FLASH CHALLENGE: March '08

[kailhofer]

The challenge was: To use a memory of a poignant or embarrassing event from any point in the author's past and to remake that in a new, speculative fiction way.

THE FOLLOWING ENTRIES WERE RECEIVED:


[center]The Bay Room Door[/center]



The drill sergeant didn’t need to shout – he was six feet seven inches tall with shoulders wide as a train track, nut brown skin, and a set of gimlet eyes that I knew, instinctively, not only saw when the sparrow in the wood fell, but had probably lasered the damn thing.

The sergeant did not need to shout, but he did.

“Who can tell me what this is?”

A gaggle of idiots raised their hands.

“You, Private Volunteer,” said the Sergeant, pointing at one of the brownnosers.

“It’s a door, Drill Sergeant.”

“A door? A door? You think this is a door!?” screamed the man who had a few minutes before introduced himself as our new mommy, daddy and sweet Aunt Agnus. “You got to be hosing me, Private. Get up here!”

The boy – he was no more than eighteen and looked perhaps a big thirteen – jumped to his feet from the cold bay room floor and stood at attention before the sergeant. His forehead barely reached the five rows of brilliant Terran Army ribbons on the big man’s chest.

“Put your nose against it, private.”

“Sergeant?”

“Put your nose against that door, private, before I do it for you. Good. Now take a good whiff, does it smell like a door?”

The boy sniffed. That might have been funny if I had seen it on TV or at a movie, but not now, not here.

“Um, yes, sergeant?” quavered the boy.

The sergeant keyed the door open with a badge he flipped from his pants pocket. The bay room door whizzed upward, scraping the boy’s nose in the process. To his credit the private flinched, but did not step back.

Bright sunlight spilled into the barracks, mitigated from deathly rays of burning heat and radiation to mere comforting splashes of yellowish beams by the highly polarized plasma shields encasing this end of the station. Our mother star hung, partially eclipsed, just over the darkened disc of the Earth in a black blanket of stars. Collectively we blinked, but no one was dumb enough to “Ooo” or “Ahh”.

In the near view, a green steel walkway lay beyond the door with a cement stairwell leading downward. Below us our brother unit was probably receiving the same object lesson in the lower bay.

“That like any door in your mama’s house?” asked the sergeant.

“No sir,” said the boy.

“’Cause it ain’t just a door. Look out there, all of you. The only thing between you and a case of the cold explodies is a thin shield of energized plasma. If that shield should ever fail, this door could save your lives. Go sit down, private.”

The sergeant keyed the door shut.

“Each of you will take turns manning this portal. It has been programmed to recognize your bio-signatures and my keycard. It will NOT open from the outside. When you perform portal post, you WILL ask anyone, AND I MEAN ANYONE, who approaches this portal for proof or identification. If that person cannot produce a red card like this one, you will refer him or her to the CQ.”

The sergeant passed around his keycard for each of us to handle. He also showed us how the person requesting entry should pass the card through a secure drawer beside the entryway. Then we each took a turn opening and closing the door.

“Now that you have all mastered portal post, it’s time for a little run. Out to the track, the lot of ya, and don’t forget your water! Except you.”

My heart froze. Despite my best efforts to blend into the crowd, to become as invisible to non-commissioned eyes as a speck of cotton on snow, the sergeant was looking at me.

“You got portal post, Private.”

I swallowed. “Yes, Sergeant.”

The others filed out, sparing me no backward glances. In less than a minute I was alone in the bay with its smell of bleached floors and young men’s sweat. I turned to look around my new home.

“DOOR GUARD!”

I jumped. Hell, I almost wet myself.

The voice had come from outside.

“DOOR GUARD, GET OUT HERE!”

My heart launched from rest to Olympic sprint in the space of three seconds and I instantly began to sweat in my new Terran Army fatigues.

Had I done something wrong?

“DOOR GUARD, YOU HEAR ME?!”

The sergeant had said not to open the door . . . except he was the sergeant. Shouldn’t I open the door for him? He had that red badge. I had handled it not five minutes ago.

“DOOR GUARD! GET OUT HERE NOW!!”

I opened the door and stepped out. I was shaking.

“Yes. . . sir?”

No one stood on the green balcony, or on the stairs. Tentatively, I peered over the railing.

A sergeant stood there bedecked in Terran Blue, but not my sergeant. It was my brother unit’s sergeant. And he wasn’t looking at me.

I was safe. I was not in the rough. I was –

The door swooshed closed behind me before I could half turn around.

Frantic, I tried pushing it open, but to no avail. On this side the door was as seamless as the surface of a still pond.

I turned and gazed into space beyond the plasma shields, despairing. I would have to find the sergeant and tell him I had locked myself out of our bay room. I would probably be washed out of the Army, and on my first day. I’d probably have to go back to Kentucky and work on my brother-in-law’s chicken farm. Chickens really, really stink.

The door swooshed open behind me.

A soldier, the one the sergeant had made a spectacle of earlier, stood there, wide-eyed.

“I forgot my canteen,” he said, as if apologizing.

I dove through the open doorway, stood, and keyed it shut in his face. Only once the door was sealed and silence descended, did I dare breathe.

[center]The End[/center]

[hr][hr]


[center]Hatred of the World[/center]



I brooded alone on a park bench within the bio-dome, ignoring the artificial world on an artificially sunny day. My fifteen-year-old mind focused on fifteen-year-old things, things I would later learn to be of little consequence. To a boy not yet a man, they were important things, even if only to linger in memory as faded echoes.

My self-imposed isolation shattered as a basketball slapped sharp against my cheek. Through the sting and sudden adrenaline, the figure of a leering teenager a year older stood in the middle of the red haze of vision. He was cyber-enhanced, large, mean, and looming, even from afar. I couldn’t recall his name, but I remembered his taunts in the hallways of academy. I assumed him a year older, but he might one of the countless held back mechanical misanthropes wandering this Mars town.

I rose to my feet without realizing it, my fists clenched.

“Hey monkey, give me the ball,” he commanded in a deep voice, his ugly face with its ugly fat nose split by an ugly, crooked grin. “Come on furry, give me the ball.”

I learned it’s hard to be a minority. It’s worse when you’re a minority to other minorities. I felt an irrational shame for my chimpanzee heritage, as if I deserved to be the focus of their hatred of the world.

“Give me the ball, chimp.”

I reached down and picked up the dull, worn sphere, only vaguely orange. I had a decision to make, and quick.

“You deaf, you fucking faggot chimp? Give me the ball.”

My hands tightened around the basketball. If I gave it back, he would throw it again. I only forestalled the inevitable. I made ready to heave it into that grotesque mug, to charge into my larger foe. With my blood, I would buy a few weeks of grudging respect until my next beating.

A rough hand shoved him in the side of his face and knocked him down. He hit the concrete hard. Looming over him was an overweight miner. I knew him to be Joe, a proud “true” human from Earth whom somehow, by cruel Providence, wound up in this hellhole.

“You causin’ trouble, sparky?” he mocked. “You causin’ trouble, robo-boy?”

My tormenter lay on the ground, a mix of fear and defiance simmering in his dull eyes. Although far superior physically, he knew it against the law to tangle with a pure. He continued to cower as Joe prodded him with a toe.

“You ain’t so tough,” continued Joe. “I’ve never seen one of you tinheads pick a fair fight.”

I should have been jubilant. I should have laughed with him, but Joe never looked at me. He wasn’t doing this for my benefit. Just like the cyber-enhanced wasn’t only mad at me. Just like me brooding alone beneath a false sun.

Joe walked away, cursing those “damn robots” and lamenting his fate on the red planet.

My bully picked himself from off the ground. I saw something profoundly miserable in his expression, something I identified with. I handed him the ball. “Here you go,” I said.

I left him standing there, not another word spoken. He never said a hello or a thank you afterward. He never so much as glanced at me.

He never picked on me again.

[center]The End[/center]

[hr][hr]


[center]Freedom[/center]



As long as the boy could remember he had dreamed of freedom, but he was earthbound. He longed to see the world outside his little street in his little hometown. He knew there were greater things out there – exciting, adventurous things. He didn’t have a name for these things, but he knew they were there.

For some time now, that greater world beyond his neighborhood had beckoned to him, waited for him. But he was earthbound; his only means of locomotion his two small, thin legs. He understood his limitations but he wanted to see more, to experience more. He wished to explore, discover, learn.

“You’ll have to work for it,” the elders told him.

“I will,” he promised.

“It won’t be easy.”

“I can do it.”

And he did do it. He worked after lessons and in his free time. He saved what he could. Finally there was enough.

“It’s easy,” his brother told him, pushing him forward from behind. “Just keep moving. Reverse to stop. You can do it.”

But he couldn’t do it. He was afraid. He couldn’t keep his balance, nor brake properly. He despaired of success. He was ashamed. The dream of freedom eluded him. He felt a fool.

“Try it again,” his brother said, pushing him on.

The boy did try, and hard, but he could barely keep himself upright. He took off down the hilly street out of control, his brother running behind calling his name. A fast-moving floater car came up the hill towards him. The curb on the side of the road stuck out treacherously. He was trapped and braked badly. He shot over the curb and flew forward onto the ground landing hard, rolling to a stop by a shrub.

“Are you okay?” his brother asked, worried but trying to hide a grin.

“Yes,” he said, spitting out dirt and grass. “Stupid thing.”

His left arm was scraped and he had skinned both knees – not bad enough to cry about but they felt tight and burned. Freedom didn’t seem to matter much then, he only wanted to go home and hide. Too many people had been watching, too many had seen his stupid fall.

“Aren’t you ever going to try again?” his brother asked several days later.

“I don’t know,” he said, face reddening.

Failure was a terrible thing. Everyone knew when you failed. And you felt a fool. When everyone else could do something and you couldn’t, it was embarrassing. You had to try again. No matter what. But it wasn’t easy.

He remembered hearing one of his old uncles say, a man who had flown far above, far into the deep, azure, double-sunned sky: “If it’s too easy to do, it’s not worth much.” He didn’t quite understand that but he thought it meant you should try and try again. So he did.

He stayed on flat ground and practiced when no one was watching. He got rid of the wobble that had caused his wreck, learned to turn around, mastered braking. He made safe forays on the streets around his house and began to get comfortable.

He went faster then, standing up as he roared past his house, around the corner, down alleys, seeing his neighborhood from a different perspective. He joined other kids from the neighborhood, zooming along with them in the afternoons. He got better and better each day, built his confidence, lost his fear and embarrassment. And then it happened.

It was a Saturday morning in late spring, school was almost out and the world was turning green again, the days warm and bright.

“Let’s go down past the tracks,” one of his buddies suggested, “back of the shanty houses and shoot over the big culvert to the depot.”

The boy had never ventured outside his own neighborhood except on foot before and the suggestion filled him with nervous excitement.

“Yeah,” another buddy cheered.

“Let’s do it,” a third agreed.

With enthusiasm, the boy followed his friends down a steep road near his house, made a sharp right onto a narrow lane that paralleled the railroad tracks. He worked hard to stay right up with his pals. At the end of the narrow lane their path crossed the tracks and then dropped down another small hill where they would turn back left and head for the big culvert and the train depot well beyond their neighborhood to the north.

Shooting over the railroad crossing, the boy heard his friends laughing joyfully as they raced along ahead of him. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a wave of emotion swept over the boy bringing a sensation he had never known before. He felt himself flying, cruising above the earth, shooting out into the heavens, to the very stars themselves.

He was free. He had made himself so. All the fear was gone, the shame, the embarrassment. He was competent at last, unafraid, happy. Yes, happy. Happy to be free. He could go anywhere he wanted to now, anywhere. He had broken loose. It was all ahead of him: the travel, the adventure. He saw himself flying unfettered through a great blue sky of possibilities.

Crying out happily, he soared on into the fine spring day. Nothing could dampen his spirits nor diminish this moment. Nothing could take it away from him. At this moment, on this day, all was right with the world; it was good place to be.

[center]The End[/center]

[hr][hr]


[center]Between Scareds[/center]



"You're just chicken! "

"Am not!"

"You're chicken and yellow and ought to be wearing a pink dress."

"Then you go down there and check it out!"

Brent had me and I knew it. Boyhood logic. You either get it, or you don't. I really didn't want to be the first one down there, where we'd heard the commotion after the plane—or whatever—crashed near the old quarry.

All we knew was, it was bright, burning, and very quiet till it hit the ground.

Trapped between two scareds. That was me, alright.

What? Don't know what that is?

Not too surprising, really. Let me explain.

My dad was a war hero. He really was. He even had the scars to prove it. Though he never talked about it. Not with me, anyway.

My dad told me once that sometimes, bravery is nothing more than being trapped between two scareds. He told me—only once—that when it happened, he was more scared of letting his buddies down than of dying. And he hated the Japs for making him choose. His word, not mine. He earned the right, don't you think?

Me? I was scared to be the first one down there and maybe even more scared to look like a sissy in front of my friends.

I had a bad feeling about the whole situation, but that didn't stop me from joining in with the rest, laughing at Jimmy when he got all momma's boy on us, and went running home to tell his folks.

It was only later that I realized Jimmy had a better look at it than we did.

That left just the three of us, me and Brent and Larry.

With Jimmy gone, we knew we had at least an hour—probably more—before any grownups came to check it out. So, mostly because I'd let myself get caught, I went. . .or at least I told them I did. I was trapped between two scareds, alright.

I'm not really ashamed that I just walked a little ways down the path and then hid for about twenty minutes. What haunts me to this day is what I told them when I went back.

It was meant as a joke. It was. But I just didn't think it through. I was planning to laugh at them when they came back empty-handed. And I still believe that today. Even with everything that's happening. Even since Jimmy called.

I was breathing hard like I'd run all the way up from the quarry, but I was faking it.

"It's a plane, and there's two dead guys. Pilots. I think they look Mexican. And there's all this money just laying around and blowing in the wind. No tellin' how much has already burned-up in the fire."

Brent and Larry looked at each other, and with a loud whoop they started running down the path I'd just come up. They didn't even look back to see if I was behind them.

As soon as they were out of earshot, I actually did laugh, a little. I remember thinking how I'd be lounging there on the flat of a big rock, all rested and ready to lord it over them that I'd fooled them both.

I remember laying back, letting the heat from the sun-warmed limestone soak through my tee-shirt and watching the clouds and birds drift by on a dusty, hot, perfect summer day.

I remember the smell of dried leaves, fresh growth, and a little bit of sweat.

I remember thinking how they would be mad—but not really.

I remember trying not to think that they had done what I was afraid to do. They would know what was down there and would tell me about it. . .thinking I already knew.

They would never know that I was just too scared see it through.

And then I remember the screams.

I was halfway home when it flew overhead and disappeared. I got a much better look at it, that time.

I'd like to say I thought they'd be okay. But then why would I tell everyone that I'd done what Jimmy did, and refused to go down to the quarry? I told them that I waited up top and ran away when I heard the screams. They all assured me I'd done the right thing, even Brent and Larry's parents.

The freaking screams!, they haunt my dreams.

And such screams they were. Though it's been forty-two years since that terrible day, the memory can still send chills down my spine.

Those boys. Those boys who would pick-up a copperhead barehanded and chase kids around with it; those boys who didn't flinch when we cut our thumbs so we could become blood brothers; those boys who should have stood at my wedding, and consoled me through my divorce.

Those boys should be fat and old, and with me now. We should be parked in front of the TV, drinking beer, cussing and hoping that the things silently floating front of every major world government building are nothing but some stupid hype for some Hollywood movie release, or something. Those boys who would recognize—as Jimmy and I do—those images on CNN.

But I'm caught between scareds, again. I'm scared that those things are going to open up and spew death in every direction. And I'm more scared, maybe, that they'll open up the one on the White House lawn, and Brent and Larry are going to come walking out.

What if they've learned the secrets of the universe?

Should it have been me, instead?

What if they are ambassadors of peace?

What if they bring death?

What if they're mindless robots?

What if they've been suffering all these years?

It should have been me.

What if they still remember the story I told them?

What if they tell?

I've got my shotgun next to me, just in case.

Sorry, Dad.

[center]The End[/center]

[hr][hr]


[center]The Braided Pony[/center]



The Human army rode out of Elfland with less fanfare than they rode in with. No cheers, no boisterous crowds of flower-tossing Elves. They had just the greying sky and the electric scent of coming storms. One storm, a tempest of Goblins. They crossed the swiftly flowing, nameless stream and made camp.

“Your troops fight for gold. Or silver,” said Trecy, the troop's Serjeant-at-arms. He was speaking with his leader about their sudden departure: the morning after the reception in Alfrodric's court. “And the Elves do need our help against the Goblin Horde.”

“Elven gold fades like the morning dew. Believe me there is no pot at the rainbow's end. Unless it's a chamberpot,” replied the army's captain. The commander of the Human Free Company was called Lord of Hotspur, but, in fact, that was the name of his huge broadsword, a massive bit of sharpened steel with twin flame-shaped guards at its hilt. The weapon hung down his back from a leather bandoleer.

“We can go back.”

“You think we should?!” The captain rubbed his forehead. “I will tell you upon the morn.”

When Trecy left, he laid his sword against the tent-pole, and lay himself down upon his cloth cot.

[center]* * *[/center]

And he is in his dreams:

He sits upon his horse. His only favorite horse: a grey old nag, whom he brushes, shovels out the stall for, and feeds carrots to. It is the mount he rode as a squire, and the mare is long dead. Today, he had a puissant stallion. He didn't know its name. Didn't care.

“Come on, girl,” he says. They ride down the narrow street to the Braided Pony Tavern. As he approaches, a landau pulls up. A tall male exits. It is Alfrodic the Elf Prince. His ears have the fey points on them. Then Marianela comes out. Her blonde hair rests upon her bare, slender shoulders. He comes here for her, because she asked him to. He follows them in, watches them at their table. He takes an ale from the barman. Should he go over? He doesn't know? Why is she here with him? He decides to leave.

-- She really screwed you over, Egbert. Didn't she? asks an older man at the bar. He calls him by his birth name.

He turns seeing two things above all else. First an old, scarred man. He sees himself. And in the mirror beyond the bar, he sees himself again, but a younger visage. A young man, without scars, and greyless hair. He is as he was once, and the speaker is as he is now.

“But you're me? And I'm --”

-- You're twenty again, one year from the armour, and the coveted title of 'sir'. But no, I am not you, good knight. I am Hotspur. Your blade. But who would listen to a talking sword, even in a dream? I'm borrowing your good looks.

“How are you Hotspur? It's a piece of steel.”

-- Because I am a magic sword, silly. Hotspur to you, Væ victus to the scribbling scribes with their penned histories, claidheahm bhFiann to the Sylvan Pixies, Gelstong to the Dwarfs. I like that one the best.

-- You stiffed the bartender. Didn't tip him. Not even a pfennig. Always felt bad about that. Right? Wasn't his fault, but hers.

“I was embarrassed; I just wanted out of there,” he said. “I saw her in the Elf-court. She hadn't aged a day.”

-- Pshaw. Just Elven magic. A pointy-eared parlor trick.

“I had asked her to the play by the Chamberlain's Men.”

-- Never liked lakers, Hotspur interjected, disparaging all actors.

“She said no, but then within a fortnight she said I should show up at the Braided Pony. She did! I asked the scullery maid what it meant. The old woman said Marianela had changed her mind.

-- It wasn't an invitation, Hotspur said. Only a friendly suggestion. Even charwomen can be wrong. You wanted to set things right. I'll give you that.

Hotspur sipped from his flagon of Zinfandel, and hooked a thumb back at the mirror above the bar. The mirror shows not a true reflection, but a long ago scene. What are the words his image is speaking? “We had a misunderstanding. And I wasn't too nice to you. But I'm over that now.”

-- You lied. You were still angry, turning your embarrassment to rage. But then she made her attempt.

“Bertie,” Marianela says, still in the mirror. “If you don't ever want to see me again that is alright. I understand. Maybe I led you on. I just need to know what you want.”

-- 'Led you on.' Not your term. You called her words you never called a woman before, and none since. Words you couldn't have accurately called a man. I'm impressed with the lexicon! But then I'm a sword.

“I never said it to her!”

-- No, still you said it to your peers. She didn't know?

“I do not know if she did.”

-- Well, you saw her again. Didn't you? She did herself well. Consort to that Elf Prince. And what did you do?

“I left.”

-- You took your toy soldiers and fled. It's not about shame or anger anymore, is it? I see that now. Once, maybe. But now it takes less of your courage to face the Goblins than it does to face her. She harmed you; a deeper cut than any goblic yataghan sabre could ever have delivered. You fear her more than dragons.

-- Ah! Because no sword is between you two. I'm flattered, but you overestimate my prowess.

“I cannot harm her.”

-- And leaving didn't? Leaving physically now. Emotionally then. Or maybe I just don't understand your language well enough. But then I was only forged in a hot furnace and pounded straight on a hard anvil.

[center]* * *[/center]

“Your orders, sir?” asked Trecy upon the morn.

-- Just what are your orders? whispered Hotspur from its sheath on Egbert's back.

“Mount up. We ride to Elfland.”

[center]The End[/center]

[kailhofer]

Well, if it helps spice things up, I can tell you at this moment there is a 3-way tie. There's even a chance you're in it. :)

Nate

[kailhofer]

Considering the results are hidden, I'm fine with you all discussing the stories. I would not be in favor of anyone trying to win over anyone's vote, but this is the time when the stories are fresh in your minds. Chances are people would vote before they read the discussion anyway.

It's looking more and more like I won't be able to connect Sunday night. It will close out as soon as I do get a connection after that.

Nate

[kailhofer]

Congratulations to Bill Wolfe, for his story, “Between Scareds”, winner of the "Free Skate" Challenge.

Not just a bridesmaid anymore, Bill. ;)


For the record, these were the authors of the stories this month:

The Bay Room Door by David Alan Jones
Hatred of the World by Jamie L. Elliott
Freedom by J. B. Hogan
Between Scareds by Bill Wolfe
The Braided Pony by G.C. Dillon


Every one of these stories was based on a real event in these author’s lives. Sharing private fears and embarrassments is a hard thing to do, but they were willing to risk of themselves to reach their audience. Thanks to each of these writers.
 

Next month, look for the 1st installment of a special two-part challenge event!

Nate

[kailhofer]

While we're making suggestions, I'd like to note that this contest is a little hard to navigate to from the main page. I've been on other sites where contests are at least accessible as a separate category, right up there with the archives, features and the fiction.

I would be interested in how our little boys club (and the Beautiful Kate, of course) might catch a little more attention if there were something like a 'Monthly Flash Challenge' button on every page.

Seems here, if you don't know to go looking for it, it's invisible.

You've forgotten contest contributions from Larissa and McCamy, too. Both of them have written excellent pieces in the 'zine and the challenges. (But yes, I'd love to see more diversity.)

While I think a "challenges" or "contests" button that took one straight to the fun and games folder (or something similar) would be lovely, I think it's important to remember that this isn't an official part of the magazine. This is something I thought would be fun so I pestered folks until Rob made a space for such things to go to shut me up, er... improve the forum. :) The editorial board had quite a few reservations about it, ones that could still come true.

Thankfully, the authors who enter each time have been really great, both in their stories and their conduct. No one has blown up over any comment, and there's no concrete evidence of tampering or buying any votes. No horribly obscene story has been submitted. Posts are still being made about the regular 'zine stories for each month. Submissions still seem to be coming in at a fair rate (that I can tell, anyway).

So, while sanctioned and given blessings, the challenges as I've done them are not an "official" part of the Aphelion experience. Technically speaking, anyone can make any kind of writing challenge in the Fun and Games folder with their own rules at any time.

However, if anyone is accepting motions for change, I'll second this one. A button straight to the Fun and Games folder would be cool.

Nate

[kailhofer]

What's our next mission should we choose to accept it?

Standards and past practices say I need to keep the challenge under wraps until Friday to give the issue nearly a week of undivided attention.

Nevertheless, I have something very special, and very different, brewed up for you. 2 parts spread over 2 months for any and all who care to try on either part.

PS -- How was San Diego for you, Nate?  I had never been there before, but had a heck of a time.  I really enjoyed old town and all the good eats.  Luckily I was there on my company's dime, otherwise I wouldn't have been there at all.

Wasn't our dime, either. The bride made a bundle selling her townhouse back in New York, so she paid for our whole family to come & put us up for 5 days. Was the only way we could have afforded to go.

Had a lot of great food, walked on cool beaches in La Jolla and Coronado, sat out on the terrace in just shorts and a t-shirt (which was a big deal to us, considering our plane had to be de-iced before we could leave Wisconsin), watched a sunset over the ocean, saw the zoo, and met a lot of really friendly people. All the Californians thought we were nuts because they were all wearing coats & we were running around half naked... Was very glad we rented a Garmin GPS thingy with the car. Would have been lost the whole time!

Nate