Author Archives: James Pyles

The River Between Heaven and Hell (Part Two)

dark water

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

Yao Jin stood on the rocky shore of a nameless island on the River Styx facing the demon. Her sword Demonslayer was drawn and at the ready, and she was desperate to see if the blade would live up to its name.

Demonslayer was a gift from her Grandfather Xun Qin, the most powerful sorcerer in the East for the past twenty generations, and he said it was the sister sword of Stormbringer the soul drinker, both having been forged in the furnaces of Arioch, Lord of Chaos and Duke of Hell.

As the young magician raised her blade, she could feel it vibrate in her hands and it moaned and wailed like a wraith in torment.

“Let me pass demon or I’ll send you back to Hell in pieces!”

Continue reading →

Fluid Prophesies

the old city

© Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

David spent so much of his life deciding between a career in physics or theology and here he was in Jerusalem’s Old City embracing both. It was called the City of David, and Yeshua himself taught here and would later rule, but Moses and Aaron laid the foundation. Of course, that’s not how everyone remembers it, but after David’s invention of the quantum portal, he realized that the prophesies of Hashem were fluid, adaptable to man’s free will. He wasn’t sure how he’d changed the world with that last trip, but when he turned the corner, he’d find out.

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers photo writing challenge. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction, based on the photo above, of no more than 100 words. My word count is 99.

I’m toying with the idea of expanding the concept of how Biblical history could have changed depending on human free will and still be within the will of God. This is just a little taste.

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

The Proprietors

aliens and devil

© @any1mark66

“It wasn’t enough for you to just visit Jackson Hole like all the other tourists, you had to listen to that vagrant and take us down some little back road and we end up here.”

“You’ve got to admit Sheila, this is pretty unusual.”

“I want to go back to town, Frank. This place is scary.”

“Just a bunch of cheesy looking statues.”

“That’s what they all say, folks.”

Frank and Sheila turned to see an old woman, the one who’d been talking to the cashier when they first looked into the shop.

“My great-granddaddy told me all about it, even wrote it down, about the day aliens and the devil fought right here for possession of humanity.”

“Who won?”

“It came to a tie, young man. They share ownership of us. If you want to come into the back of the shop, I’ll introduce you to our proprietors.”

Written for FFfAW Challenge-Week of June 27, 2017 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the photo prompt above to write a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long with 150 being the idea. My word count is 149.

To read other stories inspired by the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

The Sons of Mutineers

pitcairn

© Google 2017

Daniel McCoy stood on the rocks and cast his line again into the Pacific. No matter how chaotic other parts of his life became, fishing was his refuge of peace. He knew they would be waiting for him when he got back home. He would go peacefully. After all, he deserved this. But he needed to spend one more hour in heavenly solitude before facing the consequences of his acts.

Daniel McCoy, like the other inhabitants of Pitcairn Island, was the descendant of the nine Bounty mutineers. Their reputation had been romanticized over the centuries, but not so the crimes nearly a third of the modern male population of the island would be found guilty of. From mutineers to sexual predators. Their ancestors would be ashamed.

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw photo writing challenge. The idea is to craft a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long using the photo prompt above. My word count is 126. Today, thanks to Google maps, we are taken to the Pitcairn Islands which have a rather colorful history, both ancient and modern.

I took the name “Daniel McCoy” from one of the Second Generation of the Bounty mutineers living on Pitcairn. As for the rest, it’s all true. You can read about how the current population of Pitcairn was founded, and then the sexual assault trials of 2004.

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

The River Between Heaven and Hell (Part One)

styx

From the 2012 film “Wrath of the Titans”

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

“My name is Yao Jin and I need to speak to your grandson. It is an urgent manner.”

The Chinese woman at the door spoke English formally, like someone who had learned it from a textbook, but her tone, facial expression, and body language told Grandpa she was terrified and desperate. On top of all that, she was dressed in a simple but full length cloak, which was odd clothing for a warm summer afternoon.

“Well of course you can come in, but why do you need to speak to my grandson?”

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Uninvited

eric wicklund

© Eric Wicklund

“Do you see, Sky? I wasn’t kidding. They’re really there.”

It had taken nine-year-old Gray almost half an hour to convince his twelve-year-old sister to follow him into the woods behind their campground. He knew she wouldn’t believe him unless she saw them for herself. Mom and Dad were busy setting up for the concert so it was easy to get away.

Sky’s face was right next to the hole in the tree, only the tree didn’t have a hole on the other side.

“I don’t believe it,” she whispered to herself.

“Believe it, Sky. They’re elves or fairies or something.”

“We have to be looking into some other world, Gray. But how is this possible?”

Through the green lens set in the tree’s natural depression she could see what Gray had already witnessed, tiny people with wings dancing and fluttering together as if in celebration.

Suddenly, they both heard a buzzing getting louder and a miniature face of gold with an impish smile appeared. “Excuse me, but this is a private party. Go back to your own summer solstice celebration.”

With that, a door slammed and the hole to the other world was denied the children.

Written for the Sunday Photo Fiction – June 25th 2017 photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above as an inspiration for a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 197.

When I first saw the image, the green looked like glass instead of the leaves of trees, so I pretended it was a portal to another world (my favorite theme lately). Gray and Sky are part of a group of families who travel to a remote wooded location every year and have a concert to celebrate the coming of summer.

It seems the little people on the other side of the hole do something similar.

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

What If Jesus Christ Became King of the World Two-Thousand Years Ago?

I’m having some frustrating connection problems today. I can get to Google sporadically, but I can’t open search results, nor can I get to Amazon. I’ve tried a Windows and Mac computer and multiple web browsers but it doesn’t make a lot of difference. I’ve rebooted my modem a few times and it seems to help temporarily, so I don’t know if it’s my connection or if there’s some sort of horrendous DDOS event attacking part of the internet.

The reason this is particularly frustrating just now is that in one of my Gmail accounts (when I can get to it), I found a Bookbub notice for an eBook called A Time to Every Purpose by Ian Andrew. The Google books blurb says about the book:

After eighty years of brutal Nazi domination millions have been persecuted and killed in a never-ending holocaust. But this oppressive and violent world still retains a few heroes;Now Leigh, the preeminent scientist of her generation, is pitched into the final battle. One that ranges from London to Berlin to Jerusalem. But will she destroy what she loves to save what she can only imagine? After one more murder and one chance remark, now is the time to reset history. The new novel by Ian Andrew.

However, the Bookbub description is more interesting:

Visit an alternate timeline where Jesus was never crucified, leading to 2,000 years of peace — and a society totally unequipped to contend with the rise of Nazism. Will inventor Leigh Wilson destroy everything she knows to reset history?

I’m tempted to buy the book (although since I cannot currently reach Amazon, I don’t know how) just to see how the author pulled off not crucifying Rav Yeshua (Jesus Christ) and yet had him fulfill his role of Messiah in the first century CE (which is what would have to happen for their to be 2,000 years of peace presumably).

On my sister blog Morning Meditations where I write religious commentaries, I’ve asked this same question of my readers. If, instead of the Jewish Messiah King being crucified by the Romans, he started is world-wide reign as King, what would have been his motivation and how would God the Father have consented to this? It would require rewriting, not only significant portions of the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well.

It’s a compelling thought and I’d love to write my version of this story. Ideas?

Crossover: The Expanded Version

ferry

© Ted Strutz

“The next leg of our vacation takes us on the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria where we leave the U.S. for Canada.”

“Honey,” Glenn’s wife complained. “You sound just like a tour bus driver.”

In the backseat, eight-year-old Brittany groaned while her six-year-old brother Jackson rolled his eyes. They had been on the road for almost a week and would rather have been back home in Fullerton spending their days with their friends at the community pool.

“Just trying to brighten the mood while we wait to get onto the ferry, Sara.”

It seemed to be taking forever for the line of cars to move, but as Glenn and Sara looked out, they realized they had much bigger problems.

“Glenn, I thought it was the rain on the windshield at first, but…is everything…twisting?”

Everything around them, the cars and ferry in front of them, the pedestrians, roadway, the hills in the distance were all changing, becoming indistinct, as if they didn’t really exist.

Then everything abruptly shifted and shimmered, and then everything was different. Glenn had to grab the steering wheel tight because the car was now moving forward at 35 miles per hour rather than sitting still. They were part of a line of cars traveling on the Port Angeles/Victoria Bridge, crossing not only the Strait of Juan de Fuca but into another universe as well.

Continue reading →

The Crossover

ferry

© Ted Strutz

“The next leg of our vacation takes us on the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria.”

“Honey,” Glenn’s wife complained. “You sound like a tour bus driver.”

Their two kids in the backseat groaned.

“Just trying to brighten the mood while we wait to get onto the ferry.”

Then the parents in the front realized they had bigger problems.

“Glenn, is everything…twisting?”

“I thought it was rain, but…”

Everything shifted and shimmered and then they were part of a line of cars on the Juan de Fuca Bridge, crossing not only the strait but into another universe as well.

I wrote this for Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s Friday Fictioneers photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the image at the top to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is 99.

Decades ago, science fiction writer Larry Niven wrote a series of stories based on the outlandish idea that fog was not caused by water vapor but by a distortion between one quantum universe and another. A person who was in the fog might disappear from our world and reappear in a parallel one.

The image above seems to distort the cars and ferry we can see, and while in real life, this was probably caused by rain on the windshield, I decided to take it in a different direction. There really is a ferry that travels across the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Port Angeles to Victoria, northwest of Seattle, Washington, though I’ve never been anywhere near it (but Google is good).

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

The Last Concert of the Kings of Long Beach

sunset

© Footy and Foodie

The Kings of Long Beach were back in their hometown playing where they’d first met twelve years ago, in the courtyard at the Hathaway Apartments. They started out as five high school students with a dream, but unlike most of their peers, they’d actually made it.

The parking lot was packed as was the street parking for miles around. Everyone wanted to see the Kings again, especially since the concert was free for the neighborhood.

The Kings’ lead singer, Toby McGuire stepped into the spotlight and up to the mike. “Hello Hathaway!”

The crowd went insane, their cheers could be heard for blocks.

“The Kings are back!” Toby turned to Miles Johnson the drummer, “And a one and a two and a…”

It sounded like a firecracker, but then Toby grabbed his chest and collapsed on the makeshift stage. People closest to the front saw Beth Middleton holding a gun, staring at Toby’s unmoving body, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“You made me kill my baby twelve years ago. Now go be with her.”

Written for the FFfAW Challenge-Week of June 20, 2017 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction based on the image above that is between 100 and 175 words long, with 150 being the ideal. My word count is 174.

I know the topic is controversial, and I debated whether or not Beth had an abortion or just presented Toby with his twelve year old daughter at the climax of the story, but the former including the murder was more dramatic and communicated the pain of what she had gone through.

Toby and the “Kings” had started out just like a million other high school “garage bands” but they had actually made into stardom. However, there was collateral damage along the way and it came back to the Kings tonight in the form of death.

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