Author Archives: James Pyles

Loose Nuts and Bolts

“So that’s where I left you.” He addressed the pristine pieces of metal on the kitchen table.

Sunder Paz had been assigned some DIY problems by Dr. Reuven as a test of his reasoning abilities as well as how he functioned independently. He had been performing a routine maintenance task when he was distracted by the doorbell. Dr. Reuven was teaching at the university, so Sunder had the place to himself.

It was the UPS delivery person and he required a signature. Sunder signed his name (he thought having a name was a wonderful thing) and accepted the package. However by the time he closed the door and put the parcel on the coffee table, he’d quite forgotten what he’d been doing before. It took Sunder over fifteen minutes of searching the house before he rediscovered the small collection of nuts, bolts, and washers.

“I’m glad I found you. Now I can finish re-assembling my short term memory unit. Dr. Reuven will be so pleased.”

I created 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 small tale of 200 words or less. My word count is 165.

When I saw the photo, it seemed so sterile that for a moment I was stuck for an idea. Then the phrases “losing your marbles” and “loose nuts and bolts” popped into my head and my story was born.

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

The Time Trap

timelines

Krenim timelines from the two part Star Trek: Voyager episode, “Year of Hell”.

At what used to be Folsom base in a hidden canyon in 21st century Arizona, four men and two women walked through the time gate temporal field and disappeared. Kelgarries said a silent prayer. His long wait for their return began…or so he thought.

Ashe, Murdock, Zheutlin, Huỳnh, Fox, and Romanovich stepped through the other side of the gate. A forerunner base, operational, new…and populated.

“They’re dying. They’ll all dying.” Ross stared in horror suspecting the terrible secret of the alien time gate modifications.

There must have been dozens of Forerunners dressed in their blue-gray skinsuits. They had all collapsed on the floor, writhing in pain, choking.

“Back,” Ashe commanded. Back before the gate closes.”

Continue reading →

Prologue: The Defiant Agents

time travel

Image: BBC News

“So you want to know why I saved your life in the Ice Age, Murdock? It started out so simply. My men were engaged with the invading Forerunners. Months ago, one of our technicians accidentally activated some sort of transmission device on the spaceship. Apparently it emitted a signal that can travel faster than light, assuming the Forerunners who arrived came from outside our solar system.

“The invasion force hit without warning, repelling down through the opening above the spaceship’s chamber. I was the only one to get out in time. I planned to use you as a bargaining chip. I knew that our scientists had developed the time gate by studying portions of the alien technology we had recovered years ago from the first site in Siberia. I knew the Forerunners might follow us into the Bronze Age.

“I planned to defect. I was going to use you to negotiate with your people, secure safe passage on your submarine back to your base, and then return with you back to the present. I know where other spaceships are in the past, Murdock. I know of at least one in the Americas. I would have helped you find it, even before the Forerunners linked us telepathically.

“Why did you hit me and run? We could have escaped together. Didn’t you sense my thoughts, understand my intent? You understood the alien. Why didn’t you understand me? Why didn’t you save me like I tried to save you?”

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Time Storm

time storm

Blue energy tornado – high quality and very detailed computer-generated image

Captain Toni Blair stared up in awe as did her officers and troops as the Forerunner scout ship landed on the exact spot where it had launched so many days ago.

It’s landing legs had extended. The ship touched down. It’s vibrations and shuttering ceased, and then it seemed as inert as it did when it first came through the now destroyed time gate, before it came to life and took flight.

The hatch opened and the ramp extended downward. Four time travelers turned reluctant astronauts, dressed in alien garb and each with a haunted look in their eyes, began the long descent back toward the sand of their mother planet.

Gordon Ashe, Ross Murdock, Aiyana Zheutlin, and Lynn Huỳnh all set foot back on a world they thought they might never see again.

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Left Behind

fkiwers

© Dale Rogerson

She hated the arrangement in the vase but loved the smaller flowers in the low pot. It was sweet that anyone sent flowers at all.

Moving day. All the boxes were packed and sitting there waiting to be picked up. Everything was going except her. She’d seen people come and go for decades and she cherished them all. She thought they felt the same way, but the business was growing and they needed new offices.

She’d inhabited these walls since before the Victorian had been re-zoned for commercial use. She was being callously abandoned. Maybe someone kinder would move in.

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

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

My World is Blue

europa

RON MILLER/STOCKTREK IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES

“Travis. Darling, wake up.”

Travis Fox opened his eyes and saw his wife Cassie. “Good morning, beautiful. How…?”

Then he realized he was in the wrong bed. Why was his wife leaning over him instead of lying beside him? He wasn’t at home. He never made it home last night. Wait. How long had he been away from home?

The time gate. He’d gone through with Byrd and the others to help get Holden’s group back home from the past. The Folsom men. The attack. They’d tried to kill him.

“Where am I?”

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Missing

kayaks and sea

© TJ Paris

Their equipment sat quietly on the beach next to a placid sea. There was no sign of danger, no storm clouds, no menacing fog, nothing to say that Brad’s and Cheryl’s disappearance was the result of foul play or misadventure.

The two kayaks, life jackets, and oars were left abandoned when they should have been the fruition of a vacation they’d planned together for years.

Carolina Beach Detective Philip Lewis was baffled. How the hell did the Conklins just vanish?

“I don’t get it, Lewis. Broad daylight. Calm seas. No signs of struggle. What happened here?”

“Who knows, Davis. Alien abduction maybe?”

Junior Detective Estella Davis blurt out a short laugh. “I wouldn’t put that in a police report. What now?”

“Do our due diligence. Maybe someone saw something. Assign some uniforms to canvas the area and start asking questions.”

By nightfall, Brad and Cheryl Conklin were thousands of miles away traveling separately under different identities. The money Cheryl embezzled would let them live like royalty when they met again in Belize.

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the week of 8-01-2017 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction based on the photo prompt above of between 100 and 175 words, with 150 being the ideal. My word count is 172.

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

The Palace of Heaven, Part One

ancient china
The Nineteenth Story in the Adventures of the Ambrosial Dragon: A Children’s Fantasy Series

The young sorceress Yao Jin, eight-year-old Landon, and the mighty Ambrosial Dragon stood on a ridge overlooking a valley in what they knew to be ancient China. By some mysterious magic, the trio had been taken backward in time rather than returning home after rescuing the souls of Yao Jin’s grandfather and his Nameless Master from demons on an unknown island in the River Styx.

“Buddy, do you think you can…”

The little boy had turned toward the now imposing and magnificent dragon only to find he was no longer there. In his place, there was a Chinese man. To the child, he seemed about the same age as Yao Jin. He was tall and dressed in what looked like old fashion Chinese clothes. At the same moment, Landon saw that Yao Jin’s clothes had changed, too.

“Hey, what happened to Buddy?”

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The Synthetic Men of Mars

alien head

© A Mixed Bag 2009
[Synthetic Alien Head from the National Space Centre, Leicester, UK]

“So why bring me here to see a bloody fake alien head, Ian?”

“It’s synthetic Dolores, not fake.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The difference, you silly twit, is that fake means it’s totally not alien. Synthetic means it’s an artificial head made by aliens.”

“Now that’s just stupid.”

“No it’s not. Listen. I was talking to the Professor and…”

“The Professor is just some homeless bloke who lives in the park and who’s been off his nut for years.”

“He’s smart, I tell you. He says he’s done his research on the head and it belongs to a race of synthetic men created by aliens to take over the Earth.””

“Oh is that so? Then why didn’t they take over?”

“Turns out that the old H.G. Wells novel wasn’t entirely fiction. The synthetics had no immunity to our diseases. They all died out because they caught the cold.”

“You are so gullible, Ian. Now take me to the cinema like you promised.”

The National Space Centre curator Patrick Moore had been listening to the conversation. “Damn kids came too close to the truth. I see sacking the Professor wasn’t enough. I’ll have to take stronger measures.”

Written for the Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge for July 30th 2017. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long based on the image above. My word count is 195.

Since the caption read “synthetic” rather than “fake,” I thought I’d take my cue from that for my story. The title is from the old Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Synthetic Men of Mars which is the ninth book in his “John Carter of Mars” series. Of course, I’m also suggesting that the H.G. Wells novel “War of the Worlds” had some basis in fact. But it’s just all for fun.

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

Not All #MenAreTrash

cape town

Gagasi FM talk-show host Alex Mthiyane, businessmen Sandile Zungu, and Vivian Reddy, scientist Siya Xuza, Norma Gigaba and 5FM DJ Euphonik mentoring young men at the Gandhi-Luthuli Peace Hall yesterday. Picture: Nkululeko Nene

“Mommy, I don’t want to grow up to be trash.”

“Oh my sweet boy, you could never be trash.”

“But isn’t that what those women are saying about Daddy?”

“Daddy made terrible decisions, Denis.”

“They say he killed those women, other women say that makes all men trash. I don’t want to hurt anyone, Mommy.”

“You won’t, little one. You don’t have to be anyone except my wonderful little boy.”

“I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you too, Denis. I always will. I promise to teach you to be the best person you can be. Now get ready for school. Today you’re going to meet Norma Gigaba, the Finance Minister’s wife.”

Lefa Pillay, Denis’s father, had been arrested along with several other men for the string of rapes and murders of women in Durban prompting protests declaring #MenAreTrash. Dipalesa, the little boy’s Mom, would do anything to fight that stereotype.

I’m writing this for the What Pegman Saw photo writing challenge. The idea is to use Google maps street images as an inspiration to create a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 150.

Today, the pegman takes us to Cape Town, South Africa. I did my usual Wikipedia search but nothing came up for me. Then I looked at the local news stories.

I found a May 23rd story called #MenAreTrash: Yes, we are trash! which reported on protests in Durban, South Africa on the streets and in social media in response to multiple violent crimes against women over the previous two weeks.

I also found another story out of Cape Town, dated today (July 30th) called Not all #MenAreTrash, says Gigaba’s wife.

Part of the story reads:

IN THE spirit of teaching boys to become men, high-profile businessmen and radio personalities engaged with pupils from five schools at the Gandhi-Luthuli Peace Hall, Denis Hurley Centre, where they held an interactive motivational session with young men.

On Saturday, at the event hosted by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s wife, Norma, and her foundation, boys were urged to be resilient in their quest to build healthy communities.

Gigaba said the focus was on boys because she felt that they were neglected. “We cannot fold our arms and watch them ruining opportunities of creating a better society. Men are called all sorts of names, more recently #MenAreTrash.”

My own wee fictional tale flowed from there.

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