Author Archives: James Pyles

The Uneasy Pact

shelter

© Sue Vincent

Dani was with the Davidson children, all of them dressed regally if somewhat uncomfortably, sitting under a grand silken tent, served drink and treats by elven servants, while the Queen of Direhaven, Janellize, sat in front of them next to the golden dragon Shay, the two of them marvelously displayed against the backdrop of a magnificent waterfall.

It was mid-afternoon, and Janellize had just begun her tale of the shared history of her people and the dragons, one fraught with conflict and distrust. But who was at fault and why now was the enmity set aside?

“For time out of mind, we whom you call Elves and the race of dragons have visited your world, but neither are what you imagine us to be from your legends.

“Only in certain lands on your world were we called Elves. In other languages, we have been referred to as fairies, gnomes, and dwarves. In centuries past, an ancient Christian prayer book used the term elf as synonymous with Satan, though other nations of that time, considered some of our people light while others dark in nature. We have also been considered rbhus, hobgoblins, nymphs, demons, and angels.

“Our people have been all of these and none of them, for in truth, we were never truly realized by humans. In fact, just as your world contains differing cultures and individuals with varying characters, so too do we, and thereby hangs our tale.

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When Science is Wrong

snake oil

Found at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

“Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Dr. Eric Sandersen, Director of Climate Studies at the American Foundation of Science Awareness. My studies of climatic changes due to atmospheric pollutants based on a half-century of data compiled by my department have shown conclusively that the Earth is headed toward an imminent and catastrophic ice age.”

Both the audience of scientists at the 1965 Conference of Climate Scientists and the much wider body of people watching on their television sets around the country started murmuring.

“I know this is a difficult piece of knowledge to take in, but the survival of our civilization is at stake.”

The crowd seated in the auditorium became louder and there were small outbreaks of arguing among some of the delegates.

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The Next Treasure Dive

kites

Photo credit: MorgueFile 2a4054c7afcb25f354a6cf9709d9b8a5

She was waiting for them when the two men pulled into the sports center’s parking lot in Pitt’s 1948 Model 135 Delahaye. It was a cool, cloudy Sunday in early April and Arvada’s annual kite festival was on the verge of being rained out.

“You sure know how to travel in style, Mr. Pitt.”

The rough-looking man with the salt-and-pepper hair stepped out of the antique car, his companion remaining inside. “You’ve got what we paid for?” He held out his right hand impatiently.

“Of course.” She proffered the aged, yellowed envelope.

The man took it, gently opened the flap, and briefly read the contents. “Yes, this is it. Just a few miles from here.” The adventurer looked up, but the lady in black was already walking away. They had both honored the agreement and now it was time to move on.

“Where to, Dirk?”

Pitt started the engine and backed out of his parking spot.

“You won’t believe it, Al. The Byzantium is hidden at the bottom of Standley Lake.”

“You’re kidding. Westminster is just a few miles from here. The lake’s less than 100 feet deep.”

“Easy retrieval job and America’s missile defense technology advances fifty years. Let’s go.”

I wrote this for the Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 199.

Given the image, I looked up “kite festivals” on Google and came up with the Arvada Kite Festival to be held in Arvada, a suburb of Denver, this coming Sunday, April 8th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Unfortunately, the weather for Arvada this Sunday is predicted to have a 70% chance of rain, so not good flying weather.

I looked up Arvada and found out that among other things, it’s the home of the Cussler Museum of Antique Cars, created by author Clive Cussler.

I read a lot of Cussler’s books back in the day, including Raise the Titanic featuring his primary hero Dirk Pitt, who I assume is Cussler’s alter ego (they share a love of antique car collecting among other things).

Along with his partner Al Giordino, the NUMA Marine Engineer has had many adventures, usually involving sunken ships, lost treasure, high-tech and high adventure.

I thought the kite festival might be a good place for a clandestine meeting between Pitt and a courier, so I set it there. The “Lady in Black” is totally made up for convenience.

The nearest body of water of any size is Standley Lake which is in nearby Westminster and has a maximum depth of 96 feet. There is some Gold Rush history associated with Arvada, and loosely merged with the history behind the lake, I decided that sometime over a century ago, one of the men associated with creating the original reservoir buried what he thought was a fortune of illegally gotten gold there, but died before he could retrieve it (fortunately recording its location in his diary).

Turns out, it was really the element Byzantium (I pulled that from the plot of “Raise the Titanic”) which can be used to develop a defense system that shoots enemy missiles down using sound waves.

Yeah, that’s a lot of research for 200 words, but I had fun.

To read other stories (or to submit your own) based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com (this writing challenge needs some love, so please consider writing a wee tale of your own and submitting it).

The Ghost of the Montreal Symphony House

symphony

© Dale Rogerson

The Montreal Symphony House had been built less than a decade before, but something much older was there. It caused the ornate lighting to sway and cell coverage was always spotty.

His name used to be Erik, and his spirit was first manifest in Paris over a century ago. After departing from there, he has appeared wherever opera or symphonic music was played.

Once he died for love, and now beyond death’s power, he lives for the music of the night. He has been called the Angel of Music, the Opera Ghost, but more commonly, he is the Phantom.

I wrote this for the Rochelle Wisoff-Fields photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for creating a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is 99.

I saw that the photo is credited to Dale Rogerson and doing a bit of online sleuthing, I discovered she may (not sure about this) live near Montreal.

Since the photo’s file name is “dales-symphony-2,” it seemed reasonable to conclude that this was a photograph of the interior of the Montreal Symphony House at Place des Arts. The scene now being set, I just had to think of a hook.

Although this is a symphony house, I thought that the spirit of The Phantom of the Opera (Wikipedia page for the novel) might be attracted to it, a wandering soul seeking to sojourn anywhere that plays the “music of the night,” to borrow from Andrew Lloyd Webber.

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

Returning to Life

ferry

Photo credit: Dorothy

They seemed just two more Asian tourists sitting on a bench watching the ferry at Angel Island.

“When did you die here?” During her lifetime, she would never have asked such as direct question of a man, but death is very liberating.

“1899.” He was staring at the ferry and the multinational conglomeration of visitors, all happily chattering and oblivious to the history they were walking upon. “I had been a dock worker and got the plague. They sent me here for quarantine, but I was also sent here to die. You?”

“1922 when the island was an immigration station. I was suspected of having a disease, but I actually got a parasite from another Chinese immigrant. I suffered on the island eighteen months before I died.”

“How many others like us do you think are here?” He turned toward her finally, noticing that like him, she was dressed in modern clothing.

“Too many, but most won’t let go of the past.”

“If you’re ready, we can rejoin the living.”

They stood and held hands. “Yes, let’s.”

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge Week of April 3, 2018 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the image above as a prompt to craft a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.

I was stuck about where the photo was actually taken, so I made something up.

When I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, I visited Angel Island many times. It’s accessible by ferry and you can take bicycles and ride around the entire island. It has a very interesting history, some of it very grim.

You can read the details of both when the island was used as a Quarantine Station and later as an Immigration Station (people could be held on the island for anywhere between two weeks and two years) for the context of my two characters.

In this case, I’ve given my couple a second chance at life, though I’ve kept the mechanism of how deliberately vague. If you can learn to let go of the pain of the past, you might find your way back to a new life and the rest of your future.

Guilty confession. I read this story before crafting my own and yes, it influenced me. My bad.

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

The New Neighborhood

monster

© Igor Morski

“I’ll get it.”

Ron Moore, his wife Layna, and their almost three-year-old daughter Emily had just moved into the new house in the suburbs the week before, but this was the first time anyone had come to visit.

“Hi. May I help you?”

“Seth Kennedy. I’m your next door neighbor. Just thought I’d drop by and say…”

Little Emily grabbed onto her Mommy’s leg and started crying hysterically. She looked up in terror at the man at the door, and then buried her face again.

“I’m sorry. She doesn’t usually do this.”

“What?” The neighbor cupped his hand around his ear.

Ron looked back at his wife.

“I’ll take her into the other room.”

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The New Apprentice

falcon

A peregrine falcon flies near the Throgs Neck Bridge. Credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin.

Landon stood majestically on top of the wind-swept plateau dressed in archaic and stereotypical magician’s apparel. The robe draped over his slight nine-year-old frame from neck to ankle was colored a deep violet with bright yellow crescent moons and five-pointed stars dappled generously across the fabric. His head was adorned with a tall, conical hat made of the same material, displaying identical hue and decoration.

In his right hand, he held a long, slender wand made of a dark wood with no name, and on his left hand and wrist, he bore a thick, heavy glove of leather. High above in the deep azure sky, he saw a mere speck of darkness contrast against the pink and yellow clouds, spread thin as paper by the light of the setting sun to his back.

The wind rushed past his ears, but he could still hear the distinct cry of the falcon circling over his head. The bird of prey was too high for him to hear the boy, but he projected his thoughts into the heavens and the avian would be compelled to respond.

“You must choose now, Perry. Is she to join us or not?”

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The Kaala Experiment

mosasaurus

A mosasaurus as seen in the 2015 film “Jurassic World”.

“Oh, crap.”

“What is it, Lynn?” At the helm of the Research Submarine Nereid, Marcus Clark scanned the immediate vicinity through the view port while everyone else in the cabin looked toward the navigator.

“It’s not the Megalodon we encountered yesterday. Not much bigger, but it reads differently.”

“Something even more minatory?”

“Cut with the erudite crap, Dr. Everett. That prehistoric shark was bad news enough.” Former Marine Gunnery Sergeant Leon Spencer hated being penned inside this tin can underneath hundreds of meters of ocean where his skills meant nothing.

“It’s unthinkable that your experiment should have gotten this far.”

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The Last Rose of Babylon

last rose of babylon

Babylon Eyes Rose

The great Bavel had been destroyed long ago and it was time to leave its ruins. She had been hiding among the worshipers of the Church of the East because it was the only place left to go. Like her mother and her mother’s mother before her, Warda concealed the truth of her identity and her faith. Now that the Muslims had conquered this land, only a few Christians chose to remain.

She took her place in one of the wagons in the caravan with the other women. They would go north. India was supposed to be safe and the Church had established itself there.

The women and girls prattled on, some gossiping, others fretting about the future, would their daughters be able to find husbands where they were going and such.

She felt a little like Esther, wearing a mask to shroud the name Hadassah. Her mask was Warda, an Arabic name, because these Christians would never understand why a Jew would be a follower of the Christ and still see herself as a Jew.

It had been over 700 years ago that Rav Yeshua died his bloody, symbolic, sacrificial death, and then to fulfill the promise of the resurrection, rose again with the promise of the ultimate restoration of Israel. One day he would return as the King ,and the few Jewish disciples would no longer have to hide in the galut. Until then, Shoshana, the last rose of Babylon, her daughters, and her daughters’ daughters would remain in obscurity. Someday, like Hadassah, she would take off the mask and ask for the King’s favor in saving her people from the Muslims and the Christians alike.

I wrote this for the Sunday Writing Prompt “It’s All in the Title” challenge hosted at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie. The idea is to select one or more titles from the ten listed and then write a poem, short story, or other creative work based on it. Obviously I chose The Last Rose of Babylon.

I looked up Babylon of course, with the idea of telling a tale of its destruction and someone leaving the great Bavel (the Hebrew name of the city) for the last time.

The Muslim’s conquered Mesopotamia in the mid-7th century CE and dissolved the Church of the East, marginalizing or destroying Christianity in that part of the world. Babylon had long since been destroyed at that time, but records mention a small village called Babel which may have been built on its ruins.

What we call Christianity today started out as a wholly Jewish religious movement, a strong variant of Pharisaism, with a group of thousands of Jews devoted to Rav Yeshua (Jesus Christ) as the promised Messiah. Even centuries after the Biblical period, it is thought that there were still some Jews who remained his disciples, living and practicing as Jews rather than “converting” to Christianity, which by that time, was made up largely of non-Jews who had completely re-interpreted the scriptures to eliminate Jewish faith and praxis.

In this case, my Shoshana (which means “rose” in Hebrew) is disguised as Warda in order to practice her faith, and yet she remains devoted to her Rav as a Jew, much like Hadassah hid the truth of her being Jewish behind the name of Esther.

I thought this a fitting story given that today is the Christian Easter in the Western world as well as the second day of Passover.

Raising Lazarus: A Book Review

lazarus

Raising Lazarus by Aidan Reid

I just finished reading Aidan Reid’s novel Raising Lazarus and I must say I am impressed. I’ve read other works of his including “Sigil”, “Pathfinders”, and his short story “Spectrum”, and I think “Raising Lazarus” is his best authoring effort to date.

There will probably be a few “spoilers” in my review, so if you don’t want important plot points revealed ahead of reading “Lazarus,” stop reading this review now.

The novel follows college student Molly Walker, who, as part of writing her University thesis, interviews an incarcerated male prostitute named Lazarus. After he is released, she continues to be fascinated by him and throughout the first half of the novel, they casually pursue each other, with Lazarus slowly letting Molly into his world.

The novel moves back and forth between the present and seven years ago when Lazarus was a refuge in Syria being harbored by a Catholic Priest, giving the reader the opportunity to compare “past” Lazarus with who he presents himself as today.

Eventually, Lazarus reveals that he believes he is the Biblical Lazarus, the man who was resurrected by Christ after being dead and entombed for over three days.

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