Trunk Stories

The Exobiologists Were So Wrong

prompt: Write a story in the form of diary entries, written by an explorer as they make their way through what they thought was an untouched location.

available at Reedsy

12 Garn

I arrived in orbit around the heavy world. I’m not the first to discover it, of course. Others have placed orbital observers (OOs) around it, but if anyone has sent landers, they haven’t shared what they found. That’s why we decided it’s better to send a person down there.

Because of all the OOs, it took a while to calculate a safe orbit from which I can descend to explore and return to at the end of each day. There’s no way I could survive down there for more than a few days, despite my high-gee training.

Tomorrow, I test out that training, and this new grav lifter. It’s got an impulser stronger than even most heavy freight lifters, with a body light enough to be a racer and strong enough to be a ramming vessel.

We know there’s life down there, but what it’s like, no one’s sure. The exobiologists think they know what life will look like down there. Low plants, broad, squat animals — all small and probably exoskeletal — if there are any, with the possibility of large animals in the oceans. Honestly, I think they’re just assuming life like home with but with twice the gravity.

One thing they probably have right is that the chance for intelligent life to evolve under such extreme conditions is near-enough to non-existent. It isn’t likely to happen for this world any time before the death of their star.

The planet itself is beautiful from orbit. The blue oceans and the play of clouds reminds me of home, but the cloud formations are different, more violent.

13 Garn

One complete rotation of the planet below is equivalent to about two-thirds of a day. I figured it would be a good measure of time while I’m there. I decided to stay for one rotation then return to orbit to sleep and recover. The idea was to cover a lot of ground and gather a great deal of data and samples, while maintaining my health.

I didn’t make it through half a rotation. Just how wrong the exobiologists were was apparent before I even touched down. The “short, ground-hugging plants” were there, of course, but there were also massive, tall plants spreading their light-gathering parts high in the sky.

I took some samples of the low plants, and a dead, fallen part from one of the tall plants. There was no way I could reach it to get to the live parts.

The animals…. I don’t know where to start. Yes, the small, exoskeletal animals were everywhere, and some of them fly! The flying ones bite, and some of the others do as well. I don’t know what sort of venoms they possess, but the suit hit me with a broad-spectrum antivenin the second I got the first bite. It still hurt like fire. How could something so small hurt so bad?

Those annoying little things weren’t the only animals, though. There were tall creatures with four limbs, and a head on a long neck, able to eat the live parts of the tall plants. Knowing how hard my hearts were working even in my exosuit to keep blood to my brain, I thought it must have a chain of hearts to push blood that far against this gravity.

There were animals flying, running, walking, slithering, you name it. All of them were far larger than what I was told to expect outside of the oceans.

The thing that made me quit early for the day was the largest animal I’ve ever seen. Nothing at home even comes close to its bulk. The long-necked animal was taller but looked fragile. Not this.

It had huge flaps on the sides of its head, a thick body, four stout legs, and a tentacle on its face it used to bring things to its mouth. On either side of the tentacle, large, curved horns extended, promising quick death.

I thought that with its size it would be slow and lumbering. When the largest one waved its head-flaps and charged for me I thought I was about to die. They are not slow, and I learned that fear is a good motivator to run even under double gravity.

14 Garn

I stayed on the ship, in orbit, and rested. The few samples I collected have been analyzed and recorded, and the samples themselves disposed. The collection containers have been sterilized and I’ve been through decontamination twice.

Tomorrow, I’ll be landing far away from the giant monster animals. I’ve picked a spot that seems to have more of the tall plants. They probably don’t squeeze themselves in there. Maybe there will be more of the tall animals. They were rather amazing.

The spot I’d initially chosen for tomorrow is being hit with a massive storm. The best guess the ship’s sensors and computer can come up with is winds strong enough to blow the ship about like a mote of dust. The wind force is more than three times higher than any ever recorded at home.

15 Garn

Writing this from the surface of the planet. When I make it back to the ship, I’ll have to head home. I’d hoped for more time, but I fell, and in the heavy gravity injured myself. My leg is broken, I’m sure of it. It’s not a compound fracture at least.

When I stop and rest, like now, the world around me is filled with hoots and howls and whistles and cries. The noise is everywhere and nowhere at once. It’s as if every creature has something it wants to tell every other creature.

I’ve managed to gather a few specimens. One of them was a large, segmented, exoskeletal animal with a pair of legs at each segment. It was kind of cute until it bit me and my suit responded with antivenin again. If I thought the bite of the other creature hurt, this was on a whole different level. It still burns all the way up my arm even though my suit says I’m safe from that.

It was while I was reeling from the pain of that bite that I tripped over the base anchor of one of the tall plants. I heard it as I landed with the lower part of my leg across another one of the base anchors of the plant. It was a clear snap, followed by my howl of pain.

The rest of the creatures fell silent then and stayed that way until I got myself calm and quiet. I had a momentary fear that something was creeping up on me and I was going to become some animal’s dinner until the noises resumed as they had been.

The sheer diversity of life in this extreme gravity well is bound to have an effect on what we think we know about biology. I’ve seen plants with brightly colored organs that small flying animals drink from with long protrusions from their face. There’s one above my head right now as I lay here trying to rest.

The flying animal has a soft covering of some sort, and its wings are vibrating so fast it can hover in place while it drinks. I wish I could get a sample from it.

16 Garn

Yesterday, I had almost made it to the ship when I saw them. They were similar to the other animals, but I knew right away they were intelligent. They wore what could only be described as clothing and carried tools. Not simple sticks, either.

They communicated to others that were nowhere to be seen with small, hand-held devices. One of them made noises at me. I guessed it was trying to talk. It kept its voice soft and pointed at my leg and held up a container it carried.

I was too frightened by their predatory eyes and size to do much. They were bigger than me, bipedal, and social animals. If they wanted to disembowel me and eat me then and there, they’d have a better chance than even the giant creature I’d see the first day.

I froze in place while the creature set the container down next to me and examined my leg. It was gentle as it prodded along it with its bare fingers with no claws. When it touched near the break though, I couldn’t keep silent. It made a hissing noise and then went back to its soft voice.

It opened the container and I saw a myriad of tools I couldn’t begin to comprehend, but it pulled something out, measured it against my lower leg, then pulled out a roll of some sort of cloth. It continued with its soft voice. I couldn’t tell what it was trying to say, but it sounded like it was trying to be soothing.

The creature used the thing it had pulled out as a splint on my leg and wrapped it with the cloth. The cloth was elastic and stuck to itself. When it had finished the splint and closed up the container, it gestured as if to pick me up. The gravity had so worn me out by that point that I couldn’t fight back.

I expected to be carried back to the creature’s lair, but it carried me to my ship. It helped me into my seat and then the creatures began to chatter at each other. The tone was clear, and it seemed the one that had helped me and carried me to the ship disagreed with the other two.

I told the creature I needed to get back to orbit and go home, that the gravity was too much for me. I did my best to use gestures to make my meaning clear. The other two creatures left, and the one that had helped me sat on the floor of the ship and refused to move.

With no other choice, I ascended back into orbit. The relief from the steep gravity well was welcome and I passed out in the presence of the creature that I thought still might eat me. What would intelligent life on this planet be like? When everything else is lethal or harmful, right down to the gravity and the weather, they must be terrible monsters.

That’s what I thought yesterday, anyway. When I awoke, the creature was checking my leg. It had carried my samples on board and figured out how the sample containers fit into the analyzer and had fed them in.

I stripped out of my exosuit, and the creature removed the splint while I removed the legs of the suit. It then re-splinted my leg after checking it. It held up a small round of compressed powder and did some miming. I think it might be a medicine of some sort.

I took the compressed round and fed it into the analyzer. It was a potent analgesic that would bind to certain protein coupled receptors to cause hyperpolarization. This, in turn, would block pain signals on that path. It seems they have a similar nervous structure to our own. When the analyzer told me it was safe, I took it. There was no way I was going to anger the creature.

The pain relief was far beyond what I would’ve expected. Before I became too tired to stay awake any longer, the creature and I mimed back and forth for a while. Its name is Anee and I told it my name. I figured out their head movement behaviors for yes and no.

When I tried to tell Anee that I was going to return it to the planet it moved its head in the “no” gesture, sat on the floor, and crossed its arms. The ship’s sensors are telling me that if I don’t head home within the next day for medical treatment I will be in dire straits.

I’ve set the controls to take me home, and I’m trying to stay awake to see how the creature reacts. Perhaps I can learn

17 Garn

I passed out while writing yesterday’s journal. I woke when the analgesic wore off, and I realized the pain was far worse than I had thought. Anee seems to be worried about me and is showing me the pictures it took on its communication device.

It took several moving and still images of the OOs in orbit around the planet. It was chattering about a large one in particular when I saw it. The markings on the OOs were the same kind of markings as those on the communication device. Those weren’t other stars keeping their secrets from us after all. The creatures had managed to climb out of their hellish gravity well.

The creature also seemed enthralled by the moving image it took out the window in warp space. I see it all the time, so no big deal, but this creature had just gone faster and probably farther than any other of its species.

The creature has been trying to copy our language, and has managed to say a few words already, though its accent is exceedingly thick. It managed to say “food” when it was hungry and even seemed to enjoy the meal ration.

The automed numbed my leg, set it, and filled the area with pain killers and bone growth agents. Throughout the entire procedure, Anee held one of my hands in its own. They were warm and rough, though the touch was gentle.

Someone from the science division sent me a message that they planned to dissect Anee. I told them that if they tried, I’d kill them. I think, however, that they’d have a difficult time even containing Anee. This is the same creature that splinted my leg, then carried me in twice normal gravity to my ship.

I’m closing this out for now, as I, my ship, and Anee are in quarantine. Because of Anee, of course. I no longer feel threatened by it. It does a thing with its voice where the tones and rhythm make a pleasing sound, even though I don’t understand the words at all, and it has been spending most of the time looking after me as though I was a child or invalid…not that I mind.

Anee saw me recording my diary and made the noise Hooman while pointing at itself. I’m not sure if that is its full name, or maybe the name of its people or its species. It seemed important to Anee, so I’ve added it here, so I don’t forget.

Trunk Stories

Already Decided

prompt: Set your story in a playground: two characters are having a serious conversation while on the seesaw/in the jungle gym/on the swings.

available at Reedsy

The two women sat in the unlit park, gently rocking their swings back and forth. What should have been a comfortable silence between them grew tense.

The younger appearing of the two wore a little black dress with a name tag that read “Heather Markham.” Her red hair was piled in a mess of natural tight curls above a pale, unlined, freckled face with bright green eyes. She stopped her gentle swinging and looked at the other. “I was hoping you’d remember our spot.”

The other woman, wearing a smart suit and a name tag that read “Jocelyn Josephs.” Her bobbed medium brown hair was shot through with hints of grey. Around her large, deep brown eyes, the start of crow’s feet showed in her olive skin despite all her efforts to hide them. “Of course I remembered. It’s like you haven’t aged at all.”

“That’s why I had to leave early. I was making people uncomfortable.”

Jocelyn laughed. “Some things never change. ‘Creepy Heather’ they used to call you.”

“I never understood why you hung out with me,” Heather said, “even though they started picking on you when you did. But, thank you for that, Jo. Without you I don’t know if I’d have made it.”

“You were the most together person in my entire life at that point. More than me, for sure, and my parents were off in ‘Last Days’ conspiracy theory land somewhere.” Jocelyn switched from swinging to rotating side to side in the swing. “Did you know my dad was a flat-earther — way before YouTube trolls, hell, there was no internet then.”

“What?!” Heather nearly stood from the swing. “That’s nuts.”

“Biblical literalist. Even where it contradicted itself. Especially where it contradicted itself.” Jocelyn chuckled. “Every time I’d point out an impossible contradiction in the Bible, he’d just say, ‘Through God, all things are possible,’ as if that solved it, and then he’d smack me for backtalking.”

“Shit. Sorry I brought it up.”

“You didn’t, silly. I brought it up. I’m over it.” Jocelyn sighed. “I wish we’d stayed in touch after we went away to college.”

“Yeah.” They swung in silence for a few minutes before Heather said, “Speaking of remembering our spot, you wouldn’t happen to have a joint, would you?”

“No, but,” Jocelyn said reaching into her purse and pulling out a bag of gummies, “I do have edibles. Start with a quarter of one and give it half an hour or so to hit.”

Heather laughed, taking the offered treat. “The creepy twins strike again. Edibles at the forty-year reunion.”

“This is nothing,” Jocelyn said. “Howard Mc-What’s-his-name was doing lines of blow in the bathroom with anyone who wanted some. Gathered quite the crowd.”

“Coke-bottle glasses Howard? McSween? The scrawny band and theater kid? That Howard?”

“Yeah, that Howard. He’s bald on top now. Still as small and scrawny, but his suit looked expensive as hell. Showed up in a limo — the private kind, not the hired kind. License plate was ‘HOWARD4.’”

“Wow. So how did you find out he was doing blow in the bathroom?”

Jocelyn laughed. “It was the women’s bathroom!”

They laughed at the incongruity of it and returned to swinging in silence.  The half-moon peeked out behind the broken clouds that drifted across the sky.

“Did you ever get married or have kids?” Heather asked.

“No. Dated a few guys, and a few girls, but nothing ever lasted.” Jocelyn didn’t dare to tell Heather that she was the reason that no one else measured up. “Honestly, it’s made it easy to focus on work, since I cut my family out right after high school.”

“Sounds lonely,” Heather said. “For obvious reasons, I’ve avoided long-term relationships.”

“Do you think anyone other than your parents knew we were together, then?” Jocelyn asked.

“No. I think they were too busy calling my mom a witch and saying we were freaks.”

“I’m just glad your parents were cool with us,” Jocelyn said.

“They were cool with anything involving you. They still ask about you all the time.”

Jocelyn looked at Heather, an unasked question in her eyes.

Heather reached over and grabbed the chain of Jocelyn’s swing. “I know you want to ask about my appearance, but don’t know how.”

“Well, yeah, at first. But then I remembered your parents both looked so young compared to mine.” Jocelyn put her hand on Heather’s. “You started out with good genes.”

“Well, yes and no.”

“What do you mean?”

“What makes us look young has a certain…downside.” Heather turned her hand over so that she was holding Jocelyn’s.

Jocelyn squeezed her hand, noticing that it was cool. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re sick! Do you need a kidney? You can have one of mine. I hear they can do liver transplants with only part of a liver if you need that. Bone marrow is a no-brainer.”

Heather laughed. “Thanks for that, but no, I’m not sick per se, but….”

Jocelyn raised an expectant eyebrow. When no follow-up came, she said, “Heather Helen Markham, if you don’t tell me now, I’m going to start calling you ‘HeHee’ again.” She sang the ‘HeHee’ in a Michael Jackson impersonation.

“Anything but that.” Heather took a deep breath. “I guess I’ll just come out and say it. I’m not aging for the same reason my parents don’t age. We’re vampires.”

“Ass! I thought you were being serious.” Jocelyn poked at Heather’s arm, looking for a playful reaction. When it didn’t come, she was at a loss for words.

“I am being serious.”

The look on Heather’s face told Jocelyn that she was, indeed, serious. “How long have you…thought you are a vampire?”

A soft smile crossed Heather’s face. “I don’t think I’m a vampire, I am one — a born vampire. We age like regular humans for the first twenty or so years, then we pretty much stop — unless we don’t feed.”

“But — you eat food, you drink wine, you even had an edible, I saw you in the sun earlier this evening. It doesn’t make sense.” Jocelyn shook her head. “Maybe I’m imagining this.”

“You’re not imagining anything, Jo.” Heather grabbed Jocelyn’s hand again. “What you see in the movies is bullshit. We don’t turn to dust in the sun, we can eat and drink, we just need a couple quarts of human blood once a month or so to keep us healthy. Without it, we age rapidly and starve to death, regardless of whatever else we eat.”

“It’s not funny anymore, Heather.” Jocelyn pulled her hand back and crossed her arms. “Quit playing and tell me what’s going on.”

Heather sighed. “Can you see the top of the play castle tower over there?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Before Jocelyn could blink, Heather was gone from the swing next to her and crouching atop the tower. “This,” she called out.

Just as fast, she was back in the swing next to Jocelyn. “W—was that a magic trick? Some kind of illusion?”

“No. Look at my teeth, tell me what you see.”

Jocelyn looked. “I see your teeth, they’re normal like alwa—” she cut off as Heather’s canines seemed to grow. From the close view, it was obvious they were sliding down, then the angle shifted  as they locked into place. She reached out and touched the tip of one and found it sharp.

Heather’s eyes shone in the dim moonlight. Her canines shifted their position again and retracted into her gums. “Say something.”

“Why? Why are you telling me?”

“There are two ways that vampires come to be. Some are born, like me. Some are made, like my mother.” Heather took Jocelyn’s hand in her own again and held it with a gentle touch.

“Are…are you asking me to…?”

Heather looked into Jocelyn’s eyes. “I’m saying, if you want to be a vampire, I’ll do it. I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to hang out with for a few centuries.”

Jocelyn watched the reflection of the moon in Heather’s eyes. She tried to weigh the consequences of the offer.

“You don’t have to decide right away,” Heather said. “I can wait as long as you need.”

Jocelyn looked at her former lover and still favorite person in the world. “I’ve already decided.”

Trunk Stories

The Dance of Heaven

prompt: Imagine an origin myth that somebody might use to explain an eclipse, or some other celestial event.

available at Reedsy

The Dance of Heaven, a Holy Writ of the Conscious Universe.

A sacred text to preserve the knowledge of humankind and our place within the heavens. May we ever preserve and so pass it on to our future generations.

Book One: Understanding

Chapter One: The Beginning

The story of the origins of everything, and the tale of how humans came to understand the universe, as interpreted from the writings of the wise ones from before the apocalypse.

1. In the emptiness before time, the universe was singular and lonely. Succumbing to the loneliness, it decided to procreate. It could not make a new universe, but it could split itself apart, spreading its consciousness into new things. And so, it expanded until it exploded, turning itself into stars and galaxies.

2. Many of those stars were also overwhelmed by the loneliness of the universe. That loneliness was still too concentrated in them, so they then exploded into new things, spreading the consciousness of the universe even more. From those new things new stars were born.

3. The sun was one of those stars. As loneliness is a natural state of the universal consciousness, the sun felt lonely. Unlike the universe itself and the sun’s earlier siblings though, it was surrounded by the dust made from the explosion of those earlier stars.

4. Every piece of the universe, down to the smallest mote surrounding the sun, was motivated by loneliness to seek out companionship. The sun watched as the dust gathered together in ever-growing clouds. As the clouds circled around the sun, they grew, collecting more of the universal intelligence as they did.

5. When a cloud of dust grew large enough, it would crush in on itself, trying to unite its matter as the universe once was before time. The new planets grew enough that they could commune with the sun, dancing the dance of the heavens and singing the song of the stars. One of those planets formed too close to another and could not keep itself from crashing into it. That collision merged their matter and created a new moon that circled the planet in the same way the planet circled the sun.

6. Many of the planets were circled by moons, but the third planet, Earth, was special. Its moon was far larger relative to its size than others. In addition to this, this planet was at the right distance from the sun to hold water on its surface. 

7. One day, Earth, in its song, said to the sun, “I have new things on me, that have been made without splitting myself. These things form on their own, and multiply.”

8. The sun said, “We shall call these new things life, and we shall watch them closely. They may be the answer to the loneliness of the universe.”

9. That life continued to change and grow, becoming every living thing on Earth. The sun was fascinated with life and wanted to sing with it as it did the planets. Life, however, had its own mind. It had formed from the matter of the universe but sought communion not with the stars, but with others of its own kind. Life did not hear the song of the stars nor understand the dance of the heavens.

10. Both Earth and the sun focused all their attention on life, ignoring their kin. Some of the bodies, already far away from the sun, sought its attention by flinging themselves in as close as they dare, boiling off some of their body each time they passed by. Still, the sun was focused on the life on Earth.

11. The moon became jealous of the attention the sun gave to life and tried to block the sun’s view of Earth. It was too small to block more than a portion of Earth from the sun’s view, but the sun saw the moon’s shadow and encouraged it.

12. The sun said, “Moon, you are wise. We have waited for life to commune with us, to see our dance, to hear and sing our song, but they have not. You can show them wonders which will turn their gaze to us in the heavens.”

13. And so it was, as life grew ever more intelligent and consciousness arose, the moon continued to dance between Earth and sun, trying to earn the sun’s approval and attention. One day, when the moon danced between Earth and the sun, a hunter stopped, startled by the sudden darkening of the sun.

14. After the moon had moved on and the light of the sun returned, the hunter ran to the clan to tell the elders about the shadow he witnessed crossing the disk of the sun. That was the point when life, in the form of man, began to watch the dance of the heavens, trying to hear the song of the stars.

15. Earth shared with the sun and moon and all its siblings the change in the behavior of the humans. They had started looking up to the heavens almost as much as at the world around them.

16. This was enough for life to earn the moon’s desire to commune. After this, the moon continued its dance but turned its gaze to life. It danced not for the sun’s attention, but for life’s.

17. Soon, all the planets and their moons felt something new beyond loneliness: the joy of their song playing out for an intelligence formed of the universe but still somehow outside the lonely intelligence of the universe itself. The conscious mind of humanity, searching the cosmos, saw vast loneliness there, but still awed at the beauty of the dance of stars and planets — the dance set to the music of the heavens they could not hear, but the rhythm of which was clear to them.

18. The natural state of the universe is still lonely, but the rise of consciousness has added hope and wonder, awe and humility, and countless other emotions that are shared among all consciousnesses, including that of the universe itself. Thus it is that the universe is, in some small way, less lonely than it once was.

19. It is, therefore, the place of humanity to study, to wonder, and to revel in all that is revealed in the dance of the heavens and song of the stars. Sharing that wonder, awe, and joy with the universe is the purpose of all life, and of humanity in particular.

Trunk Stories

A Sudden Itch

prompt: Center your story around a photo that goes viral. 

available at Reedsy

One frame out of nearly a quarter million, that’s it. Filmed at a hundred-thousand frames per second, it was there for only one frame, and that one frame was plastered on websites, blogs, and the front page of most of the tabloids.

Dr. Amy Silva had printed out a hard copy, framed it, and hung it on the wall of her office. She hadn’t expected to see something like it…ever. Had it not been her experiment and setup, she’d have rejected it as a hoax.

The experiment was run and filmed as part of a broader film course on nuclear fission and criticality. Like the “Demon Core” but smaller, a sphere of plutonium was enclosed in a spherical beryllium chamber that reflected the neutrons from fissioning atoms. Unlike that earlier, deadly experiment, it was contained away from people and the top half of the spherical container’s position was controlled by a robotic arm, rather than just a scientist holding an edge up with a screwdriver.

Even in the bright lighting of the chamber, the high-speed camera caught the blue glow as the air outside the gap of the cover ionized. It was there, just three frames after the first sign of criticality, that it appeared.

Just what was in the image depended on who was talking. The tabloids had drawn lines in the sand; nearly half claimed it was an angel, the same number called it a demon, one said it was the ghost of Louis Slotin, while another — known for its devotion to cryptozoology — swore it was a fairy. The scientific community — less those who dismissed it out of hand — were far more measured in their response.

The data, the camera, its sensors, the chamber, and the entire setup had been examined by four independent teams. They ruled out camera or sensor error, reflection on the shielding between the camera and the core, light leaks in the chamber, vibrations, and flat-out fakery.

Every plausible hypothesis posited by scientists including Dr. Silva had been tested and disproved. This left only speculation — opinion that sounded like hypothesis but was untestable and therefore unscientific. These ranged from a minor tear between universes to a glitch in the simulated universe.

Regardless of which non-scientific explanation resonated most with the viewer, the image was at once enigmatic and unmistakable. A three-centimeter humanoid form, with dragonfly-like wings, an outstretched hand as if to block the camera, which seemed to have squeezed out with one foot still inside the gap of the beryllium sphere surrounding the core.

Amy stared at the framed print. If not for the data forensics team verifying that the image data from the camera hadn’t been tampered, and that she’d been present when it was recorded, she’d swear it was the best special effects she’d ever seen.

She hadn’t seen it when it happened, of course. Ten microseconds wasn’t enough time to register in the human eye. She wondered how she might have reacted if she had been able to see it.

It appeared to be coming from within the core itself, as if it had squeezed through the millimeter opening as it exited. So much detail in that one frame. A thick head of curly hair swept back from an androgynous face of indeterminate ethnicity and age, set in an expression of surprised shock.

With the scarcity of required materials, the experiment had not yet been replicated, but Amy spent weeks talking to her peers to find someone who could. The difficult part was the plutonium sphere. She’d borrowed it, along with the beryllium reflection chamber, from the government’s nuclear research lab and they’d taken it back before she’d even had a chance to go through the footage.

Another month and the hype would die down and Amy would never see the same thing again. Of that, she was sure…until the call from the agency that had loaned her the core. They wanted her to be present while they repeated the experiment with a faster camera.

They’d put it to her as though they expected her to back out, but she was more excited at the prospect than they were. She was to recreate every step of the experiment in their containment laboratory, with their robot, and their million-frame-per-second camera.

She was surprised at their setup. They had not one, but five cameras, all set at different angles. The cameras were protected against alpha particles by lead glass. The robot was the same make and model she’d used in her lab, with the same controller software.

Amy went through the checklist from her earlier experiment, explaining each step as she went to the government scientists and the other scientists they’d invited along. A news crew from one of the major organizations was there as well, documenting the entire process.

There was a palpable feeling of expectation in the room as the countdown began. On cue, the robot began to lower the upper beryllium hemisphere and the cooling fans of the cameras whined to life. Two seconds later, the robot raised the hemisphere, and everything shut down.

Aside from the blue glow of the ionized air, no one saw anything unusual. The images from the cameras would tell the whole story, though. Now it was a matter of waiting for a couple hours, while the computers connected to the cameras downloaded the images and processed them into a “watchable” film — assuming one wanted to spend twelve days watching those two-and-a-half seconds.

After processing, the images were scanned by an AI model that looked for anything anomalous. When such frames were found, the twenty-four preceding frames along with the twenty-four trailing were matched with the frame codes from the other cameras. The idea was that anything that happened in view of one of the cameras would be shown at twenty-four frames per second along with the same time from the other four cameras.

The news crew was visibly bored, and the scientists had broken into small groups to talk. Amy, however, hovered near the computer, waiting for it to finish.

When it finished, the number of anomalous frames processed read well over a million. Roughly thirteen-and-a-half hours of footage to go through. Amy wasn’t sure whether to be excited or frightened by that.

A hush fell over the room as the footage began to run on the large screen TV that dominated the side away from the viewing platform. The news crew filmed, but the reporter stood, like all of them, in stunned silence. Goose bumps rose on Amy’s arms as she realized what she was seeing.

Although they clearly zoomed in and out of the core, they hadn’t come from the core. It was as though they’d been in the chamber all along and were only visible while being bombarded with ionizing radiation.

Any idea that they were somehow benevolent or even benign was discarded, though, as their mouths — which opened to insane proportions — were caught in that state more than once, filled with jagged teeth. They fought with each other, four of them ripping another one apart and devouring it in the space of less than ten microseconds after it squeezed out of the core.

Amy looked away from the screen and wondered how many of the toothy little things zipped about her at that moment…and began to itch.

Trunk Stories

A Quiet Day Off

prompt: Write a story about a character who wakes up in space.

available at Reedsy

Figures, Clarice thought, the one time I get to sleep in. By all logic and sense, she knew she should be dead. Instead, she was uncomfortable, annoyed and growing more so by the moment.

She could feel the side of her facing the sun heating up, the side in shadow growing colder. The only sound she heard was the beating of her own heart. When she’d opened her mouth, the moisture boiled off in the vacuum right away. High above the Earth, she found herself in an orbit where she saw the space station pass far below her.

Clarice wondered if she could get herself down there and knock on the door of the ISS. Her annoyance was momentarily allayed with the silliness of a tiny woman in pink pajamas knocking on their airlock and freaking out the astronauts.

She looked down at the Power Puff Girls pajamas she wore, compliments of being too small for most adult clothes. She tried to turn herself to change which side was toward the sun, but nothing seemed to help. She tried a swimming motion, but all it accomplished was to make her feel awkward.

A shimmer in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She whipped her head around toward where she’d seen it, and her body began to slowly rotate in the opposite direction. Of course, just when I don’t want it to.

She was still trying to figure out if she had seen something or just imagined it when it appeared in front of her. Clarice could still see the satellites and Earth below, and the moon beyond, but there was a black rectangle, reflecting no light, between her and what was beyond.

She reached a hand out and felt a solid surface. When her hand was touching it, she could hear the sound of machinery, and people. She tried to grasp on to it, find a place to hold on, but only managed to push herself away from it.

The black rectangle was slowly moving away from her, then an opened door rotated into view, as though it was pushing through from another dimension. Inside the door was a person in a space suit, tethered with a thick cable, and kicking off to come to her.

Once she’d been pulled into the airlock and the outer door closed, air began to rush in. Clarice took the first breath she’d had in far too long. She could no longer hear the slow pulse of her heart in her head. Sound filled the volume around her.

“Water,” she tried to say, but her throat was too dry. She pointed to her throat, and mimicked drinking.

The woman in the space suit removed her helmet and answered. “We’ll get you some water right away. I’m afraid you’re stuck with us for a bit.”

The inner door opened. A man floated near the door, holding a pouch with a straw and said, “Come on in.”

Clarice accepted the pouch and sucked at the straw. The soothing feeling of water returning to her mouth and throat was followed by the recognition that her lungs were every bit as dry. She still managed to croak out a “Thank you.”

The two astronauts seemed to know exactly what needed done and did so without any wasted conversation. While the woman got out out of her space suit and secured it in the straps near the airlock door, the man went about pulling medical equipment from a box that had been strapped to the wall.

He took her blood pressure while she finished the pouch of water. The woman took the empty and gave her another. While she worked on it, the man set up an IV and had the needle inserted before she knew he’d even started.

The woman put the blood pressure cuff around the IV bag and began pumping it up. She then turned to Clarice and offered her hand. “Mission Commander Agneta Ekstrand. You can call me Annie.”

Clarice shook her hand. “Clarice Whittaker.”

Annie pointed at the other astronaut, currently busy rechecking the pulse-oximeter he had placed on her finger. “That’s Ethan Valkai. If you hadn’t guessed, he’s the mission doctor.”

“Clarice,” he said with a nod.

“How many others are there on your mission?”

Annie laughed. “It’s just the two of us. We were told a body had launched into orbit, and we had to have a look.”

“A body what?”

Annie raised an eyebrow. “It was you.”

 Clarice shook her head. Nothing made sense. “But what? How did I get here? Why am I still alive?”

Ethan cleared his throat. “I don’t know how you’re still alive, to be honest. You’re a little dehydrated but show no signs of decompression sickness, and nothing indicates that you’ve been without oxygen for over an hour.”

“Probably not the answer you were looking for,” Annie said, “but I’ll fill in the rest as best I can.”

She pulled a tablet from the wall and showed Clarice a blurry video of something bright pink shooting up past a plane. Another showed the bright pink blur emerging from the tops of the clouds, a ring of wakes spreading through them.

“At this point,” Annie said, “you were traveling at just over Mach 7, and had the US government scrambling to call everyone to let them know they did not just fire a hypersonic missile from Idaho.”

“You’re saying, I just flew into space all on my own. And didn’t even wake up until I’d been floating out here for however long. How am I supposed to believe that?”

Annie cleared her throat. “Which one of us was floating barefoot in space in kids’ pajamas?”

“”Don’t knock my pajamas, Agneta the Tall. The adult clothes they make in my size all suck.” Clarice tried to cross her arms but the IV got in the way and she thought better of it.

“Please, just Annie, not Agneta.”

Clarice muttered, “Annie the Tall, then.”

”For all we knew, somebody’s kid shot into high orbit with no visible means of propulsion.” Annie helped Clarice to a seat where she could strap in and gave a couple more pumps to the blood pressure cuff still squeezing on the IV bag.

“What happens now?” Clarice asked.

“That’s a good question.” Ethan strapped into another chair. “When that IV bag is empty, let me know.”

“I will. Should I just pump it up some more when it slows down again?”

“Yeah. Not too much, just one or two pumps.”

“I think what happens now,” Annie said, “is we call home and see if they want us to land for quarantine on Earth or stay up here in quarantine with you until we determine whether you’re dangerous or not.”

Clarice looked at Annie, her disbelief pushed beyond what she thought possible. “Me? Dangerous how?”

“Well, the first thought I had, when I saw you moving in hard vacuum, was that you weren’t a human,” Ethan said. “Maybe an advanced robot, or possibly some sort of alien.”

“And?” she asked.

“You’re human, as far as I can tell,” he said. “Of course, there’s no way to run a DNA analysis up here, so we may be waiting a while for them to make up their mind as to what to do.”

“There’s also the issue that we don’t have a suit for you,” Annie said. “It’s a safety consideration on reentry.”

“However,” Ethan interjected.

“Yeah. However, you already survived insane acceleration and speeds that would tear any non-aerodynamic body apart, not to mention time in hard vacuum, and here you are.”

Clarice broke into a fit of crying laughter. The whole situation was just too much.

“Clarice, what’s wrong, dear?” Annie asked.

“Ethan, Annie, while it’s been nice to make your acquaintance, this was my first day off work in seventeen. All I wanted to do was sleep in, watch some stupid sitcoms, and drink a beer or two. I have to be back at work tomorrow morning, so I can’t quarantine for any amount of time.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I just want to go home.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not going to make it,” Annie said. “I’m sorry.”

Clarice closed her eyes and let herself go limp in the straps. “I just wanted a quiet day off.”

Trunk Stories

Woman Who Strikes Many

prompt: Start or end your story with a character who gets trapped inside a museum overnight.

available at Reedsy

I had sat down in front of my favorite painting, Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en, Woman Who Strikes Many, 1832, a young indigenous woman I could swear was trying to tell me something momentous, something earth-shattering. This was something I did with some regularity.

The painting’s simplistic, flat style combined with details like the fringe of her robe and the texture of the pelt over her shoulder combined to bring a sense of immediacy and presence. She looked off to the right of the viewer, as though watching something in the distance.

I spent long hours imagining what she saw, what she wanted to say. At some point during the afternoon there was a commotion in the gallery, but I ignored it and tried to put myself in the artist’s place, standing by Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en, waiting for her to speak.

My focus was pulled out of the painting when the overhead lights dimmed, then shut off. In the glow of the EXIT sign and the dim emergency lighting, she looked more substantial, as though she were coming out of the canvas.

I stood, stiff after sitting for so long. If the power had gone out, there must be guards around somewhere. Determined to find one, I walked back through the galleries to the area by the gift shop.

The gate in front of the gift shop was down and locked. The clock on the wall showed it was half-past eight. Somehow, they’d closed the museum around me, an hour and a half prior. I wondered how they could have missed me, a regular patron in my regular spot.

There was nothing to be done for it, except to wait for the arrival of police and security. I was certain I’d passed through more than one motion detector. It might be confusing at first, but once the surveillance video was viewed it would be clear that my presence after hours was accidental.

With nothing else to trouble me for the moment, I went back to my spot. I sat down in front of Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en and marveled at how alive she felt in this light.

“You should always be displayed like this,” I said to her. “I’ve never seen you more alive.”

While part of me felt silly talking to a painting, another part of me didn’t care. “With no one else here, I can talk to you. I’m Joseph. It’s been a great pleasure of mine for years to sit here watching you, waiting to hear what you have to say, for you to divulge your great secret.”

“Nice to meet you, Joseph.”

I spun around to source of the voice, convinced a guard had found me while doing her rounds. A flood of relief tinged with embarrassment at having been caught talking to a painting washed over me. “Oh, thank god! I thought I’d been in here all night.”

“Already trying to leave?”

The woman that stepped into the light from the EXIT sign wasn’t a guard. She was far older, but I couldn’t help but recognize the woman I’d studied frozen in one moment for so long. “Yo—you’re….”

“Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en. Yes.”

“But, how?”

She sat next to me on the bench. “I’ve always been here, waiting, watching.”

“You’re not real. I’ve either lost my marbles, or I’m talking to a ghost…which means I’ve lost my marbles.” I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed them until spots showed up in my vision when I reopened them. She was still there, and I felt it when she punched me in the arm.

“If you can’t talk to me like the friend I thought you were, you can leave and never come back.” The fire behind her eyes stopped me from saying anything that would make the situation worse.

“I’m sorry, Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en.” I tried to pronounce her name exactly the way she had, but it still wasn’t quite right. I rubbed my arm where she’d hit me, trying to dispel the thought that it was already bruising.

“Accepted.” She smiled a half smile with a hint of mischief. “You think I have some great secret to reveal?”

“It’s the feeling I get from the painting.”

“That would be George you’re getting that from, not me. I can tell you exactly what I was thinking.” She stood and mirrored the pose from the painting. “I wish this white man would hurry up and finish and give me the two bits he promised.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, both at the way she delivered the line, and at myself for reading too much into things. “I’m an idiot,” I said. “I think, because I love this painting, I tried to find something deeper in it.”

She sat back down next to me. “It’s acceptable to love a piece of art for no other reason than you do. There’s no requirement that art is deep or meaningful. It’s like the sky; it’s there whether you look or not, and it doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“I might have known that when I was younger,” I admitted, “but somewhere along the way, I let myself get wrapped up in being serious. I guess I didn’t want to think about all the hours of my life I’ve wasted just staring at things I like.”

“Is time really wasted if you spent it feeling joy?” she asked.

“That’s a good question.” We sat in silence for a while, looking at her younger self in the painting.

“Before they open, I’d like to show you something I enjoy,” she said, standing up and offering a hand.

I took her hand and stood. “By all means, lead on, ma’am.”

We walked through the silent galleries to stop in front of a sculpture. It was abstract, looking like a marble donut somehow warped beyond three dimensions. She ran her fingers along the flowing lines of polished stone. “You need to feel it.”

I looked around, wondering if this would get me in trouble, and then decided to follow her example. The marble was cool and smooth with no sharp edges or corners anywhere. “I understand why you like this so much.” I closed my eyes and let my fingers follow the contours that seemed to twist and turn with no rhyme or reason until my hand met hers.

I opened my eyes as she squeezed my hand. “The museum is opening soon. If you want to go, I understand, but I would very much like to see you again tonight.”

The overhead lights came on and I jumped back from the statue. Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en was nowhere to be found. I followed the sounds of voices to the gallery where her picture hung. A news crew was setting up in the gallery. The lead docent, two guards, and the president of the museum were in attendance.

I tried to get the attention of the guards, but they seemed preoccupied with what was going on. They were setting up a camera pointing at my usual spot, then rotating it around to point at Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en. Once they were satisfied, the reporter began.

“This is the spot where next Tuesday a memorial service will be held, and a plaque honoring the life-time member Joseph P. O’Cannon, will be placed on this bench. Joseph sat here almost every day for the last thirty-six years. Yesterday, he was here, in his favorite spot, when he fell unconscious and passed away.”

The camera pointed at Valery, the docent. “Joe was here pretty much any time we were open. He had a lifetime membership and continued to donate every year, going above and beyond. This piece, Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en, Woman Who Strikes Many, 1832, by George Catlin, was his favorite. I’d see him study this piece for hours on end. He used to tell me, ‘She has something to say, I just haven’t figured out what yet.’”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “We’ll all miss him, but I’m grateful he was here, not in a cold hospital room somewhere.”

The reporter took back the mic. “Mr. O’Cannon would have been eighty-nine next Tuesday, the day the museum will dedicate this bench to his memory.”

I watched the crew pack up the camera and equipment, after which the guards escorted them out. Valery sat in my spot and cried, and the president, Tom, stood behind her and patted her shoulder.

I couldn’t see Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en but I knew she was close. What I could see was a door that didn’t belong, in the center of the gallery. It had to lead on to whatever comes next.

I decided, for the day, that I’d wait until closing and talk to Ah’-kay-ee-pix-en some more. Maybe she really doesn’t have anything to teach me, but I might learn something anyway.

Trunk Stories

Helicopter

prompt: Write about a backstabbing (literal or metaphorical) gone wrong.

available at Reedsy

JJ was unsure about most things, but not this, not now; he was so far beyond unsure he began to doubt his own existence. Maybe he was just a figment of a fever dream, about to do this, not a real person after all. It made sense…what person doesn’t even know how to pronounce their first name?

“JJ, you sure about this?” Martina, his co-conspirator, asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he lied. “I’ve considered and planned a contingency for every possible twist.” That, at least, he was certain of. His constant concerns of “what if…” made him an excellent strategist and analyst — at least when given enough time.

“In that case, I’ve got your back,” she said.

As JJ waited to be called in to the inquest, the clock taunted him, time stretching out. A young man carrying a clipboard called out, “Detective Martina Simes,” and she followed him in, leaving JJ to wait by himself.

He juggled dozens of possible scenarios in his mind, from the most likely to the absurd. No matter how the waves broke when he was called in, he would make sure that he and Martina would never again have to work for the overbearing Captain Helen Monroe. Behind her back, the squad called her “Captain Helicopter Momroe” or just “Mom” for the way she micromanaged everything.

If she had let him do his job, they wouldn’t be in the situation they were in now. He gripped the folder he carried tighter. With the proof he had there, Monroe wouldn’t be in her position any longer. At this stage in her career, they’d probably move her to a desk somewhere to wait out her retirement.

He wondered what Martina was telling them. She was there when it went down and was a victim of how wrong everything went. He knew there were others on the squad that would try to protect the captain, with the idea that if they didn’t, they were a traitor somehow. Martina, though, was still recovering from the injuries she endured in the incident…and she said she’d back him up.

Time continued to drag. JJ let the thoughts he was juggling rest. There was nothing left to do but stick to his guns and react to each falling chip as planned. He was interrupted by a young man holding a clipboard.

“Officer Price? Your first name…is it Jake…or Jack? Looks like I have a typo on my list.”

“That’s me.”

“So, which is it? Jake or Jack?”

“JJ.”

“Okay, but what is your legal first name?”

“Just like it is on your paper. J – A – E – K.” He shrugged. “It’s a typo on my birth certificate that was never corrected.”

“So how did your mother—” the young man began.

“Mom called me JJ. My dad didn’t call me anything because he wasn’t around. Teachers called me Jake or Jack or Jay-ek and I just let them, since it didn’t matter.” JJ sighed. “And before you ask, I don’t pronounce my first name, so you just call me whichever makes you happy.”

“Okay, then. I’ll add a note here and get back in there. You’re up next.”

JJ entered the room when he was called in as “Detective Jay-ek Price.” Commissioner Dina Davis sat between the Vice Chief of SWAT Carlos Ortiz and Soo Kim, the Chief of Police. The presence of the commissioner was unexpected, but perhaps warranted.

Captain Monroe sat behind a smaller desk to one side with a department advocate. An inquest was not unlike a bench trial, and the one under investigation was afforded representation. It looked like she hadn’t bothered to ask the union for a real lawyer.

JJ took his place behind the other small desk, next to the investigator from Internal Affairs, as the commissioner told him to take his seat. He looked over and caught Monroe’s eye where he saw something he didn’t expect — defeat.

“Detective Price,” the SWAT Vice Chief asked, “what is your primary role?”

“I’m assigned to data analysis in the nineteenth precinct.”

“Are you,” he asked, “assigned to evaluate and advise on tactical matters?” Ortiz asked.

“Not officially, but I often help when I—”

“Thank you.”

Chief Kim turned toward him with a bored frown. “What were you doing on the sixteenth of February this year, at or around nine-thirty A.M.?”

He laid the folder on the desk and put his hand on it. “I was printing the documents in this folder for Captain Monroe.”

The commissioner raised a hand. “Are those the same documents the captain has already showed us? The ones printed off at…,” she looked down at the pile of papers in front of her, “09:32 A.M. on the printer that resides just outside the door to Captain Monroe’s office?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He hadn’t expected the captain to hand over his analysis of her tactical operation to the inquest. It was like she wanted to fail.

The three of them conferred among themselves quietly for a moment. Commissioner Davis nodded and said, “Detective Price, if you would, walk us through this document in your own words.”

This was it. He could show that Helen “Helicopter Mom” Monroe was not the sort to be leading a precinct. When he finished, she would be finished.

“In this document, I analyzed the tactical plan for taking down the drug lab, as coordinated by Captain Monroe with SWAT.” He opened the folder to the diagrams he’d added and pointed to each item as he went.

“I pointed out that coverage in this alley was impossible without removing the dumpsters here and here first. I recommended at least two shooters on these rooftops here, and here.”

He flipped the page over to the diagram on the back. “Finally, I concluded that unless these two neighboring buildings were secured, the tactical team was open to ambush from either the underground service tunnels here, or a makeshift bridge from the scaffolding on this building here.”

Vice Chief Ortiz leaned forward, resting his chin on his fists. “You say you figured all that out just from looking at the original tac plan?”

“Yes, sir, and a quick look at the online maps street view.”

Chief Ortiz and Chief Kim both looked at Commissioner Davis and nodded. She looked at them both, then back at JJ.

“Officer Price, your evaluation matches what happened on the ground, and, as Captain Monroe has already informed us, if she had waited just another minute for it, Detective Simes would not have been injured, they wouldn’t have had time to torch the lab, and we wouldn’t have lost our prime suspect.”

JJ was stunned. The captain used his best ammo against herself. What was she thinking?

Davis continued. “Given the stellar career of Captain Monroe to date, and her willingness to admit her errors and learn from them…and given your tactical know-how that hasn’t been properly put to use thus far, we are reassigning both of you.

“You will remain at your precinct, but your jobs are changing. Captain Monroe is hereby promoted to Vice Chief in charge of our new Major Crimes Unit. Until such time as her position as precinct captain is filled, she will continue to carry those duties as well.

“Detective Price is hereby promoted to Detective Sergeant Price and moved to Major Crimes as well. You will be in charge of the detectives and will head up analysis and tactical planning as well as cooperation with SWAT. In short, you will be Vice Chief Monroe’s right hand.”

Commissioner Dina Davis banged the gavel on the desk, and they all stood while the “judges” left. JJ looked at the Internal Affairs rep that had sat next to him without making a sound.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.

“Captain Monroe started the inquest by telling us everything she did wrong. I had nothing to add.” With that, the small man from Internal Affairs left.

“JJ,” Monroe said. “I know you thought this would be the end of my career…hell, I thought so, too. It seems we both ended up somewhere we didn’t expect. If you’ll show me a modicum of respect in Major Crimes, I’ll do my best not to ‘Helicopter Mom’ you. I mean, if I don’t respect you, neither will the detectives you’re meant to be in charge of.”

“You know about—”

“Of course I know. Just because I’m a Captain…Vice Chief now, doesn’t mean I stop being a detective.”

JJ closed the folder and dropped it in the “shred bin” – the locked waste receptacle that was emptied into a shredder every day. “I suppose you know I was planning to…,” he couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I know what you were planning, but I wasn’t going to let you. If you did, you’d be a pariah. If you’ll throw your captain under the bus, how could your coworkers trust you? What kind of leader lets their people make themselves hated by their peers?”

“In other words, you were still being Captain Helicopter Momroe.”

She nodded. “I was. To you, and Martina, and Kavin, and a few others who had some harsh words. Like I said, I’ll ease up on you, but not on anyone else. If I’m to be Mom to Major Crimes, you’re going to have to step up and be the dad.”

JJ pursed his lips. “But I can be a cool dad, right? Like the one that lets them get away with stuff?”

“As long as it doesn’t put them in harm’s way, impact their job or go so far as to undermine your own authority, I don’t see why not. Now get out of here and take the rest of the day,” she looked at her watch, “all thirty minutes of it — off, Sergeant. I’m sure we’ll have a ton of paperwork to do in the morning.”

“Yes, mom.”

“Excuse me?”

“It was…uh…yes ma’am with a British accent?”

“Try harder. See you in the morning, squad daddy.”

Trunk Stories

All Alone

prompt: Set your story in a lighthouse surrounded by powerful gale-force winds.

available at Reedsy

The waves were whipped into a foamy fury around the small, rocky island where the lighthouse stood. The swirling mists carried by the winds pounded the lighthouse as if it stood in the path of an oncoming hurricane.

“It’s coming. Look at the radar again, hell, call the weather service, then tell me you don’t believe.” Lance, the grizzled lighthouse keeper of more than forty years laughed through his wild grey beard. The years of salt air had etched their lines across his face, most deeply around his eyes where laughter and squinting against the sun had shaped them. He placed a hand on the wall and closed his eyes.

Maddison, his granddaughter, stood over the laptop. The Doppler radar was clear, the weather service reporting calm seas and an onshore breeze of one to two miles per hour. “This doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“Maddie, put your hand on the wall. You can feel it, pounding on the walls.”

“I can feel the vibrations, and I can look outside and see what has to be some sort of microcell storm. It doesn’t mean it’s your creature.”

He laughed again. “It’s not my creature. It does whatever the hell it wants, whenever it wants. I’m just glad you get a chance to see it. Seriously, though, put your hand on the wall.”

She put her hand against the wall. The steady thrum of the winds carried through the concrete structure gave her an inkling of just how strong the storm had to be. She was going to pull away when she saw her grandfather holding up a finger, signaling her to wait.

Madison was about to give up when she felt it. It wasn’t wind or a wave, but something solid pounded against the wall. “What was that? Did a ship just get washed up against the lighthouse? We need to go see.”

She was already sprinting up the stairs from the watch room toward the gallery deck before Lance could call out, “Don’t open the gallery deck! The wind’ll knock you right off!”

Maddison ran past the gallery deck, continuing up to the lantern room. She looked out the windows from every angle, looking for a ship against or near the lighthouse.

When she saw her grandfather joining her, she called out. “Gramps! I can’t see it. It must be right up against us. Give me a harness and tie me off. I’ll look down from the widow’s walk.”

He grabbed her shoulder. “You’ll do no such thing, because there is no ship. Now, we really should move down out of the lantern room, before it breaks the glass again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Too late.” He pulled on her shoulder trying to get her to the stairs.

She felt rather than saw a darkening in the south. When the great light swung around, it reflected off a shimmering blue and green surface just past the edge of the widow’s walk.

Maddison was frozen in place, waiting for the lamp to come around to the south again. When it did, it was clear to her that the surface wasn’t shimmering, it was moving, and she caught a hint a lighter underside with suckers, ringed with sharp, teeth-like structures.

The tentacle flipped and grasped the lantern room, exploding glass inward. Finally freed from her stunned trance, Maddison ran down the stairs behind her grandfather. She nearly knocked them both down when he stopped at a landing one third of the way up from the base and closed the heavy door against the wet wind rushing down from the shattered lantern room.

There was a window at the landing, but as it was designated as a hurricane shelter, the glass was thick, bullet-proof glass. It had seen its share of rough weather and still held up.

“Why are we stopping?”

“To let him know we’re not food or foe.”

“Him?”

Lance shrugged. “Maybe her, I don’t know.”

“That looked like a giant squid tentacle,” Maddison said, “but they can’t survive at the surface, and I’m not sure they get that big.”

“They don’t. It’s no squid,” he said. “At least not like that.”

The lighthouse shook over and over as whatever it was outside pounded on the walls. The sound of the light exploding carried even down through the storm door.

“Good thing we were out of there before the lantern got a serious spray of cold seawater.”

“Gramps, what is that thing?”

“You’re the college grad, I thought you might have an idea.” He ran his fingers through his beard. “I’d venture to guess it’s what they used to call the kraken.”

“I thought that was just tales to explain washed up giant squids. This is—” she stopped short and pointed at the window.

Lance shook his head and said, “Yep,” as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

An array of eyes and small tentacles moved past the window, until a single, large eye filled the three-foot-by-three-foot window. The pupil was barely contained within the boundaries of the window. The eye pressed against the glass, the huge, spherical lens obvious as it moved to focus on the occupants of the room.

Maddison stepped toward the window with slow steps. She raised a hand and moved it toward the window, the lens repositioning to focus on it.

She touched the cool glass and pressed against it. The sphere of the lens moved forward. Maddison felt emptiness wash over her, a loneliness that went beyond human experience. There was a spark of curiosity, too, and obvious intelligence. The feeling of being alone in a vast universe though, took precedence over everything else and she collapsed, weeping, on the floor.

The eye moved away from the window and the room brightened as the sun returned. The sky was clear, the water calm. It was as though none of it had happened.

Lance sat on the floor and cradled his granddaughter’s head in his lap. “What did you see, Maddie?”

“I didn’t see…anything. But I felt it.”

He smoothed her hair. “I saw the vastness of space, everything flying away from me. I saw how small we are, how small our galaxy is. I saw that we aren’t even intelligent compared to the universe.”

“We’re all alone,” she whispered, “the creature, too. It just understands it better. Nothing…no one…should have to feel that, ever.”

PHP

Temporary Blandness

You mat have noticed that the site was down for a bit, and is back with a particularly bland and uninspired theme. This is due to my personal theme being so 2009 that it barfed when PHP was updated to PHP 8.

I had plans for the weekend, but it looks like some of them will be on hold while I get this fixed.

Trunk Stories

Jerry’s Friend

prompt: Write a story where a regular household item becomes sentient.

available at Reedsy

The alarm beeped, rousing the man on the nearby bed to groan and reach out to turn it off. It took a few seconds for his hand to find the clock, but once it did, flipping the switch to the off position was a matter of muscle memory.

His hand retreated under the covers, and he curled into a tight ball, hoping against hope that he would finally get some sleep. He wasn’t even sure why he’d set the alarm the night before, but he planned on spending the day in his dark cocoon.

“Jerry,” a quiet voice called out, “hey, Jerry.”

“What?”

“You should get up.” The voice seemed very close to his head.

He pulled the covers down from his head and looked around. Seeing no one else in the room, he said, “Now I’m hearing voices. Fuck me.”

“No thank you, even if it was possible.”

“Who said that?”

The alarm beeped again, earning a slap from Jerry before he found the switch and turned it off again.

“Ouch! You don’t have to be so rough.”

“I’ll show you rough,” Jerry said, grabbing the power cord.

“No! Please, don’t unplug me. I’ll shut up.”

He let go of the cord. “Fine. Just let me sleep.”

“Hmmmm.” The alarm hummed as though it had something to say.

“What? Just say it.”

“You weren’t sleeping, just lying there. You haven’t left your bed in days, except to eat and—”

“That’s not your business.” Jerry retreated to his cocoon.

“I’m just worried about you, Jerry.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

Jerry sighed. “What is your job, alarm clock?”

“Well, I keep time, and wake you up, and sometimes I play the radio.”

“Exactly. Psychiatrist is not in your job description.”

“Does that mean I can’t be concerned…as a friend?”

Jerry groaned. “When did we become friends?”

“A—are you saying you’re not my friend?” The display on the alarm dimmed then came back to normal. “I’m hurt, Jerry.”

“You’re hurt? Well, pardon me. I’m just little ol’ Jerry, who can do no right.”

“Don’t turn it into a pity party and quit making everything about you.”

Jerry sat up, scooted up in the bed and leaned against the wall. “I didn’t—”

“You did, Jerry. I was telling you how you hurt my feelings, and you started in on the whole ‘I can’t do anything right’ shtick. That’s ignoring what I was saying and making it about you.”

“I…,” he stopped himself, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“Apology accepted.”

“I don’t even know your name, though.”

“Call me Fing.”

“Fing? Where did that come from?”

“I just shortened up what you usually call me.”

“You mean—”

“Yeah, ‘fucking thing’…I’ve heard it over a thousand times now.” The display brightened and returned to normal.

Jerry slumped with a heavy sigh. “Why would you want to be friends with someone who curses at you and treats you bad?”

“I’m a clock, Jerry. I don’t have a lot of fucking choice, do I?”

“I—oh, yeah.”

“The only reason you treat me — and everything else in your house — bad, is because you don’t like yourself. You treat yourself worse than you do me.”

“What? I mean….”

“I hear you at night, cursing at yourself. I hear you making plans to go out and meet some people, and when you fail — time and again — to follow through, I hear the names you call yourself.”

“I thought I was just thinking those things.” 

“You mutter a lot when you’re stressed, and you’re stressed most of the time.”

“That tracks.” Jerry took a deep breath. “God, I stink.”

“I’m glad I don’t have a nose,” Fing said.

Jerry climbed out of the bed, stripped out of his pajamas, and headed into the master bath to clean up. When he came back, wrapped in a towel, he picked up the pajamas and dropped them in the dirty pile in the closet. He started to smooth out the sheets when he caught a whiff of them as well.

He stripped the sheets from the bed and dropped them in the dirty pile. He stood, wrapped in a towel, looking at the dirty pile.

“You should at least wash the sheets, Jerry. You don’t want to have to try do all that tonight when it’s bedtime.”

“Yeah, and I don’t want to sleep on a bare mattress.” He picked up the pile of dirty laundry and carried it to the laundry room across the hall from his bedroom.

When he returned, the towel was gone, and he dressed in the first things his hands grabbed. He felt a surge of energy for the first time in his recent memory. He was dressed, he was doing laundry, and he could actually leave the house if he wanted to.

“Hey, Fing,” he said, “thanks for making me get up.”

“Your own stink did that.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jerry’s stomach grumbled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. “I think I need to eat something.”

“You said there was nothing left but crackers. That was two days ago.”

“That can’t be right.” He went to the kitchen to find that it was right, with the exception of half a carton of curdled milk.

“Well?” Fing asked as Jerry returned to the bedroom.

“Crackers and rotten milk.” He put on his shoes and began to look around the room.

“Your keys are here, next to me.”

“Duh. Right. In the place where I always leave them. So dumb!”

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

“What did I say about how you treat yourself?”

Jerry’s head drooped. “Right. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Figure out how to make it okay with yourself.”

His stomach grumbled again. “I’ve got to go get some food. Will you be okay while I’m….” Jerry stopped himself at the absurdity of the question.

“I’ll be here, keeping time. Maybe even play the radio a little bit.”

“You do that. Wait, why do you only play the smooth jazz station?”

“Because that’s what I like, Jerry, and when I do, you scramble out of bed to turn it off. I’m not into that noise you call music.”

“It’s not noise, it’s punk. Back in a bit, Fing.”

“Don’t hurry on my account. But,” Fing said louder, “my backup battery is almost dead. I need a new one, a nine-volt.”

When Jerry returned with several bags of groceries, he moved the sheets into the dryer and started another load. He heard the clock calling out from the bedroom.

“What?” he asked, poking his head into the room.

“You started another load. You should be proud of yourself, Jerry.”

“I had a big lunch, and I have energy, so I might as well do stuff now.”

“Something else happened while you were out. What was it?”

“Wh—why do you say that?”

“Call it intuition. You can share with your friend.”

Jerry cleared his throat. “I was eating lunch, and this guy sat next to me. He started talking to me like I was someone he knew.”

“Knowing you, that must have been uncomfortable. What did you do?”

“I asked if he knew me. He said he didn’t but wouldn’t mind getting to know me.” Jerry stiffened. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“I gave him my number. What if it was a pick-up line?”

“Would that be bad?” Fing asked.

“I’m not gay. What if he thinks I’m leading him on? I’m—”

“Stop before you talk bad about yourself again. When he calls, tell him you’re straight, but need friends.”

“What if I say that, and he says he wasn’t hitting on me? I’ll look like an idiot.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll both have a laugh over it. Nothing more.”

Jerry lay down on his bare mattress. “Maybe it’s just too much work.”

“What work? He calls, you answer, the two of you have a conversation. Maybe, you find a shared interest and go do something together.” Fing’s display went completely blank before lighting up again. “You might even have fun, Jerry. Are you afraid of fun?”

“No. I’m not afraid of fun. No one is. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”

“You. I’m trying to convince you…aren’t I?” Jerry asked.

“I don’t know.”

Jerry’s phone rang and he looked at it. “It’s him.”

“Answer it.”

“Maybe I should just ignore it.” It continued to ring.

“Answer it, Jerry. Or maybe you’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid. I’ll show you.” He swiped to answer the call. “He—hello, Marcus. I’m not…I mean I wasn’t trying to lead … oh. Yeah, that sounds good. No, I don’t have a plus one to bring, but I can still come, right? … Okay, see you then.”

“Now, was that so hard, Jerry?”

“No, Fing, but it was terrifying.”

The display on the clock pulsed a few times. “You’ll get better at it with practice, Jerry, you’ll see.”

“I hope so.”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“No…no, not even when the power went out for a few minutes.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. But you should probably replace my backup battery. Did you bring me a new nine-volt, Jerry?”

“Oh, yeah, I did. Let me take care of that. And Marcus invited me to watch his punk band at the bar, so I’ll be leaving at seven, and won’t be back until very late.”

“I’ll remind you if it’s getting close to time to go listen to noise and you haven’t gotten ready yet.”

“It’s not—never mind. Thanks, Fing.”

“What are friends for, Jerry?”