Author Archives: James Pyles

The Voice

woman nagging

Image: BlokeSupport.com.au

Won’t she ever shut up? She keeps going on and on and on about the most inane topics. I’m losing my mind. I’ve done everything I can to put up with her, but she keeps running her mouth and I think I’m going to die.

There she is, lying at my feet, her throat opened literally from ear to ear. Her blood’s pooling under her. I’m sure it’ll ruin the kitchen’s hardwood floor but I don’t care, do you hear me? I don’t care. Just to add punctuation, I take the knife I killed her with and throw it on the floor as hard as I can. It makes a nice dent and adds more blood splatter to the floor and cabinets.

I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’ve done everything I can, but I can still hear her in my head. That incessant nag, nag, nag. It won’t go away. She’s dead and her endless monologue still won’t go away.

I walk over to the knife, stepping in her blood and tracking it across the floor. I pick it up, hold the blade to my throat, and do the only thing I can think of to make her voice stop forever.

Reset

reset button

Image: Under the Tapestry

“Hurry, Terry. Everyone in quantum reality Epsilon 1450 just died, and the frequency of reality deaths is increasing.”

“I’m trying Kate, but as we get closer to the Nexus, it’s harder to filter out all of the interference from the different quantum realities. I can barely see the center, and we’re dead close.”

It’s generally believed that our universe is the only universe, but Terry Pliskin and his sister Kate found out otherwise when they accidentally fell through a rift near their home in Brooklyn and discovered a different Earth. Unfortunately that one event started a chain reaction, destabilizing first those two universes and then all the others.

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The Lady By Night

mysterious woman

Image: TVTropes.org

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

The life of a private detective is a lot less exciting than you see on TV or in the movies. Okay, I’m not really a private detective, I just work for one. You see, my name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire.

I recently discovered there’s a whole underground of vampires and human sympathizers who try to support the undead, usually by providing us with safe places to sleep during the day, night jobs, the occasional support group. That’s how I got my job working for Aidan Burke.

A kid, a vampire named Artemus, who is more than he appears to be, even for a night walker, hooked me up with Burke. I even get to sleep in Burke’s spare bedroom. Convenient for remaining safe while I’m unconscious during the daylight hours.

So I’ve got gainful employment with an understanding boss and a place to stay. Now, I can buy clothes and whatever else I need instead of stealing. I don’t have to be a loner anymore.

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The Five Billion Year Love

ancient mars

Image: NASA.gov

Juan Villanueva’s name was often mentioned in the same sentence as Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk, and yet all he really wanted was to be alone. The thrill of starting one company, amassing a fortune from his work, and then selling it for another fortune had lost its allure, at least since Carrie died.

Carrie, his beloved Carrie. How could he go on without her?

But he did, because that’s what Villanueva was all about, overcoming challenges, even grief and death.

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Will People Be Marrying Machines by 2050?

sexbot

Image: The Daily Sheeple

In the face of AI exerts repeatedly predicting the rise of sex robots, it’s increasingly difficult to insist that such machines strictly belong to a far-off, dystopian future. But some robotics experts predict we’ll soon be doing far more than having sexual intercourse with machines. Instead, we’ll be making love to them—with all the accompanying romantic feelings.

-Olivia Goldhill
“Experts predict human-robot marriage will be legal by 2050”
Quartz

I’ve heard this before. The thing is, I don’t believe it.

Oh sure, I’ve exploited the idea in short stories such as The Perfect Woman, and I’ve written commentaries on this theme like When Your Sex Toy Tattles On You and An AI Sexbot That Can Love You Back, but let’s face it. There’s a long road to travel from sex to love, at least there should be.

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Time Line Twisted

time travel

Image: BBC News

The Third Hunter and Ellison Time Travel Adventure and a direct sequel to In Search of the Time Traveler.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Josue.”

“Stop that! This is serious. This isn’t when we are supposed to be.”

Josue Hunter and Wyatt Ellison thought they were finally closing in on Heloise Amanda Westcott, the mysterious and elusive time traveler first detected in 1885 England. They’d found H.G. Wells, author of the famous novel “The Time Machine” and confederate of Westcott in Texas in 1940, and persuaded him to reveal the place and time they could locate her.

Wells wrote it down on a pad of paper with the letterhead of the hotel in which he’d been staying. Friday, 15 August 1994, 8150 Olive Avenue, Huntington Beach, California.

“Checking the unitool.” Hunter’s all-purpose utility device was disguised as a wrist watch. He set it to review the most recent log of their trip back in time.

“Damn.”

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Legend of the Sky People

shepherd

Image: BBC.com

Gunter and his two sons, Phillip and Tang were tending the grazing sheep in the meadow a few kilometers from their village, as they had the past several weeks. Soon, it would be the season to take them in for the shearing, and while that would cause them much effort, it would be a pleasure to sleep indoors again.

They huddled close to the fire, cloaks pulled tightly around them.

“Lad, another ale if you please.” Gunter held out his mug to Phillip, his eldest, who had the flagon by his side.

“As you will, Papa.” Phillip, always cheerful (and the light buzz from the ale was adding to that), readily lifted the flagon and filled Gunter’s mug to the brim.

The trio could afford to relax a bit. The dogs were stationed around the flock and the sheep were at rest for the night. The hired hands would be back from the village by morning.

“Look, Papa!” Tang, two years Phillip’s junior, pointed up into the moonless night sky. The constellations were beautiful and brilliant, but something among them was disturbing their orderly progression.

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The Child Came Home

boy coloring

Image: Children’s Advocacy Center of Grayson County, TX website

Julian was 35 years old when reality became too much for him. It wasn’t so much his dull job at the accounting firm, or his break up with Jill after seven years of living together. His parents think it must have been the disappointment, the loss of hope for the future that took his mind and spirit. He had such expectations at the beginning of November and now in December, they were crushed. So Julian’s parents watched as he sat on the floor of his old room with a coloring book and crayons. He was their little boy again.

This was a piece of flash fiction (less than 100 words in this case) I recently submitted to The Drabble. I received an email from them saying it didn’t meet their needs, so I figured why waste it? Yes, it is a commentary on how some people, at least according to the popular press, are so overwhelmed and dismayed by Donald Trump’s recent election win, that they seem to retreat into less “mature” behavior. I wasn’t poking fun at these individuals, but rather trying to communicate the tragedy involved in such decisions.

She Who Endures

rain forest

Image: ABC.net.au / Rocky Roe

The plague struck swiftly, perhaps not by human standards, but certainly quickly enough to sicken three-quarters of the people of the Earth within fifteen years. At first the disease seemed very widespread and indiscriminate, but five years into the plague, the CDC’s Chief Epidemiologist, Dr. Sandra Fry, determined that it was most virulent in high population centers with a heavy industrial base.

The nation with the largest number of deaths by year five was China, which correlated very highly to their level of pollution and generally poor environmental standards.

However, as the plague progressed, the Euro-Asian continent fell, as did North and South America. By year ten, four billion people were dead. Disposal of the bodies in any civilized manner was impossible due to the shortage of manpower and resources, so they were bulldozed into mass graves.

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