The "Disposable" Price Point

J.A. Konrath is back from vacation, and brought home an interesting insight. He shares it in One More Nail in the Coffin. The heart of it is:

Kindles have dropped in price to the point where they've become disposable, like cell phones and laptops and digital cameras. Ever notice that you buy a new cell (or computer, or camera) every few years, even if your old one still works?

"Disposable" as a price point seems to have a pretty wide window. To me, it’s a lot closer to $20 than $114 (for the ad-bearing Kindle). Of course, I’m not the people he’s talking about: I’ll use a cellphone or computer until it wears out, or just won’t do what I need it to do. For me, MacBooks have a five-year use life (if they endure the life of hard knocks that laptops are heir to). Since I live in a rural area, and am often doing outdoor kind of things, my cellphones get banged around even more than laptops — if they last three years, they’re limping across the finish line with multiple injuries.

Yes, I’m a cheap so-and-so, and eBook readers are (IMO) nowhere near the “disposable” price point. But fear not, they’re following the same curve as calculators. When I was gifted a Kindle a couple years ago, it was 1974 for eBook readers: $250+, limited functionality. It's now 1976, maybe 1977: prices approaching $99 for basic models, features considered “premium” last year (touch, color) are rapidly becoming standard in the mid-range.

Come “1980” (3–4 years from now), the price wars and standardization shakeout will come. Most of us will have to replace our eBook readers, but that won't matter because they’ll be $49–$79 and will have tablet-like functionality yet with amazing battery life. If what I’ve been hearing about solar panel developments is true, we could see the high-end ($119) sporting a solar panel on the back (again, like calculators except for placement). Lay your reader face-down near a sunny window to recharge it while you’re off doing something else. If you read outside a lot, you could have potentially infinite battery life.

The next step is “1984.” That’s when I had a calculator built into my watch. I don’t know how the equivalent would work for an eBook reader — maybe a goggle display with controls based on eye motion? The end-point is around 1990, where calculators (with solar cells and lots of features) ended up in supermarket checkout racks at $19. The thing is, I don’t think it will take 16 years to get to that point for eBook readers… it might happen by 2020 instead of 2025. Either way, that’s when paper books will finish dying out — when eBook readers are truly disposable.

#FridayFlash: Freak of Nature

This is a sequel to last week’s story, Kate’s Wings. Sonia Lal opined, “this story needs To Be Continued,” and I immediately thought about that adolescent need to fit in. So we continue, nearly five years later…

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Freak of Nature

The screen door slammed behind Kate as she stomped into the summer night, her frustrated growl trailing like a plume of noxious diesel exhaust. “Don’t you understand I just want to be left alone?” she muttered as she made her way to the treehouse, the gravity of the big oak pulling her in the right direction.

She put her hands on the ladder, then shrugged and pulled the back of her tank top down. Nobody could see out here, and it felt good to fly. Her wings, the source of her adolescent embarrassment, unfurled and she rose through the darkness and foliage into the tree house. She alit and sat cross-legged, looking teary-eyed over the endless rooftops; the new moon allowed a few stars to force themselves through suburbia’s glow.

After a minute, the screen door opened and closed again. Kate heard footsteps approach, pause, approach.

“Kate?” her dad’s voice carried up from below. “You okay?”

No, I’m not okay, I’m a freak of nature! she thought to herself. Aloud she said “Yeah.”

“Sweetie… listen. I know it’s rough on you. But… I’m here. If you ever want to talk about anything, and I mean anything. I promise, I’ll do my best to just listen. Okay?”

Kate heaved a dramatic sigh. “Yeah. Okay.” It must have been enough, because Dad turned and went back inside.

“That would be a conversation from Hell, daddy-oh,” she muttered. “You can’t possibly have a freeking clue what I have to deal with.”

“Maybe not, but he wants to understand,” a voice came from behind her.

Kate gasped and spun around, poised for flight. “Who’s that?” she rasped. “Mom?” That would be so unfair, Mom flying up here to continue the argument, but Kate wouldn’t put it past her. Then again, Mom hadn’t ever come up here that she knew of.

“Not Faye. She’s still inside. Trying to decide what to say.”

“Aunt Morgan? When did you get here?”

“Just now, dear.” Aunt Morgan rarely visited, but Kate felt closer to her than her own immediate family these days anyway. “I understand you’re going through a tough time of life.”

Kate sighed and sat. “Oh God, Auntie, you have no idea…” then she stopped. Like Kate, her mom and aunt were both what they called Enchanted Ones, and what Kate called freaks of nature — with wings and the ability to fly — and they had to be going on thirteen once themselves, didn’t they?

“I do know,” said Aunt Morgan. “That’s why I came. Your mom and dad don’t know I’m here yet, and that’s fine because I came to see you.”

“Why?”

“I want to show you something. Will you come with me?”

“Sure. Where’s your car?”

“We don’t need a car for this. Just…” Aunt Morgan’s wings whirred for a moment.

“Fly? Here?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s a new moon night, and nobody will ever see us. Even if they do… well, people are good at not seeing things. Come.” Aunt Morgan took her hand and lifted out of the treehouse. Kate followed without thinking much about it; as much as she hated her otherness, it felt good to fly and she’d resisted it for so long.

After a few minutes, the ground below them opened up and Kate realized they were over the Balsam Grove golf course. Daddy liked to come here on weekends to, as he said with a laugh, “hit a few balls in the water.” Aunt Morgan flashed a light in her free hand, and Kate nearly fell when a response flickered from a copse off to their left. They veered that way and alit on the ground at the edge of the trees.

A woman approached, first shining the light upon herself and then the ground between them. Aunt Morgan did the same with her own light, and the woman looked surprised then bowed. “Lady Morgan,” she said, “it’s an honor. What brings you here to grace us with your presence?”

“This is my niece, Kate Parr,” said Aunt Morgan. “She’s one of us, and it’s long since time she was brought into the fold.”

“I bid you welcome, Kate Parr,” said the other.

“What is this place?”

“This is a grove of the Enchanted Ones,” said her aunt. “We gather on new moon nights to talk, play, and not hide our otherness.”

As the sounds of chatter and high-pitched laughter came from above, Kate turned to her aunt. “Why did Mom never tell me about this?”

“Your mother…” Aunt Morgan sighed. “She’s always looking for just the right moment, letting the good-enough moments slip by. That’s why you nearly gave your dad a heart attack when you flew out of the treehouse on your eighth birthday.” She giggled, a most un-Morgan sound. “I wish I’d been there to see it!”

“Kate?” She turned to the new voice — a light shone in her face, then turned on itself, and there was Heather Smith from school! “Ohmygod, Kate, I never knew — you seemed so normal at school!”

“Normal?”

Heather didn’t have a chance to respond — in moments, Kate was surrounded by girls, many of whom she knew from school. They clustered around her, chattering. “Is Lady Morgan really your aunt? That makes you royalty!” “Your wings are so beautiful!” “How did you hide so well?” “I thought you were normal!” “You must hang out with us when school starts back!”

That word, normal, rung in Kate’s ears, nearly drowning out the chatter of her new friends. She looked around — “Hey, aren’t there any boys here?”

A wave of giggles and laughs washed over her. “All the Enchanted Ones are girls!” one of them said. “Boys never are. With girls it’s fifty-fifty. We all got lucky!”

Kate startled, then smiled. “Lucky. Yeah.” Suddenly, normal didn’t seem all that attractive anymore.

Aunt Morgan always gave the best presents.

Giggle Plus, and a Full Manor

Sometimes, the only way to get a blog post up is to just sit down and bang it out.

I got an invite to Google+ on Friday, and spent a lot of time this weekend setting it up, adding fellow #FridayFlash writers, sending out a couple of invites, and generally feeling it out. It strikes a nice balance between Twitter’s minimalism and Facebook’s overwhelming featurism. I’m using my real name there, as a warm-up to when I start putting my books on various sites.

It’s also a relatively quiet hangout — for now. It reminds me of when I was in high school; the local Baptist church had a “teen center” thing they did on Friday nights. Being in a small town with not much else going on, it was a pretty popular thing because there were lots of table games and a concession that sold various teen-ambrosia (pizza, soft drinks, snacks). It could get a little overwhelming at times… and that’s when a few of us would meander to the Congregational church’s version about a block away. It was much less of a “thing,” having (free) popcorn and a pit group to hang out on, with a checkerboard and chess board if you wanted a challenge. If you needed a place for some quiet conversation, that was it. And that’s what Google+ is like right now, with Facebook playing the Baptist version.

Right now, to get on, you need an invite — sent to an email address associated with a Google Profile. You have one if you have a Gmail address, or have a Blogger profile tied to some other address… which is to say, if you want an invite I’ll send you one.


The manor was pretty well packed when I got here. M.A.E. is here (with Moptop, oh joy) and her boyfriend (who is helping Mrs. Fetched with the chickens), along with Lobster, Skylar, and even EJ coming by. EJ and I hung out in the kitchen to chat for a while. The Boy and Snippet are visiting her mom in Florida, so they weren’t here, but they were here yesterday.

#FridayFlash: Kate’s Wings

A short one this week. I enjoy writing these sub-500 word pieces, not only because I can start and finish them in a lunch hour.

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Kate’s Wings

“Daddy! Look at me!”

“Hi Kate!” As usual, his daughter was up in the tree house he’d built for her last summer. That big oak tree was her domain, and she’d live in it if only her parents would let her.

“Look, Daddy! I got wings!” Kate twirled at the top of the ladder, making him grimace. She did have wings, sprouting from the back of her sun dress.

“Is that what Aunt Morgan sent you for your birthday?” This was Kate’s eighth birthday, and Faye’s sister always sent her niece strange yet beautiful presents. He couldn’t see the straps — it was just like Kate to tuck them under her dress — and the wings themselves were gorgeous. Shaped like a dragonfly’s, they came from her shoulders a deep blue, shot through with streaks the color of Kate’s honey hair, and faded to a near-transparent blue at the tips. The network of veins made them look so lifelike.

“Daddy! Watch me fly now!” Kate hunched over the top of the ladder.

“Kate, no!” he gasped. He knew his daughter: even as a baby, she had no fear of heights, and the bruising mishaps of life had done nothing to teach her caution. He leaped forward, thinking at least I can break her fall. He’d have to tear down the treehouse after this, and that would hurt Kate more than broken bones, but —

She launched herself from the top of the ladder and soared overhead, her laughter nearly drowning out the whirring of wings. He could only stand gaping as she flew laughing under the tree, flitting through the branches as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Catch me, Daddy!” He instinctively reached up, and she alit in his hands. Still in shock, he hugged her to him, taking care not to crinkle those beautiful wings.

Kate looked over his shoulder. “Mommy! I flew! Did you see?”

Faye smiled. “Yes — you did very well!” She spoke like Kate had just tied her own shoes. “Your present from Aunt Morgan came, why don’t you go see?”

“Okay!” Kate squirmed out of her father’s embrace and ran inside, wings now folded against her back. Faye went to her husband, took his arm, kissed his cheek.

“Honey,” she said, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

#FridayFlash: The One-Eyed God

This is another one of those stories I started long ago, didn’t quite finish, then came back to. Maybe I just needed more practice writing before I knew what to do with it. It’s a little teen romance, post-apocalypse…

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The One-Eyed God

The family gathered in the living room for their evening worship. As always, Jason’s uncle Tom spoke the invocation to their one-eyed god:

“Oh SONY, hear our plea: be a light in our darkness, that you may return your light to our darkness. Awake, O SONY, and guide us as you did of old.” He ended the invocation with a snicker.

Jason gazed into the nothingness of SONY’s face, barely remembering when it last filled the living room with colorful images, before darkness filled the world. He was five then, seventeen now. His dad often said they were better off without “that idiot box,” yet come evening he sat in worship with the rest of the family. Jason’s mind, as usual, went wandering during worship time. Maribeth was… he’d begun to wonder if he really wanted her as his girlfriend, especially since this afternoon.


He’d been sitting on the sandy creek bank fishing, hoping to put a couple trout on the dinner table, when Heather Scott came walking upstream on the far bank. As suited anyone hiking the brush, she wore a loose shirt and sturdy jeans with boots, hiding a newly ripe figure.

“Hey, Jason! Catching any?” She swung an empty basket.

“Not yet. What’s up?”

“Just lookin’ for cress. You see any on that side?”

“I think there’s some here.”

“Good! Can I cross over? Where’s your line?”

“Don’t cross here, it’s too deep. Go a little ways upstream and you’ll see a place to cross. If you’re lucky, you won’t get your boots wet.”

“Okay!” She skipped upstream. She was fourteen, skipping was still allowed.

Staring at SONY’s blank screen, Jason guessed things would have been different if that trout hadn’t grabbed his hook just as Heather approached. She saw his fishing rod bend and ran to him, watching him reel it in. It was a perfect size, too: big enough to keep, not so big that he’d have to throw it back. She sat down next to him while he was distracted putting the fish in the creel.

“Ha, I’m good luck for you,” she said. Jason gasped; now he had to kiss her to keep the luck she gave him. In retrospect, maybe she’d played him like he played the trout. He thought, I can give her a quick peck on the cheek, no problem. Heather had other ideas, though: she wrapped her arms around him and locked her lips on his; in his moment of surprise, she unbalanced him. He fell back, with her on top.

What Heather lacked in experience (not that Jason was an expert), she made up in enthusiasm… and after a second, Jason decided he liked it. He embraced her and rolled her to his right, away from the fishing gear, so they were side by side.


A pillow caught him across the head, pulling him back into the living room. “Stop moaning,” his mom whispered.

Jason flushed, but nodded. He watched the blank screen and remembered.


“Maybe we shouldn’t,” he told Heather.

“I don’t think it bothers you much,” she grinned.

“You started it.”

“I guess.” She sat up and tugged his arm; he sat up and she scooted alongside him. “Well, I won’t tell. Are you taking Maribeth Collins to the Summer Day fiesta?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I asked her, but she’s all maybe and I’m not sure and I’ll think about it.” He made a sour face.

“That ain’t right. Dad says say yes or no, and have done. If you asked me, I’d say yes. You’d have to talk to Dad though, he says I can’t have no skulking-around boyfriend.”


A rumbling noise: Uncle Tom snored, then jerked up and looked around before refocusing on the black glass that was SONY’s eye. Jason did likewise.


They got up; Heather found her cress before coming back and kissing him once more, but quick. “Thanks,” she said, wiggling her basket.

“Yeah. Thanks for the luck.” He grinned, then his second fish took the bait.


After worship, Jason hurried at the dishes; it was his evening to wash. “You must wanna go somewhere,” said his mother. “That Maribeth girl?”

“No. Not her.”

“Good. She’s just stringing you along.” She smiled. “Go do what you need to. I’ll finish this up.”

“Thanks!”


Jason found Mr. Scott fixing his old ethanol tractor, Heather passing him tools. She looked up and grinned. Her dad gave him a curious look.

“Can I ask you something, Mr. Scott?”

“I don’t have no extra work.”

“It ain’t that.”

“You want something to drink?” asked Heather. They both nodded and she sauntered up the yard to the house.

“Bring him what I’m having!” Mr. Scott yelled. To Jason, “What brings you then?”

“Um… Mr. Scott, I want to take Heather to the fiesta tomorrow. Is that okay?”

The farmer looked him over. “You don’t run the rabbit around the tree. I like that. You ask her yet?”

“No, but she said she’d say yes if I did.”

Mr. Scott reached into his tractor. “Damn fuel filter again.” After a minute, he pulled it out. “That’s Heather, she gets right to the point too. Well, consider all the my-precious-daughter sh– junk said. You know that spiel, right? Yeah. I mean it all, even if I don’t say it. Understand?”

Jason stood thinking for a moment. “Yessir. I think I do.”

“Good. Now your dad and me know each other, and whatever gets back to one will get back to the other. Right? Right. Well, here comes Heather. You walk her down to the mailbox and ask her. It’s a big deal, gettin’ asked to the fiesta, even if you know what she’s gonna say.” He grinned. “Then you walk her back up here and we’ll drink a toast.”

Jason came home, and saw the glint of SONY’s single eye in the dim light. He placed a hand on its dusty curved top. “Thanks.”

Nostalgia Trip

The Boy, like his progeny Mason, hated naps and would often fight sleep tooth and nail. But I had a secret weapon:



I had an Amiga 500 back then, and “demo” writers would compete to create the most mind-blowing graphics and sound effects that would run. You might not think it much, but remember this was running on 23-year old hardware. Amigas had special graphics and sound hardware built-in, taking the load off the CPU — the name “Wild Copper” came from the nickname of the graphics co-processor. Modern CPUs are hundreds of times more powerful these days, and don't need all the help.

Back to The Boy. At Mason’s current age, he was fascinated with “Copper,” with its spinning wireframes and scrolling text. When he needed a nap, I’d ask him “Do you want to see Copper?” and he’d sit still to watch it, sometimes bouncing to the music, until he slowly leaned back against me then turned around to fall asleep on my shoulder.

Display the video full-screen to get the full effect.

#FridayFlash: The Seventh Sage

An embarrassment of riches: I came up with three stories over the week, and still have a fourth in my head. But I’ll gladly take the hassle of having to choose which of several to post, rather than scrambling to get something — or worse, admitting defeat and skipping a week.

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The Seventh Sage

Dobo grunted and cursed as he scaled the final barrier. “All your riddles… your puzzles… have not stopped me!” he panted. Looking up, he could see the keep once more.

At last! He threw himself up and over the edge of the precipice, onto a narrow path leading upward. He drew his sword, but sat himself in the shelter provided by two boulders. The gods provide, he thought: he could catch his breath and watch both ways along the path without being seen himself. Before him, the Snagtooth Mountains pierced the sky, disappearing into mist, uncounted miles away.

Dobo drank his last two swallows of wine, then clambered to his feet. Sword in hand, he marched up the rocky path. “Four years I have spent on this quest,” he muttered. “Four years. And soon I will fulfill the oath I have sworn —”

Standing before him in the path was a man much like Dobo himself, perhaps a little older. He was armed with a sword, but it was sheathed and he stood with arms folded. Behind him, an open portal.

“Stand aside or die!” Dobo shouted, raising his sword. “I am Dobo of the Northern Reach, and I will not be denied my destiny!”

“You seek the Great Treasure of the Ancients?” the man asked. “Of course you do. I am not here to oppose you, but to lead and guide you. I was once called Marsten of Gran Isle, and I will answer to that name. I remember the Northern Reach well, a land of honest and sturdy people. Come with me.” He turned and walked through the portal.

His innards shouted Trick! Trap! but Dobo was driven by his oath. He scowled and followed, watching everything. No boiling oil fell upon him as he approached the portal. No arrows hissed from hidden openings inside. No pits opened beneath his feet. Still the passageway continued, Marsten leading at an unhurried pace.

The narrow hall ended in a great room, well lit by means Dobo could not see. Armoires stood along the walls, seven in all; two stood open and empty. Hallways led left, right, and straight on. His — guide? host? walked to one of the open armoires and removed his sword belt and mail shirt. “That one is yours,” said Marsten, nodding to the other open armoire.

“I will remain armed, thank you.”

Marsten shrugged. “It is your choice.” He walked to the center of the room, where awaited two divans, facing each other across a low table. A bottle and platter graced the table. “Meat and drink? I suspect you have not had much of either this day. Or are you impatient to claim that which you have striven so long to find?”

Dobo nearly drooled at the sight of meat, but held firm. “We seven swore an oath that only death would stop us from beholding the Great Treasure! Snares and treachery have claimed the others, and only I remain. I may not leave this keep alive, but I will behold the end of our quest — then will I eat. And whatever trap you have set for me? I will face it.”

“There are no traps here.” Marsten pointed to the door opposite. “Through there. Then return and dine.”

Dobo growled, but crossed the room. Again, no traps or snares impeded him. No lightning flashed as he touched the door. He pushed and entered —

A vast library, with more books than Dobo thought existed. As in the great room, the lighting was hidden, and seemed to come from everywhere.

“This… this is the Great Treasure?” he asked the room. Then he considered: books were rare and valuable things, and books of the Ancients would be much more so. He could only carry away what would fit in his pack, but that would be enough to purchase a life of comfort. The Seven Sages and their guard could object, but would not stop him —

He turned at a sound. A group of men and women, including Marsten, stood watching him from just inside the door.

“Then you must be the Seven Sages,” he said, and they nodded as one. “But I count only six. Where is the seventh?” He looked around quickly lest their comrade lie in ambush.

“He lays dying,” said one of the Sages.

“He stands before us,” said another.

Dobo sighed. “Is there no end to riddles? Give me a worthy opponent to fight!”

“Did not dragons or demons stand in your way?” asked Marsten. “And what of men?”

“Not a one! As for men, only brigands and highwaymen sought our blood! Yet every step forward was bought by riddles and puzzles, riddles and puzzles — fatal to those who could not answer them! This was no quest for a man of arms, but a sage!”

“And here you stand. If it takes a sage to find the Great Treasure of the Ancients…”

“I? A sage?” Dobo gave a hearty laugh and sheathed his sword. “A fine jest, my friend! But do I look like a sage to you?”

“Look beyond our title,” said a woman. “Do we look like sages?”

Dobo shrugged. “I see four men and two women, sturdy and foursquare, some older than others. None of you would look out of place in a cohort. So how did you become the Sages?”

“By solving riddles and puzzles, finding our way to the Great Treasure. All began with companions, but all arrived alone.”

“Our lives here are long,” said Marsten, “but not eternal. Always, as one of our number dies, another comes.”

“And how do you eat?”

“We lack for nothing here. We live lives of comfort, studying the books that are the Treasure, and keeping our fighting skills sharp that we may defend this place if needed.”

Dobo remembered the armoires. “This is not what I expected.”

“Nor did we. So we welcome you, as those before welcomed us, as the Seventh Sage.”

Wednesday Wibbles

As always, let’s start by welcoming the new followers:

• Alan W. Davidson 
• Jamie DeBree 
• Tamara Rose Blodgett 

Three writers — go check out their blogs, and give them a follow if you like what you see!

Since I got Scrivener a while back, I’ve been making some pretty good progress on the White Pickups series and have produced a fair amount of shorter work. While I have an outboard hard drive that automatically backs up my system whenever I plug it in (Time Machine is one of those cool things Apple does right), it wouldn’t do me a whole lot of good if a fire or tornado creamed laptop and hard drive alike. I’ve been wanting the same “do it for me” convenience, just for backing up Scrivener projects off-site, so if Something Really Bad happens I won’t lose my work.

At first, I thought maybe the Amazon Cloud Drive would be the solution. If you have an Amazon account, you automatically get 5GB of “cloud” storage for free; if you buy an album from their MP3 store, you get a one-year upgrade to 20GB. Amazon’s S3 protocol is well-documented and supported by all sorts of software, but unfortunately there’s no S3 API to the Cloud Drive per se.

That’s when I remembered, I already have a Dropbox account. While you “only” get 2GB for free, they make things really easy with a driver that integrates your Dropbox with a folder on your hard drive. MacOSX has a nice little scripting hook called Folder Actions, that runs a script when something happens to a folder (say, a file is added to it). Since Scrivener makes a ZIP file of a project in Home→Library→Application Support→Scrivener→Backups whenever you close that project, you can attach a Folder Action to the Backups folder and have it copy new files to the Dropbox folder. Dropbox takes it from there, and automatically copies it to the cloud. Peace of mind!

So: Here’s the script. Create a folder called Scriv_bkup in your Dropbox before trying to use it.

Dropbox also came in handy yesterday, when I realized my beta readers hadn’t received the manuscript. I guess the attachments got trapped in some spam filter along the way. So I just dumped the files into my Public folder and sent the links. They got the files, problem solved.

Now if I could just get more time to write as easily…

Food and Books

As usual, life has been pretty nutso and I’ve been neglecting the blog except for the weekly fiction dump. So I’ll catch up and get to the rest in the Wednesday Wibbles.

Mason continues to be Mason, growing all the time. He actually used the potty chair Thursday morning! No, no picture, Mrs. Fetched dumped it out and I'm not that neurotic anyway. I don’t know if he’s had any other successes since then or not.

Father’s Day weekend has come and gone. It was a pretty nice weekend, all in all. I didn’t spend much of it chasing Mason and Skylar around, but did take Big V to one of her hospital treatments on Saturday. I took the iPad with me and kept up with Twitter while she was getting worked on. Both days, we ended up eating lunch pretty late — like 3 or 4 p.m., and that did throw things off for me. Saturday afternoon, I started mowing the lawn but was quickly chased inside by a thunderstorm (we’ve had three or four days of rain in the last week, so maybe our dry spell is over).

I did do the grilling on Father’s Day, cooking pork chops and salmon on cedar planks. I bought an oven thermometer because the plank instructions said to have the grill at 350°F. It turns out that I need to turn the grill nearly all the way down to keep it that low. But now that I know, I could conceivably bake bread on the grill if I really had to.

The blackberries have been getting ripe early this year. I’ve seen small handfuls of ripe ones in mid-June before, but never where I could go around and pick a gallon of them. The vines are at the point where they’re becoming a nuisance, trying to invade the yard; there’s one clump that actually is in the back yard, but the berries are big and juicy so I let them have the space they’ve taken. Beyond that, the lawn mower does its worst. I’ve taken Mason over there and picked him a handful for snacking — which may have been a mistake. I just hope he doesn’t get tangled up in there trying to get some on his own. Skylar also got a taste; he nearly spit the first one out but decided he liked it.

If this were the only stand, it would be enough for snacking… but there’s a huge stand behind the detached garage and other one on the other side of the driveway. I also found a couple black raspberry vines that gave me about a pint of big sweet berries. All in all, I picked a gallon in an hour or so, and never got more than 100 yards from the manor.

Mrs. Fetched made us a pie today… and we nailed about a third of it by ourselves. I doubt there will be any left 24 hours from now. But that’s okay, for every berry I picked this weekend there’s at least ten more that are still getting ripe. And other stands farther away from the manor (but still walking distance).

My various writing projects are progressing. I sent White Pickups to some beta readers, and am trying not to bite my nails waiting for feedback. I’m about to hit the difficult part in the sequel, Pickups and Pestilence, where I’ll have to stop filling in and rearranging what I’ve already done and move on to the grand finale. I was surprised to find I’m roughly half-finished with it by word count. And this afternoon, I felt a tickle — a disturbance in the Force that says another idea (maybe a Big Idea) is coming. I just hope it’s going to bring me the grand vision that will let me finish this story.

#FridayFlash: Purple Indian

This story has been kicking around in my head for a long time. It finally found its way out.

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Purple Indian

I was riding to work on a beautiful morning, running a little late as usual. But that meant traffic was mostly cleared out. I like to avoid the freeways on a motorcycle, back roads are quiet and usually more fun anyway.

So it was, I was on Old Atlanta Road that morning. I glanced at my mirror and saw a big cruiser behind me, coming up fast, so I eased over and waved him around. I like to ride my own ride, and let others ride theirs.

He came around me, but slowed so we were side-by-side for a moment. I usually don’t like that, but I made an exception for a gorgeous custom Indian Four. Some people go way overboard on the chrome and billet, but this guy knew where to draw the line and stayed well back from it — the paint did the talking, with a few small bits of chrome as highlights. The frame was painted royal purple. The tank and big skirted fenders were the same color, with green checkers — sounds hideous, but it looked great. Worn leather saddlebags, with no fringes or conchos, completed the look. A serious bike for a serious rider.

And he looked the part. You see posers all the time, but this guy was for real. Sturdy leather boots, jeans, an aviator jacket. The only oddball item was the replica Nazi helmet, and yet it looked right on him. Goggles covered part of his face, but he looked young younger than me.

I gave him a thumbs-up. “Beautiful!” I shouted. He gave me a nod and a smile, then gassed it and rolled on by. The final surprise was, I didn’t get blasted by a three-digit decibel tailpipe. There was a growl, but nothing that would startle a sleeping baby awake or upset an elderly couple. Inline fours are a lot smoother than V-twins anyway.

We rounded a curve, and he opened up some more distance, a little faster than I was comfortable going on this road. As he topped a low hill ahead, his brake light flashed and he put his arm out, palm down — the gesture that means Slow down! Forewarned, I eased off the throttle.

Just over the hill, an SUV had mixed it up with a landscaper, pulling out of a subdivision. Both drivers were standing on the side of the road, jabbering into cell phones and giving each other dirty looks. Their vehicles blocked both lanes, but there was just enough room for a motorcycle to squeeze between the end of the landscaper’s trailer and the ditch. On the other side, the purple Indian was nowhere to be seen. I spent some time wondering how he’d managed to slow down enough to thread that needle; his bike was big and he’d been moving at a pretty good clip. Then I got to work and forgot all about it.


Time went by, and a local pub put on a vintage bike show one weekend. I managed to find some excuse to get out of the house and rode down.

As is so often the case with these shows, it was as much about hobnobbing with fellow riders as it is the rolling sculptures. Some of the bikes were beautiful, some — like the guy who strapped a NOS canister onto the front fender of a Honda Passport — were just quirky and fun. I was admiring a restoration in progress, a 1940 Indian Chief, and the owner stepped out of his truck to say hello.

“It runs pretty good now,” he said. “I know it looks a little shabby yet, but I wanted to make it rideable before I made it pretty.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Um… hey. I was wondering, do you know anyone around here with an Indian Four? You couldn’t miss it, it’s purple with green checkers —”

He got a funny look, and for a moment I thought I’d stepped into something. “Uh… let’s go inside. There’s someone who knows him. He’ll want to hear this.”


He led me to a table where an old man sat, nursing a beer. I tried to recall the guy I’d seen a few months back, and thought there might be some family resemblance. My host whispered something, nodding at me, and one eyebrow cocked up. He motioned us to sit.

“Tell me,” he said, and took a sip of beer.

“Not much to tell. I saw him on Old Atlanta Road one morning, and he warned me about a wreck just over the top of a hill. I don’t have a clue how he didn’t get mixed up in it, he was moving pretty quick.”

“Indian Four, purple with green checkers?” I nodded. “That was my brother, all right.”

“Brother?” I was sure he meant grandson.

“Yup. He was part of the D-Day force. He had a Medal of Honor, but he never talked much about that day. Some things you just aren’t meant to see, hey?

“So he came back. He’d been wounded, but it was the wounds up here —” he tapped his balding skull — “that didn’t heal right. And he was — I guess you young folks call it ‘gay’ these days. Not such a big deal now, but back then you had to hide it. Especially around here. So there was this war hero that wore his skin, and himself hiding inside. He bought that motor-sickle, gave it that outrageous paint job, and just — disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Oh, he’s still around. Out where he’s respected.”

He waved, and a waitress approached. “Let me buy you a beer. It’s good to hear from people who see him. I figure it won’t be a couple years before he comes home and takes me for a ride.”

Our New Boarders, and the Boys

Mrs. Fetched brought them home over the weekend, a total but not unwelcome surprise as far as I was concerned. Daughter Dearest calls them Pip and Pop at the moment:

Mason, of course, is completely captivated. Sprite wasn’t so thrilled at first — you brought animals onto my porch! — but suddenly Mason isn’t so interested in him anymore so he’s starting to see the upside.

Speaking of Mason, he’s a little chatterbox. He has uttered the dreaded M-word (mine!) but has many other words he uses as well. It’s kind of funny to watch him pick up a large toy (or something) and grunt “heavy!” A more amazing thing, he can recognize about a third of the alphabet now — considering he’s a few months short of two, I’d say that’s pretty good. The Boy, who could speak in complete sentences by this age, wasn’t that far along with his letters. I was able to read by the time I was four, maybe he’ll be reading early too.

As you can see in the picture, he still hasn’t put on a lot of weight. We’re feeding him, really. He’ll scarf a whole piece of baloney plus a cheese stick, then eat a decent supper… and he runs it all off. Or maybe he’s like Lobster, or my college roomie CS, who can both eat as much as they like and never have it go to “waist.” I keep telling Lobster he’s going to wake up one morning, look down, and go Where’s my feet?!?? but it never happened to CS. Women of the world, feel free to growl and hiss at them both. I'll join you.

While I’m posting pics of Mason, I might as well throw in one of Big V’s grandkid Skylar. He’s not here tonight, but he has spent many evenings (and nights) here at the manor in the last some weeks. Big V is having more of her diabetes issues — i.e. not taking care of business and we all have to suffer the consequences — so between near-daily trips to the hospital and some powerful drugs, she’s not really up to taking care of him.

Actually, it’s doing Skylar a lot of good for him to be at the manor, even if it’s a hassle for us (and Mason, sometimes). He’s four months younger than Mason, and not as advanced, but bigger. With Mason as a role model of sorts, Skylar is learning how to climb onto chairs and feed himself (a little); his balance has improved immensely in the last month or so as well. When he’s not here, Mason will look around and call “Skylar?”

Skylar’s still in the vocalizing-nonsense stage, mostly, but he can say a couple of words. Mrs. Fetched thinks he’s slow… I counter that he’s only slow compared to someone who is able to talk some and recognize letters, but she’s not convinced. OK, yeah, he’s the offspring of Cousin Splat and a female of the rare sub-species of “less brains and morals than Snippet,” but there are some smarts on Mrs. Fetched’s side of the family so I’m holding out hope for him.

Oh yeah… The Boy and Snippet are back together. Again. He’s brought her over a couple times, which got Mrs. Fetched nearly on the warpath, but they (yes, Snippet too) did keep an eye on Mason most of Sunday afternoon and didn’t just ignore him like usual. I don’t have a problem with Snippet being around for lightly-supervised visits — he is Mason’s biomom, after all — and maybe a miracle will occur and she’ll get enough maturity to actually raise him. The Boy is talking about moving to Wisconsin, where a friend of his can supposedly get him a decent job, but I’ll believe it when he’s actually gone.

Book Review: Blood Picnic and Other Stories

Disclaimers: Tony is an online acquaintance. This review also appears at Smashwords and the Kindle Store under my real name.

I admit I started reading "Blood Picnic" with a preconceived notion: that a book of less than 30,000 words would be a quick read, something I could knock off in an evening. It took much longer to finish, even though it held my interest all the way through.

Price/Length: $2.99 / 29,000 words

Synopsis: Tony Noland is a regular participant in #FridayFlash on Twitter, and "Blood Picnic" is a collection of 28 of Tony's flash (1000 words or less) pieces. He helpfully groups them by genre: fantasy, literary, horror, and magical realism.

Storytelling: five stars. Tony packs a lot of story into a flash, and there's 28 of them. I bought this book wishing he'd made it longer, but the stories are well worth reading. I'm one of those people who likes the "peek behind the curtain," so an introduction — maybe at the beginning of each genre section — would have been a nice plus.

Writing: five stars. Tony's a versatile storyteller, and does a great job of making his writing voice fit the story.

Editing: four stars. There's a few typos, but Tony says "perfection is the goal." He has already re-released "Blood Picnic" after making corrections. This is one of the better-edited indie works. I'd like the story titles to have a "section break" to start at the top of a page, is the only formatting issue I saw.

Summary: This one's worth your time. Tony put a lot of work into making it the best he could.

#FridayFlash: The Last Journalist

Is it ironic that this story is 911 words?

---

The Last Journalist

Today, Greg wrote by the late afternoon sunlight streaming in, for the first time I heard rumors of cannibalism. He jotted June 14 above, then continued. The last National Guard food truck came a week ago. Three weeks since the first riots, and the Land of Plenty has become just another failed state. It seems longer, though.

He put down the pen, took Vanessa’s picture out of his shirt pocket and smiled. “You doin’ okay, babe? Bet it’s hot down there in Sarasota with no air conditioning. Sure is hot here in the ATL.” As always, she said nothing but gave him her sexiest smile, looking back over her bare shoulder at his camera.

He sighed and turned back to the notebook.

Nobody knows why, but everyone has heard something or another. Food trucks can’t get through for hijackers, seems to be the most plausible explanation. And the news from yesterday. Most of the other rumors run the gamut from paranoid to delusional.

Vanessa had left just in time, it turned out. With a full tank of gas, and a five-gallon can in her trunk, she went to visit her family for perhaps the last time. He’d had to stay behind; he was investigating how certain people seemed to always have gas for their SUVs. When the fuel protests turned to riots the week before Memorial Day, he was in the thick of things, interviewing protestors, police, and National Guard commanders. Not to mention power crews after the electricity quit. Vanessa kept in touch until the phone networks went down too.

The newspaper closed up over the long weekend, and never reopened. Greg kept reporting, but transferred his observations and photos into a ratty three-ring binder. Someone has to document the end, he’d wrote at the time, it might as well be me. Between the riots and fires, thousands dead and tens of thousands fleeing, much of Atlanta was empty now. He’d learned quickly that even starving looters seldom ventured above the fourth floor once the elevators stopped working, so he squatted in an abandoned fifth-floor apartment near the action. Solar panels and batteries, stolen from freeway road signs, powered his laptop and camera. While he was out and about, nobody bothered a man with a camera. You couldn’t eat it or drink it, after all. But it could draw interest, and meeting the noted local journalist Greg Pilser still got people talking even after everything went to hell.

He picked up the pen, stared at the paper for a moment, then put it down. The conversation was stuck in his mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to put it on paper:

“They say it’s happening up in Midtown.” Just another survivor, looking for enough food to make it another day or week. “Someone got killed in a fight, they cut the meat off his legs and cooked it. I guess when you got nothin’ else…” He shook his head, patted his pistol. “Not me. I got eight bullets left. Squirrels is good, but I wouldn’t want to try possum what with all the bodies around, you know? Anyway, the last bullet in my gun’s for me. I ain’t gonna eat nobody.”

He got up and paced around the living room. A framed snapshot caught his eye, and he picked it up. A little white kid, maybe two years old, sitting on a deck chair. The exaggerated perspective suggested a cellphone snap, but someone had done some Photoshop work on it. He thought about it for a moment, then opened the frame and removed the photo, taping it onto the page near the bottom.

You have to wonder about people, he wrote next to the photo, if you want to hold onto your own humanity. Someone cared enough to work on this picture. Something we need to remember: people are worth caring about.

“You okay, kid?” he asked the picture. “I hope you’re somewhere safe. Where you don’t have to worry about eating. Or getting eaten.” Funny, he’d been squatting here for nearly two weeks and only now had he noticed the picture, standing on the bar all this time. As with Vanessa’s picture, the kid said nothing, just continued to squint at something off to his right.

He flipped back a page and looked at yesterday’s entry. He'd shot and printed a photo of a wary group, carrying sacks and water bottles. “We heard the Guard has a refugee camp down at the airport,” one of them told him. “Worth checking out, anyway. Nothin’ left here but a dead city of dead people. Ghosts will be comin’ soon.”

Maybe that guy was wrong about the ghosts. Maybe. But he was right about the city. Today, he’d heard about cannibals in Midtown. Sunday, it was vigilantes in Marietta and Alpharetta. Verifying those rumors were likely to get him killed, but staying here was just a slower death. He flipped back to today’s page, wrote down the cannibal rumor. Then, between that and the kid’s photo: My work is done here. It’s time to see what comes after the death of a city and a nation. When it gets dark, I’m starting for the airport.

His backpack had room for his binder, laptop, and water bottles. The camera he could sling over his shoulder. He took one last look at the photo before closing the binder. “Maybe I’ll see what you’re up to myself, kid.” He smiled and packed.

Wednesday Post-Vacation Wibbles

It just seemed like a good time to get away… then again, just about any time is a good time to get away from FAR Manor. So let’s welcome the newest follower to the free-range insane asylum:

• Mike Robertson — all things creative is his domain!

I took a few days off work and took Mrs. Fetched, Daughter Dearest, and Mason up to Mom's summer place. (Of course, I arranged it with Mom, who wanted to see her only great-grandchild anyway.) It’s pretty nice up there, what with it being about 10°F cooler than on Planet Georgia and low humidity.

Mason had great fun torturing their kitty…

sliding with Great-Grandma on the playground equipment…

playing on the beach…

… and riding in the golf cart, then fighting sleep tooth and nail the last few nights.

I was certainly not idle: I helped Mom set up a slideshow for her screen saver, finished the self-edit phase on White Pickups, put a copy of it on her Kindle, and worked on another story. The day after I finished the edits, I saw this sign at the back end of the development… and took it as a “sign.” I thought it was pretty cool anyway… if I start serializing the sequel, I’ll include it in the posts.

#TuesdaySerial: The Gods of Evergreen (END)

A long strange trip it’s been for Johnny and Kata. Thanks all for coming along!

Part 1

---

The Gods of Evergreen
The Journey Home

The journey to the Wide Highway was all but uneventful: they took turns carrying Marie when she grew tired, and told each other their stories along the way. Johnny had brought with him only enough food for himself, and Kata had none, but spring brought everything to life and they ate well by hunting and foraging along the way.

A cold snap and snowstorm met them the day they reached the Wide Highway. Johnny again called upon the dwellers in the ruins, and again they answered. They were astonished to see Kata and Marie, but quickly brought all three inside to share their fire.

“It is our custom to ask the names of those strangers we take in,” the old woman told Kata from her seat close to the fire. “You have given us your birth names, Kata and Marie — what of your family name?”

Kata stood in their midst, her voice bitter. “I have no family name,” she said. “The name I was born with has no meaning, the last of my family was taken by the sickness that ravaged our people last year. The family of my husband has rejected me and thrown me into the wide world to live or die as the gods see fit, and I will not honor them by claiming or even speaking that name.”

No one said anything for a long minute. Finally, the old woman spoke again: “Then you shall have a new name. Our friend Johnny brought you back from the abode of the gods, so we name you Godsgift.”

Kata’s eyes grew wide. “An auspicious name, Honored Mother. I accept it with gratitude.”

The snow fell, then gave way to wind then quiet. They filled the time with stories and songs. Marie nestled wide-eyed in Johnny’s lap, watching all the strange new people, until she fell asleep. The next morning dawned cold but sunny, and they continued their journey west. Two days later, they reached Johnny’s village. His friends and neighbors were overjoyed to see him alive — and even more so for his companions.

It was as Johnny said: Kata and Marie found welcome and a home in his village. Philip’s grandmother, the widow Cerise, was a stubbornly independent but kindly old woman; she gave them the run of her house. Philip himself gave Johnny a place to stay for the few days it took for the village to rebuild his house. They used what they could of his old house and added new lumber where needed. His new place was different, a little smaller, but Johnny was pleased as it did not remind him so much of his lost family.


Now you might expect that Johnny married Kata and adopted Marie as his own daughter — indeed, most of the village expected it — but it was not to be. Johnny mourned his own wife and daughter for the appropriate time, and Kata married the strong, quiet Philip during the High Summer festival (to Johnny’s delight, and the delight of all their friends).

Then when Rosa Falconer came of age over the following winter, she made her intentions clear. She began by bringing Johnny hot meals a few times a week, then helped where she could with his winter wheat. In between, she tidied up his house, giving the empty spaces an appraising eye when she thought Johnny wasn’t watching. Over the winter, she made herself a part of Johnny’s life, and as spring approached he began to look forward to her frequent visits. Then, the day before the sun rose over Mount Evergreen, while Rosa was occupied elsewhere, Johnny paid a visit to her parents Martin and Francesca.

“I’m concerned for Rosa,” Johnny told them. “I have grown fond of her, but are there no young men of age for her to choose from?”

“Of course there are,” Francesca laughed. “But she has chosen whom she has chosen. She’s always been headstrong that way.”

“She would have pursued you last summer, after your friends were wed,” said Martin. “But I did make her wait until she came of age.” He smiled and shook his head. “Her first visit to you was the very day.”

“She’s sixteen. I’m twenty-two. You have no objections?”

“We have long admired you, Johnny,” said Martin. “You have always lived out the beliefs of our people. She could do much worse in life. Make her your new wife, with our blessing.”

“And bless us in return with many grandchildren!” Francesca grinned, and both men blushed. And so Johnny and Rosa announced their engagement, to great rejoicing among the village. They were married after storm season passed.

In the years following, Kata and Philip had another daughter, whom they named Sara, and then a son, Jamin. Johnny and Rosa had two sons (Sal and Little Johnny) and two daughters (Kata and Little Rosa). All of the children, including Marie, grew tall and strong.

But Marie Godsgift could often be found standing in the road at the eastern edge of town on clear days, looking toward Mount Evergreen, seeing something that nobody else could. And the Prophets Who Watch the World looked back and smiled, until the day Marie came of age and left her home to join them on the mountain.

THE END

#FridayFlash: The Power Given

This one is a lot darker than my usual stuff. You have been warned.

---

Cameron and Teri pelted up the steps of the church. “It’s not locked!” Cameron gasped. They rushed inside and slammed the door.

“Wait, Cam!” Teri panted. “Where’s Steve?”

“He was right behind us — oh God.” Cameron opened the door a crack and peered outside. Nothing. He stuck his head out, looked around. “Steve! In here!”

Teri pulled the door open wider, looked out. “Steve! Steve?”

A figure stepped into the floodlights in front of the church.

It wasn’t Steve.


Steve had invited him to the seance, but Cameron had only gone because Teri was going. Cam guessed every school had its own Meredith, a girl who took the occult a little too seriously. As for Steve, his grandfather had died and left Steve’s dad and uncle the lake house. The old man didn’t trust banks, and Steve just wanted to know where he’d hidden his cash so Dad and Uncle Phil wouldn’t tear the place apart hunting for treasure. To Steve, the lake house was the treasure. He had plans for the summer.

Cam remembered standing around the pentacle, his left hand in Meredith’s right, his right in Teri’s left. A mist seemed to form in the middle, taking shape… then Something Else clawed its way through, pushing the spirit aside to face Meredith. Cam barely had time to jerk free before it fell upon her, and they fled in unreasoning panic…


They hadn’t got a good look at the thing at Meredith’s, but it was too ugly to take in anyway — looking at it left only impressions of claws, teeth, glowing red eyes. Cam wished he could forget Meredith’s muffled scream as it engulfed her head in its mouth —

“Come out of there and face me!” Its voice was bones snapping and claws ripping up concrete. “You cannot defeat me otherwise!”

Cam and Teri looked at each other, both horrified at the prospect.

“Come out, boy! Or would you rather this woman-child hear how you pleasure yourself as you dream of lying with her in carnal embrace—”

Cam slammed the door shut, thankful the lights were out so Teri couldn’t see him blushing.

“Cam… yuck.”

“It’s a demon! It lies!” Cam took a deep breath, felt for the deadbolt, and latched it. “Maybe we’ll be safe here. It wants us to come out, so maybe it can’t come in. We can go home once it’s daylight.”

“Daylight? I thought that was vampires.” Teri sounded doubtful.

“It’s our best—”

“Fools!” The demon sounded like it was just outside. “You played with fire, now you shall burn!” A moment later, the door shuddered to a blow from the other side.

Teri shrieked. “It’s trying to — what do —”

Cam fumbled in the dark and found a light switch. A fluorescent fixture in the hung ceiling above them lit up the foyer where they stood. Again the demon struck the door; the wood began to crack.

“I hope this place has a back door.” Cam seized Teri’s hand and pulled her into the sanctuary. She pulled loose but stayed with him, letting him lead her to a side door. They slipped into a hallway, as they heard the front door tear off its hinges. Down to the left, they saw a dim EXIT sign.

“Where do we go now?” Teri whimpered.

“Maybe Steve got away,” he said, as they hustled to the exit. “Maybe he went a different way and left us. If we split up, it can’t catch us both, right?”

“Maybe. But then what?”

“You go find another church. This one at least slowed the demon down some. I’ll try to get back to Meredith’s. Maybe there’s something I can find to get rid of it there.”

I hope so.”

“Yeah.” Cam reached for her. “Teri… if we both make it — will you go out with me?”

Teri sighed and pulled her hand away. “Maybe. Let’s both get away first, okay?”

“Sure.” Cam tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Go!” He shoved the door open; they burst into the dark.

Cam ran across the parking lot and into a greenspace. He stumbled into a stream, but followed it, hoping the water would carry his scent away. He heard a scream, cut short, and thought about what might have been. “But probably not,” he grumbled, hating Teri for a few seconds. “Never was good enough for you, was I?”

At a culvert, he clambered out of the stream and back onto the street, shoes squishing on the pavement. At the first corner, he stopped to check the street signs to see where he was —

It stepped into the streetlight at the opposite corner. As Cam saw it, it gave him a hideous grin, showing more teeth than a mouth had any right to hold. The teeth were bloody.

Cam turned and ran, harder than he ever had, hoping to reach the temporary sanctuary of the church. But it was less than a block before a clawed hand gripped his shoulder, talons sinking into his chest and bringing him up short. He was too winded to scream, despite the pain, then the other hand wrapped around his throat before he had a chance to catch his breath. It lifted him and turned him to face it. Its hot breath smelled of rotten meat and sulfur, making him gag.

“Fool,” it said. “The only power I had is what you gave me.”

#TuesdaySerial: The Gods of Evergreen (part 5)

Part 1

Synopsis: After a storm kills his wife and daughter, Johnny Qullio leaves his village to ask the gods on Mount Evergreen why they took the good and innocent. At the base of the mountain, he meets Kata and her daughter Marie, and they share camp at Marie's insistence. On the mountain, he finds only an old man who tells him there is only one God, who is everywhere, and that it is up to Johnny to find meaning to life.

---

The Gods of Evergreen
Part 5: Kata’s Story

Johnny reached the camp at dusk. Marie saw him first, and came running, whooping for joy and shrieking, “Johnny! Johnny! Johnny! Mommy! Johnny back!”

Kata stood from where she tended the fire. “So you live on?”

“It seems I do,” he sighed, Marie wrapped around one leg and babbling her excitement. “I…”

“Don’t talk now,” Kata said. “I have supper ready. You haven’t eaten all day, I think. Eat, then sleep. We can tell our stories tomorrow.”


Johnny’s legs again felt numb when he awoke, then realized it was because Marie was draped across them. She had wandered over to his bedroll in the middle of the night. Kata stood over them, looking at her daughter with amused exasperation.

“Is she snoring?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m not sure whether to rescue you or let her sleep.” She smiled, then leaned down and scooped up the sleeping girl. “Or both.”

They ate breakfast, Marie sitting between them and taking food from both. “So you did not provoke the wrath of the gods?” Kata said. “You came back, after all. Marie waited patiently all day — she only asked about you every ten minutes or so.”

“There were no gods on the mountain to provoke, it seemed,” Johnny said. “Just an old man who told me there was only one god, not many. And that what happened to my family simply happened, and that this god gave us life and gave me the power to determine how I live.” He smiled. “This one—” he nudged a beaming Marie— “reminds me of Little Sara, my own daughter.”

“She is all I have left.” Kata said. “Jamin — my husband — was taken by a sickness that swept our village over the winter. His brother claimed title to our stead. At least he had the good grace to wait until spring to drive me away.”

“And your people allowed this?” Johnny was incredulous.

Kata shrugged. “He already had a wife, or he could have claimed me. My family died as well, or I would have returned to them.”

“And Lit— Marie? Had he no regard for the blood of his own brother?”

“Had she been a boy, he would have been bound to raise him, but… is that not the way of your people?”

Johnny scowled. “Truly not. Forgive me, Kata, but I have heard of such practices only among barbarians. Our people believe — I said this yesterday — that the gods are open-handed to those whose hands are open. We would not willingly turn away a stranger in need, man or woman, let alone one who grew up with us. We are not always friends, but duty holds where friendship fails.”

Kata was silent; even the voluble Marie grew solemn and leaned against her mother after a hug for Johnny. Johnny finally spoke: “Kata, what is in your mind now? Will you go to the mountaintop? I will wait for you here as you waited for me.”

“We have been there, Marie and me. We had barely returned when you came. I went to the altar, that — that I might leave her to the care of the gods. But as I placed her on the stone, a woman entered the plaza…”

“Greetings, sister,” she said. Her garb was simple — a white wrap held by a small brooch at the shoulder, a woven belt around her waist — but Kata had never seen such a pure white. Her tawny hair was untouched by grey, but she was neither young nor old; the word ageless floated through Kata’s mind. The beauty in this woman seemed to come from a deep well within.

But Kata’s bitterness would not be quenched. “Sister? I have no sister, or any other family,” she spat. “And I have no place in this world. I leave my daughter here in the care of the gods, and then I shall live or die as they see fit.”

“If you would give her to the gods, you have come to the wrong place,” she said. “There are no gods here. There is only one God, and he is everywhere.”

Without thinking, Kata retrieved Marie from the pedestal. “Then what would this god have me to do? Watch my child starve and die? What kind of god would throw us into this world, with no succor or appeal?”

The woman frowned. “Your people are hard-hearted, but they are not the whole of the world. It is your decision how you and your daughter live, or die. Be strong and true, and you will find a welcome and a home.”

Johnny sat in silence for a minute after she finished. “If how we live is our decision,” he said at last, “then I will begin by advising you. When you leave this place, go not east, but west. With me. Upon my honor, in my village you will find both welcome and a home. And upon my honor, I will not lay a hand on you without your leave unless it is to save you from injury.”

“Mommy go Johnny!” Marie shouted, jumping up and dancing around the two of them.

continued…

Book Review: The Gift of Fury

Disclaimers: I got this book when it was offered for free back in November. An earlier copy of this review appears under my real name in the Kindle Store.

If you're looking for urban fantasy with lots of action, and don't mind typos, this book is well-worth your time.

Price/Length: 99¢ (US of course) / 68,000 words

Synopsis: Count Albritton (“Count” is his name, not his title — he’s sensitive about that), a self-styled paranormal investigator, is looking into an attempted burglary at the NYC apartment of one of his sorcerer friends. It doesn’t take long for this seemingly routine investigation to turn into a battle for the future of the world and trip into his own past.

Storytelling: five stars. I’m not a fan of clichés like “can't put it down,” but that was almost how it was for me. I kept picking up my Kindle at odd moments during the day to take in a couple chapters. When my battery got low, I pulled it onto an iPad and finished reading. Lots of action and no long stretches of boredom to counter it. Sexual tension is present, not only between Count and his “guardian angel” Kara, but between himself and the vampiric Nerva as well — but no explicit sex scenes for those who are offended by such. Character development was okay, we learn more about each of them as we go, but the villain was just a little too two-dimensional.

Writing: four stars. If you are put off by a story told in first-person present tense, that’s what this is. I didn’t notice until I was a few chapters in, though. About a third of the story is a flashback to events that happened before (the story begins with Albritton in a hospital, recovering from various injuries from those events) -- that was a little gimmicky, but the story itself was strong enough to overcome it.

Editing: three stars. No glaring continuity errors that I saw, the story itself holds together very well. There are far too many copyediting problems though: dropped words, typos, and so on. That cost the book a five-star rating overall. I hope a second edition, and any sequels, addresses this issue.

You can’t go too far wrong for 99¢ unless you just can’t turn off your internal editor. I hope the second book comes out soon, and Jackson splurges for a copyeditor.

Wednesday Birthday Wibbles

It’s not only Mrs. Fetched’s birthday, it’s also Towel Day! You know what that means: today, she’s 42 again! She was supposed to get dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant tonight, but Big V dumped Skylar on us so we ate leftovers and watched Dawn Treader.

Since I haven’t had any new followers since last week, I get to skip that part. I do love the followers I have though!

Sometimes, taking a stroll with the grandkid has side benefits. I found this sign lying in the grass not a quarter mile from the manor, complete with bullet holes. It must have been lying there for longer than I’ve lived here, over 25 years now, because it was never standing along this road. I took a steel wool pad to it to get it to the state you see here (it was pretty grimy). Mrs. Fetched thinks I should give it to either the county or the state, but I figure they just tossed the sign aside — they haven’t used that particular wording for a long time.

A “Pass With Care” sign came with the manor; I want to hang it in the bathroom.

Mason’s second cousin Skylar (yes, with an “a”) has been spending a lot of time at the manor. You can think of him as a half-time boarder if you like at this point. He and Mason play together like two near-toddlers do: when they’re not trying to kill each other, they have a lot of fun. Skylar is four months younger than Mason, but has the in-laws’ genetic heritage that has already made him a bigger kid.

Having Skylar around has reminded me about Mason’s rather well-developed sense of personal space. Mason has a definite bubble, and if another child gets into it uninvited he can get more violent than absolutely necessary. For example, I’ve had to pull Skylar away to stop Mason from methodically whacking him over the head with whatever toy he has in his hand. But bedtime isn’t twice as difficult, because they wear themselves out chasing each other around the dining table, and they’ll chatter with each other in the morning instead of demanding to be let out right away.

The upside is that Moptop hasn’t been around near so much. M.A.E. reached an agreement with the baby-daddy, where they each get her a week at a time. To make matters better (for us), Moptop was sick and someone else got to take care of her. But she won’t be our problem much longer: Mrs. Fetched tonight texted The Boy, Lobster, and M.A.E. to let them know they have until June 1 to find new lodgings. We’re basically done with letting them use our space without much of anything in return.

We’re going to see Mom in North Carolina week after next. Brand X is graduating from high school over Memorial Day weekend, so Mrs. Fetched is videotaping that, and I got tagged to preach this Sunday. That means the creative energy I’d be putting into a #FridayFlash will instead go toward a sermon. Such is life.

But with the deadwood out of here, it will at least be a quieter life!

#TuesdaySerial: The Gods of Evergreen (part 4)

Part 1

Synopsis: After a storm kills his wife and daughter, Johnny Qullio begins his journey to Mount Evergreen, home of the gods in the faraway east. There he will sing his lament to the gods and demand to know why the good and innocent were taken away. At the Wide Highway, he is taken in by hidden dwellers of an otherwise abandoned town. On the tenth day of his trek, he reaches the base of Mount Evergreen and meets a woman and her young daughter. The little girl instantly takes to Johnny, and he spends what may be his last evening in their company.

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Part 4
On the Mountain

Johnny left before dawn, carrying only his water skin. He set off at a jog, hoping to be gone before Marie awoke and demanded to walk with him. In this he succeeded, yet he continued his rapid pace. Without the weight of the pack, he felt as light as a feather. The morning wore on, yet the air remained cool — perhaps a favor of the gods, or just the vagaries of spring weather. Finally, the way grew steep and then turned to steps. Skeletal oaks, just now budding out, gave way to pines that closed in on the path.

This high up, the path alternated between long flights of steps and long stretches of near-level ground, until steps zig-zagged up and up, disappearing into the pines. Johnny climbed, his questions and his lament fixed in his mind.


At last, Johnny reached the top, his legs rubbery, and looked across a broad plaza, ringed with pines. The plaza gently mounded toward the center, surmounted by a small pedestal. The sight reminded him of Sara’s breasts, broad and low but proud… he wiped away a tear and marched to the pedestal. Climbing atop it, he drank the last of his water and spoke:

“I am Johnny Qullio, son of Arthur, of the village west of the Wide Highway!” he called. “I now summon the gods to hear my lament for my wife and daughter, Big Sara and Little Sara, and to answer my questions! And when my questions are asked and answered, you may do with me as you will!” He looked upward, closing his eyes against the noon sun, and sang his lament.

As he finished, his legs no longer held him up. He lowered himself as gracefully as he could, and sat. Looking up, he saw an old man in a worn grey tunic standing at the edge of the plaza. His long grey hair and beard matched his garb. The staff he carried made Johnny think of old stories of wizards…

Seeing that Johnny noticed him, the old man nodded and made his way to the pedestal. Johnny tried to stand, but could not; he bowed as best as he could while sitting and waited for the elder to speak.

“You sing your lament here?” the old man asked. “Why not in your village, where your friends and family could lament with you?”

“They will sing their own lament, and perhaps they will sing mine as well,” Johnny said. “But the gods took my family from me, thus I thought it fitting that they should hear what they have done — and then I can ask them why before they deal with me.”

“Gods?” the other asked, stressing the S. “What are they teaching you in the wide world these days? There is only one God, and he is here but he is everywhere. But tell me: what happened?”

“It was a lifetime ago. It was eleven days ago. A storm came upon our village, and we were in our house, playing a game to keep Little Sara from worrying. Sara rolled her ball across the table to me, and it rolled off and bounced under the table. As I crawled under the table to get the ball, I heard a great gust of wind, and the roof came down on us, as if the gods stomped our house flat. The table collapsed on top of me, but other than a few scratches and bruises I was unhurt. Big Sara and Little Sara, though — the gods, or the god if you are correct, took them. And I have come to ask why them and not me. Big Sara was kind and generous, and Little Sara was a child no older than one I met on the way.”

The old man shook his head. “God has set the earth in motion, and not all things that happen to you are because of his favor or wrath. What happened at your house, I think — the ancients had a word, downburst. It is a great wind that blows straight down from the clouds, or near enough. A tornado, the wind that spins, would have lifted your roof away and then knocked your walls in.”

“Then… then you’re saying there was no purpose to this? This god seems to care little for his creation, then.”

The old man shook his head. “No. God cares deeply about his creation, and his people. The ancients nearly destroyed His creation, long ago, and now the earth has mostly healed. But it is your duty to give your life meaning or purpose. If you do not curse Him or yourself, perhaps God will restore you — no, your wife and daughter are gone, but in time you may find yourself raising another family.”

“This god… does he have any power at all? What kind of god does nothing?”

“Of course he has power. He has used it to give you life. And he has given you the power to determine how you will live the rest of your life.

“And now… your legs? Are they feeling stronger? Here, drink this.” The old man handed Johnny a flask of a liquid that proved to have a strange taste. “This will restore your strength so you can return to your camp before dark. But walk, don’t run. You have time.”

continued…

#FridayFlash: Chimera, Inc.

Based on a writing prompt by Maria Kelly. What would come of a god bringing three mad scientists from the far future?

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Chimera, Inc.

A young slave girl knelt before Zeus. “O father of gods,” she whispered, “your servants from Faraway have sent me to your august presence. They wish to inform you that they are ready to show you wonders.” She remained silent in that position.

A pretty piece they sent, he thought. Next to him, Hera scowled, watching him watching her. “Inform my servants that I will visit them shortly. That is all. Depart now, with my blessing.” She clambered to her feet and sprang away, graceful as a gazelle. His blessing marked her; when his meddling wife was elsewhere, he’d perhaps summon her to him.

“These new servants trouble me,” said Hera, still scowling. “They depend far too much on their machines. What virtue is there in work not borne of honest labor?”

Zeus shrugged. “They do things no other men, Greek or barbarian, can do. Certainly, I could call forth wonders with a word —” but as you say, where is the virtue in that? These servants do labor with their hands, as well as their machines, and so there is at least some virtue in the fruits of their labor.”

“Mark my words, husband: no good will come of this, neither to gods nor men.” Hera walked a few steps, then turned, fixing her stony glare upon him anew. “And think not that I missed the import of your blessing… upon a slave, no less. Your indiscretions grow ever more flagrant.”

Zeus glowered as Hera departed. Had he one of Vulcan’s thunderbolts at hand…


As was their wont, the visitors from Faraway wore their usual garb: white cloaks with sleeves and pockets. All three gave their usual perfunctory bow when he walked into their presence —” paying him no more respect than would a godling, but did not their work make them near godlings? Besides, all the bowing and scraping had its place, but it could get boring. “So,” he said, “you have something to show me?”

“Indeed we do, sir!” said one of them. They had told him their names when he brought them through Time, but he promptly forgot them. And “Faraway” was easier than “Twenty-fourth Century Pacifica,” whatever that might mean. “Right this way, uh, if you please.” They went through an open door and down a hallway. Anywhere else, this would be dimly lit by torches, but the servants brought their own wonders with them. They had a use for old Heron’s steam device, making the kind of power needed for their lighting and other machines —” at least slaves cut the wood, brought water, and fed the fire. Thus was an interior corridor near as bright as day.

They came to a door on the right, and one of the servants opened it. “This is the result of a lot of hard work,” he said. “We had issues with tissue rejection and blood types, of course, but getting the neural pathways right was the real bugger.” He chattered on, but Zeus quickly grew bored.

“Is it alive?” he asked, looking at the creature lying its side.

“It’s sedated,” another servant said. “Surgery, bone grafts, muscle connections, all that… it would be in a lot of pain right now. It’ll be up and around in a week or so.”

“Check this out!” the third one said, pushing an extensible pole through the bars. He slipped it around the back side of the creature and slid the tail out.

“It’s mostly a lion…”

“Yessir. But you see the goat head on its spine. Growing the support for that was a bugger.”

“And the tail’s a snake!” said the one with the pole. “Is this not the coolest thing ever?”

“Amazing, simply amazing,” the god assured them. “Have you named it?”

“Oh, no sir. We wanted to let you name it.”

“Very well: its name is… Chimera.”

The servants grinned and slapped each others’ hands over their heads, a gesture Zeus understood as celebrating an accomplishment. “Very well,” he said. “Your slave said wonders. There are more?”

They quickly subdued themselves. “Yessir,” said one, “but this one’s farthest along.” He turned to his comrades, and they whispered among themselves for a moment. “There’s two others. This way?”

The next wonder had Zeus nodding, both in agreement with its “coolness factor” and in need of a nap for their endless meaningless exposition. “Same issues as, uh, Chimera, with weight as an added wrinkle,” he said before Zeus stopped listening. “We had to do a ton of genemod on the horse to get the weight down. The wings are a real bugger, sir. They have to hold him up, plus anything he’s got on his back —“

“It will carry a man?”

They whispered again. “Probably not,” one admitted at last. “A woman, maybe, or a kid.”

“A goat?”

“Sorry. A child.”

Zeus thought a moment. “It will do. I name it Pegasus.” Again, the celebratory hand-slapping. “Anything else?”

“One more, sir. Not as complete, but I think you’ll get the idea.”

They stood looking at the misshapen thing. “We wanted to use human hips and legs for this one, but… well, they wouldn’t carry the weight. The gorilla in your menagerie —“

“The what?”

“The big hairy man-like creature you brought from Egypt.”

“Ah.”

“Right. Well, we needed the whole body. You can see how we’re grafting the bull’s head onto it. But we’re giving it a human brain.”

“That’s really tricky,” another one cut in. “We had to modify the head to make the brain fit. That wasn’t a big deal, but the neural connections — even to a gorilla’s body — are a real bear.”

“Bear? This is part bear too?”

“Oh, no sir. That’s just an expression.”

“Well, when you finish it, I name it Minotaur. Return to your labors. I am pleased.” Zeus departed, leaving the three celebrating in his wake. And he was pleased. These monsters would strike terror into the hearts of men, and they would sing of Zeus forever.

I’m Versatile!

I haven’t received one of these award things in a while, but Angela Kulig broke the drought. Thanks much, Angela! Angela’s one of the bumper crop of indie writers that have sprung up in the last few years. Her YA urban fantasy romance, Pigments of My Imagination, should be out soon. She was kind enough to post the first chapter.

You know the drill: admit to seven random facts about yourself, pick five more people to receive the award, let them know they won. So… here’s my magnificent seven, so to speak:

1. Despite the hassles, I’m enjoying raising my grandkid. Don’t tell Mrs. Fetched!
2. On my bucket list: produce two documentary films, one about chicken ranching, the other about fortune tellers and their customers. Both as unbiased as I can make them.
3. I enjoy most forms of electronic music, including hard/Goa trance, drum&bass, ambient, and others. I also like Christian hip-hop and metal. Yes, I’m in my 50s. Why do you ask?
4. The reason I have a motorcycle is to save gas. Little Zook gets around 60 miles/gallon. It, like TFM, is versatile: it has off-road suspension, so I can take it pretty much anywhere on the in-laws’ farm if I’m careful and the ground isn’t muddy (street tires).
5. I fully intend to have an anthology of short stories, and White Pickups, available on various eBook outlets by the end of the year. At that point, I’ll have to put the pen name “FARfetched” aside.
6. It’s more than a little spooky how events in FAR Future (see the Pages listing) are already happening. No rolling blackouts or $8/gal gas (in the US) yet, but the Pat-Riots are teabaggers by another name. Keep in mind, I was writing that part of the story in 2007.
7. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I firmly believe that people are essentially good and want to do the right thing.

Now comes the fun part: who are the lucky five? I pass this award to:

• Patrick Hester, for being highly versatile as well. He writes, produces podcasts, blogs, and holds down a dayjob.
• Marijan, who raises an autistic kid and still has time to write and express her particularly sarcastic sense of humor.
• Beth, who has the ability to pack up and go anywhere her desires lead. Funny how I envy her footloose life, and she envies my ability to put down roots.
• Helen, who writes and reads… the Tarot.
• John Wiswell, because he can write about just about anything.

Whew! That was more work than I thought…

Wednesday Wibbles

Pull up a chair, pass the bottle around, it’s chit-chat time!

A minor milestone, but a milestone all the same: 50 followers! What a nice sixth blogiversary present! Let’s all welcome the newest visitors to the free-range insane asylum:

• Jason Coggins, aka @JaseCoggins on Twitter. More below.
• Rexcrisanto Delson, aka @igorotdo on Twitter. He has a book coming out next month!
• Michael Tate, aka @Michael_A_Tate on Twitter. He’s a physicist and novelist (now how cool is that? Really!)
• Helen, aka @helenscribbles on Twitter. Writer, Tarot reader (another slice of coolness), and follower #50! And a writer of cool stuff. And a lady.

Alright… I’ve been devoting these wibble-posts to people following me. What about me? What am I following, besides a near-novel’s worth of #FridayFlash stories every week? Let’s have a look… first, the serials:

• Bloggin' Brimstone by Jason Coggins. I found it at the end of the “first season,” and it freeking blew me away. Now the second season is underway. Think “cyberpunk Hell” with a really sarcastic main character, and you’ll get the idea. Just read it.
• Meanwhile in Space… by Xanto Jones. It’s space opera, of course it's a fun read!

If you’re looking for more, check out the Tuesday Serial site. I might have started FAR Future and White Pickups before there was such a thing as #TuesdaySerial, but there’s plenty of material to choose from these days! (Speaking of which, have you been following The Gods of Evergreen?)

That’s some of what I’m reading at home. In the car, I listen to podcasts. With an hour to and from work, I have plenty of opportunity to listen to stories, interviews, and whatever-ness:

• Star Trek: Defiant — I started listening to this a long time ago, and during my 3-year podcast hiatus they kept producing a new episode each month. So now that I’m listening again, it’ll take a while to catch up.
• Escape Pod — a science-fiction magazine, in podcast form. There’s a new short story every week, some original material and some “reprints” of stories that originally appeared in print magazines.
• Podcastle — the fantasy sister to Escape Pod.
• ShadowCast Audio Anthology — a horror podcast. I submitted something to them last night, so keep your fingers crossed. One of the nice things about the smaller markets is that if they do reject your story, they take the time to tell you why.
• Functional Nerds — media, technology, and gadgets. Hosted by my blog-buddy Patrick Hester and musician (and Twitter pal) John Anelio (who posts sci-fi songs on his blog every week or so).
• SFsignal — author interviews, hosted by the Functional Nerds gang. I was wondering earlier how Patrick does it: he has a day job, does two podcasts every week (huge time sink in my experience), writes, and blogs. Then I realized: he isn’t married!

There’s more, but that can get its own post tomorrow. It’s another blogiversary present.