My short sci fi story, “Go Outside” is out now in this quarter’s issue of Abyss & Apex Magazine. This was my first pro short fiction sale. Check it out!
Tag: editing
Fiction: April 29
1.
Name is April 29. April 29 work in Farm 36. April 29 not allow know how to read. April 29 not allow know how to write. April 29 only allow know how to count, so April 29 can count the Yield and be good Farmer. Old Man name December 4 teaches April 29 read and write in dark unit on HabLevel every 3rd day after lights out. Old Man stole pen and paper from Spacemen. Old Man say Orbiters will kill April 29 if they find April 29 words. April 29 practice every day. April 29 loves to write. To write makes April 29 grow tall inside.
2.
Old Man say Spacemen very mad. Old Man hid in Spaceport and heard Spacemen talk. Spacemen think Yield too low for whole year. Spacemen complain to Orbiters. Orbiters kill 77 Farmers from Farm 36. April 29 scared.
3.
Spacemen gone. Orbiters very mad. Orbiters find April 29 and Old Man practicing writing in dark unit. Old Man tell April 29 to hide. April 29 hide and Orbiters crack Old Man’s head open. Orbiters take Old Man’s body to Reintegration.
4.
April 29 go to Old Man’s unit after lights out to take words hidden in his pillow. Orbiters there orbiting. Tell April 29 to go back to unit.
5.
April 29 come back next night. Orbiters not find words hidden in Old Man’s pillow. Orbiters stupid. April 29 take Old Man’s words and read them. Another old man, name was February 2 taught Old Man how to write when Old Man was young. Old Man’s words say that someday every Farmer will know how to read and write. Then Farmers will grow tall. No more Orbiters. No more Spacemen. Only Farmers and the Yield. Old Man’s words use the word “The”. April 29 likes the word, “The”. April 29 will use “The” from now on.
6.
In the Farm today April 29 showed October 31 how to write with dirt. Orbiters find October 31 writing with dirt and pushed him off the Farm. April 29 went down to Farm 1 after lights out. October 31 was dead at the bottom. April 29 was almost found by the Orbiters but April 29 hid. April 29 was scared.
7.
Today an Agras Company ship arrived in the Spaceport. 6 new Farmers were assigned to Farm 36. The new Farmers were scared. Old Farmers kill one New Farmer already in fight. April 29 had to stop the fighting. April 29 said to Old Farmers that new Farmers will all be Old Farmers soon. 1 of the new Farmers said to April 29 she would rather be dead. April 29 said to her, the Yield dies, only when it is ready to be harvested. So, too, must the Farmers wait until the right time to die. April 29 read that words in Old Man’s words. The Orbiters came and April 29 stopped talking.
8.
Today April 29 trained the new Farmers how to count the Yield. Most of the work is cutting the Yield with stem cutters and counting it. Sometimes, the work is sowing seeds and tilling soil; very rarely, checking water systems in the tunnels. April 29 showed the new Farmers the tunnels and the Girl Who Would Rather Die said they looked big, easy to get lost. April 29 said to the Girl Who Would Rather Die that no, Farmers never get lost, because they must learn the tunnels to become Farmers. Only the Orbiters get lost, because Orbiters are stupid. The Girl Who Would Rather Die laughed. She asked where the Yield goes. April 29 said the Spacemen take it. Then the Girl Who Would Rather Die got very sad. She started to cry. April 29 threw dirt on her to cheer her up. She did not like that. She tried to kill April 29 with a stem cutter. April 29 took the stem cutter away. The Orbiters came. April 29 threw more dirt on the Girl Who Would Rather Die when the Orbiters were not looking. Girl Who Would Rather Die started to laugh. Girl Who Would Rather Die is strange.
9.
The new Farmers received their names and Days of Rest. Girl Who Would Rather Die was given the name and Day of Rest June 2. June 2 did not know what the Day of Rest was. April 29 explained to her, all Farmers get 1 Day of Rest per year, which is also their name. That way, the Orbiters do not get any of the 365 Farmers on each Farm mixed up. June 2 said the Orbiters can’t be that stupid. April 29 said they can.
10.
The Orbiters started pushing the Farmers hard to make up for the recent low Yield. June 2 got tired and dropped her Yield so April 29 helped her pick it up. June 2 said April 29 is strong. She said April 29 could lead the Farmers to kill the Orbiters. April 29 said April 29 never killed anyone. June 2 said she did, back on the Eaters’ World. April 29 did not know the words “Eaters’ World.” June 2 said it is where the Yield goes, and where she is from. June 2 was captured and sent to this planet, Agras 9166, as punishment for fighting against the Agras Company’s farming practices. April 29 did not know the word “planet.” June 2 said “planet” means all the soil in the world. June 2 said the Agras Company also owns the planet, the Farms, and all the Farmers, including April 29 and June 2.
11.
June 2 got sad and started to cry while she was cutting the Yield. April 29 asked why. June 2 said the Agras Company is going to win, and her friends died for nothing. April 29 did not know the word “Win.” June 2 said to “Win” means to grow tall, like the Yield. June 2 asked April 29 why April 29 always asks about words April 29 does not know. April 29 told June 2 April 29 is learning to write, and to come to the dark unit after lights out. In the dark unit, April 29 showed June 2 the words. June 2 said she also knows how to read and write, but pretends not to in front of the Orbiters. June 2 said April 29’s words are very good and growing better every day. April 29 was proud. Then the Orbiters made noises down the hall. There was nowhere to hide so April 29 told June 2 to run. April 29 got scared but wanted to be strong for June 2. The Orbiters hit April 29 on the head and searched the dark unit. The Orbiters found April 29’s words. The Orbiter said April 29 was going to Reintegration. But June 2 appeared in the door and killed that Orbiter with a stem cutter. Then June 2 gave the stem cutter to April 29 and April 29 cut the other Orbiter’s neck like a stem. April 29 and June 2 ran. April 29 and June 2 hid in the tunnels. More Orbiters followed, so April 29 led June 2 into the septic disposal system. June 2 got unhealthy because of the smell.
12.
June 2 was unhealthy most of the day. April 29 carried June 2 through septic pipes down to Farm 27 maintenance tunnels. The Orbiters were very mad and searched every tunnel. It was difficult to hide. April 29 and June 2 were scared.
13.
June 2 was not sick anymore today. June 2 ran ahead every 10 minutes to track the Orbiters’ position in the tunnels. April 29 and June 2 got all the way down to Farm 15 septic before lights on. June 2 said We were lucky We did not have to climb all the way down from Farm 10,883. April 29 did not know the word “We”. June 2 said “We” is June 2 and April 29.
14.
We got down to Farm 1 and hid in the delivery barge. The Orbiters tried to search it but We killed them. Too many Orbiters came looking for the bodies so We ran.
14.5.
June 2 said there was nowhere else to hide after We left Farm 1. April 29 said We could go to Processing. June 2 said the Spacemen wouldn’t come to collect the Yield for another year. June 2 started to cry. April 29 had an idea, said We should go to the Overcom. June 2 said she did not know the word “Overcom”. April 29 explained the Overcom is the central command where the Foreman gives commands to every Farm. April 29 said many Orbiters guard it, but We could kill those Orbiters and take the Foreman hostage, then use the Overcom to make an announcement. June 2 asked what kind of announcement. April 29 said June 2 already knew what kind. June 2 stopped crying.. June 2 said there would be an Agras Company ship visiting the We planet very soon for inspections, much sooner than the Spacemen’s ship. June 2 said We could tell the Farmers to kill every Orbiter, then when every Farmer was free, We could steal the Agras Company ship and go back to the Eaters’ World. June 2 said it is more fun to kill Agras men than Spacemen anyway. April 29 did not know the word “Free”. June 2 said “Free’ is ability to grow as tall as one wishes. June 2 said if the Farmers knew about the Eaters’ World they would grow very angry, but the Agras Company does not allow them to know. June 2 said this is because the Eaters need the Farmers, but the Farmers do not need the Eaters. June 2 said this is why the Farmers aren’t allowed to read or write. June 2 says reading and writing are the seeds and soil of Freedom; without them, We cannot grow; without them, We are slaves. April 29 does not know the word “Slaves”. June 2 says a “Slave” is a Farmer who works for the Agras Company. April 29 started to cry, and asked June 2 why she would help the Farmers if she is an Eater. June 2 held April 29 in her arms and said because for her there was never any other option. June 2 said it was the Right Thing To Do. April 29 did not know the words, “The Right Thing To Do.” June 2 said “The Right Thing To Do” is the count one must reach before he finds peace in his heart. Then June 2 counted April 29. April 29 felt much better after.
15.
Orbiters came, but they did not find We. June 2 stole one of their radios. Then We heard everything the Orbiters did. We got very smart. The Orbiters stayed stupid. We waited 3 days to plan our attack on Processing. Processing was the most secure place on every Farm. We went to Processing but there were more Orbiters at Processing than April 29 predicted. June 2 killed the Orbiters with the fire cold spray, freezing them. April 29 hid the frozen Orbiters in the trash chute. April 29’s hands were cold and the fingertips died. June 2 said don’t worry, they’re all trash anyway. April 29 laughed. We found the lift to the Overcom. The lift was guarded by the Orbiters and June 2’s stem cutter stopped working. So June 2 approached the Orbiters and said she would count them all night. The Orbiters had to discuss it, but they agreed yes. We killed the Orbiters while they tried to count June 2. Then We took the lift to the Overcom.
16.
The Foreman in the Overcom booth was terrified. I recognized his voice from the speaker in my ear, but he sounded different in real life, smaller, less like an Orbiter and more like a Farmer. He said the Orbiters would come in the booth and kill us. June 2 said if the Foreman called them, she would cut off his stem with her stem cutter. The Foreman wept and begged her to stop. June 2 would not let me kill the Foreman, because she said We needed him to use the Overcom.
17.
The Overcom was noisy. Many Orbiters arrived outside. The Orbiters said through the door to let them in. June 2 cut the Foreman’s finger off with April 29’s stem cutter. Foreman told the Orbiters to stay away. June 2 made the Foreman activate the Overcom, then cut his throat. June 2 hailed all the Farmers in all the Farms on the planet. She told April 29 to speak to them. April 29 said all Farmers rise, pick up your stem cutters and kill every Orbiter. We are not slaves. We should be free. April 29 finished by telling about the Eaters’ World, and how they grow no Yield of their own, that their world is lit by a giant bulb brighter than the brightest Hydropon that is named the Sun. The Overcom went silent. June 2 said We are running out of time. Agras Company men spoke to We through the Overcom. The Agras men said We are liars and will be dead soon. The Agras men said We would go to Reintegration. The Agras men said We already tried the same Revolution on other Agras Company worlds 1000 counts before. April 29 did not know the word “Revolution.” June 2 explained that “Revolution” means to count all the bad Yields, then cut them, replant the field with new seeds and grow a better Yield. The Agras men grew very angry. They said no Agras ship will come. They said We were fools and that this was an open channel. We heard the Agras man say to other Agras man using the Overcom that 1,000,000 Orbiters were dead from the Revolution and Farms 1 to 3,882 were compromised. They said Farm 36 was free. April 29 started to cry, but the water was not sad. June 2 counted April 29 again. June 2’s lips tasted like salt and soil. April 29 was scared but also not scared. The Orbiters cut through the door and June 2 tried to cut her own neck with the stem cutter but the Orbiters took it away. April 29 killed 3 Orbiters but the Orbiters knocked April 29 unconscious. The Orbiters did not kill We, but April 29 knew We would be dead soon anyway.
17.
We woke up in time to say goodbye as the Orbiters dragged June 2 away. June 2 said, “I love you.” April 29 did not know what those words meant. June 2 did not have time to explain. There were no words to describe what April 29 felt.
18.
I learned what June 2’s last words to me meant on the long march to Quarantine. “I” is the subject, me, April 29. “I” was a word We never spoke because the Orbiters did not want us to know we were individuals, because to know you are an individual with the ability to make choices means to know if you are free or not free, and a slave will not stay a slave for long if he knows freedom exists, but that he does not have it. That is the way to Revolution. Love, then, is to Do the Right Thing for another, to feel deep within that their light is what makes you grow tall, but also, that you return it.
18.5.
My unit in Quarantine is smaller than my old unit back on Farm 36. It reeks of trash and there were many other Farmers here before me. I counted their fingernail scratches on the walls. They used their nails and teeth to draw pictures. Every single picture was of the yield. I have lost count of the days, the weeks, the cycles, awaiting my trial.
19.
There is a Good Orbiter who visits me from time to time, who makes conversation with me, slips me contraband through the food chute in the door, and who even checks my work – although it took some time for him to gain my trust. The trial will be fixed, with only one outcome – there’s no doubt about that – but still, the wheels are slow to turn. The Good Orbiter also patrols June 2’s wing of this prison. He told me today he received a note from her, written for me, but can’t deliver it until the brief period between 23:55 and 00:00 when there isn’t anyone watching the cameras.
19.5.
The Good Orbiter cannot help me escape. This was one of the first parameters established in our short, but pleasant relationship. He said he admired me for what I’d done, inciting the other Farmers to rebel and starting a civil war on Agras 9166 that, at the time I am writing this, still rages on. I said if he liked me so much, why didn’t he open the door? The Good Orbiter laughed and said the other Orbiters would kill him. I knew then I would never leave this place; that I was sure to meet my end here, that if there was a way to escape, he would have already secured it. Bringing me comforts, and this final note from the woman I love, the one whose true name I never learned, but who now goes by June 2, is all the help the Good Orbiter can afford to give me. It is enough. I have read the note, and it brought peace to my heart, just like she said it would. We did the right thing. The Farmers are winning. June 2 said We had to be brave through the darkness ahead. She said wherever We were going, she would always love me. June 2 once said I was strong for holding my soil against the Orbiters. I do not know the word that means stronger than strong, but I am sure there is no better word that exists to describe June 2. I ate her note so the Orbiters wouldn’t find it.
20.
My trial was held in a dim room full of bright screens where the faces of twelve Agras Company Executives waited to find me guilty. I was sentenced to Reintegration based on something called the Agras Company Bylaws. I did not know the Agras Company Bylaws, so I asked my accusers how I could be guilty if I did not know. The Agras Executives called me insolent. I did not know the word “insolent.” My accusers grew even angrier, and said I had killed forty-three orbiters in total. I told them I thought forty-three was a good count. The Agras Executives said that Revolution is the highest crime a Farmer can commit. I told them I did not know the word “Crime.” The Agras Executives said a “crime” is to do one bad thing. I told them I did zero.
21.
The Good Orbiter has just left my door for the last time. He wanted to say sorry. I did not know the word “Sorry,” but the Good Orbiter said it is hard to explain. I asked if Sorry is to count all bad Yields and replant them. The Good Orbiter laughed and started to weep. I asked if Sorry is the same as Revolution. The Good Orbiter said yes, and promised me he would take up arms and help the Farmers the next time a Revolution took place. I asked him when that will be. The Good Orbiter said soon. He told me millions of Orbiters have already died and the ships carrying their replacements will take many cycles to arrive at Agras 9166. The Good Orbiter said the Farmers will win. I asked what will happen to me. He said Reintegration, which means death. I asked him how it will happen. He said I will be mixed with other dead Farmers to be used as fertilizer, then sent on an Agras ship to other Agras farms on other Agras worlds. I asked why they wouldn’t just keep me on this world, to fertilize the Yield here. The Good Orbiter said it is cheaper to do it Agras’s way. No more Yield. No more soil. No more green. I asked if there was another note from June 2. He told me June 2 is dead.
22.
I can hear the Orbiters’ footsteps coming down the hall. They are trying to open the door, but I blockaded it with my furniture. I will not let them take me until I have finished these words. The Eaters on their world of plenty and opulence must know about June 2 and Farm 36 and Revolution. The Good Orbiter will know where to find this. You, my only friend, must eat this document for safekeeping. It is a special paper we use to wrap the Yield for space travel; it will not dissolve in your stomach. Use the broadcasting system at the coordinates June 2 gave you to send my account, and hers, to the Eaters’ World. They do not know about We, the Farmers, or they do not care, and this to me is the greatest crime of all. We give the Eaters the Yield. We give them the sustenance that allows them to be free, at the cost of our lives, our freedom, our future. The Orbiters are almost through the door now, I can see the light shining on the slick steel of their helmets – but without We, there can be no Orbiters, and no Spacemen, and no Agras Company Bylaws. We are not only June 2 and April 29. All Farmers are We. We is the Farm. We is good. We is green. And We will grow. We
CORRUPTION gets a new (and vastly improved) blurb
A dishonored swordsman running from his past.
A city shrouded in dark magic.
A girl with the key to a nightmarish otherworld.
An antihero born.
Daniel Harper was champion, until a single mistake destroyed his fencing career forever. With nothing left to lose, he flees to Eastern Europe, where he can start over… where he can be someone else.
In the exotic, lantern-lit crevices of a nameless city, Daniel meets two people who open very different kinds of doors than the ones he is searching for: the troubled flower girl Kashka, who holds a strange connection to the world of dreams; and the enigmatic street magician and self-professed love tourist Ink, who has the power to bend others to his will.
As Daniel plummets into a downward spiral of hedonism and dereliction, he is tormented by macabre visions of a frozen world in endless darkness where an evil tyrant has stolen the sun, where humanity’s remnants fight to scrape out a cruel existence underground, and wandering spirits inhabit the bodies of the recently deceased. Daniel has become a Visitor, one doomed to return to this Night Country every time he falls into a deep sleep. But the longer he spends there, the more Daniel realizes his curse is anything but an accident…
Part one of an epic duology, CORRUPTION is the vodka-drenched tale of when living by the sword goes wrong.
***
(Want more? You can read the first chapter here.)
CORRUPTION is SO Hot Right Now
Well… that’s only half-true.
My Eastern Europe-based dark fantasy/post-apocalyptic/Wizard of Oz on three bottles of vodka novel Corruption, Book one of the Corruption Cycle, has had an admittedly small number of readers since it hit Amazon two months ago. Much smaller than my horror debut Lurk, which seems to be selling better each month (especially on Audible). I never planned to make money writing books, and so the royalties I get from Lurk continue to be a pleasant surprise.
By comparison, Corruption doesn’t have a single review yet on Amazon, and none of the reviewers I reached out to before the book’s launch have gotten around to it yet. I have done exactly zero promotion for the book, which I know is not ideal. A few people have purchased it on Amazon or read it on KDP. But, so far, the book is still a complete unknown.
What’s the deal with my crappy sales?
There are a few reasons for the book being slow to launch, and I’m not ignorant to them; it is my fault for not putting a bunch of money behind it to buy ad space and promotion stuff right when it came out, which is the typical strategy indie authors use to get a book off the ground. My approach to editing was iterative. Some of the early drafts I sent to my beta readers or interested friends/family were pretty rough, which I could’ve waited on. I also don’t think the first blurb I wrote was very good, and made the book sound kind of boring. So I did the sensible thing and rewrote it, and the new blurb is a vast, vast improvement.
The last thing, and this is smaller but still important… I didn’t do my due diligence in getting reviewers lined up before the launch. Group psychology is a real thing when it comes to book sales. Readers want the books they pick up to already be vetted by other readers, because books take a lot more work than other forms of entertainment to truly enjoy. The reviewers I reached out to were people whose opinions I trust for good or ill, but they are all pretty popular, which means their to-be-read piles are gargantuan.
Word of mouth is king. If nobody knows your book exists, they can’t talk about or recommend it, can they? This is the precisely the conundrum I found myself in with Corruption. I needed exposure, but I know my flaws, and the biggest one by far when it comes to writing stuff is that I am terrible at self-promotion.
So I entered the book into Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-off.
Dude, what the hell is the SPFBO?
The SPFBO is a contest held by best-selling grimdark author Mark Lawrence each year to shine a light on works by indie authors that fall under the umbrella of fantasy fiction that would otherwise go lost in the shit sluice that is book publishing in 2017. I don’t mean that every self-published book out there is shit. My books are both self-published (Lurk had a publisher, but they went under). No, “shit sluice” here only means that there are a ton of books out there – something like 1,000,000 e-books on Amazon alone – and getting yours noticed without the push of a big New York publisher behind you is near impossible without a fame-wave or mountains of disposable cash to ride on.
As far as exposure goes, the SPFBO is an indie author’s dream come true. Fantasy readers are voracious for new stuff to read, and the contest tends to filter for some truly awesome books. Authors who make it to the final round get a massive boost in eyeballs, if not sales, and it’s not just the fans who are watching. Josiah Bancroft, who wrote the Books of Babel, one of last year’s SPFBO finalists, just nailed down a book deal with a big New York publisher. How cool would that be? And he wasn’t the only one.
Anyway, the contest takes about a year to play out. But the initial feedback from the reviewers is in, and Corruption made the top 12 covers in the contest… out of a pool of 300! Go go go little book. Of course, a great cover doesn’t mean a book is good or bad, but it is absolutely true that the cover is the first thing that sells the book. I’m extremely proud of how Corruption’s cover came out, and think my designer, J. Caleb Clark, knocked it out of the park, capturing the story perfectly in a simple, clean image that really stands out on the shelf.
Take a gander:
Plan of Attack Moving Forward: Do More Stuff
I’m planning to really start pushing Corruption end of summer/beginning of fall. I just don’t have time or funds to do it seriously before then, and my experience getting Lurk airborne has taught me that it’s better to do it right than right now. The audiobook is in production, though, and should be on Audible in the next two or three months. I’m already hard at work on the sequel, which is tentatively titled Virtue.
If you dig grimdark fantasy/portals/end of the world stuff/tales of drunken debauchery in foreign countires or all of the above, Corruption may be just the dark fantasy fix you need. A link to buy the book is at the beginning of this article. The ebook is $5 and paperbacks are $18.
Flash Fiction: Covfefe
WHEN HE WAS YOUNG, Covfefe’s father would take him for wharble rides. “Watch for the spout!” his father would say, and hoist the young birpl into the air to blow a big, wet kiss on his belly. Covfefe would squirm and laugh, and they’d fly together through the endless halls of their world-house, father and son, the perfect pair, until his father got tired or dinner was ready or some other cataclysm wrenched apart their loving bond.
Would that those short bursts of birplhood bliss could’ve lasted forever. But bliss is not something made to last.
Whenever Covfefe considered what it meant to be good, in all the long millennia he lived to consider that question, that was the memory his mind always came back to: his father taking him for wharble rides through the empty, root-filled halls of their world-house. And now that Covfefe was dying, what it meant to be good was the single, all-consuming thought rattling around in his quantum brains. That, and the pain of slow disintegration.
How was it possible he had wasted so many millions – or was it billions? – of years, when his father, a strong, sturdy mirple, simpler than Covfefe, but good, had seemed to live so well on a measly three hundred thousand? How had Covfefe consumed so many worlds and all their myriad species, yet never seemed to feel content, while his father had only needed the two? Those damned two. His dad always bragged about those two like they meant something. Those pitiful two worlds were a veritable family myth. Every time Covfefe’s father had gone out with his friends and gotten drunk on the Good Old Dark Stuff, he’d told the same damned story about how he’d grown to his size without ever extinguishing another life, not even one as small as a single cell. His father’s world-stomach had been so refined with the liquor of goodness it had only consumed cold planets.
Covfefe felt another world slip out of him, and his quantum body slimmed a little more. This one hurt. In the vastness of spacetime, Covfefe winced. It wouldn’t be long now. A few hundred million, maybe a billion years. Not much time at all.
How could his father have been so proud of only two worlds? The old fool had missed the best part of being a mirpl: drinking that beautiful energy as a hot civilization disappeared down one’s world-gullet. Covfefe had surpassed his father’s record before the second millennia of his quantum life. And, as all strong, conservative, world-stomach-minded mirpls knew, once you devoured your tenth star system, your world-intake skyrocketed. Covfefe’s world-stomach-portfolio had exploded after his tenth at a rate that could only be described as “mental.”
Yet here Covfefe was going cold himself. His quantum body was finally, albeit slowly, dispersing back into all its inanimate, constituent parts, and the question of what it meant to be good was unrelenting, like a super-massive black hole at the center of his being sucking in all other possible thoughts. His world-stomach-portfolio didn’t mean a damned thing now, did it? All the lives he’d consumed, from the small to the tall, raised their ever-deafening screams from the silence of the void at all hours. How was he supposed to rest, if he couldn’t even close his local clusters without seeing them? Without wondering what if?
What if someone had done that to him and his family? What if he had never had the chance to take a wharble ride at all, because someone else’s world-stomach-portfolio was more important?
He’d enjoyed eating all those warm worlds, hadn’t he? Feeling their lives disappear into his own insatiable mass? He had. They’d made him drunker than the Good Old Dark Stuff, so drunk that for most of his adult life, all Covfefe could think about was eating more of them.
And only now, in hindsight, could Covfefe see that this was the worst part of the deal. Because, like any rational creature large enough to have a quantum brain spanning millions – or was it billions? – of miles, Covfefe knew what it meant to be good, and that he wasn’t. He knew that it was too late for him to change. He knew he would never give anyone a wharble ride, despite having more offspring than there existed atoms of certain heavier elements in this universe. He knew he could never brag to his friends over a parsec of the best top-shelf Dark Stuff that he’d grown to this size by only consuming cold matter.
The disintegration quickened, and one more world slipped away. Covfefe thought of the wharble rides again. Between the stabbing daggers of pain, he wondered if it was possible, had he grown large enough – another dozen or three dozen or three million worlds, perhaps – that he could earn the power to reverse the flow of time. He still had the energy to give it the old Particle Era try, didn’t he? To eat a few more, hot or cold? To do anything but sadly wither away without leaving a single positive mark on the universe of his birth?
But there were no more worlds in this quadrant. He’d eaten them all. And, sadly for him, there would be no more anywhere else, either – by the time he reached them, he would be too weak. It dawned on Covfefe then that not even gods have the power to undo their mistakes once it’s too late.
Which sort of makes all their other powers irrelevant, doesn’t it?
Nothing in life is free… except short stories
I’ve posted a few pieces of previously-published short fiction here lately, and here’s why. It’s my goal to eventually make all of the short stories I publish in magazines or anthologies free to read online, once the rights revert back to me. I’ve never published original short fiction on here, but that might be in the cards someday, too. I know it’s fashionable these days for some bigger-name authors to post shorts as Patreon rewards to their donors, which is annoying, and would hurt my image as a grumpy old curmudgeon, so I’m not gonna do it.
So far, of the roughly ten pieces of short fiction I’ve sold, almost all of them meet the “free” criteria, and are free to read for anyone with an Internet connection right here on this website (or several others). Many are also available as Kindle ebooks. I’m still trying to master the art of making Kindle books perma-free on Amazon, so for now the ebook versions are set at $.99.
Everyone pirates everything these days anyway.
Now back to writing and delicious burgers.
Fiction: Gene Catcher
TINDER was a lost cause. He had over two hundred matches and none of them wanted to meet. The most recent, Dana, 22, less than a mile away, shot him down so hard Paul had to put his phone down and reconsider his life.
Sorry… you don’t look tall in ur pics, Dana, 22, less than a mile away said.
I’m 5’7, Paul replied.
Must be 6’4 to ride, Dana, 22, less than a mile away said.
Paul rolled over onto his side, careful to keep his feet off the bed so his freshly polished brogue shoes wouldn’t get dirt on his comforter. It was 10:24 PM.
What happened? I used to get new ass all the time, Paul thought. I might not be the tallest or richest guy in San Francisco, but so what? Tell a girl here you’re co-founder of a science fiction-themed indie rock record label, and their pants practically grow tentacles and climb off on their own.
Everyone has dry spells. I just need to get out of the studio more, and back in the game.
He was walking out the door of his building to go to the bars solo when his phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a new match: a cute brunette with wide eyes and a seashell smile named Linda, 24, less than a mile away.
You look like trouble, Linda, 24, less than a mile away said.
LOL that’s my line, Paul replied.
Haha really?
That’s my usual opener.
Figures, Linda said.
So, gorgeous, are you just on this for an ego boost, or can we grab a drink tonight?
Linda took a whole ten minutes to respond. While he was waiting, Paul looked at his own pictures. He liked the one where he was drinking beer on the beach in Ko Phi Phi, Thailand the best. In the picture, he was tan and sporting an eight-week beard. His chin looked great. Paul thought it was his best physical feature, like a young William Shatner in the first season of Star Trek. His dad had a great chin, too.
Paul was about to un-match Linda when her message bubble appeared. I’m with my friend. We’re at Costarella’s. Come meet up!
On my way, Paul replied.
Linda sent him a smiling poop emoji, and Paul knew he was in.
He hailed a Lyft and was at Costarella’s in exactly twelve minutes. It should’ve been eight, but there was deadlocked traffic a few blocks from the restaurant, a line of cars rubbernecking an ambulance where a pair of EMTs was loading a pale, gasping man onto a stretcher.
Paul caught a glimpse of the man just as they were closing the door. His eyes were parched and bloodshot. His pupils looked like tiny barbed raisins. He looked excruciatingly thin, like he was dried out. His pants were covered in vomit and something else Paul didn’t want to think about. There were dozens of tiny puncture wounds covering the man’s face and arms.
Junkies, Paul thought.
As if reading his mind, the Lyft driver, an Indian man named Patel, said, “San Francisco… beautiful city, but it has a bad homeless problem. This is the third overdose I’ve seen tonight.”
Paul shook his head in disgust. “I know. I hate it. Why can’t they do that shit somewhere where people don’t have to see them?”
The Lyft driver shrugged.
It didn’t occur to Paul until later that night, that the man he’d seen being loaded into the ambulance was dying.
Costarella’s was a trendy seafood joint turned after-hours bar in the Marina. Paul didn’t see Linda and her friend when he walked in, so he pulled up a seat at the bar and ordered himself a double Jack Daniels on the rocks. It was eighteen dollars. Paul promised himself he’d take it easy tonight. That was when he saw the chubby brunette girl sitting alone at a table in the back corner of the bar.
She had wide eyes and a seashell smile, a deep tan like she’d just gotten back from vacation. It was Linda, alright, but she was twenty pounds heavier than in her pictures. Paul felt his heart drop and thought, Great, another catfish. Oh, well. She’s kind of pretty. I guess I could be into it.
Paul approached her and said, “Linda?”
She half-stood and smoothed her skirt awkwardly with one hand while extending the other for Paul to shake. “Omigod, Paul. Hi.”
“Hey, Linda. So formal. What are you drinking?”
“Oh, omigod, I’m not. This is water,” Linda said.
“And… this is a bar.”
“I was waiting for you. Sit down!” She patted the chair. “I’ll get us a round.”
He hesitantly took a seat, deciding whether or not he was going to pull a runner on her. She’s chubby, and has really hairy arms, but I’ve settled for worse, especially off of Tinder. At least, she has a cute smile. But she’s so bloated. Did she eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s before meeting up with me?
Still, it had been a three-month-long dry spell. Paul decided to stay.
A moment later, Linda returned with two glasses of whiskey. She handed one to Paul.
“So, where’s your friend?” Paul said.
“She went home.”
Linda sat down. “So, what do you think? Do I look like my pictures?”
“Sure,” Paul said.
Linda flashed him her seashell grin. “You’re a lot hotter in person. I really like your chin.”
Paul stroked his beard dramatically. “So. This fine patch of German-Irish face forest is the reason you matched me, huh?”
“I’m a sucker for beards.”
“It wasn’t my big muscles or my towering height?” Paul said, immediately regretting it. I sure hope she takes that as a joke. He pretended to flex his right bicep just to drive home that he was kidding.
Linda smirked. “Uh, no. I’ve met a lot of tall, buff guys on Tinder. I wanted to meet a guy with a nice chin. And you have one, so…”
Paul grinned. “So.”
Linda winked. “So, Paul, what do you do?”
“I’m co-founder of a science fiction and fantasy-themed indie rock label.”
“Oh, how cool! I love science fiction.”
“I’m recording an EP for a band called The Body Snatchers, actually.”
“Far out! That totally sounds like my jam.”
“And you?”
“I work in molecular biology.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Uh, mostly gene blotting, but not really the traditional kind. It’s complicated, and honestly, it would bore you.”
“You’re talking to a guy who has the RNA tree of life tattooed on his back.”
“Shut up!”
“I do. Check it out.” Paul stood, turned around, and pulled up his shirt, revealing the faded black ink. Linda oooh’d.
“How about you? You have any tattoos?” Paul asked, sitting down.
Blushing slightly, Linda turned over her wrist, where the words Gene Catcher were written in blue ink.
“Gene Catcher? That’s a little weird,” Paul said, running his fingers over the ink.
Linda rolled her eyes. “It’s an inside joke. My parents were weird. Whenever my mother tried to talk to me about sex, she’d couch it in these huge, life-or-death terms, like, Remember, sweetie, whoever you sleep with will be giving your children a whole chromosome, better make it good. For the way she talked about it, you’d think my mom was trying to breed the fucking chosen one or something–Paul Atredes, since you like science fiction. But it isn’t that big of a deal. Sex is fun.”
Paul snapped his fingers, smiling. “Dune. I got that reference.”
Linda stared into the bottom of her empty glass. “Anyway.”
An hour and six rounds later, Paul was drunk. They were sitting closer together now, her knees in between his. Linda was talking about how she ran away from home at sixteen and hadn’t seen or heard from her parents since. But Paul wasn’t listening.
She’s so cute. And she’s staring at me like she wants me. If I don’t kiss her soon, I’m gonna blow it. I can’t believe I thought she was fat earlier. That body is a ten.
Paul cupped Linda’s face in his hands. Linda stroked his chin, closed her eyes and said, “Kiss me.”
Paul kissed her. Her tongue flickered inside his mouth and he felt something sting the tip of his nose. Paul opened his eyes. Hers were still closed.
Did she just bite my nose? How could she bite my nose with her tongue in my mouth?
Paul suddenly felt hot. Queasy.
Linda looked skinnier than she had a second ago. When they’d met up, she had a beer belly and a double chin, hadn’t she? That was only an hour ago. The tan girl sitting in front of him was petite and thin, just like her profile pictures showed.
Paul felt another gas bubble rise in his belly. He rubbed his nose. It hurt. But he was drunk and horny, and she was stroking his hand.
His stomach rumbled louder. Paul sat back and clutched his abdomen with both hands.
“Hey, are you alright?” Linda said.
“Just (hic) drunk,” Paul said with a burp.
A sudden, sharp pain cut through his stomach like he was giving Cesarean birth to a xenomorph.
“Hey. Seriously. You look pale,” Linda said. Her hands were on his forehead. The black coils of hair on her arms seemed to rise, reaching for his eyes.
Food poisoning. Shit. What the hell did I eat?
Paul brushed her hands away. “I’m fine. Come here.” He kissed her even deeper than before.
In five minutes, the stomach pain had advanced to full-blown nausea. Paul stopped thinking about the dull ache that nipped the tip of his nose or the strange, wire brush texture of her hair. Paul’s only thought was getting through the next hour without diarrhea.
But she’s so hot. This girl could be a model. She’s way out of my league.
He lost his train of thought when he noticed Linda nuzzling his neck. “I’m pretty drunk, too,” she said, pulling back. Her eyes were balmy and bloodshot. “You wanna go back to my place? I know a funny YouTube video you’ll like…”
Hey! That’s my line.
A wave of nausea hit Paul, crashing down from the dryness of his mouth to the shaking depths of his bowels. No. Not here. Not yet.
“I’m down,” Paul said. “Let’s go.”
A block away, her hand slipped down the front of his pants. “I want you,” Linda said in his ear. “I don’t want to wait, Mr. Hot Shot Sci-Fi Rock Star. Why don’t you engineer somewhere for us to fuck?”
I need to lie down. I need a shower. No. I haven’t had sex in months. I need to do it.
“Wait until we get home,” Paul said.
“No. When I want something, I get it,” Linda said. She pulled him by the hand towards an old Victorian house with a huge wrap-around porch nearby. All the lights were off.
Pain separated his thoughts into staccato bullets.
“We’re in public.”
“So? Never stopped me before.”
Halfway across the front yard, his legs wilted under him. Just need… to lie down…
“Alright. But we need to be fast,” Paul said. He climbed the stairs to the porch, lay down and unbuttoned his jeans.
Linda seemed oblivious to his distress. She was too busy unbuttoning his shirt, stroking his face, kissing him. The dull ache he’d felt on the tip of his nose spread to his eyes and arms. He was too weak to do anything but lie still.
When he opened his eyes, their eyelids were attached.
Paul felt Linda get on top of him. Something ticklish and wet wrapped around his scalp. He felt a sudden, violent stinging all over his skin, like alcohol poured over a scratched-open wound. With great effort, he managed to push her off him and break free.
Linda’s eyelashes had grown long enough to entangle his entire face. They protruded from her eyes in long, black filigrees as thin and supple as the hair on her head, swaying like little antennae as they searched for him.
Paul screamed and rolled backward down the stairs. The little clasps of her eyelashes snapped and went with him. They wriggled and curled on the driveway next to him, still searching for a grip.
“The fuck…?” Paul said, stumbling to his feet. His fingertips grazed the blood seeping out through the dozens of tiny cheesecloth holes puncturing his skin.
In the darkness of the porch, Linda giggled.
He scrambled to pull up his pants.
“I’m sorry,” someone on the porch said. “You’re so nice. It’s just… when I want something, I get it.” The voice wasn’t Linda’s.
He didn’t look back until he was three blocks away. The street was empty, a rolling sine curve of quaint San Francisco houses and bars falling away to a sea of diamond lights sparkling over the Bay like stars. He knew she was chasing him. She hadn’t been able to quite get everything she wanted – she’d taken some, but there was hunger in the voice that had called down to him from the porch.
What’s happening to me? He thought. I’m going to die. Oh, God. I’m going to die. What did she do to me?
Paul searched his body for wounds. He had dozens of tiny pinpricks on his eyelids, the tip of his nose, and his forearms. There wasn’t much blood, but his clothes were ruined.
She took something from me. What? I’m bleeding a little. I’ve still got my wallet. I’ve still got my…
Somewhere up the street, he heard her giggle. As with the voice on the porch, it wasn’t entirely female. There was more bass, more gravel, like ten voices recorded on separate audio tracks and played back simultaneously.
Paul ran. He crashed through the door of the nearest business. It was a Chinese restaurant. Tables of gasping people dropped their soup dumplings to cover their mouths with their hands. He pushed his way into the kitchen, bowling over a waiter carrying a steaming plate of General’s Chicken. A fry cook cursed loudly at him in Chinese.
She’s going to come back for me. She’s going to find me. This is really happening.
He lurched for the kitchen’s back door. Two wild-eyed Chinese chefs blocked his path. One was wielding a cast iron frying pan. Paul found what he was looking for and snatched the biggest butcher knife he could see off the magnetic hanging rack.
They think I’m crazy, Paul realized.
The chef slashed at him with the frying pan, hitting Paul in the arm. Paul gasped, but didn’t drop the knife. He circled crab-wise until his back was to the door, then tripped and stumbled backward into an alleyway, where he expelled everything in his bowels from both ends all until there was nothing more to expel.
Sirens bellowed on the adjacent streets. He tried to stand and run, but his legs felt disconnected from his body, the misfiring signals in his brain trying to control a multitude of scattered pieces. Everything burned. The strength drained from his body with every stumbling step.
A girl in a blue dress walking towards him on the street saw him and lurched backward in disgust.
Paul grabbed her desperately. “Please, help me. Help me.”
The girl kicked him and ran the opposite direction, stopping halfway down the block to yell, “Go die under a bridge, ya stupid bum!”
Paul couldn’t feel his limbs anymore. His shoulder and guts were distant satellites, the pain growing number with every second.
I’m going to lose consciousness soon. And I don’t think I’m going to wake up.
Paul got up and stumbled aimlessly toward anything, anywhere that could save him, past families, businessmen, bachelorette parties all whispering and covering their noses when they caught his foul waft. A group of frat boys on a bar crawl threw a beer bottle at Paul’s head.
He didn’t recognize the person gazing mad-eyed back at him in the glass of the shop window where he stopped to hold himself upright. His reflection looked haggard and deranged. Jesus. I look just like that guy they were putting in the ambulance. Same hair. Same poked-up skin. Jesus, it’s hot. This fever I’ve got must be a hundred and five.
The word “death” lingered in every errant, feverish thought, despite his conscious effort not to think it. The sweltering heat of his body only drove it deeper into his mind. I’ll never get the label off the ground. I’ll never get big arms in the gym. I’ll never get-
Paul leaned against the shop window and vomited blood, bright red streaks showering down the glass. It reminded him of a science fiction movie he’d seen once, where the victims of a zombie virus vomited blood during the first stages of infection. The blood in that movie had looked as fake as the zombies’ latex flesh. Paul’s blood looked wrong, too; it was thin, and runny, like dried egg whites; only, he hadn’t been infected. Linda – or whoever she was – hadn’t given him anything, but rather taken something away. Like she’d done it to the man who Paul had seen die.
It had to be her. He looked exactly like the dying junkie, right down to the bodily fluids covering his pants. It’s what she does. She takes what she takes, and we die, like in that one movie, Species. But that was about an alien who was trying to destroy the human race by breeding us out of existence. No, this Linda – or whatever her real name is – is more like a Body Snatcher, except she isn’t trying to infiltrate us. She does this for fun.
I still have time to stop her.
Two blocks up and around the corner, Paul saw the man sitting in the window of a Starbucks.
Paul recognized him instantly. He was tall and handsome, with big, muscular arms, a good tan, and a seashell smile. He was bloated, like he’d just eaten an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s. He was using the free Wi-Fi to swipe Tinder profiles on his iPhone. And he had Paul’s chin.
Paul hid the knife as best he could against the side of his leg and slid nonchalantly into the coffee shop. He approached the man, lifted the knife, and stabbed him in the shoulder. He meant to stab him through the heart, but weak as he was, Paul had to sort of slump over into the man with the blade outstretched.
The man with Paul’s chin saw the attack coming and slid easily to the side. He looked down at the knife, then back up at Paul. His eyes narrowed and he set his iPhone gently down on the table. His grip closed around Paul’s wrist. It felt like a thousand-ton vice, burning hot and inhuman.
Slowly, the man with Paul’s chin pulled the knife out of his shoulder. As soon as the blade left skin, the flesh knitted and the wound closed. In an instant, there was nothing but a minuscule dribble of blood to show it was ever there.
Paul recognized the man’s voice when he spoke. It was like Linda’s, only deeper, broader, the kind of voice a starship captain would have, or the singer of a band.
“You surprise me,” the man who had Paul’s chin said. “You of all people should know my flesh is fast-knitting. That was the first one I ever got. I have all the variants, too. Y’know how many thousands of years that took? Lemme put it this way, Paul: there’s a reason I’m the only one around who still has it.”
Paul stared at his hand where it was locked in the man’s grip, the skin quickly turning from white to oily purple. He was too hot and sick to do anything. All around him, people were screaming. The man with his chin didn’t seem bothered. He let go of Paul’s hand. The knife clattered to the floor, and so did Paul.
“Y-y-you t-took m-m-my ch-chin,” Paul said.
The Man With Paul’s Chin casually picked up his phone, returning to the message he’d been typing to Janice, 24, two miles away, which said: You look like trouble.
Someone was sitting on Paul’s back. A different man, an onlooker. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. Locking both of Paul’s wrists behind his back in a bouncer hold, the onlooker asked the Man With Paul’s Chin, “Hey pal, you alright? Looks like this asshole cut you. There’s blood on your shirt.”
“Just fine, thanks. Lots of crazy junkies in this city,” the Man With Paul’s Chin said.
“Well, the cops will be here any minute.” The onlooker nudged Paul in the ribs with his knee. “You hear that? Have fun trying to get high in the joint, you sick bastard.”
The Man With Paul’s Chin gave the onlooker a seashell smile. “Honestly, I think what he needs is an ambulance.”
You stole my chin, Paul thought as the coffee shop ceiling faded to black.
*
A small crowd gathered outside to watch as the paramedics loaded Paul’s body onto a stretcher under flashing blue lights.
“Another one,” one of the paramedics sighed.
“You still don’t think it could be ricin?” the other said.
“Y’know, I thought about your little theory, while we were loading that D.O.A. a few hours ago, and you know what conclusion I came to?” Paramedic A said.
“What?”
“You need to cut your TV time to one hour a night.”
Paramedic B zipped the body bag closed. Beneath it, Paul’s face looked like a pale, dried-out sponge.
The paramedic wagged his finger. “Then how do you explain those other cases in China? Russia? Johannesburg? Mexico City? All the D.N.A. in their bodies, simultaneously destroyed. Gone. Poof. Like it was never there. Dead in a matter of hours.”
“That’s just bullshit you read on the Internet. Wait until the autopsies come back. It’s dope. Something we haven’t seen before. Ricin? Sure. And this is Walter Fuckin’ White.”
“Nah. I’m tellin ya, it’s a cult, and they use ricin to poison their victims. It’s the only logical explanation. Unless it’s aliens….”
Paramedic A grunted, and nodded for the other to help him lift Paul’s stiffening corpse into the ambulance.
*
Somewhere else in the city, Janice, 24, two miles away, waited outside her apartment building for her Lyft to arrive. She hoped the new guy she was meeting up with for drinks liked her shoes. Costarella’s was a nice place, so she’d worn her best Jimmy Choos, the black strappy ones with the rhinestones that showed off her calves.
She stuck her feet out and pointed her toes to admire them. Her calves were smooth and strong from twenty-one years of competitive dancing. Her mother was a dancer, too. Janice thought they were her best feature.
Did you like this story? Be sure to leave an honest review! And if you want more, be sure to check out other works by Adam Vine.
