Stories on the Go: 101 Very Short Stories by 101 Authors

by Hugh Howey

  Daniel Wallock’s Website

  Table of Contents — Author Register — Genre Register

  Literary Fiction

  Of Piss and Tobacco

  Thea Atkinson

  I’m tired of being taken for granted. My mother always assumed I would look after the house, my brothers, even my little sister who was only fifteen months old. She drank too much, my mother. I’d come home from school when I was just thirteen and there she’d be, sitting at the kitchen table in the chair with one bent-too-far chrome leg. There’d be a bottle of Scotch on the flecked tile, a stain or two where she’d let her cigarette drop ash. The tar stains they left reminded me of whiskey. I even thought the burns were blotches of Scotch. It took a long time for me to realize the same color was on my mother’s thumbs. Tobacco. Tobacco, not Scotch, although how much difference that made I wouldn’t understand until much later.

  Anyway, there she’d be waiting for me to come home, and the baby would be all pissy in her crib, needing changed. Mom wouldn’t have fed her all day, either, I knew.

  Her out-of-focus stare was too clear from where I stood. Her mouth opened like a movie played at half speed.

  “Boys behind you?”

  Of course she’d ask about the boys. She loved the boys. The boys looked like my father who had left us after Ella was born, after he’d truly seen how frail Ella was. Perfectly formed, his daughter, except not quite right. Like a little pixie with her slanted eyes and overlarge brow, the spindly limbs. Ella looked nothing like him, nothing like the boys.

  I hated the way Mom looked past me into the yard to see how far behind me those precious sons were.

  “Where’s the baby?” I’d ask her.

  She’d look at me, no recognition in her face.

  “Mom. Where’s Ella?”

  A responsive shrug that would send me racing to her bedroom where a crib crouched in the corner, trying its best to harbour the neglected daughter.

  “There,” I’d croon to Ella. “There.”

  Picking her up was like wrestling with a sack of potatoes. She’d stink of piss and I’d change her into something fresh. We’d walk around, just us girls, me cooing lullabies to her and she breathing open-mouthed into my neck.

  But that last day. That last one. Too much, if you ask me, and that’s why I’m here, really. I can’t look at my body in the mirror anymore and not think of Ella lifeless in her crib. I can’t see the milky flesh of my own cheeks, the soft folds of skin between my thighs and not imagine that frail sister. I tell myself it was cheap Scotch stains — not tobacco — left in the hollows of her dimples back then, but the woman in me knows better.

  So if it’s a choice between keeping this genitalia that reminds me of piss and tobacco and a vulnerable babe taken from this world too early, then change it. Strip away the daughter and create a son, so even I won’t take anything for granted anymore.

  Thea Atkinson

  writes what she calls fiction to the left of mainstream from her desk in Atlantic Canada. Miniature gargoyles guard the muse and a black lab warms her feet. On the days she’s not trolling the dark waters of her mind for suitable tales to tell, she’s reading or procrastinating or using reading to procrastinate.

  She has been an editor, a freelancer, and a teacher, but fiction is her passion. She now blogs and writes and twitters. Not necessarily in that order.

  Thea Atkinson’s Website

  Table of Contents — Author Register — Genre Register

  Science Fiction

  The Trouble With Tribble

  Lisa Grace

  It all started with the aberrations in the red shift data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Halton Arp was the right hand man to Hubble. Arp discovered the aberrations, and instead of ignoring them, studied them. He found the red shift anomalies jumped in measurable, quantifiable increments. The more he studied the data, the more anomalies he found that contradicted the measurements of light, distance, and time. His discovery and the provable equation of the z of red shift led to the inescapable conclusion that the outreaches beyond our galaxy, are digital. Programmed. A huge holographic image. Nothing but data. If the universe became digital at some point in space…it meant someone, or something, had programmed it.

  Of course, there were scoffers. The majority were scoffers, so when Congress approved the funds for a deep-space red shift quantifier to be sent towards the nearest aberration, the scientists who had trouble even taking the project seriously, named it Tribble. There was only one way to resolve the argument, (other than more astrophysicists committing suicide over the implications, as several who studied Arp’s conclusive data had already done) so another telescope was launched to get to the outer reaches where the closest aberration was detected.

  10 years later

  “Sir?”

  “We have a problem.”

  “The data shows the Tribble Telescope has stopped.”

  “Stopped working?”

  “No sir, it’s sending back data, which clearly shows it has stopped.”

  “If it’s sending back data…”

  “The data is repeating, sir. It seems to indicate the Tribble has stopped.”

  “Fire its rockets and change its trajectory.”

  “We have, sir. The only way it works is in reverse.”

  “Back it up, and fire it forward.”

  Several scientists watched their holographic screens as the data flowed in while the technician “driving” the Tribble changed its course and speed several times.

  “This seems to indicate it bounced back. Like on a trampoline.”

  “Go in reverse.”

  They all stared at the numbers. Seeing was not believing.

  “Space time is a fabric.”

  “More like rubber.”

  “I told you we should have named it Trojan.” Someone snickered.

  “Sir, it won’t go up or down. It’s just stopped again.”

  “Send us the photos and data for the red shift z measurements. Let‘s put Tribble to work.”

  Silence and excitement reigned over the room.

  The technician programmed the red shift differentials in to come up with the z value. He plugged them into the formula they’d all come to dread in their sleep.

  (1 +z2) = 1.239(1+z1)

  The numbers came out in a predictable sequence just as Halton Arp’s formula predicted. Shocked silence.

  “Where exactly is the Tribble?” the scientist in charge of the project asked.

  They looked at the map of hyperspace as the technician reached into the holographic image (the irony of which was not lost on those in the room) to spread it out giving the lead scientist a better idea of what Tribble had mapped, and where Tribble was in relation to Earth.

  “Leave Tribble where she is and start scanning for red shift z. Let’s map out the walls of the box we’re in, men.”

  One of the senior analysts leaned over putting his head between his legs, then reached for the nearby wastebasket, and threw up his lunch.

  “This is what we have so far, sir.”

  The general looked at the report clearly showing where the invisible barrier of space-time ended and the holographic images began.

  “Our galaxy is surrounded by a holographic image,” he said aloud. No one disagreed. The science was irrefutable.

  “What’s out there? And how do we reach it? What do we tell the people? Are we just an experiment in an alien kid’s terrarium?”

  No one put forth a theory.

  “We say nothing,” the general answered. “This has been suspected for a while. We can’t get smaller than a photon. We’ve known how small things get before they lose locality, and now we know, on this side of the galaxy at least, how big our four dimensions are.”

  “But people have to know!” one of the scientists said.

  The general looked at the scientist who spoke.

  “You had Halton Arp’s data before this mission and that of dozens of other astrophysicists. Did you w
ant to know?”

  “But this means our whole universe was created.”

  The general nodded. “There are those who believed that without knowing its size.”

  The lead scientist spoke up, “We can’t release this information to the public.”

  The general leaned forward looking each scientist in the eye as he spoke, “It’ll create religious fanatics, cause atheists to commit suicide, and have every Tom, Dick, and Harry saying they’re talking to the aliens who put us in this box in the first place. This information goes no further than this room.”

  “So what do we do?”

  The general continued, “What we always do. We say there was trouble with Tribble. She malfunctioned, the universe appears to go on forever as expected, end of story.”

  One of the scientists broke down and cried, tears falling like all his future space travel hopes. “But I wanted a future with Tribbles in it!”

  His co-worker awkwardly patted his shoulder. “I know. I did too.”

  Lisa Grace

  enjoys writing flash science fiction from the point of view that science is proving the Holy Scriptures are correct. Her Young Adult Angel Series has been optioned for a major movie though Motion Picture Pro Studios, whose producer has been involved with six academy award winning films including Fargo, The Usual Suspects, Shakespeare in Love, and Life is Beautiful.

  She also has a complete 30 Minutes of Flash Fiction book out, and writes real life History Mysteries. She lives along the Gulf Coast of Florida, and enjoys talking to readers. You can reach her at her website.

  Lisa Grace’s Website

  Table of Contents — Author Register — Genre Register

  Science Fiction — Young Adult

  Pencil

  Matt Ryan

  Jake

  I needed to write nine-hundred-eighty-nine words a day or I’d die. It didn’t start off that way. At first, all I needed was eight-hundred, a great number, until the day I wrote too many. The damage was done and I couldn’t go back. The machine demanded the new number of words from then on.

  Oh, and I couldn’t write them on the computer, that would be cheating, like creating fake words, and it wouldn’t work. I wrote in pencil and could sharpen the pencil for six seconds per day. I wrote with Dixon Ticonderoga Beginners #2 Pencils. It was my writing utensil of choice since I was six.

  Shaking with excitement, I selected a new pencil. Making sure to touch only the edges of the eraser and the metal holding it in place, I pulled a new pencil from the box. With it free, I felt the smooth painted sides and the flat, unsharpened tip. The anticipation of sharping the pencil sent chills down my arms.

  I inserted the pencil into the mechanical sharpener’s hole. It screeched and the pencil vibrated in my grip. If I could, I’d sharpen nine-hundred-eighty-nine pencils a day and write one word with each one. I used the allotted six seconds and pulled the oversized pencil out. I turned the pencil one full rotation as I blew the fine dust particles off the tip and made a wish. I can’t tell you the wish, it wouldn’t come true then, but I can give you a hint: It involves a key.

  I pulled a sheet of white paper out and placed it on my desk. Each year, the red and blue lines fade more. How much longer before they disappear entirely?

  “Get this right, Jake,” I told myself. If I wrote too many things wrong, misspelled too many words, I’d die. I couldn’t use the eraser, that’d be cheating. No, I had one shot at getting the nine-hundred-eighty-nine words right.

  It wasn’t important what I wrote, only that it started with “Jake” and ended with “the end”. Everything else was up to me.

  I squeezed my large frame into my small desk. Every year that passed, it got harder to squeeze into it. I might have been more comfortable in the teacher’s desk, it wasn’t as if she was ever going to use it again, but then it wouldn’t work. I had to write from my desk. My bone-thin stomach pressed against the long dead glass panel on the desk. I placed my left hand on the paper to hold it on the glass.

  I steadied my shaking hand and placed the tip of the pencil against the paper. Everything depended on these words. I started and the words flowed from my pencil. The punctuation and spelling spilled from the pencil better than I’d felt in months. My eyes widened at the ease of it as I neared the end. I raced the pencil over the last sentence and then the lead tip cracked. The noise hit my ears like the sound of a gun.

  With rapid breaths, I raised the pencil to my face. The lead tip was gone. Maybe I could stuff it back in. I searched the surface and found a tiny black speck on my desk. I pinched it between my nails but it slipped out and sailed off the glass surface.

  I jumped up, trying to catch it, but the desk stuck to my body and I crashed down with the desk. The glass panel shattered on the floor and bits of glass bounced off me.

  “Gosh darn it.” Right then, I wished I had remembered some of those curse words.

  I wiggled on the floor and freed myself from the desk. I pulled the paper from the pile of glass and shook off the leftover bits—it looked fine. It should work. I froze, staring at my broken desk. I wasn’t sure what it meant, or if it’d affect anything. Whatever it meant, it’d have to wait. I needed to solve one problem at a time.

  I’d already used my six seconds of pencil sharpening time. What would Billy have done? I gazed at Billy’s empty desk. I imagined him sitting there, the coolest kid in class, he had all the answers.

  “Billy, what do I do?” But Billy wasn’t there to respond, no one was.

  My voice sounded old, scared. I wondered what I looked like anymore. The glass on the windows had a thick film on it from whatever was outside, and muddled my reflection.

  I wanted to cry. Maybe I could just let go, give up. I’d thought about it so many times. Was the life I lived worth living? I screamed at the reward machine.

  Just chew on it. Billy’s voice said.

  I stared at the broken pencil and placed it in my mouth. The taste of wood filled my mouth and I relished a new flavor. I chomped the edges off until I had crude pencil lead sticking out.

  I found a flat surface to jot down the remaining words. It had to work. I slid the paper into the reward machine. A screen displayed a spinning dot. Music played from the machine and I did my little dance, waiting for the results.

  The circle stopped and I held my breath.

  “Well done, Jake. Here is a reward for your extra credit.” A clunking sound emanated from inside the machine for a second and then silence. I thought my fears might have come true, that nothing would come out, it had to happen one day but I begged it to not be that day.

  A nutrition bar plopped onto the steel tray at the bottom. I fell to my knees, a jackpot reward after two previous days of toys. I ripped open the bar and stuffed my starving face. I wrote my nine-hundred-eighty-nine words and I wasn’t going to die.

  The End.

  Matt Ryan

  is the author of the upcoming The Preston Six series being released in late 2014.

  Matt Ryan’s Facebook Page

  Table of Contents — Author Register — Genre Register

  Fantasy — Science Fiction

  The Million Colors of the Sea

  Vanna Smythe

  Noticed just before the storm turns everything sandy grey, and the wind starts to scream around the corners of the house, you’re trying to leave. But you stay. Through this storm, awaiting the next one.

  Turquoise, forest green, as white as the clouds, as blue as the sunniest day, as yellow, as orange, as the artificial lights the gypsies turn on over the Merry-Go-Round in the summer. You go with your sister and her children to the carnival. Too old to ride, you tap your foot to the techno remixes of famous songs and watch the ladies selling the tickets. Bored and lonely, they all look like great beauties. It’s the longing, you decide, and try to find that same promise of beauty in your own face later, in the bathroom mirror, under the soft yellow light, because the house you were born in wasn’t built for modern day electricity.


  As clear as a teardrop, as red as dried blood, as black as the winter night when the slightest ripple warns of danger, waves silently hitting the shore.

  And then you leave. Because of the boy who spent his summers in the village where you were born. He was from the city and had what you thought you wanted. Though he made you no promises. Leave, and forget all about the other one. The one who said he couldn’t live without you, but wouldn’t leave with you.

  As gold as a priceless necklace, as sparkling as the jewels in the crown of a queen, a dark blue velvet blanket reflecting the stars, not a ripple disturbing the constellations.

  So you come back. Because there are no stars in the city. Because disappointment mars beauty. And because loneliness is everywhere.

  Vanna Smythe

  is the author of the Anniversary of the Veil fantasy trilogy and The Grower’s Gift, the first book in a new YA dystopian series. She has been writing creatively since her early teens, though one could say her creative writing efforts started long before that. While still in kindergarten, she once tore up a library book to make alphabet soup, and has been fascinated with what words can do, the pictures and worlds they can create, ever since.

  Vanna is currently working on a new YA dystopian series called Progeny of Time, which was inspired by the bleak future presented in The Hunger Games, the fight between good and evil played out in Harry Potter, and the TV show Heroes, but with a totally unique story and twist. And don’t worry, the story will be equally fun for teens as well as adults. The second book in the series will be released in Summer 2014.

  Vanna Smythe’s Website