Tag Archives: 175 words

The Ganesh Chaturthi Affair

celebration

© Lavanya

“This is fabulous, Ian. You’ve been to Ganesh Chaturthi here in Kolkata before?”

Ian Dennis could barely hear his assigned companion Victoria Craft over the celebratory yelling, music, singing, and chants as different representations of the elephant-headed god Ganesha appeared before them.

“Yes, Victoria. Over the years, the job takes you all kinds of places.” He felt a bit strange having an escort half his age, but he was her trainer and this was her first op. The two MI6 agents had been instrumental in preparing for the cessation of a forty-year dispute between India and Bangladesh over a common border that demarcates the eight divisions of Bangladesh and the Indian states.

She leaned up so he could feel her breath in his ear, “Do you think it will end?” He knew she meant the shoot-on-sight policy of India’s military on illegal immigrants crossing over from Bangladesh.

“That’s why we’re here. The pact will be signed in three days. If the killings continue, we put a stop to them. Meanwhile, pretend you’re on holiday.”

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge of February 13, 2018 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words. My word count is 174.

The image of the god Ganesha is distinctive, so it wasn’t hard to trace it to the annual Hindu celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi. You can learn more about it by reading 14 Most Ingenious Idols Of Lord Ganesha This Year! and What is Ganesh Chaturthi? Why is it celebrated?.

Since the image of Ganesha in the photo appeared to be a float with the date 2011, I decided to set my story then, specifically on 2 September. I looked up the year and lo and behold:

September 5 – India and Bangladesh sign a pact to end their 40-year border demarcation dispute.

I also looked up when the celebration occurred in 2011 and it was held between the first and the eleventh of September, which was perfect.

The disputes over the Bangladesh–India border have historically been very difficult (and that’s putting it mildly) including this:

The border is used as a route for smuggling livestock, food items, medicines and drugs from India to Bangladesh. Moreover, illegal immigrants from Bangladesh cross the border to India. Because of a large number of illegal immigrants crossing from Bangladesh into India, a controversial shoot-on-sight policy has been enforced by the Indian border patrols. This policy was initiated with reports of violence between the illegal migrants and Indian soldiers. The border has also witnessed occasional skirmishes between the Indian Border Security Force and the Border Guards Bangladesh, most notably in 2001 (emph. mine).

I know a lot of people in my country complain about President Trump’s stance on illegal immigration from Mexico and other Latin nations, but frankly, that’s not nearly as brutal as the situation described above. You can click the link I provided to learn more.

Once again, I dusted off MI6 agent Ian Dennis last seen in the flash fiction piece The Bristol Connection and showcased in the short series The Mauritius Robbery Affair. In this case, I’m involving MI6 in covertly “facilitating” the India-Bangladesh agreement, which I’m sure the Indian government especially wouldn’t appreciate given Britain’s colonial history in their country.

I set the action in the city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) since it is relatively near the India-Bangladesh border. Ian needed someone to interact with to further the plot, so I invented an agent-in-training Victoria Craft. Perhaps we’ll see more of her in the future.

Oh, I apologize in advance if I’ve mischaracterized the celebration, Ganesha, any individuals, or the nations of India and Bangladesh. I’ve never been there and am getting all of my information on the internet, so any errors in this wee fictional tale are mine.

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

Footprint

footprint

© Yinglan

“My suit readout says it’s just over 88 degrees Celsius, Martin.”

“That’s about 177 degrees Fahrenheit, and people worry about climate change in the 21st century. Welcome to the Cretaceous, NaCumbea.”

Martin Fields and NaCumbea were time travelers working for a group of extra-dimensional entities and they used the provided temporal suits to correct timeline anomalies.

“Here’s where the footprint will be made, Martin.”

“The paleontologists who found it can’t match it with any known dinosaur species.”

“That’s because I’m not an indigenous lifeform.”

The pair looked up to see a three meter tall figure step around a non-existent corner.

“Time traveler?” Martin hazarded a guess.

“Extraterrestrial with time scanning capacities. I will leave my footprint as a clue.”

“Clue to what?” Though more experienced than Martin, the alien still frightened NaCumbea.

“The extinction of your dinosaurs was engineered so your species could rise.”

“You sent an asteroid to collide with Earth?”

“Yes, and we seeded your world with…you”

“Why?”

“You’ll find out when your species makes first contact with mine in your time frame of 2019.”

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of February 6, 2018 hosted by Priceless Joy. 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 174.

The image reminded me of a fossilized dinosaur footprint but not of any dino that I’ve ever heard of. More like an alien footprint.

So I sent my two time travelers, Martin Fields and NaCumbea, last seen in the short story I’m Leaving You For 1966, Dear, to investigate (why invent new time travelers when you already have a couple on tap?). I decided to make aliens responsible not only for the dinosaur extinction event of 65 million years ago, but also for seeding the biosphere with the basic template for modern human beings (I’m sure this idea must have been used before).

In order to understand what Martin and NaCumbea would experience, I looked up the climate for that period in the article The Beastly Climate which details climatic changes in Australia (where my adventure takes place) from 145.6 million years ago to about 20,000 years in the past. I also looked at Happenings During the Cenozoic (65 Million Years Ago to Present) and What is the Average Global Temperature Now? to get a comparison between what the climate was like 65 million years in the past to the present.

As it turns out, it’s a good thing the temporal suits can be set to isolate the wearer from the local environment since it seems the dinos liked it hot.

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

The Lightbringer

light

Photo credit: Goroyboy

The day the Lightbringer walked into town felt like the best day in everyone’s lives. She was good, pure, and right. Everyone wanted to know about her and she asked the townspeople to gather in the square at noon.

“I am the Lightbringer,” she began as every man, woman, and child were held by her gaze. “I show what is light inside you, what is good, what is pure, but I also reveal the darkness. What you think is light is the darkness and what you think is darkness is the light. I will show you true light that you may purge the darkness. I am the light, you must be like me. There is no other way to the light.”

The townspeople became confused because they had been a peaceful and wholesome folk for so long, and now the Lightbringer had revealed that their wholesomeness was really the darkness. They desired to be the light, but while the Lightbringer seemed so good, should they surrender themselves to her just because she came into their town?

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of January 30, 2018 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for creating a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.

I’m currently reading Margaret Atwood’s award-winning novel “A Handmaid’s Tale” which has spawned a film and a currently popular television show on Hulu. It depicts a dystopian future where a conservative, religious society has enslaved women, turning the fertile females into breeders and waging war against other countries that hold different belief systems. I’ll subsequently write a review after finishing the book and completing my research on Atwood’s perspectives that led to the novel’s creation.

This morning I also read an article on the ACLU’s website called Let’s Stop Sexual Harassment and Violence Before They Begin With Comprehensive Sex Ed written by Melissa Goodman, Director of the LGBTQ, Gender and Reproductive Justice Project , ACLU of Southern California. She authored the missive in support of a law in the State of California which dramatically changes sex education in the public school system starting at the kindergarten level. What I think she may have missed is what the parents of these students have to say about what their children are taught.

Regardless of how you interpreted my wee tale above, my point is that ANY political or social system taken to an extreme will become a totalitarian regime where the rights and freedoms of the citizens will be subordinate to the will of the State; a State which almost always is controlled by an elite few who are exempt from their own laws.

What I’m suggesting is that no matter how nice, sweet, cool, and beautiful someone’s “line” is and how they promise to do only good things for you if you let them rule over you, it is vitally important that you check in with your own mind, emotions, and exercise your free will. The minute you turn that over to anyone, no matter how much they say they’re a “lightbringer,” you will very likely find yourself dragged into the darkness.

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

One Cold Saturday Morning

log sofa

© Fandango

He had to make a few trips from the house to the rough-hewn log bench his son had carved out for him. He took first his books and reference notes, then a pillow and warm blanket, and finally his large, steaming coffee mug.

He made himself comfortable in the center seat with his mug and books on the left, then took a sip of his coffee savoring the flavor.

Then he picked up his Chumash. He always studied alone both because he enjoyed solitude and because he had few if any like-minded companions. The older man found a greater appreciation of God sitting on the wood, beneath the trees and sky, feeling the chill of a winter’s morning. The world had grown cold, like the season, and only at home could he be free to acknowledge a Creator greater than humanity.

He opened the Chumash to where he left the bookmark and began. “Now when Pharaoh had let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines…”

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge-Week of January 23, 2018 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the photo above as the inspiration for creating a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.

The “log sofa” actually looks pretty physically uncomfortable, particularly in winter, but it also looked “emotionally” comfortable.

When the weather is nice, on Saturday mornings, I take my Chumash, Tanakh, Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels, and perhaps my NASB Bible and various study resources out onto the front porch to read and study. A cup of coffee also goes with me.

I don’t have log furniture, but I do have a wicker sofa and table I can use. It’s pleasant and warm in the morning sunshine.

Although my wife (who is Jewish) calls me a Christian, I study the Bible using the traditional annual Torah cycle and tend to interpret even what most people call the “New Testament” in a more pro-Jewish and pro-Israel perspective rather than what is preached in most churches every Sunday (which is just one of the many reasons I don’t attend formal worship services).

The Torah reading for this coming Shabbat is Beshalach from which I quoted the first sentence as found at BibleGateway.com (I used the NASB translation because the Stone Edition Chumash is not online).

My understanding is that Torah or Bible study is considered in Judaism as a form of worship and drawing nearer to God, so some of my Holiest moments occur on my front porch in the morning sunshine. I decided to create this sort of experience for my character as well, particularly given a world that indeed (my opinion) has gone cold to morality, decency, and devotion to the Almighty.

For those of you who have a different religious preference or who have none at all, what I’m presenting here is a personal perspective. I am not preaching or expecting to “evangelize” in any way. In the spirit of “inclusiveness,” if you don’t agree with my viewpoints, please allow me have them nonetheless, for as much evil as the mainstream media has blamed “religion” for, people of faith have also done a great deal of good. I’m not all that good, but having faith isn’t about being perfect. It’s about striving to become a better person toward other people by drawing closer to God.

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

The Trailer to Heaven

rainbow

© @Any1Mark66

There’s lots of beautiful scenery in Utah as you drive down Interstate 15 but that one part of my trip didn’t have any. Just flat, dry desert and sagebrush. Sure, there’s the odd building or two, but nothing you’d want to stay in. Well, except maybe for that trailer sitting there just off the highway.

No pot of gold or leprechaun lives there, but all the same, everyday when the sun is shining, there’s a rainbow that ends right at the trailer, visible from any angle. What causes it? Beats me. No one goes near, though. Something happens if you try. It gets harder, like walking through water until it’s like walking through rock.

I drive to Southern Utah to visit Mom sometimes. She’s not doing so well. Dementia, you see. She’s the only one who knows why there’s a rainbow over that trailer, though.

“That’s the entrance to Heaven, Jimmy. That’s where your Dad went when he passed.”

I didn’t believe her but then I looked into her eyes. There were rainbows in them.

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of January 16, 2018 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the image at the top of the page to inspire you to author a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 174.

That desert could easily be found in some parts of Utah and most parts of Nevada and I have made the trip to Mom’s more than a few times. I didn’t want to write about leprechauns or pots of gold, so I had to think of another treasure. Fortunately, the answer presented itself.

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

Virtual

woods

Photo credit: Fandango

It could have been any time of year except winter. Jake hoped it was a nice, cool summer morning. He didn’t like the heat, but summer mornings were just about right, like the Goldilocks of seasons and times of day.

He was in the mountains he guessed. Didn’t matter really. He was free for a while, free to walk, hike, run, scream, anything.

He felt good, strong, alive. Jake couldn’t remember a time when he experienced the world this way. He took a deep clean breath.

“Mr. Francisco. We’re done calibrating the system and are shutting down now.” The voice was disembodied but it was Simmons.

“So soon?”

“We can put you back in VR when we get the programs uploaded, probably next week.”

He sighed. When they turned it off, the VR world would vanish and he’d be a bed-ridden ALS victim again. Doctors said he had a year left. The virtual reality his company invented was the only way he’d be able to live out his days as an able-bodied man.

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of January 9, 2018. The idea is to take the image above and use it to inspire the creation of a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 173.

I had a lot of different ideas for the image and then I noticed that when the screenshot or digital photo was taken, a four-arrowed cursor was also captured just above and to the left of center. That gave me the idea for a person enjoying the great outdoors only to discover he’s in a “holodeck” or something.

I fleshed the concept out a bit more and came up with the story you’ve just read. A friend of mine is an ALS sufferer and while he can still get along without a motorized wheelchair, he’s approaching that particular milestone all too quickly. He needs a machine to help him breathe sometimes, which is why I had my character take a deep breath.

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

Remembering Two Lives

marina

© J.S. Brand

Landon remembered two childhoods. Sitting at the Lauderdale Marina, he contemplated his ordinary life as a twenty-year-old student.

“Are you a crane or a morphing bloodslayer about to rip out my throat?”

The crane ignored the NSU sophomore and waited for its next meal to appear.

He had been nine and his sister Dani was turning three when it happened. It was their week to be with Dad and Landon was supposed to call his sister in for dinner. She thought it was a game and ran. Dad was yelling for him to hurry up. She did stuff like this just to get him in trouble.

“Dani, come in now!”

“No!” She screamed and bolted away.

And then it was night in a big, creepy forest.

“Dad!” Where was Dad and their house?

Something ran into him. “Landon, I’m scared!” Dani was crying, clinging to his legs. He put his arms around her.

“Ahem.”

Landon jumped startled.

“Perhaps I can help.”

That was the first time they met a dragon.

I don’t usually write two responses to a single flash fiction prompt, but I’ve been trying to puzzle a few things out.

The first has to do with the long series of fantasy stories I periodically write for my eight-year-old grandson. The most recent one is The Outside-In World. Sometimes I use a few of his ideas or concepts and he suggested writing a tale where he is a young adult looking back on a life of extraordinary adventures with a dragon. That’s how I ended his last story but I didn’t know where to take it next.

The other is a novel that I wanted to write stalled in my imagination. I’ve presented short snippets here on this blog involving some of the main characters. They appeared in missives such as The Whisperer, The Way Home, Where Did Our Home Go?, and Mr. Covingham’s Secret.

I’m planning on including older versions of my grandchildren in these stories but like I said, I got stuck and then distracted into others such as those involving my vampire Sean Becker and my synthetic woman turned black ops agent Mikiko Jahn.

But this one is always in the back of my mind and maybe an expanded version of the current tale will shake a few things loose.

How were Landon and Dani suddenly yanked from their Dad’s backyard and thrust into a mysterious forest, one with a talking dragon? That’s just the very beginning of a long tale of adventure.

Oh, since I set my first response to the prompt in Florida, this one happens at the Lauderdale Marina which is just a short distance from where I’m having my grandson go to school at Nova Southeastern University. Yes, it’s a long way from Idaho and if this becomes “canon,” the location is bound to change.

I’m posting the URL to this story at the Link Up and hopefully I’m not breaking too many rules.

A Brief Respite from Hell

marina

© J.S. Brand

Finally I can relax for a little while. It’s such a nice afternoon. I don’t own a boat but I love this marina.

The bird doesn’t have a care. Oh to be like the bird simply standing in the water near a small tree waiting for lunch to swim by.

I know the people on their yachts probably have cares, but they seem not to from where I’m sitting.

If only I could make these few moments last forever. No, that’s not right. They are precious only because they are few. Eternal peace would probably be boring.

I don’t want to leave. Just a few minutes longer please?

I know. I have to go back. This is only a fantasy and you can’t really live in a fantasy.

True life is lived in the cold and darkness, in snow and ice, and drones like me only get the briefest taste of freedom.

Good-bye my little marina. I hope I’ll be able to visit again. Now I rise. Back to life in darkness and purgatory.

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge-Week of January 2, 2018. The idea is to use the image above to inspire the creation of a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 174.

I had a tough time with this one. It looks like a marina which I find very relaxing. I once read that one of the 10 best places to retire is Port St. Lucie, Florida. I looked up marinas in that area and found a bunch of them, but that still didn’t help.

As I write this, I’m sitting in my office at home and it’s still pitch black outside. It’s about 26 degrees F and will only climb to just below freezing today.

After my second three-day weekend in a row, I don’t want to get in my car and drive to work in the dark. That’s the full inspiration for this wee missive.

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

The Alternative Lens

glasses

© Enisa

The specially designed mannequin upon which the glasses were kept was distorted, being pushed partially out of reality. This was Silvia Mason’s goal. Her employer had paid millions for the world’s greatest thief to break into a classified government facility and steal the experimental Alternative Lens, but she was going to keep them for herself. Once she put them on, she would be phased fractions of a second outside normal time. She would be invisible, intangible, could go anywhere and do anything.

She entered the vault without being detected but had only one way out. Wearing the Lens. She put them on and every alarm conceivable blared and flashed around her.

The Captain of the Guard had arrived looking very pleased with himself. “Take them off. You cannot escape.”

Silvia started to laugh but then the others appeared in her phased reality.

“We never use the Lens because the phased reality is occupied by very unfriendly inhabitants.”

By the time she was visible again, even strong men vomited at the horrific sight of her remains.

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of December 26, 2017. The idea is to use the image above to inspire the creation of a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.

The mannequin’s head looked strangely unrealistic so I thought up “phased invisibility” or a device that pushed the wearer slightly out of normal space-time, enabling them to move in five dimensions. However, no one ever said such a reality might not already be occupied by horrific and deadly beings. So much for Silvia’s escape plan.

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

Not Enough Time

dino

© Yinglan

The little boy followed his Mom around the corner as Tony Lange materialized near a reconstructed fossil. His clothes were torn and soiled, his hair and beard matted with three months growth.

“I’m back. Got to warn them. It isn’t the answer. We’ll all die.”

He struggled to his feet and then he saw the wall painting and screamed.

“Mommy, what’s wrong with that man?”

Security guards kept the crowd back as an ambulance crew arrived.

“Take it easy,” the first medic said. “You’ll be fine.”

“No,” he murmured half-conscious. “You can’t save humanity by sending us 100 million years back…too hostile. We end up as prey, not colonists.”

As he was loaded onto a stretcher, the boy nervously fingered his transistor radio turning it on.

“President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin today. He died an hour ago of a wound caused by a rifle bullet fired at him as he was riding through downtown Dallas.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “I didn’t get back all the way. I’m seventy-two years too early!”

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of December 19, 2017. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for creating a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.

When I saw the image, I thought of time travel (of course) and of someone coming forward in time about 100 million years (the middle of the Cretaceous period) into the present. Two ideas popped into my head.

The first was the original “cliffhanger” for the pilot episode of The Time Tunnel starring James Darren as Tony Newman and Robert Colbert as Doug Phillips. In the pilot, Tony uses the Time Tunnel to send himself back into history proving that it actually works in order to keep the project’s Congressional funding from being cut. He ends up on the Titanic mere hours before it is destined to be sunk. In an attempt to rescue him, fellow scientist Doug Phillips goes back. They are unsuccessful in preventing the ship’s destruction, but the team in the time tunnel manage to switch them to a different time period.

The show always ended with a teaser scene from the next episode which in this case was an encounter with Halley’s Comet in the early 20th century, however for the pilot before the show was picked up, the teaser had Tony and Doug appearing in a steaming hot jungle and then encountering a dinosaur.

The second thought was of a show I’ve never watched but thought might be interesting. Terra Nova was a short-lived series (December 9, 2011 to March 5, 2012) about people on an overpopulated Earth in the year 2149 who were sent back to colonize the Cretaceous Period. I thought this was kind of crazy for a few reasons, the first being the “butterfly effect,” since they’d have no idea how their actions even so far back in history would affect their present, and the second being that there are freaking dinosaurs out there and they were the dominant species on the planet at that time. What makes anyone think that even with advanced weapons, they wouldn’t turn into anything more than prey?

So what if a colonist managed somehow to project himself forward in time to warn everyone that the project didn’t work? However, as you have just read, he dropped out of the time stream 72 years too early, specifically on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas at a Natural History museum just hours after President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed. Horribly tragic in many different ways.

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