Author Archives: James Pyles

Can There Be Intersectionality Between Masculinity and Feminism?

ban men

“Ban Men” image found at Campus Reform website

I find myself writing more frequently about social issues on this blog for whatever reason. I probably shouldn’t, especially since I’m white, male, straight, cisgender, old, conservative (relative to liberal states – in relation to Idaho, I’m probably a moderate), and religious.

In other words, based on that collection of labels, I’m a pretty terrible human being, at least among a certain set of demographics.

I’ll say at the outset that the closest article I’ve written to this one in terms of theme is Injured and Dangerous about a group of hostile, aggressive, and potentially lethal men called Incels. Click the link I provided if you haven’t heard of them and prepare to be terrified.

Earlier today, I read an article from Campus Reform called Feminist prof doubles-down on call to ‘hate men’ written by Toni Airaksinen. She was referencing an opinion piece written by Suzanna Danuta Walters for the Washington Post titled Why Can’t We Hate Men?.

Yikes.

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Wanderjahr Interrupted

spacecraft

Image credit: iStock – Found at numerous sources including thepromiserevealed.com

Chi Crain was temporarily marooned on Niophus halfway into his wanderjahr through the outer rim systems. Middle-aged and an apparent wastrel, he mused to himself that the Anonymous Saloon on the outskirts of Wastacarro City wasn’t such a bad place to hang out. He still hoped the repairs on his ship would be done soon. Chi was boozing it up too much, even for him.

He had just ordered another pint of ale to chase down his shot of Aldebaran whiskey when she walked in. She was human, like him, but the redhead’s beauty left him breathless, something he thought only happened in pulp fiction novels. She wore a common one-piece jumpsuit, but it hugged her well placed and amply proportioned curves like a second skin.

Sitting on the stool to his right at the bar, she parted full, luscious lips and said to the barkeep, “Random Revolver, please.” She produced her payment disc, and once “just call me Al” produced her drink, she transferred the cost. “Keep ’em coming.”

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When Hell Boils Over

shark

Photo: Discovery Channel

Stop! If you haven’t done so already, read The Quest to Save Landon first.

Landon’s soul shot straight up from the pits of Hell as fast as he could go, but Hell was a lot more confusing than he realized. There were all kinds of tunnels and passageways all over the place. Which one led him out of Hell, and even if he could find it, how was he going to get back to the Moose realm and his dying body?

“Wait!” He saw a blue light just above him. “That’s got to be it.”

He heard yelling, and screaming, and a bunch of voices making vile threats against him. Looking back, there were hundreds of winged demons pursuing him, and they were catching up.

“Oh no.”

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The Beelzebub

beel

Beelzebub – Found at weebly, pinterest, and multiple other sources – no available image credit

Lethargy had come upon five-year-old Zooey so suddenly that she was hardly able to stand, and the mouse Sapplehenning was unconscious and barely breathing. Mandy was holding her sister close to her, as the elves of Direhaven finished constructing the enormous flatbed cart with which they would transport the disabled dragon Shay.

“I must say Jake, that your dreams are very creative, and I mean that in more than one manner.” The Vizier Wynjeon, consort to Janellize, the Queen of their people clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“When I found out that Shay couldn’t walk, I thought the wagon would just, well, happen. When it didn’t, I drew a picture in the dirt of what I’d dreamed.”

A hundred sturdy soldiers brave and hardy struggled mightily to assist the great golden dragon onto the hastily manufactured conveyance, as Mandy murmured into Zooey’s ear. “I should never have permitted you to stay, and I’m not waiting anymore. We’re leaving with some of the soldiers and going to Vovin right now.”

“No. I want to stay with Shay.”

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One Child’s Life

rahab

Rahab and the Two Spies – Found at Seeds of Faith website and Pinterest

The strangers with her on the rooftop paused in unison. Before Rahab laid them under stalks of flax in order to hide them from the soldiers of the King, she said, “I know that Hashem has given you the Land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the Land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Reed Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.

“When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for Hashem your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Now therefore, please swear to me by Hashem, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father’s household, and give me a pledge of truth, and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, especially our little children, and deliver our lives from death.”

So the men said to her, “Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the Lord gives us the Land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you. We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the Land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father, and your mother, and your brothers, and the little children, and all your father’s household.”

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Who Murdered the Lady in the Lake?

coniston water

Coniston Water, Lake District, England – © Google – July 2017

Simon sighed as he read of Gordon Park’s suicide in Garth Prison. He’d been convicted of murdering his wife Carol Ann six years ago, but continued to declare his innocence, claiming that she left him for another man.

The last threat to exposing Simon died with Park.

“Poor Carol Ann. You shouldn’t have kept trying to find your birth family.”

He could still see the look on her face as he smashed it with the ice axe. If he’d piloted the boat further out onto the lake, her body would have vanished in the deeps, instead of being discovered by amateur divers on a ledge.

“I became your lover to prevent you from finding out that your mother was a prostitute and your father was a drug smuggler. Daddy’s dead, and as his only son, I’m running the family business. Sorry, dear sister. You simply got in the way.”

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw writing challenge. The idea is to use a Google maps street image and/or location as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 149.

Today, the Pegman takes us to Coniston Water, Lake District, England. Naturally, I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered, among other things, that it was the site of the famous Lady in the Lake murder.

Carol Ann Park went missing in 1976. However, it wasn’t until her body was discovered in 1997 in the lake on a shelf seventy-five feet under the surface by amateur divers that murder was suspected. You can click the link I provided to read all of the details, but among the other facts of the case, Mrs. Park was adopted and had been attempting to locate her birth parents. When she disappeared, her husband Gordon did claim she ran off with another man. She was murdered with an ice axe, and Gordon did hang himself in prison in 2010.

Of course, I made up everything about Simon and am not suggesting that the wrong man was convicted of the crime. In writing this, I am not intending any disrespect to the Park family, and particularly not of the deceased.

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

A Very Nice Rejection

rejection

Screen capture of my latest rejection notice

This is what I came home to after a long and miserable work week yesterday. Oy.

On the other hand, it’s very polite and didn’t actually say my writing sucked, plus the editor was encouraging in inviting me to submit to them again.

I realized that all of the stories that have been rejected (three stories and four rejections, one tale was rejected twice) are still “in play” in the Authoring directory on my PC’s hard drive, so I created a separate “rejection” folder for them. I’ll probably rename it when I feel better about it, since it means these stories are once more available to submit.

Veteran science fiction author Steven Barnes on his blog sometimes gives out advice to struggling writers, and one piece of advice is don’t re-edit a story unless a publisher specifically requests it. So I probably (for now) won’t change any of the stories that have been sent back to me.

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Ghostbusters, Ocean’s 8, and “Gender Flipping”

Ocean's 8

Promotional poster for the 2018 film, “Ocean’s 8”.

I think I may have seen the 1960 film Ocean’s 11 at some point decades past, or at least parts of it. It had an all-star cast which included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. The sole primary actress featured was Angie Dickinson, and the movie (as I understand it) set the bar for all big-time heist movies.

It’s been remade and “sequelized” (if that’s a word) numerous times in the early 21st century as you can read here. Those movies also had an all-star cast which included George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Don Cheadle. Catherine Zeta-Jones seems to be the primary female lead in these films.

I think I’ve seen parts of some of them years ago when one or the other of my kids were still at home and watching them, but I didn’t have an interest in viewing any of them.

But why am I telling you all this and why should you care?

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Who is a Nazi and Why Should I Care?

hitler and staff

Adolf Hitler and his staff salute during the opening ceremonies of the XIth Olympic Games on Aug. 1, 1936, in Berlin, Germany. Getty Images

Nazi:
noun
1. historical
a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
adjective
1. of or concerning the Nazis or Nazism.

That’s the dictionary definition of “Nazi.” Of course, there’s a lot more to it, and to get the details, please visit the Wikipedia pages for Nazism and The Nazi Party.

Why am I bringing this up?

I read a blog post recently where apparently, speculative fiction author N.K. Jenisin called science fiction author Jon Del Arroz a Nazi on twitter. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of a conservative being equated to a Nazi, but does this really mean Mr. Del Arroz belongs to the Nazi Party?

Not that I can tell. According to blog posts such as this one and his authoring articles like this one at the online magazine The Federalist, he is certainly a political conservative, but again, does that make him (or any other conservative) an actual Nazi?

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The Target

Taxi

Photo credit: Kai Pilger pexels-photo-462867 Taxi

Peter took a taxi from JFK into Manhattan, seeing the driver frown in the rear view mirror when he gave the address.

Anna had met him outside Terminal 4 where she’d given him the item secured in a laptop case. He was the only one in the organization who could deliver it to the target, but it would mean his death as well. It hardly mattered, He had stage four liver cancer and would be dead soon anyway.

Arriving at the Trump Tower, he paid the fare adding a generous trip. He had more in common with the driver than the man might expect.

Showing his ID, he was waved through every level of security except the Secret Service. Fortunately, the laptop was a working model.

“Donald, how good to see you again.” He shook hands with one of his oldest friends. They exchanged pleasantries in the President’s private suite, and then, “Let me show you that information we have on the FBI.”

The explosion killed them both instantly, raining debris onto 5th Avenue.

Listening to the news, Anna felt both grief and joy. Now maybe the government would reunite all of those poor babies with their parents at the border.

I wrote this for the Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner – 2018 Week #25 challenge. The idea is to use the photo above as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 200.

No, I’m not advocating assassinating President Trump or hurting or killing anyone. However, Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which has been blamed for the separation of parents and children who have illegally attempted to enter the U.S., is all over the news and social media. Also, all you have to do is search twitter for the hashtag #resistance, and you can see the tremendous response to this policy in specific, and President Trump in general.

So I thought I’d create an extremist form of that resistance, one in which even some of Trump’s closest friends have joined, and one that is willing to use lethal force to enact political and social change.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Oh, “Peter” and “Anna” are totally fictitious and is not based on any actual people.

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com. Remember, this linkup still needs a lot of love, so please consider contributing a story. Thanks.