Flash Fic Challenge: Surfing the Net

 Surfing the Net

There was what looked like a small surfboard wedged into the bars of the kids' merry-go-round. A man's body lay beside it, face down.

Where had he come from? Nobody knows. Where was he going? Nobody knows.

Only an investigator, slowly circling like a crocodile, considering the scene from all angles.

The man spluttered in a breath, and rolled over with a groan, revealing a pale but otherwise ordinary face.

The investigator froze. The man was supposed to be dead!

The man saw the surfboard, swore softly, and turned to scowl at the investigator. "Family prank," he snapped. "I'm not dead, I just look it when I'm asleep, and they think it's funny to set up fake mystery scenes."

The investigator considered that. It sounded true enough, and without evidence, there was no way to prove it wasn't. "And the surfboard?"

The man gave a small, bitter, sharp-toothed smile. "I'm in I.T. It's a pun on surfing the 'net."

"We would like a statement from you all the same. For our records, of course."

"Of course," the man echoed flatly, and heaved himself to his feet. "Come on then, let's get it over with."

 

X Marks the Spot

X Marks the Spot

 

Love, they say, is a treasure

just waiting to be found.

X marks the spot - try here.

And when you try to tell them

your brain works differently?

Why, that's insulting (to them).

Never mind how you actually feel.

I have treasures in hand,

if I want them - in books,

and music, and film.

I gather my friends around me

who take me as I am.

And an ex marks the spot I stopped trying

to make myself something I'm not.

Flash Fic Challenge: Never Underestimate Little Old Dolls

 Never Underestimate Little Old Dolls

Orinda lived in a little ice house,

On its little ice shelf, in a doll's brass bed.

She was a smart little doll

With a thought in her head

And she guarded the place with a will.

So when burglars crept through the frozen door,

Or pirates climbed through the window,

The little old doll raised her little old head

And she smiled at them from her little brass bed

Until every one of them fled!

And still, they say, in a little ice house,

On a little ice shelf, in a doll's brass bed,

Lives a little old doll, whose smile,

Is red.

Flash Fic Challenge: Waterlogged Notes

 

Notes on the Jane Smith case:

Yes, the client was tied to the railway track

No, we cannot remove the relevant tie from the track and submit it as evidence. Photos will have to do.

Yes, the train did technically go over her.

No, she was not harmed in the process (irritation to the point of foul language does not count)

Yes, she escaped on her own.

No, the train was not derailed by her methods.

Yes, the client is a naiad (whoever thought that someone who can turn into water could be tied up without recourse is a fool)

No, we probably shouldn't mention that to the court (unless directly asked and unable to evade)

Flash Fic Challenge: Dog, Dog, Goose

 Dog, Dog, Goose

I'm the top of a pile of books

Sitting on a stall.

Looking for a buyer.

Sitting very tall.

I'm fond of my first owner,

Who read me, through and through,

But now will pass me on,

If they can find-- Hey! Shoo!

A goose has grabbed my cover.

I'm trailing in the dust.

I'll make you let me go!

I'll do whatever I must!

I snap and clap my pages

Until the beak lets go.

And then I get a short reprieve.

It's quiet down-- Oh No!

A dog has caught me by the spine.

It's running through the Fair.

I really want my reader back.

Oh where, oh where, oh where?

A tether reels in the running dog.

I'm back in human hands.

I shudder all my pages

And wonder where I'll land.

Flash Fic Challenge: Lost and Found

Lost and Found

 

The school sat in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Faded posters still clung to a few of the walls. A handful of never-claimed items still lay in the old lost property box. Some said that on moonlit nights, you could still hear children's voices echoing inside.

Sam had never been one of them, and on this cold wet night, having missed the last bus out of the village, the abandoned school seemed his best bet for shelter.

He found an unlocked window that could be prised open, and climbed inside. It was dry, and cold and bare. Sam closed the window behind him, settled on the ground, and leaned back against the wall.

A draft ruffled a loose piece of paper, leaving it to flap tiredly from the last staple holding it to the wall. The wind whined a little about the corners of the building, and hitched, just a little, like a muffled sob.

Just the wind. Sam sighed, shifted on the hard concrete, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, there was a little child standing beside him, crying in the soft, hopeless, exhausted way of someone who has been crying for a long time and sees no way out of their situation.

Sam groaned, stiff and cold and tired, and mumbled, still half asleep, "What do you want?"

"I want my Okky," the child sniffed. "One of the big boys stole him and I never got him back."

"And you want me to help look?"

The child stared at Sam, mouth open, tears dying on their cheek. "You.... want to help me? You're not ... leaving?"

"Not right now, anyway." He heaved himself to his feet, and held out a hand. "Where did you last see .... Okky, was it?

The child took it, icy fingers clinging to his warm ones, and he shivered. "This way." They led him to the staff office and pointed through the doorway to a box. "I'm not allowed in. Only grown ups are."

"Well," Sam said. "I guess that's me." He let go of that cold, cold hand, and walked though the doorway and over to the lost property box. There, on the top, grey with dust, was a small stuffed octopus. He held it up for the child to see, and the small face lit up.

"Well then." He carried it out of the staff office and offered it to the child.

Small hands clasped the toy, hugging it tightly, and then the child - faded into nothing.

Not even the wind remained.

Flash Fic Challenge: Medicinal Compounds

 Medicinal Compounds

The asteroid mining stations were always pleased when the Pink Pie Tin docked at one of them with her regular load of medicines and other supplies. Not only was it a pleasure to know that they weren't going to run short of anything, as well as to see a new, if familiar face in the ship's captain, but the ship's unofficial cargo load included news and tall tales. Information and entertainment in one, and the captain always told them well.

On this occasion, though, the tale telling (a tall one, surely no one could fly by flapping their ears, even in asteroid-level gravity) was interrupted by two youngsters making a dash for the port, one dragging the other by the hand, and both looking over their shoulders in a way that suggested pursuit.

"They say," the dragger panted, "that you'll let people ship out with you - for a price."

The captain only looked amused. "They told you true. What's your price?"

"We want," the one being dragged whispered, still looking fearfully over one shoulder, "to escape. We... can tell a tale you won't believe. But not here."

"We'll discuss it on board then." The captain made her excuses to the crowd and led them through the lock into the ship itself. Once they reached a cabin, she reached down a pair of tiny vials. "Drink that, it's medicinal." After a moment, she added, "And you'd best call me Lily."

Flash Fic Challenge: Returned With Interest

 Returned With Interest

Tom kicked a pebble ahead of him as the two young men trudged down the country road.

Beside him, Ray reached out and they tangled their fingers together. "Only one more day of walking and then we'll see what the next town is like."

"Hope it's better than the last one," Tom kicked viciously at the pebble, which shot off the road into the hedge. He brightened as the evening camp site came into view ahead of them. "Hey, we made good time! Want to clean up a bit?"

"Sure."

When they reached the campsite, Ray set up the tent while Tom hauled buckets of water from the well. It would have to be a cold wash, but in the heat and dust of the summer day, that was more pleasure than hardship.

Tom had just shucked his travel-stained shirt and was reaching for a cloth, when a sopping wet sponge hit him in the back. He yelped and turned to see Ray there, also shirtless. Snatching up the sponge and re-wetting it, Tom took off after his lover.

Some things deserved to be returned with interest.

Flash Fic Challenge: Time to Run

 Time To Run

Tkkia skidded to a halt and stretched out an arm to kir human companion. His two legs hadn't been able to keep up with kir six legs. "Get on my back," ke told him. "Hang on to my thorax."

Joe scrambled up and hung on with on hand, the other clutching a jagged metal hoop. Their precious stolen cargo was in a bag slung across his body. "I'm on. Go!"

Tkkia took off again, racing down the corridors of the queen's palace, listening for the staccatto steps of the pursuing guards. Ke was merely a lowly worker, was never supposed to be in this place to begin with, but even the palace was a nest, and nests always had a certain logic to them.

Ke turned a corner that should lead to the outside, and found guards storming up the cross corridor. Fear made kir stumble, and Joe leaned down and sent the metal ring sliding, points uppermost, across the floor towards the guards.

Tkkia recovered and lunged forward, fleeing for the door.

Behind them, there was a snap and then a hideous scream.

"What was that?"

Joe chuckled. "We call it a bear trap. Let's get out of here before they escape."

"Good idea," Tkkia muttered back, and made the idea reality.

Flash Fic Challenge: Take Your Cue

 Take Your Cue

Tam chalked his cue tip, and then took aim. The cue ball struck the red cleanly and then veered off towards the cushion. The red ball rolled almost directly to the pocket, hesitated on the edge, and then seemed to deliberately bounce itself out of the corner.

Tam glared. "Keep this up," he told them, his voice as hard and final as the click of handcuffs closing around wrists, "and I'll send you off to the piano factory, to be cut up for keys."

The snooker balls quivered as one.

Tam re-chalked his cue and tried another shot. This time, the ball went in.

Flash Fic Challenge: Whosoever

 Whosoever

The sword waited.

Someday a hero would come seeking it again. It didn't matter to the sword that it was at the bottom of the ocean and might have to wait a long time. Magic kept it from rusting and from dying and from changing. The runes along its blade gleamed softly.

Whosoever draws this sword from this [mud] shall be rightwise....

Rightwise target for the sword to take over. To slide silent tendrils of mental control into the wielder's mind. To encourage mistrust. To encourage swiftness to anger. To persuade into more wars and more fights and the resulting higher dependency on the sword itself.

To quietly erode any other support, turn friends against them, create too many problems to solve any other way. To destroy kingdoms. To destroy lives.

Up on the surface, divers splashed cheerfully over the side of the ship.

Below them, Excaliber waited, the runes along its blade gleaming softly.

Flash Fic Challenge: Going West

 Going West

The two gunslingers paced off the distance for the duel with the Tower of London looming in the background, paused, and then turned to glare at each other down the barrels of their guns.

There was a rising hum of tension, not at all dissipated by the sudden stir in the still, hot, air.

Then a voice yelled, "Cut!" and everyone relaxed while director read the note that the messenger (who had opened the studio door and caused the breeze) had brought.

One of the gunslingers dug a toe into the artificial grass.

The other eyed the painted backdrop of the Tower with a wry smile. "When they said 'Go west, young man, I think they meant a bit further than England."