “Our fathers are—”

“They’re racist gobshites,” Ellith said, “my da worse than hers, even.”

“Unless they’re talking business, they keep falling back to the War of Three Kingdoms.” Rena took a more successful drag of the joint.

“Some people will use anything, even a three-hundred-plus year-old war to justify their nonsense.” Justin let out a loud sigh. “Sorry that you both are going through that.”

“Will the painting just hide our relationship, or will it…,” Ellith trailed off, some thought left unuttered.

“Will it help your families get over their racism? I don’t know. Might do, but I suspect that will take ages, and a lot of help from the two of you.” Justin jumped to his feet. “It’s ready.”

He turned the painting around. Like his other works, it was a collection of strange, undefined colours and shapes that seemed to morph and change the longer one looked. His works left some with vertigo, others with a feeling of being watched, and still others with a general sense of unease. After looking at a Smoot for any length of time, one found the world around them somehow off-center. His abstract works made the rest of the world feel surreal.

Rena spoke first. “It feels — quiet, almost cozy.”

“Aye,” Ellith said. “I expected to feel put off, but I’m not. It’s not like your stuff in the galleries.”

“Oh, it is, at least to everyone else but you two.”

“And hanging this up in our home will keep our secret from our families?” Ellith asked.

“From everyone that might be, cause or have a problem with your relationship. Including loose-lipped friends who mean well.”

Rena opened her purse. “How much—”

“Put that away,” Justin said. “Like I said, it’s yours.”

“You aren’t going to charge for it?” Ellith stood. “Maybe I should force the money on you. You need it. This place is like a squat.”

Justin shrugged. “If you pay me for, then it wasn’t yours to begin with, and it won’t work. Don’t ask me how I know, it’s not a story I want to repeat.”

Rena cleared her throat. “Ehem. Would you happen to have any of your other kind of paintings around? Surely, we can work out a fair price for one of those, so we don’t leave you empty handed.”

He walked them down the footpath through the wildflowers in full bloom in his back garden to the shed he used as a studio. Everywhere they looked, canvases in a myriad of sizes were covered with the uneasy work of Justin Smoot.

Ellith crouched near a small canvas on the floor, propped against the wall. It was a mostly white canvas with a single dribble of paint that seemed to move and sway. “What colour is that?” she asked.

“Ah, that’s indignity. It can be a nasty colour, but I find it most humorous.”

They settled on paying four-hundred pounds for the painting with the single dribble of indignity and left with their goods. Justin watched them walk to their car and drive off. He padded back into the studio in the back garden. He had another piece to do. He knew someone else had heard of the Beard of Avon and would visit him in a few days.

Trunk Stories

The Otherwar

prompt: Write a story that keeps a key detail hidden from the reader until the very end.

available at Reedsy

They’d been found in a parallel universe of sorts. While working towards wormhole generation, scientists had accidentally punched a hole into a universe that was almost indistinguishable from ours.

The creatures they found traversing the stars there were unimaginable horrors. Smaller ships, but far more numerous, crewed by behemoth abominations.

The science ship had been seen, and one of the ships of the Other followed it through from their universe. Had it not been for the Navy standing by, no one knows what kind of hell they could’ve unleashed on us.

As it was, that one small ship took out nine vessels of our fleet before it was disabled and opened to vacuum. Crewed by only three of the giants, it boasted more armament than a standard destroyer.

The huge, misshapen bodies were secreted away by Military Intelligence for dissection and some insight into what we faced. The ship, itself, was crude in design with the exception of its weapon systems.

It could easily be outrun by anything in our fleet. The most telling, though, was the lack of any way to generate faster-than-light travel. It was decided that with a crew of only three, the ship was a fighter. Although a small ship, it was far larger than would be expected of a light fighter, likely due to the size of its occupants. As a fighter, it undoubtedly had a mothership to return to, and the search for it would expand as time went on.

The argument between the military and government came soon after. The next actions we would take depended on the answer to a few questions.

Did they have the capability to cross into our universe as we had accidentally crossed into theirs? If that ship was a simple fighter craft, what chance did we have against a fleet? Do we build up our fleet while hoping that they stay in their own universe and leave us alone — or do we attempt to bring the fight to them?

In the end, the military minds won out, and we declared war on the Others. Fleets from everywhere joined in, while production ramped up in every star system to build new fleets made up of whole new classes of ships.

The first sortie we made into their universe was a textbook success. Using the intelligence we’d taken from the fighter, we sent fast, nimble ships to outrun them and their weapons. Short FTL hops were a key maneuver that kept our losses to a minimum while we wore down and destroyed dozens of their ships.

The Other was a ragtag fleet of patchwork ships; crude but deadly. They all carried far more weapons than reasonable, but none seemed to have their ammo or other stores full, as most had large, empty compartments.

After that first victory, the next mission was meant to be for gathering intelligence. Still, four fleets were dispatched to guard the gate and keep any of the Other from crossing into our universe again.

None of the four fleets boasted any of the new class of ships designed to stand up to what we imagined the Other capable of. That on its own wouldn’t have been a problem, except that the gateway opened in the middle of a system swarmed with the Other.

No sooner had they passed into the “normal space” of the other universe than the firefight started. Whatever we’d imagined their motherships to be, what we encountered was so far beyond that as to make our imaginings laughable.

This was not the ragtag fleet we’d destroyed in our first mission. These monstrous creations were, for lack of a better term, eldritch horrors. In visible light, radio, and microwave, they disappeared, more detectable by the absence of light and their gravitational signature. The fighters that swarmed out of them by the hundreds were smaller, faster, more maneuverable, and better coordinated. On top of that, they were every bit as ephemeral as the big ships, detectable most by their slight gravity.

The biggest of the ships outmassed an entire fleet, and yet were so maneuverable as to keep withering fire aimed at our ships even through our short FTL hops. When the flagship of the first fleet — the pride of the Navy and command center for the mission — was ripped in half by a ship that was more like a giant gun with engines, the order to retreat was called.

Four fleets went into their universe, and two partial fleets came back. We gathered intelligence, but not of the sort we’d hoped for. Whatever we first encountered must’ve been far on their frontiers, manned by only a token force of scrap.

In addition to that, we learned that where the gate opened in their universe was more to chance than expected. The fleets had been expected to appear in a space between star clusters. Instead, the gate opened a few thousand light years distant of the selected point.

Attempts to open a gate to the other universe in other locations failed. Some quirk of the local fabric of spacetime in the original gate’s position left it best suited for that. It was not long before the new fleets came online and gathered at what became the most heavily guarded spot in the galaxy at least, if not the entire universe.

While the politicians were still busy trying to spin the defeat as anything but, and the military was still licking its wounds, the first incursion into our universe by the Other happened. From the gate, a single drone emerged and was vaporized by one of the new destroyers in fractions of a second.

That was all the impetus needed for the politicians to back another attack, and for the Admirals to set forth against the Other again. Nine fleets, composed of whole new classes of destroyers and battle cruisers and carriers, poured through the rip in the fabric of spacetime into the other universe.

This time, they emerged somewhere unpopulated. They found themselves in a void between stars and star clusters. There, in a relative nowhere, someone voiced the opinion that they were lucky they hadn’t appeared inside a star or a black hole.

While that crew member was still being dressed down by their Captain, gravity alarms went off throughout the fleets. The Other had arrived in moments from wormholes that appeared for only a fraction of a second. The Other had the wormhole technology our own scientists had been trying to achieve.

The massive ships of the Other had nine fleets surrounded in a sphere of death. Any ship that fired or moved was obliterated. When the Admirals finally stood down to accept their fate, a transmission was sent to all the remaining ships before they were forced back through the rift into our own universe.

The war effort ground to a halt while the message was deciphered. Not that production slowed any, as six more fleets were completed in that time.

The new argument between the politicians and military became what to do with the message. Share it with the populace? Bury it in the deepest vault? Call their bluff — assuming it is a bluff?

One of the creatures stood, hideous to the point it triggered some deep, primal part of the brain that makes one want to evacuate their bowels and flee. It spoke their eldritch language, all gurgles and gasps.

“We’ve been looking for intelligent life for a while, and it would be nice to have a friend. We see that you cannot be that friend to us — you’re not ready.

“When your home planet has orbited your home star 100 more times, you may come back and try again in peace. Until then, any intrusion into our space with more than an unarmed, goodwill delegation of twelve individuals, maximum, will be met with swift retribution, including the take-over of your worlds and the total disarmament of your military. This is your first and only warning.

“Your first incursions into our space, we were willing to forgive and forget. Hunting pirates is a time-honored tradition, after all.

“Your actions during our annual Naval exercise, however, are unforgivable at this point. Any further armed entrance to our space will be taken as an explicit declaration of war against the Terran Alliance. Vice-Admiral Grace Evans, TA Navy, signing off.”

Trunk Stories

Little Guy

prompt: Your character comes across a stray (dog, cat, human — any kind of animal!). What happens next?

available at Reedsy

Sara followed the trail. Droplets of what she was certain was blood. Something small, she guessed. If it turned out to be somebody with a little cut or bloody nose walking slow, she’d be embarrassed, but that wasn’t likely.

The trail led into an upturned cardboard box at the end of the alley. There was half of a strange footprint, paw-print really, on the flap of the cardboard that lay outside the box. She couldn’t identify it. Not dog or cat or rat or raccoon or opossum.

Sara waited for a minute, listening for sounds of life from the box. She heard a small rustle in the box. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said in a soft voice. “I’m just gonna sit here and share my cupcake with you.”

She found the least nasty spot on the ground near the box to sit with her back to it. It would stain her jeans, but they were washable and at worst replaceable.

Humming a soft lullaby, she pulled a small bite off the over-sized cupcake and put it on the flap of the box. “I’ll share with you since I can’t eat one of these by myself,” she sang.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a furred hand reach out a snatch back the piece of cupcake. Maybe it was a raccoon with a deformed foot? She continued to hum and put another piece on the edge of the box.

With each one, she put the piece closer to herself. When the little things legs weren’t long enough to reach it, it stretched itself out of the box to grab the bite before retreating. Each time, the delay between grabbing and retreating grew in tiny increments.

What she saw wasn’t any animal she could identify. It looked a bit like a long-legged ferret the color of an orange tabby cat with a puffy tail and almost monkey-like hands.

She held a piece of the cupcake out for the creature, hoping it wouldn’t switch to biting and nip her fingers. Instead, the tiny hand grabbed it, and she could feel how it had opposable thumbs on both sides of its hand. One of the three fingers rested on her thumb before it took the piece.

Sara put a piece on her palm and laid her hand on the ground. The creature stepped up and grabbed her thumb with one of its hands while the other took the proffered cake. Instead of backing off, it ate the piece with the needle-like teeth in its short snout, then held the empty hand open, palm up.

Six digits, two of them opposable, and a palm that reminded her of a toddler’s hand, with none of the small lines that hands acquire over time. She set a piece of frosting on the outstretched hand.

The creature was visibly frightened but warming up to her. It stood on its hind legs and took a wobbly step toward her before stumbling. Sara wasn’t thinking about maintaining the calm at the moment her instincts took over.

She caught the falling creature and scooped it into her lap. “Are you okay, little one?” Its fur was silken and softer than anything she’d felt. It was damp, despite the lack of rain for days.

It stiffened for a moment. Sara thought she’d just messed up and the little critter would run away to never trust her again. Her fears were unfounded, however, as the creature relaxed, grabbing her shirt with three of its monkey-handed feet.

The fourth had a cut on the palm. “Oh, you poor baby. That must hurt. Will you let me take care of you?”

The creature turned its large, brown eyes to hers. When she looked into them, she could tell there was intelligence behind them. The creature curled its tail over itself like a blanket and she felt its racing heart slow, and its breathing relax.

It still had a death grip on her shirt, but was sound asleep. She rose to her feet as smoothly as she could, trying not to jostle the sleeping creature. It had a faint scent of cinnamon she’d first assumed was something her clothes had picked up in the bakery.

By the time she reached her apartment, she’d figured out that she didn’t need to be so careful. Cream, as she began calling the critter, was dead to the world. The poor thing was probably exhausted from fear, cold, and hunger. In its sleep, the creature suckled on her shirt.

“You’re not completely weaned, are you, little one?” she cooed.

Once in her apartment, she dug through the “stuff” drawer in the kitchen to find the puppy bottles and nipples she’d once used for fostering. From a lower cupboard she pulled out an unopened can of puppy formula powder.

Sara got a bottle of formula ready just in time, as Cream woke with a weak, high-pitched cry. The cry was punctuated with what sounded like baby talk, just not in English. The word-like sounds most repeated were “gehgeh” and “looloo.”

It took a few tries, but Sara got Cream to latch on. The puppy formula seemed to be a big hit. She cooed at the little creature as she cradled it like a baby. As it drank, it finally relaxed its grip on her shirt and settled into the crook of her arm.

Cream started to drift off again and dribbled some milk. Sara pulled the bottle away and wiped at the little face. Cream reached for the bottle, “Looloo! Looloo!”

Sara held the bottle. “Looloo? Milk?” She gave it back to Cream, who held on to it with three hands and made soft coos while drinking.

After the furry child emptied the bottle and fell into a boneless sleep, Sara pulled the first aid kit from the drawer of the coffee table beside her. She cleaned the wound on Cream’s paw with a cotton ball. Cream’s eyes opened.

“I’m sorry, Cream. I’m sorry, little guy.” Sara decided that the creature, whether female or male, was a ‘little guy.’ “Sara’s here. I’ll take care of you. You’re going to be okay.”

Cream grabbed Sara’s sleeve and babbled some, ending with, “Sara.”

“Yes, Cream. I’m Sara.” She placed the smallest bandaid she had over the wound and gave it a little kiss. “All done.”

Cream crawled up to grab Sara’s shirt again, laid its head on Sara’s chest, and cried. “Gehgeh, gehgeh, gehgeh, Sara.”

Sara rocked the poor creature back to sleep. Rather than risking waking the sleeping Cream, she lay on her bed without undressing. A few hours later, she woke with the crying creature begging again for “looloo.”

She prepared a new bottle and fed the hungry, tired creature and rocked it back to sleep. The armchair was comfortable enough, and Sara drifted off herself.

The sound of something scrabbling at her window woke her. She turned on the lamp to see a larger version of Cream standing on the flower box outside the third-story window. It looked like an adult version of Cream, wearing a utility belt around a baggy jumpsuit, out of the back of which a tail at least three times fluffier than Cream’s twitched.

Cream woke and screamed out, “Gehgeh! Gehgeh! Sara, gehgeh!”

Sara opened the window, and the creature stepped in. Despite the obvious terror in its eyes, the concern for the child was obvious as well.

“Oh, is ‘gehgeh’ your mama?” Sara asked. She sat down on the floor to put herself on eye level with the standing creature, and Cream climbed down and into the arms of the waiting creature.

“Dren!” The creature dressed the child in a similar garment to its own. It held the child and pressed a button on a box on the belt. The creature’s voice was high and was repeated from the box in English. “Where did you find my child?!”

“I followed a trail of blood droplets and found this poor little guy hiding in a box in an alley.”

“You didn’t eat him,” the creature said through the translator.

“Eat…what?! Why would I do that?”

Cream began babbling again, and the translator picked up parts of it. Sara recognized the sound log ‘gehgeh’ behind the translation of mama and ‘looloo’ behind yummy. “Mama! Mama! Sara … ouch,” He held up his bandaged foot for her inspection. “… yummy … Sara.”

“You — you tended his wound and fed him?”

“Of course. I wasn’t gonna let the little guy suffer.” Sara leaned back. “Why would you think I would eat him?”

“I have studied how you eat other creatures. You are eaters of meat. You also keep companion animals that are eaters of meat, some of which will kill animals for you and bring them to you.” As she started to relax, Cream let go of her and returned to Sara to sit in her lap. She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed again as Sara cooed at the child.

“No one could eat you,” she said, “you’re too cute. Besides, it’s not like we just eat any meat. We’ve been breeding animals for thousands of years to get the temperament and meat or milk quality we want. As far as animals hunting for or with us, yeah, in some places that still happens, but if you’re talking about cats, they do that because they think they’re helping somehow.”

The creature walked closer, staying in its upright posture. Sara noticed what looked like tough gloves on the hand-feet it walked on. “I am Rusna, and my boy is Dren.”

“Nice to meet you, Rusna, and you, Dren. I’m Sara, and I’ve been calling him ‘Cream’ since he’s the color of a creamsicle cat.” Sara stroked the top of Dren’s head, and he snuggled for a few more seconds before rushing back to his mother.

“Would you like something to eat?” Sara asked. “Or drink?”

“Not meat,” Rusna said, “but yes. I am hungry, and fond of the drink you call tea.”

Sara made tea for both of them and brought it out with a package of cookies. They ate and sipped their tea in silence for a few minutes, while Dren drifted back off to sleep.

“I was warned not to come here, because of the danger from humans and their companion animals,” Rusna said.

“Why did you, then?”

“I’m a xeno-sociologist. I’m here to find out everything I can about human society. I brought Dren along because I couldn’t be apart from him for so long. I had just given him a bath and turned to get a fresh towel and—”

“And he ran off.” Sara chuckled. “Sounds like your children aren’t that different from our own. Where are you from?”

“You can’t see our star from here without a telescope,” Rusna said, “but it’s toward the galactic center.”

“Did you and Dren come alone?”

“No. There are thirty-four on our expedition, now.” Her gaze dropped and she sniffed at Dren’s head. “We lost three to illness and accident in the first thirteen planetary rotations but have maintained our number since then.”

“I’m sorry,” Sara said.

Rusna took another sip of her tea. “We’ll survive. I’ll have to adjust some of my starting assumptions about the behavior of societies of omnivores, though.”

“Aren’t there others?” Sara asked.

“None besides yours that show promise to become space bound.”

“Well, if you’re around for a while, you’re welcome to visit any time.” Sara smiled at the sleeping child clinging to his mother’s jumpsuit. “I’d love to see the little guy again.”