Author Archives: James Pyles

For the Love of Cynthia

viking

© A Mixed Bag

The fake Viking boat was the only unusual thing about the park. It overlooked Suisun Bay to the north and bordered the Point Edith Wildlife Area. Cynthia always felt safe in the reserve, which is why she told Richard to meet her here each morning after it was over.

Early on a Monday morning, the park was deserted, though there was plenty of evidence that hundreds of children played here the day before.

Cynthia always loved children, but they were never able to have any together. Small wonder given her unique nature. How would she ever carry a pregnancy to full term?

The full moon was just about to set so she’d be coming soon. In his left hand, he had the rucksack with her clothes in it.

The wolf appeared out of the bushes to his left. Even knowing who and what she was, Richard still felt afraid.

Moonset. She collapsed on the grass and started writhing, her shape twisting, fur vanishing. In moments, she was his beautiful wife again.

He ran over to her now shivering form. “It’s okay, darling. It’s over. I’ll take care of you.”

Written for the Sunday Photo Fiction – April 9th 2017 hosted by Al Forbes. The idea is to use the photo prompt above to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. Mine came in at 189.

I’ve written werewolf stories before such as The Wolf’s Mate and Violation, so this is merely a continuation of that theme, though with different characters.

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

The Fairies Pond

fairies pond

© Google Maps

On most days of the year, The Fairies Pond was just a pond. It’s an isolated body of water in western Oregon with only one trail in. A serene place certainly, but not always worth the eight hour hike to get there.

But on one day of the year, what’s called “The Fairies Day,” it’s either a place to adore or fear. Those purest of heart, those who knew which day it was, came to witness the blessed event. The impure hearts who happened to be present suffered the horrible wrath.

This day was the anniversary of when the fairies created all green and living things. On that day, the pure hearts were blessed for loving the living. The impure, who hated life, were summarily damned.

Cathleen brought Charleston to the pond to hope miracles would soften his heart. Instead, he came to his doom. Was this too her blessing?

The photo prompt for this week at What Pegman Saw offered four possible images and I chose the one above. The challenge is to take an image and write a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. Mine is exactly 150 words.

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

Time’s Window Expanded

whale

© Alamy

Physicist and Mission Specialist Jamie Benjamin and her team of three arrived at the orbiting Mars Base Camp exhausted after their nearly two-hundred day trip from Earth to the red planet. But they were astronauts and had to fulfill their grand legacy of being stoic pioneers. Jamie could almost feel Neil Armstrong looking over her shoulder as she stepped through the airlock and boarded the station.

“Welcome to Base Camp, Dr. Benjamin.” Commander Donald Sharp, in operational command of Base Camp and coordinator of Mars Manned Missions smiled and extended his hand.

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This Isn’t My Home Anymore

yarnspinner

© yarnspinner

It’s all changing. My home, or what’s left of it, is barely recognizable. Hard to believe I grew up here. This used to be the field where I flew kites, played tag with my friends, where we ran around pretending to be superheroes.

We sure could have used a few of those, but now it’s too late.

The K’trn didn’t make contact with Earth by radio or landing ships on our planet. We found out about them when we detected the bioweapon heading toward us from space. In spite of all the talk of building a defense against asteroid strikes, we couldn’t stop the thing in time…and it was just the first of many.

I’m sure the K’trn don’t call them bioweapons. I wonder what their word is for terraforming? That’s what they’re doing, changing Earth’s climate, atmosphere, everything, so it’s like their home planet.

They should begin colonizing their new world, the Earth, any day now.

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge-Week of April 4, 2017 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long, with 150 being the ideal. My story comes in at 157 words.

Today, April 5th, is First Contact Day. In the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact, April 5, 2063 is the day when Vulcans make first contact with humanity after they detect the warp signature from Zefram Cochran’s experimental warp ship, the Phoenix. I hear some Star Trek fans actually celebrate this day. I thought, in honor of the occasion, I’d write a first contact story, though mine is much more grim.

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

Return to the Dark Realm

dark castle

Image: spyderonlines.com

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

Landon was practicing using his invisible cloak, but without Buddy’s permission. It was Saturday and he was at the playground. While his Grandpa was sitting on a bench reading a book, Landon slyly pulled the cloak out of his backpack, walked around the edge of the school, and put it on.

Instantly he vanished. He thought maybe he could play some pranks on his friends, but as he continued to wear the cloak, the world around him started to look strange and distorted. It was almost as if all of the kids playing on the swings and slides and other equipment weren’t real.

But if they weren’t real, what was?

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What I See When I Look At You

blind

from the Tommy Edison Experience YouTube channel

The contents of his uncle’s safe deposit box were arranged across Brian Vail’s desktop. He moved the monitor, keyboard, and mouse of his PC to one side to make room. He wouldn’t be using the computer because he already had. The notes, letters, drawings, and other minutia organized in front of him contained far more relevant information about his condition than the internet did.

The origin of the sight was shrouded in mystery, though his Uncle Ellis, the most recent possessor of this ability before Brian, thought it went back to the 12th or 13th century, an ancestor who lived in either Southern France or Spain. He’s nameless, but was thought to be a mystic, one who dared to seek out the literal face of God.

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Strange Sight

cliffs

© A Mixed Bag 2012

He sat on the sandy shore and stared up at the cliff. It would be the last thing he’d ever see. His peripheral vision was closing in on him. He could see the trees, the buildings, the tower, all through a continually narrowing tunnel.

“I wish I could have seen your face one more time.” He deliberately left her, left everyone who loved him, because his going blind wasn’t something he wanted to share. He didn’t want their pity, their concern, their last second attempts at trying to cure him.

He’d been studying the alien spores brought back from the dwarf planet Ceres by the Demeter probe. They were different enough from what he expected that there was a breach, just big enough to allow the spores to travel up through the electron microscope and into his eyes. His optic nerves deteriorated in just a few weeks.

Fade to black. “I’m blind.”

Then something rippled in his visual cortex.

“I can still see.”

The spores didn’t just destroy his human sight. They gave him back something better.

I wrote this piece of flash fiction in response to the Sunday Photo Fiction – April 2nd 2017 writing challenge. The idea is to use the photo prompt above to craft a small tale of no more than 200 words. Mine weighs in at 180.

I woke up this morning with some sort of swelling in my right eyelid accompanied by discharge. It looks pretty yucky, but is most likely nothing serious. Nevertheless, it did put the idea of vision in my thoughts, so I decided to write about it.

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

Time’s Window

gale crater

Gale Crater – Mars

“Temporal Shift Unit is powered up, Commander Sharp.” Physicist Jamie Benjamin and her team had spent a week assembling the complex machinery in Gale Crater, which was believed to be one of Mars’ long dried up lakes.

“If this device works as well as it did in the tests on Earth, we could very well see what this crater looked like over three billion years in the past, Benjamin.”

“I suggest we all anchor ourselves to a specific spot, Commander.” She was speaking to the entire team who had been living out of their twin solar-powered rovers for the past ten days. “When the unit activates, it will seem like we’re 5,000 meters underwater.”

“Proceed.”

“Activating projector…now.”

The thin air around them rippled and twisted, and then it was as if they were at the bottom of the ocean, which was expected. The true marvel was that they weren’t alone.

“Life.”

The What Pegman Saw flash fiction writing challenge was an unusual one this week. Normally, writers are prompted to craft a story no more than 150 words long based on some Google Maps view on Earth. Today, J. Hardy Carroll uses a virtual reality tour to take us to the planet Mars. I ended up somewhere in Gale Crater, scanning a 360 degree view provided by the Curiosity Rover.

Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, it is strongly believed the crater was a water-filled lake. I decided to manufacture a little “virtual reality” of my own to give astronauts a look at what the crater was like all those billions of years in the past. As you can see, they found something startling and wonderful.

To read other stories inspired by this prompt, go to InLinkz.com My story is 150 words long.

Seeing Means Changing

crash

Photo: Deren Martinez/KTVB

Police said that two people died in the car crash. It certainly seemed like they should have. Only I knew they originally did die, but then, I saw it happen yesterday, before it occurred.

How do you stop a car accident unless you’re involved? Fortunately, one car was driven by an Uber driver and he didn’t have a passenger when I saw the crash in my vision.

So I became the passenger. All I had to do was distract the driver, his name is Gerald, a few seconds before impact, changing the car’s trajectory. Sure, they still hit and they got hurt, but no one died. Gerald even realized that I probably saved his life. He just doesn’t know I did it on purpose.

I got a dislocated shoulder for my trouble, but no one died. The sight, my hereditary gift or curse depending on your perspective, was satisfied.

My name is Brian Vail and I see visions. I wonder what I’ll see next?

The photo above is a real car accident reported here. I like these little “photo challenges,” and since I had just a little time on my hands, I thought I’d give myself one. But what to write about?

I decided to write a flash fiction piece about my character Brian Vail, who I introduced in Tunnel Vision and who subsequently appeared in The Ghost of Natalie Edwards. For both of those stories, I had to write quite a bit to do the set up for the story, but here, I managed just a tiny tale while making it a full story.

Brian Vail next appears in What I See When I Look At You.

The Ghost of Natalie Edwards

From Justin Timberlake -Tunnel Vision

If you haven’t done so yet, please read Tunnel Vision before continuing here.

“I was against Ellis informing you this way, dear Brian, but he was insistant. He felt telling you of the family inheritance before he passed away would make you rather skeptical.”

“That’s putting it mildly, Aunt Sharon. If Uncle Ellis had told me I’d be having visions of dead people beforehand, I’d have thought he’d lost his mind. I’m not even sure that I haven’t lost my mind.”

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