Tag: more odds than ends (Page 20 of 21)

Sabotage

January 6, 2021 / fionagreywrites

This story has been removed. Why? Because it’s part of the Professor Porter Saga and will be formally published in a revised form.

***

The final week of 2020’s prompt was from Leigh Kimmel: “A plumbing fixture suddenly stops working. On inspection, it turns out the cutoff valve has been turned off, but everyone denies having done so.” This was a tough one! I know nothing about plumbing. Neither, I suspect, do the ice fairies.

Mine went to Becky Jones and AC Young, who both wrote different and highly entertaining stories about goblins in the garbage.

A Better Future

December 30, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Professor Widget paced the room when he lectured. The same path each time. Up and down each aisle, tapping a hand on each desk as he passed. Jack didn’t know if it was obsessive-compulsive disorder or just longstanding habit from forty years of academia. Either way, it drove him nuts. How was he supposed to concentrate?

Other than that, cryptozoology was awesome.

He’d never dreamed that cryptids were a real field of study, but here he was. Jack Langton, otherwise a dead end job-hopper, night-school dropout. Now he spent the slow nights at the gas station studying, not texting his latest girl and still failing to maintain a relationship because he worked the night shift.

It’d sounded too good to be true, when he saw the ad on social media. He still wasn’t sure that he could get a job doing anything with this. But lately, all the posts wanted a degree. Any degree. And cryptozoology was the cheapest diploma program he’d been able to find. Legit, too. Accredited and everything, not a ripoff.

He’d heard similar stories from the rest of the students in the room, through a haze of flickering florescent lights outside, on hasty and illicit smoke breaks. Everyone just wanted a shot at a better life. All of them had nearly laughed the opportunity away.

“Time! Pencils down,” Professor Widget announced. “As I walk around the room to collect your quiz, I want you to tell me your favorite cryptid. No waffling, you have to pick one.”

Jack nodded as he realized the instructor had timed the announcement so everyone had time to think while he crossed the room, even the first row. Maybe there was a reason for the pacing after all. He dropped his head and focused, trying to pick his favorite. There’d been so many, and this was the capstone course before he could get his degree.

Brown tweed pants stopped in front of his desk. A hand extended toward him, and he handed over his quiz. Jack cleared his throat. “Ah, gryphon.”

Professor Widget quirked a salt and pepper eyebrow, so high Jack thought the wiry hairs might detach from the man’s face. “Interesting choice.” He moved past and collected the hairdresser’s quiz. “Say again? Vampire? Hmm.”

The instructor set the papers down on the desk in front of the ancient green chalkboard that no one bothered to use anymore. He rubbed the bald spot on his head. “Well, it’s time for fieldwork, so thank you for choosing a wide variety of cryptids. Always keeps it interesting.”

“Fieldwork?” The hairdresser squeaked behind him. It was the first time Jack had heard her speak above a whisper. He figured it was because she spent all day chatting up clients and needed a vocal break.

“Someone didn’t read the syllabus,” singsonged the professor. “If you want to pass the class, fieldwork is part of your grade.”

“I read the syllabus,” Jack said. He propped his chin on his fist, old flannel falling soft against his arm where his sleeve was unbuttoned. “Fieldwork was listed as a possibility, not a definite. I remember because I thought it was a joke.”

“Yes, yes, well, we got lucky this time. The lawsuits ended satisfactorily and the administration said we could go ahead. But with precautions this time.” He grinned. Did he expect them to be excited by the opportunity?

“Cryptids are real?” squeaked the hairdresser again. Liz, that was her name. Her chair clattered to the ground. “I can’t meet a vampire. I’m a single mom!” She whooshed past him, leaving only a cloud of perfume behind.

Professor Widget nodded as Liz raced by, his eyes sad. “Yes, that is unfortunate. There is a risk involved. I should also commend you all for not taking the easy way out. One of you even picked a gryphon. The spine! Oh, I do appreciate it.” He chuckled, then cut off after a few seconds when no one joined him.

Several other students looked like they might follow Liz and her perfectly coiffed curls out the door.

“Come on, now, you’re quite close to receiving your degrees. All you have to do is survive.” The professor’s tone was wheedling now.

Jack firmed his jaw. It was this or nothing. He opened his textbook to the chapter on gryphons with a shrug. “Can’t be worse than that half-naked cowboy on meth that came into the store last week.”

***

This week, nother mike challenged me with, “He never expected that the cryptozoology diploma course would require applied fieldwork. With a cryptid of his choice.” My prompt went to Leigh Kimmel: “The streetlight was blinking Morse code…”

Engineers!

December 28, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Nigel sat on the concrete floor and studied the mess of broken machinery in front of him. Gears, cogs, sprockets, and unidentifiable doohickeys were scattered in piles between his legs.

“There’s clearly some sort of order to where you put the parts,” Elise said. She leaned down and pushed her ponytail back over her shoulder, trying not to get grease smeared onto her leather jacket. “I can’t tell what it is, though.”

“Blocking my light,” he mumbled, then looked up, blinking. “Oh. Sorry. Rude?”

She straightened and stepped to the left, trying not to roll her eyes. She took a deep breath of the damp air and suppressed a sigh. “Yes, rude.”

“Have to get it working again,” he said, hands fidgeting over the parts. Stubby fingers flickered faster than she would have believed possible. Each movement he made was deliberate and precise. “Each pile goes into its own section. Here, hold this for me.”

She snorted and moved back to lean against the wall. She propped a foot against it for balance, concrete rough and cool under her fingertips. “I most certainly will not. That – thing – is what got us in the dungeon in the first place.”

He propped a long metal rod against his ankle instead. “Not a dungeon.”

“It’s a locked, windowless room in the basement. And we’re stuck here until the other bots outside go away, lose interest, or calls for more of those things to come help. I’m just glad we control the deadbolt. It’s close enough to a dungeon to count.”

“Horseshoes.” Nigel’s brow furrowed, his eyes darkening. He spilled the piles of gadgetry from their towers of precarious balance with a sweep of an arm. His nose nearly touched the ground as he chose new parts. “Bad design.”

Elise sighed. She had to draw an engineer as her partner. Every single time, it seemed like. “It was a reasonable argument that close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and dungeons. Just give me that one, would you? And what’s this about bad design?”

She crossed her fingers and made a wish, as if she were seven again and arguing with her younger brother. Iftheir backup didn’t show up soon, Nigel would want to stay here until he fixed that thing.

“I improved it. Much more efficient this way.” He grinned at her, the spark back in his eyes. A squat finger hovered over a red button.

She pushed her foot against the wall and lunged for him. A beep halfway there told her she was too late. He’d started the blasted thing up again. She turned her lunge into a painful somersault and rolled onto her feet. Drawing her knives, she faced the machine that had chased them inside the room.

“It works!” he crowed. He scooted away from its treads, alarm flickering over his face.

Her shoulder throbbed. She wondered if a good stomp of her combat boot would do the trick? Was she fast enough to get past the whirring saw blades? “You know, you could have considered not fixing the tiny death machine, right?”

“Improving.” Nigel sniffed, and wedged himself into the corner.

***

This prompt has stymied me for far too long! I work with a LOT of engineers, and reality kept intruding. B. Durbin challenged me nearly a year ago with the following:

“According to Milton, the road to Heaven is rocky and narrow. The road to Hell is broad and well-paved. Therefore, we know which way all the engineers go.” (Professor Michael Bonin to engineering student Ron Palmer, attribution not part of the prompt.)

TE Kinsey’s latest cozy reminded me that engineers love to share information, even when they shouldn’t…and they also like to fix things. Even when they really, really shouldn’t.

Exhaustion

December 22, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Kerri slammed open the wooden door with a bang, tumbled through, and settled into a boneless heap on the stone floor. Her mate found her there an hour later, eyes closed and a wisp of smoke escaping her left nostril with every snore he’d never dare admit she made.

Not if he wanted to stay mated, anyway.

“Baby.” Mike nudged her with a gentle claw. “Baby, come to the nest at least. I brought you a whole cow, and the sand is the perfect toasty temperature you like if you want to get cleaned up.” He devoutly hoped she’d want the sand bath. Her blue-green scales were covered in irregular smudges of soot.

“M’exhausted,” she mumbled. A single eye blinked at him several times, exposing a gold and green streaked iris. The eyelid slid ninety percent closed. “M’up.”

He suppressed a grin, not that she would notice right now. “I can see the first one. Come on, upsidaisy. I got you.” He folded his wings back and shoved his foreleg under her feeble wiggle.

She yawned, fangs pearlescent even in the dim light. Her tongue flickered out, her eyes still half-closed and head swaying. “Food?”

“Food,” Mike said in a soothing tone. “A whole cow, just for you. You have to keep up your energy.”

“Sleep,” Kerri slurred. “Need sleep.” She curled her long neck against his, then nuzzled her snout against his. He could feel her weight leaning heavier against his side and twitched his wing back further.

“Food, then sleep,” Mike reassured her. “After all, you have to teach flame control again tomorrow. For about the next six weeks. And then they start flying not long after that. You’ve got to keep your strength up.”

Well, that woke her. Kerri’s roar must have been heard a block away. He had wanted to stay mated, hadn’t he?

Of course he did. That’s why he shoved a terrified, bleating heifer in the direction of the snarls and ran out the door.

***

This weeks’ Odd Prompt came from nother Mike: “It was always a proud day when another young dragon first blew flame across the room, but it did make teaching elementary school classes for young dragons hard on teachers.”

Mine went to Becky Jones, “I got him!” She waved her prize in the air and wiggled her hips, grinning at her mentor. He gave her a wistful smile, wishing they were as safe as she clearly believed. “I’m afraid they hunt in packs.”

Meteorite

December 16, 2020 / fionagreywrites

The metal candleholder quickly lost its warmth as she left the temple’s tended fires. Lady Elsa headed down the wide stone stairs and headed for the garden. Her free hand chilled where air met her exposed hand, sheltering the emerging yellow flame. It flickered with each rapid step, evening dew soaking into her slippers as she deviated off the pebbled gravel path.

Each novice went alone for their attempt, but they knew the way. She could feel the eyes upon her with each hasty step. Adrenaline spiked her pace still faster, her breathing ragged.

Her feet were soggy and cold by the time Elsa reached her goal. She paused at the arch before entering and set the candle in the empty holder before kicking off her shoes. A deep breath and a hitch of wet skirt away from her ankle, and she plunged through the ivy into darkness.

And entered for the first time, into light. Floating sparkles traced colorful paths across the sky, while glowing flowers spun purple and green bioluminescence into the shadows. A drop of ivy dripped a trail of water, and starlight sparkled as it shattered onto the ground like diamonds.

She stared upward, enraptured by pale grey streaks of moonlight, which broke through the spaces between the darkened leaves. Strands of gold dust swirled around her raised hands, and she broke into a delighted laugh.

Floating with joy, Elsa turned and bowed to an alcove where a figure was obscured among the shimmer, hidden along the wall amidst leaf and bough. “Lady of Star and Shadow.”

The statue remained still and cold, but a bright light echoed from behind the statue’s head. A blackened figure towered over the temple maiden. Elsa crumpled to her knees in a collapsed curtsy of wet skirts and bare feet. She had nearly forgotten. “Forgive me, Lady of the Moon.”

She reached into her beltpurse and drew out the multicolored rock that served as her offering. “I bring you your child of fire and blazing glory, returning to you the lost children of the stars.”

***

I think this one might go further, sometime, but the world isn’t quite clear yet. I don’t think Lady Elsa is the main character, at least not as a novice. Thanks to Leigh Kimmel for this week’s Odd Prompt: “Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye.” My suggestion went to Cedar Sanderson, that an infestation of baby dragons was not as desirable as one might imagine…

You’re a Mean One

December 9, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Celia bustled inside, trailing a profusion of gift bags, tissue paper, and her husband John. His head was barely visible above a series of boxes. A cloud of chatter surrounded her.

“Can you believe those crowds? And the lines. I was only pointing out the lady behind us was closer than the floor sticker suggested. Can you believe how angry she got? Dump those by the tree, dear, would you? Mind the cat.” She sat her baggage down on the floor and collapsed into the nearby loveseat.

He joined her after depositing his own packaging, mute and frowning. He checked his phone. “The door was locked when you came in, wasn’t it? I didn’t get an alert on the security app.”

Celia had taken off one of her shoes and was massaging her foot. “Of course it was locked. Locked before we left and locked when we returned. Oh! Did that naughty cat get into the tree again and knock things over?” She hopped on one leg to inspect the tree, still holding her foot.

“No,” John said. “It’s that odd bottle of wine below the tree. Behind that yellow bag from the shop with the smelly soap.”

She sniffed and put her foot down, then pulled off her other shoe. “Can’t be wine.”

“Looks like wine.” John tapped his fingers on his knee. “Don’t know where it came from.”

Picking up the bottle, she studied the label. “You were right. Bright green, but wine it is. Who knew it came in pistachio flavor?”

A red bow snugged around the glass neck of the bottle, contrasting with the vibrant contents. “Looks like that cartoon guy. You know.” John hummed, dropping his voice to low rumble.

She snorted. “Well, after that – tart in the store, I’m in the mood to try some. Would you like a glass?”

“Of alcohol from mysterious origins that appeared in our home without explanation?” John raised an eyebrow and rubbed a clean-shaven jaw. “I think not. And don’t recommend you do, either. I’m going to take a look outside and see if I can figure out how it got here.”

Celia poohed and rolled her eyes, but set down the bottle on a nearby table. “I’ll get going on wrapping these, then.”

Ten minutes later, John returned. “Still can’t figure out how anyone got inside. The neighbors didn’t see anything – Celia?”

The tree was knocked over, ornaments smashed in a rainbow of vicious glitter shards. A fire burned merrily on the wall, the tip of the tree smoldering as unseasoned wood flickered with the beginnings of flame. The cat cowered from where it hid under the desk, covered in tinsel. Celia cackled, a package in her hands only briefly before smashing one of her purchases onto the floor.

She grinned at him. “Christmas is cancelled at last!” Laughter erupted from her throat in a crescendo, wild and eager.

A glass of green wine sat next to the open bottle, half-empty.

***

I’m not sure this grumpy story is quite where nother Mike’s prompt about unexpected wine should have gone, but I had fun writing it.

My MOTE prompt was a direct trade, and did he ever make the tomatoes wake up and rock on!

What Sharp Teeth You Have

November 25, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Jessica stared down at the spiral mass of fur below. The metal walkway was cold against her fingertips, clutched so tightly her unpainted fingernails turned white.

Anna strolled up and joined her. “You’re really into this.” She tossed her blonde ponytail over one shoulder, the epitome of pumpkin spice and late fall exuding with every movement.

“Turns out, they like the gelatin in marshmallows,” Jess answered absently. “They let me toss some.” Her eyes were glued to the swirling vortex twenty feet below.

“Hmm.” The blonde tail streamed between the girl’s fingers. “So, you about ready to move on? My nose is getting cold.”

“No. The lady said I get to go in with them if I wait.” Jess felt the bridge vibrate under her feet, but couldn’t help her bouncing.

“Jess.”

“Hmm?” She deliberately echoed Anna’s dismissive tone from a few moments before. “Come on, we’re always doing what you want.”

“Jess.” Anna’s voice was urgent this time. She squashed her paper cup of liquid sugar with one hand until the lid popped off. It bounced off the walkway and the barking puppies chased after it below, a new whirlwind of black and grey and white.

“What? You could have hurt them with that, you know. You should be more careful.”

Anna looked at the teeth gleaming white below and shuddered. “Jess, those aren’t dogs.“

This weeks MOTE prompt came from Cedar Sanderson and was inspired by a visit to a wolf sanctuary. They do in fact like marshmallows, and had nearly 30 of them a few years ago!

“The puppies jockeyed for position, finally ending up whirling around the bowl like a small furry turbine.”

Check out the prompt I gave Becky here. Edit: Oops! Last week. My prompt went to nother Mike, whose story is over at the MOTE page.

Edit: Added wolf & wolf puppy pictures.

Sharp and Prickly

November 18, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Fred whistled to himself, only half-paying attention to the green and brown surroundings. Oh, his mother had always warned him to pay attention on the forest path, but he was always alone amongst feathery pines and dead and dormant branches.

No muggers lurked here, far from the city lights and shining asphalt. Here the path was cold dirt and barely discernable under a soft carpet of dead leaves and rusty dropped needles years in the making. It was the way home, and he knew it well, and he did not need to see.

And yet – there was something over there. A red glow, but not the glow of fire. And there, a flicker of green, perhaps a glimpse of yellow. How had a traffic light managed to wander into the forest, this far from a real road and into the woods?

His feet drew nearer, and Fred realized the lights were on all at once. And within the glow, shadowed movement.

He watched, bewildered, as a shaggy, smooth-needled Eastern pine shrugged its limbs and shucked a mixture of Christmas lights from its boughs.

“That’s better,” a low voice grumbled. The limbs sloughed away the holiday trappings with a final shake and shuddered, as if the ornamentation had itched.

“Ah, hullo,” Fred ventured to the plant man. The pine stiffened, and turned around.

It was not a face, per se, but shadows that emulated a face. Fred was sure the tree-man was glaring at him.

“It’s too early for this nonsense.” The plant’s voice rumbled. A branch swiped at the pile of lights and knocked the pile under a bush.

Fred nodded, uncertain what else to do.

“You’d not believe the audacity of some people.” The great needles rose and fell with a sigh of shrubbery. The pine turned and lumbered into the forest, shallow roots easily torn from the earth with each step. “Not even Thanksgiving yet.”

If you’re ever in Pennsylvania, Eat’n’Park is rather a cult classic diner. And in the 80s, had this wonderful commercial that inspired the story when I wasn’t quite sure what to do with Nother Mike’s prompt.

It was a long one for Odd Prompts inspiration this week: “Prompt: Walking along the darkened path, he noticed there was something glowing behind the bushes beside the walkway. He leaned over, and saw a red and green glowing something, apparently tied with bright yellow ropes, just as it struggled free… (inspired by a game commercial … feel free to make the critter in the ropes anything you want!).”

Banquets

November 11, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Cynthia wedged her tongue between her front teeth and kept typing, ignoring the sharp prick of a crooked tooth. Her jaw was set and grim. Legal briefs waited for no woman, especially when the client offered a substantial bonus for getting it done a month early. Especially when her boss accepted the early deadline with eager, grasping hands, greedy to get the firm the prestige and commission. Never mind everything else on the schedule or the deadline still weeks away. Never mind that Cyn had been just outside, eating a bland turkey and cheese sandwich, enjoying the sunlight and blissfully unaware of the pressure cooker her life was about to become. Why would she need to know?

She bit down again, trying not to think about the delay in getting to what brought her alive, away from boring tweeds and cardigan sweaters in neutral colors. The tip of her tongue jolted with bright pain, but kept her from thinking of garlic and parmesan. Cyn didn’t know what she’d do when this trick stopped working to keep her focused. It’d gotten her this far, but didn’t seem to work as well as it had in college.

Legal words and Latin phrases flowed from her fingertips. These words were the boring ones, the eat-your-vegetables of writing for a living to make sure the bills were paid and her sweet Shelbie was kept in kibble. If she wasn’t careful, the words would jumble together, a salad of nouns and verbs, a dressing of adjectives, croutons of propositions that crunched dry against her tongue. Never mind that they needed salt and garlic and parmesan to come alive, to tell a compelling story. The law required both format and propriety, even if her jumble made more sense to the layman.

They’d tried to label it dyslexia, but it wasn’t. not when there were no issues with the words that poured out at night, the words she wanted to write. She was a veritable chef, the words bursting with flavor, all as part of a well-composed meal.

She’d even taken some advanced cooking classes, just to make sure she had the balance down. Sensory details about the environment were salty and popped against her tongue. Salty words brought the scene to life, made the description on the page flow just so, just as salt in real life made food taste more like itself. Careful selection was imperative. Too much, and the dish was ruined.

Emotion, though, emotion always rolled sweet across her tongue. The gooey tang of lemon curd and stiff meringue blended with a shattered crust of grief and loss. New love tasted like sweetened vanilla cream, whipped by hand until soft peaks stiffened into spoonfuls easy to share with a lover. Oh, and heartbreak; heartbreak was bitter coffee, and lessons learned, the end of a relationship just as it properly ended a meal.

The feast of words would have to wait once more. Her tongue throbbed, painful and tasting of copper from the bite Cyn had clamped down upon it. The distraction wasn’t helping again. She’d have to find something new. Enough to get through this one last brief, with a quick bonus, and then to find a job that let the words flow into a regular banquet. What would it be like, no longer having to starve when a feast was readily available?

She sighed, and studied the blinking cursor. She reached out a slim finger and leaned on the backspace key, as her flavors disappeared.

***

This week, Cedar Sanderson challenged me with “The words came out all jumbled together, a salad of nouns and verbs with a dressing of adjectives and croutons of prepositions.” Nother Mike turned out to be the Viking I proposed he write about this week, and may his experiences next week be less eventful.

Also, I don’t know anyone with synesthesia, nor do I have it myself. I’d love to be corrected if I got this wrong.

Forged

October 27, 2020 / fionagreywrites

Darkness never bothered me. Why would it? Darkness is what lets me see the color of the metal, white-orange hot and ready for tempering, molding, shaping to my will. The forge is my life, and I live in the shadows.

Darkness is what lets the light shine bright and sweet, upon the face of a woman or a child. I have brought plenty of shadows to this world already. The look they give me is the same as when they face the darkness, and fear the shadows.

Sweat drips down my face as I strike the mallet against a bar, branding hot, flakes and chips shattering into the forge with each strike. Sweat means heat, means life, and each flex of tendon and muscle in my wrists guarantees an existence. I will never freeze again in this heated environ; no snowy, stiffened days where I can barely move my hands to grasp a hammer. No longer am I desperate for a bowl of soup or a scrap of bread stolen from a windowsill. No longer am I driven to desperation and the darkness.

The irony does not escape me. I learned a trade and left the shadows, only to live within the shadows. I remain on the edges of the world, dusted with soot and charcoal. I would not trade it for the limelight, or even for the sunshine. I know where I, and everyone else, is comfortable where I remain.

Looking respectable increases the irony. The past was always destiny-bound to arrive on booted feet, spurs jangling with each step, swirling darkness in his cloak. It’s why I told that woman to stop pushing her wiles on me. She doesn’t want the chill of shadows. She imagined strength, when I saw only prey. I was once and always quick to anger, quick to the fight, quick to the draw.

I survived, and you know what that means. Just because I learned self-restraint doesn’t mean I lost the instinct.

I hear each deliberate thud and know it’s time. It doesn’t matter who’s here to call me to account at last. It’s not in me to give up a fight, as if a gunfight at midnight is a disadvantage. If I win, if I lose – either way the darkness reclaims me, as it was always bound to do.

***

Leigh Kimmel and I traded Odd Prompts this week. She provided the weirdest music video I’ve ever seen as inspiration. After blacksmithing this past weekend, which option could I choose but the smith preparing for a gunfight? I challenged her to write about a joyous feeling she (or her character) would never want to experience again.

Join Clan Fiona Grey Writes!