Author Archives: James Pyles

Where Did Our Home Go?

factory

© J Hardy Carroll

How’d we get here? One minute we were fighting an Imp horde and the next we landed here. The demons were experimenting with a portal stone. That’s it.

We’re on Earth but it’s not home. I’ve gotten a day job so I can buy food. I push myself through the gap in the gates with the groceries.

Newspapers say the year’s 1988. Raul’s family died in a famine in the 11th century. Yana was abandoned during an earthquake the next century. Prisha’s family were killed in Calcutta’s 1737 cyclone.

I’ve got to get them back to the only home they’ve ever known…dragonworld.

I wrote this for the Rochelle Wisoff-Fields writing challenge. The idea is to use the image of the old warehouse above as the inspiration to craft a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

I don’t think I’ve done my concept justice. It’s part of a larger idea I’ve been toying with, one I briefly touched on a few days ago.

Imagine the abandoned and unwanted children of the world throughout history being whisked to a different place and time, one where they are taken care of by dragons. Then imagine in a war an accident sends them back to Earth, but way too far in the future. What would happen then?

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

I See You

bridges1

Actor Lloyd Bridges in the 1970 television movie “The Love War”.

Allan didn’t need the glasses to read but he did need them to survive.

He took a seat in the back of the coffee shop where he had a clear view of everyone coming and going. He had ordered the establishment’s trademark latte more to blend in than because he liked it.

To the world around him, he looked like a middle-aged man, blond, athletic, bronzed from the sun. He could have just finished a game of tennis or golf.

In front of him was a mystery novel by a well-known author whose name was, as they say, a household word. And yet Allan couldn’t have told you any other books the writer had penned. Like the latte, it was camouflage. Even his name was misdirection and subterfuge.

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Landon to the Rescue

dragon

from “The Hobbit” (2012)

The 30th Story in the Adventures of the Ambrosial Dragon: A Children’s Fantasy Series

The living stuffed animals were beginning to stir. If Buddy didn’t do something soon, they’d wake up to find Landon gone. They’d go looking for him which would let Gramps and Daddy-o know Landon was gone, too.

The Ambrosial Dragon had been looking into the Soul Coin through the eight-year-old boy’s magic amulet which was shaped like a tiny railroad lantern from the past century. He could see everything that was happening to the child who was trapped inside the mysterious metal disk. Now he had an idea how to save him and maybe the entire multi-verse.

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Missing Her

coffee cup and sunglasses

© shivamt25

His two grandkids laughed. Grandpa had given his coffee cup a face.

“What should we name him, Shelley?” The four-year-old girl twisted her face in serious contemplation, but her six-year-old brother Riley was quicker to respond. “Harold. It looks like a kid in my class.”

“What if it’s a girl coffee cup?”

“How can that be, Shel? It’s Grandpa’s coffee and Grandpa is a boy.”

“He can have a girl coffee if he wants to.”

“I think Shelley has a point, Riley. There’s no law that says my coffee can’t be a girl.”

“So what name do you want to call her?” Riley put extra emphasis on the “her”.

“Hmmmm. How about we name her after Bubbe.”

The kids got suddenly silent. It had been two weeks since his wife left to stay with her sister and “rethink” their marriage.

“I miss Bubbe, Grandpa. When is she coming home?”

“Yeah when, Grandpa?” Riley added.

“Tonight I’ll call her and say I miss her too.” Riley and Shelley cheered.

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge-Week of September 26, 2017. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 168.

Things are fine at home, thanks. This isn’t about me or anyone really. I’m just aware how my grandchildren miss their Bubbe (Yiddish for Grandma) when she’s not around and thought I’d increase the tension a bit. Besides, the coffee cup and sunglasses does kind of look like a face.

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

Saving the Egg

egg

Found at History.com

The 29th Story in the Adventures of the Ambrosial Dragon: A Children’s Fantasy Series

“How far do we have to walk, Gerlilanum?”

To eight-year-old Landon, it seemed like he, the dragon, and the donkey had been walking for days, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours…or could it?

The old dragon was still leading the way through the forest, but instead of the uneven but basically level ground the boy had been used to, they were now starting to go up a long hill.

Gerlilanum turned his head back toward the child but kept walking. “We are heading for the center of the multi-verse, you know. It’s not like it’s around the corner or anything.”

“But isn’t that like light-years away or something? We’d either need a spaceship or magic to get there. Can’t you fly?”

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Mother, What Have You Done?

evelyn dick

Evelyn Dick – Bettmann/Getty

Evelyn Dick was born October 13, 1920 in Beamsville, Ontario to Donald and Alexandra MacLean. She was arrested for murder after local children in Hamilton, Ontario found the torso of her missing estranged husband, John Dick. His head and limbs had been sawn from his body and—as later evidence revealed—were disposed of in the furnace of her home at 32 Carrick Avenue.

She was defended in her first murder trial in 1946 by J.J. Sullivan, convicted and sentenced to hang. Lawyer J.J. Robinette, however, appealed her case and won an eventual acquittal. In the meantime, however, a partly mummified body of a male infant was found in her attic, encased in cement in an old suitcase. The infant was identified as her son Peter David White. She was tried again for murder in 1947 and sentenced to life in prison, but was paroled in 1958 after serving eleven years in Kingston’s Prison for Women, with a new identity and job and disappeared from public view.

–Wikipedia

“Mother, she’s just a guest. Leave her be. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Dear Anthony, you’re all I’ve got. I’m so afraid you’ll leave me.”

“Oh, mother. I’d never abandon you, but I need to have a life on my own.”

“That’s what I used to think and look where it got me?

“That was a long time ago, Mother.”

“Just promise me you’ll stay away from her, Anthony. I don’t trust her.”

“Like you didn’t trust the others, Mother?”

“Listen to your Mother, Anthony. Do as you’re told.”

“Yes, Mother.”

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The Way Home

leaves

The leaves made a long-forgotten sound as she walked across the field. Danielle took a deep breath and let it out, watching the white mist sail out in front of her. She wasn’t used to the cold. She’d spent nearly a decade in the desert helping the dragons reclaim what was theirs. The war was finally over. The dragons won but Danielle had lost so much. Her brother died defending what was right. She came back home and discovered Mom and Dad died in a car accident.

Now she was going back to the only home she had left. Grandpa had grown old but he was still alive. Ten years ago, she sat on his lap and he read her the first story about the dragon’s quest, how the demons had taken their homes and put them into exile. She was only a girl when she found the stories were true. She was barely a teen when she stepped through the portal to help.

Now she was back. There. His cabin. Smoke rising from the chimney. She could almost smell his pancakes. She opened the door. He never locked it. “Grandpa, I’m home.”

“Darling. I’ve missed you,” he replied smiling.

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge for September 24th 2017. The challenge 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 exactly 200.

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

New Love

Sambor Prei Kuk Temple, Cambodia

© Google 2013

“My darling, it’s been so long.”

She approached her lover near the steps of the temple. He was as she remembered him and she was also unchanged and unchanging across the vast expanse of time.

“Beloved, we are finally alone, alone to love and be loved.”

“They have not loved. Their world, the one we gave them…”

“I know, Shakti. That’s why we are here.”

“Yes, Shiva. To make the world we gave them, to remake it.”

The nude couple, parted for centuries, approached each other slowly.

They came together and embraced with passion. Shiva the Supreme Being and Shakti the goddess of female creativity made desperate love on the steps of Sambor Prei Kuk Temple in what is now known as Cambodia. When Shakti gave birth again, humanity would have the gift of a brand new world and hopefully, they will take better care of this one.

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw writing challenge. The idea is to take the Google street map image above and use it as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 148.

Today, Pegman takes us to the Sambor Prei Kuk Temple in Cambodia. I Googled the location and Wikipedia told me all about the temple, Shiva, Shakti, and the meaning of the terms Lingam and Yoni. Since all that seems pretty sexy, I played fast and loose with mythology and decided to have a little fun as well as offer a bit of hope.

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

Shiva and Shakti

Shiva and Shakti

The Very Old Dragon

The 28th Story in the Adventures of the Ambrosial Dragon: A Children’s Fantasy Series

It was a Saturday morning and Landon wanted to sleep in, but his bladder was arguing with him and as usual, it won.

While everyone was asleep including Buddy, Landon got up to use the bathroom. After he finished, he washed his hands. The palm of his right hand was tingling so he looked at it. For a second, he saw the symbol of a dragon’s head glowing there and then it disappeared.

He returned to his room, opened the top drawer of his dresser, and pulled out the Soul Coin he had gotten in China from underneath his jeans. It felt a little heavier. Something was still inside.

It had been raining outside and the sky was covered with dark clouds making it seem as black as night, even though the Sun was slowly beginning to rise in the East.

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The Hidden

the invaders

From the first episode of “The Invaders” (1967) with Roy Thinnes as David Vincent and Diane Baker as Kathy Adams.

No one believed him. He wasn’t surprised, but he was frustrated. He wasn’t some nut or UFO conspiracy kook. He was a rational human being who had been thrown into an irrational if not insane world.

Architect David Vincent. 29 years old, considered reasonably good-looking, divorced for two years, no kids, a successful career but at the cost of friendships, marriage, and family.

It wasn’t his fault that he’d seen an alien spaceship land near a deserted diner off of an old State road used by almost no one anymore. It wasn’t his fault that the only two witnesses, a newlywed couple who had been camping nearby, hadn’t seen or heard anything, not even the approach and then rapid departure of David’s car. It wasn’t his fault that the local Sheriff thought he was another crazy Californian trying to play a prank on what he thought was some dumb country Arizona officer.

There had to be evidence at the site. David had to tell someone. He drove to the nearest town, burst into the Sheriff’s office, and demanded an investigation.

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