Author Archives: James Pyles

The Eshana

desert planet

Wallpaper found at wallpapersafari.com.

The eastern horizon bled the color of garnet, quickening a new morning and the possibility of survival. Once the air temperature rose to somewhere near four degrees C, Tatiana could shed her alien enhancements and revert to humanoid form. She had survived the night crossing of the Gael badlands and once she made it to the northern shore of the Lilthe Sea, Daron would pick her up.

She was beginning to nurture the small bud of hope that was sprouting within her breast when her comm channel crackled to life. There was no doubt that it was Balin and he had been tracking her.

“You really did think you were going to get away with it, didn’t you?”

Tatiana toyed with the idea of remaining silent and pretending he wasn’t sure of her location, but it was pointless. If he was close enough to reach her on her private channel, she had as much chance of escape as a duck in a fox den. “Up until this moment, yes.”

“Wait for me. If we can conclude this quickly, I may yet be able to stop the Dissolution.”

She kept walking across the last vestige of the frozen tundra. “Dissolution was inevitable the moment I took the Eshana.”

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The Quest to Save Landon

anime girl wand

Anime version of Hermione Granger holding a wand

Nine-year-old Landon and his classmate and friend Ana were in school, which was strange, because school was out for the summer. What was even stranger was that Landon was at the head of the class and Ana was the only student.

“Now today class, I want to introduce you to magic wands.” He was wearing a white shirt and tie, dark slacks, and was wearing something that looked like a cross between a jacket and a robe while Ana was dressed similarly.

“Stop being silly. I’m the only one here.”

“Just trying to get into the mood, Ana.”

“Fine, you teach me how to use a wand, and I’ll teach you moose healing magic.”

“Are you sure we should be keeping this from Buddy?”

“You said you knew enough to begin my training yourself. Besides, we’re ready to start the fourth grade. I think we’re old enough to handle the basic stuff ourselves.”

“Okay. Anyway, this is a magic wand.”

“It looks like a long, thin stick. What makes it magic?”

“We do. Wands help us focus our spells, especially ones that normally would affect a wide area.”

“Like my light spell.”

“Exactly. The elemental light spell explodes like a bomb or a flash bulb on an old-fashioned camera. If you focus it through a wand, you can create anything from a flashlight beam to a laser.”

“Cool. Can I try?” She stood up at her desk and held out her hand.

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Sea Angel

sea angel

Image of Sea angel (clade Gymnosomata) – found at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – no photo credit given

“You weren’t kidding, Somata. An actual sea water pool.” Gary had been dating the beautiful model for weeks, but this was the first time she’d invited him over to her place by the beach.

“It helps to live so near the ocean. You can’t see the machinery, but the pool’s water is constantly being recycled from just off shore.”

“This thing must have cost a fortune. In fact, your whole house is amazing.”

“Don’t bother asking how I can afford it all. I invited you over for a swim, not to discuss my bank balance.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. I’m just overwhelmed. I mean, I’m only a junior accountant and this is like a dream come true.”

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57 Pink Flamingos

pink flamingos

© Susan Spaulding

“$2500! You spent $2500 on that?” Jeanette watched in horror as she watched her husband Terry insert the last of the 57 pink flamingos he’s purchased on Amazon into their front lawn. The driveway was littered with the debris of cardboard shipping boxes.

“Come on. We can afford it. You know how much dough we stashed away from the Corleone caper.”

“That’s not the point. But we’re supposed to keep a low profile, you moron. Why don’t you just get a couple of spotlights and set off some fireworks while you’re at it? Maybe you could send an email to Vito and Sonny telling them our address so they could come over and blow our brains out.”

Terry walked to where his wife was standing on the front porch and put his arm around her. “They look swell, don’t they?” The Cheshire Cat never had a grin as wide as his.

“You’re nuts. They’re tacky as hell.”

“Exactly. We embezzled millions from the mob working as their accountants and we’re on the lam from them and the Feds. What better cover to hide behind than the queen of all tacky lawn ornaments?

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge for June 10, 2018. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction of no more than 200 words. My word count is 189.

Lacking an immediate story idea when I first saw the photo, I Googled “Pink Flamingo” only to come up with the tacky but classic 1972 film Pink Flamingos created by John Waters. Except for the idea of criminals hiding out, I found nothing I could use in that movie (and I’ve never seen it), so I moved on.

Then I found The Tacky History of the Pink Flamingo at Smithsonian.com and I had the rest of my “hook.”

These plastic monstrosities were created in 1957 in an effort to allow people to accessorize the “sameness” of their tract homes that reproduced like lemmings in the post-war era. You can read the full history for yourself, but apparently:

In their yard near Leominster, Nancy and Don Featherstone (the sculptor who was commissioned to create pink flamingos) typically tend a flock of 57 (a nod to the creation year) that neighborhood college students feel compelled to thin.

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

Comic Books Have Gone Crazy

FF3

The cover of The Fantastic Four issue 3 from 1961

“I’ve kept a limited number of comic books from my youth, ranging from the 1960s to the 1980s, and occasionally take a few out and read them. I’m not really into comic books anymore, especially the current titles, and for a lot of reasons.

Originally, I started collecting them in the late 1960s when I was in Junior High, and I’d been reading them since I was old enough to read because they were so much fun. In the ’60s and ’70s, I was mainly into Marvel comics (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men and so on), but I rediscovered DC in the late 80s when they did the first reboot of their titles.

More recently, I used my local public library system and checked out Vertigo DC graphic novels such as V for Vendetta and The Watchmen as well as the Sandman (the Wesley Dodd costumed hero, not the other guy) because they were more edgy and I was an adult. In the case of the first two titles, I wanted to understand the basis for the films they became, and in the Sandman’s case, I just enjoy the character and the 1930s vibe.

I’ve kept in touch with how comic books have been morphing in more recent years, and generally give them a wide berth. The superheroes I once admired and who taught me about courage, innovation, and adventure, had become unrecognizable as well as unoriginal. Numerous reboots later, all of the old villains and storylines had been rehashed ad nauseam, just like what we see in both the film and television industries, and I don’t intend to pay for the privilege of being bored.

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Paradise is in Orbit

bullwinkle

Vintage Melmac Child Drinking Cup Bullwinkle Moose – Found on eBay

Fred, the male mail carrier sat in the Outer Ring Coffee Shoppe eating his chocolate mousse out of a vintage cup bearing the image of Bullwinkle the Moose. Except for the baristas behind the counter, he was the only human in the room.

“How wazz ur confekshun, Fred?” Phebb was one of the refuge aliens who had arrived just after the Station was completed and he’d been running the Outer Ring for the past ten years.

“Terrific as always.” He stood but still had to suppress the urge to shake hands with the proprietor, since all of the Uan’eo species considered any public skin-to-skin contact a breach of their sexual taboos. “Well, I’d better get going. Lunch time’s just about up and I still have to deliver to the rest of the Station.

“Glad u liked it. Zee u nex time.”

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Spirits of the Canyon

palo duro night

Found at the Stars of Texas – milkyway timelapse project YouTube channel

“The stars are very beautiful Travis, but I still don’t understand what you expect us to see out here. I mean camping in Palo Duro Canyon under the Milky Way is a very romantic honeymoon, but…”

“Cassie, our ancestors lived here for thousands of years before being displaced, first by the Comanche and Kiowa, and then by the Army. This had been Apache land for ten, maybe fifteen thousand years.”

“I’m not an idiot and you didn’t bring me here to give me a first nations lecture.”

“No, I didn’t. My grandfather Chano says that you can still see them here on quiet nights. If we sit peacefully by the water, they’ll appear to us just as they were.”

“Who?”

“Our ancestors. You can kill our bodies, but the Great Spirit will always preserve us.”

“Look, Travis. You’re right.” Her brown eyes grew wide with wonder.

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw flash fiction challenge. The idea is to use a Google maps location and/or street view as the inspiration for crafting a tale no more than 150 words long. My word count is 146.

Today, the Pegman takes us to The Big Cave, Palo Duro State Park in Texas. Palo Duro Canyon is breathtakingly beautiful and has a rich history which, apart from the appearance of spirits, I have faithfully represented in my wee story. Click the link I just provided to read more about it.

Oh, I borrowed the names of Travis and Cassie Fox from my homage to Andre Norton’s (Alice Norton’s) science fiction novel Galactic Derelict, but besides the names, this story has nothing to do with time or space travel.

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

Saigon

saigon 1967

A street view of Saigon, 1967 – AaronPogs – Own work

The video footage was grainy, but Taylor recognized them easily.

“You’re worth every penny I paid you, Tran. Now blow. I’ll watch the rest alone.” The Vietnamese photojournalist left the darkened hotel room without a word. He moonlighted at this sort of work, taking photos and video of unsuspecting couples, and since he’d already been paid, he was satisfied to go home to his wife and children.

Taylor kept watching the film. The cheap 8mm projector rattled like the engine of his first car, a beat up Chevy Impala, but after weeks in the jungle constantly exposed to the sound of automatic weapons fire and artillery, the military intelligence officer blithely tuned it out.

Tran had followed the couple to every tourist attraction in Saigon from the Ben Thanh market to Notre Dame Cathedral. “He really showed you all the hot spots, sweetheart.”

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Descent

feather

© Sue Vincent

The little girl had picked up the carrion bird’s feather, the only remains of her connection to the griffon vulture who had delivered the dire news of the Great Gray God, and tucked it in her pocket. For a few short minutes when their minds met, she had seen through his eyes, had seen the world from six miles up, flown through clouds and smoke, and witnessed the falling of a god to a vast army of demons. Zooey was only five years old, but in the space of a few weeks, she had seen so much of life and death.

“The Quag Lands.”

Dani stopped them at the edge of some unseen boundary. It was mid-morning and they had been walking through a grassy marsh since just after dawn. For the past hour of their journey, the grasses had become darker and the tree branches more twisted. The air was humid and thick with the smell of the dying, not that there weren’t living birds and animals here, but somehow that life didn’t belong solely in their bodies.

“It’s what I saw.” Jake was standing next to the dragonrider. She knew the way into this stinking pit because it was the one area of the Exile she had always been taught to avoid. The seven-year-old also knew by the dubious virtue of his dreams, both waking and sleeping.

“It gets darker ahead. She’s in there, Dani. Shay’s almost dead.”

They all turned as Paris shrieked. She had walked off to the edge of the trail and was gazing into a shallow pool when she saw it. Taylor was the first to reach her.

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Anticipating the Anthology “To Be Men”

to be men

Cover image of the soon to be published book “To Be Men: Stories Celebrating Masculinity.”

I’ve become aware of a book soon to be made available through Superversive Press called To Be Men: Stories Celebrating Masculinity. It’s an anthology and actually the sort of project I’d have loved to contribute to. The theme is based on a premise currently popular in speculative fiction and in certain social perspectives, that traditional masculinity is considered toxic or otherwise undesirable or harmful.

Actually, the issues are more complicated than they seem on the surface, but they are also very polarizing (like so many social issues are these days).

I came across the term Beta Male in relation to this, and depending on your perspective, it’s either highly denigrated or highly celebrated. If traditional masculinity is “toxic,” then “beta maleness” seems to be the goal in some circles.

In response to Disney’s current “take” on the “Star Wars” franchise, I’ve decided to “take back” Star Wars by re-watching the original trilogy (“Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” and “Return of the Jedi”). To me, those are the only three films that truly embrace “StarWars-ness”), even though “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” (the latter film I have yet to see) feature some of the original actors.

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