short-story

Redress

All curled up inside the hole , he tried to move. He could hear the footsteps of men , based on the distance he knew that they were close. He calculated the risk of exposing himself versus the risk of staying still. Time was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
“Is this gambling, it is isn’t it”?, he thought.
He tried to laugh, but couldn’t, after all he didn’t want to risk exposing himself.
How did he end up in this situation. He tried to think. Did he do anything wrong?
He followed the doctrines, he adhered to the idea that he was taught.
“They’re not germane to the idea of our ideal society”, he remember the words. The words of his trainer.
He also heard the silent screams of those persecuted by this ideology. “But I can’t fight for them”, he thought.
So he followed the herd. And now; this. Before he could peak into his past any further, someone opened the safe room.
The assailant grabbed his shirt, pulled him out, and threw him on the ground.
Before he could come to his senses, he saw a gun being pulled by the assailant.
He laughed, and before he could say anything three shots were fired all of them passed through his temple.
Before his soul could leave this world , he heard the words of his assailant,¨Nazi pig¨.

Written for Senseiś FOWC. The word is “germane.”

Cross-validation

How is that the person with the least amount of luck managed to survive the Armageddon ?
Sitting at the abandoned warehouse he stared at the broken ceiling, through which the light came pouring down.
“Why did I survive”?, he asked.
Along came the reply ,”Haven’t you heard, Leave-one-out ”

This joke can be understood by people familiar with Statistics, or Machine learning.(The Title and the last line will make it clear) You can Google Cross-validation to understand it. I apologize if this wasn’t your cup of tea, but hey!! at least you came to know a new term.Written for this week’s Twittering Tales prompt from Kat Myrman. Photo credit: Michael Gaida @ Pixabay.com

Vamoose

“Why would anyone want to kill themselves”, he thought? This is a question that he asked again, and again.
“Living seems to be a burden , really”?
“Is life truly worthless. On another note, why would anyone want to kill anyone else”?
Maybe the question is all wrong, “Why does anyone not value life”?
Life as it turns out is not under your control, never was, never will be.
To those who say they are in control , well they are in control of a structure that’s being provided to them.
For example let say a guy/girl is a billionaire, well he/she depends on others to create his/her wealth.
And whenever in an equation this ‘other’ is involved can you actually call that being in-control?
Maybe that’s the reason people don’t value life.
They think that what’s the point of living it anyway. You eat (the food that you never grow), you live in a house (that you never made , if you did ‘make it’ smart ass!! you didn’t plant the trees for the wood,or didn’t create the bricks, now did you).
Even the volume of hair on your scalp is not under your control.
So life is in short could be defined by one word dependent.
So stop struggling because the only way you can control your life is when you set it free, free from the control.
So let it go, here let me give you a push. And you’ll soon realize that all the dependence is gone.
Alas! the death is the only real control. And so…he jumped.

Written for Sensei’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). The word is volume.

Contact

I’m staring at the screen for quite a long time. Texting back and forth with a person I’ve never met.
He/She has a funny name. South / East Asian origin I think. Alone chatting with this individual in this chat room I realized that something is wrong.
I couldn’t ask whether the person is a he/she. It will be rude to ask, so I just kept on typing. Slowly my hands grew tired, I didn’t want to type anymore.
I asked the person of what he/she thinks of the peculiar situation I’ve been put through.
I could read the words filled with compassion, and sympathy but I don’t think that they have a genuine feeling to them.
He/She told me that the situation will be improved. But I wasn’t feeling any assurance. How long has it been since I talked to someone, I mean literally talked to someone?
So I replied thanks to the person on the chat. I told that I’ve got to go. He/She wanted to me to stay, but I couldn’t. I just ended the chat window.
I took my phone, and stared at it’s screen. I search for a number on the internet, and began to dial the number.
A person picked up, again an unfamiliar voice. But this time I knew, it was a male. Again Asian origin ,based on the accent.
As his voice asked my name I felt a sudden rage building inside me. Maybe it was the voice, I knew this was not this person’s mistake, but I couldn’t hold back.
“When you can speak, why not just burst your emotions out?”, my consciousness reminded me.
Before the Asian guy could finish his statement I yelled, “Hey Amazon, where the hell’s my package”?

Written for Sensei’s PROVOCATIVE QUESTION #46 the question:- For those of you who grew up only using smartphones, is it necessary to call anyone anymore? (I mean yeah, family and Amazon)

Nightmare

It’s not something that you could see, yet you witness it. A common feature of all human beings, maybe of all the life forms inhabiting this planet.
The curious and sincere eyes of 6 year old Anna silently were screaming the question,”So why do we do it?”
Maybe I was thinking aloud , he thought to himself as he looked at Anna. She was the reason he was alive. “Nor that we could control our lifespan”,he chuckled.
Anna was now more curious. She sometimes didn’t understand what her grandpa thinks, or what he even talks for the matter.
She visits her occasionally, and each and every time she sees him thinking more and more.
“Grandpa, are you okay”, asked Anna?
“Never been better”, he said.
“Look I took a picture of the time I went to Beach with mommy and daddy”, Anna said.
He looked at the picture that she took the creativity of a child , and how their world are limited to their parents.
He looked at Anna again, and thought if she could see her again.
“Time’s up”, said the guard.
Anna knew that her grandpa with all his bright chains behind the wall will be taken to his new home.
“We will meet again Anna”, he said.
Anna this time puzzled put her head on the glass and said,” But Grandpa, you’re meeting the God next week. Mommy said that.”
Before he could realize his eyes opened up, he was back in his cell.
“A bad omen, or a good one”, he murmured.
And than he remember that the dream started with the description of the dream.
“What a joke!!”, and he burst out laughing.

Written for Sensei’s Flash Fiction challenge

Unattainable

As the rumbling sound emerged from itś belly , those who witness the movement from afar grew anxious. As the immovable giant suddenly flew towards the heaven, the ground on which it previously rested was engulfed in flames.

But unknown to the beast three adventurers had climbed in itś belly, 3 courageous man who wanted to go explore the land that lied beyond the heaven. They needed the beast, and itś wings. Slowly they could see the land that they have left behind. They knew that they were the first.

The preparations, their hard work it all finally paid off. Finally they can meet the destiny that earlier was dismissed as a mere fairy tale. One of the lads Williams had a magic item which can capture the image of anything that he saw . And he captured the land that he left behind.

It was a beautiful sight to behold. They could see from a distance that there was another land ahead. But before they could actually put a foot on the land the giant returned to their land. But those 3 men were not disappointed , they knew that soon using the power of the giant beast they could go to the land beyond the heaven.

Let me tell you lads the name of the three men:- Frank , James , and William. And they did something that was never done before, they flew beyond the heavens. Their flight was called Apollo 8 and the image of the land that they took was named ¨Earthrise¨.

Written for Senseiś Provocative Question #45 the question asked Is it be possible for humans to create something completely novel and new that is based on nothing that previously existed?

Well I hope my post could delineate my thoughts.

Countenance 

It wasn’t an oddly comfortable sight, but it still showed hope. No carcass, just bone. Bone and not bones. Where was the body, Why the head alone.Wasn’t that strange. But who cared? No one.

They rushed towards it. Both of them, a bone meant some living thing crawled on this land. That means this land bear life. I know it’s strange, but a death showed signs of life, which oddly enough gave them hope.

As they looked around the bone they realised that something was wrong, deeply wrong. But before they could react one of them stabbed the other one. You see hunger is a powerful tool with which if used wisely any species can be tamed or hunted. So we decided why not observe our own species, and in each and every scenerio we threw at these ‘subjects’ we found out, that in nine out of ten of these fictional hunger situations that we created one person ate the another. Pure cannibalism.

You must be wondering what happened in the tenth situation, well in the tenth situation the subjects killed each other simultaneously, more like a suicide pact. What’s it that made them react differently than the other 9 pairs? Strangely it was their genetic traits, you see they were what we would call related. Which means that unknown to us, they knew each other beforehand, as being members of some tight knit group.

So it seems that the individualism and the state family separation policy which we practice, is still has holes, as in Economically Deprived Units (EPUs), residing on the outskirts of our civilisation the ‘family’ concept still lingers.

So what’s the solution you ask?  Well if the food source is terminated, the EPUs will become lawless, and we would have a shorter problem to deal with. After all as you may have noticed from their clothes, these subjects were taken from the EPUs only. The name of the mission will of course be Donner. After all, you get no prizes for guessing why we chose that. 

Written for Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt.

Envisage 

Johnny raised his eyes to catch a glimpse of the clock, the clock which like him has been a participant as well as a witness of numerous changes. 

A deep sadness emerged in the heart of Johnny, there it was all broken and old, out of place like him. The life like the clock, winding down. 

Now like the irreparable clock, an irreparable life reflects a bygone age for Johnny. The only thing he now wants is peace of mind. An embrace from Dark Angel awaits… 

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers prompt. Photo credit: J Hardy Carroll

Trivialize

A strange and familiar feeling had gripped Lyon heart. He encountered it before, on his solus escapades, but never in a clique.

He glanced at Jane. She was trembling. Mark was holding her hand, yet she was shaking. He took her hand, and squeezed it tightly. When Jane glanced back, he nodded.

All three were walking abreast towards the harbour, when Lyon abruptly stopped and asked, “Why are we hear again”? Jane and Mark looked equally bewildered.

Alas, the softening of their brains, which prompted them, became an impediment in finishing their journey. Their suicide pact, now jilted, before the finishing line. 

Written for Rachel Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers prompt. Picture credit: Ted Strutz.

Exigency

The dried eyes, the dark circles, another night, another day, yet the restlessness remains. The day reminding him of the night, the night which like the earlier ones, was marked with her absence.

The absence which was clearly felt. Oh! How much has he lost, since the day she disappeared? How he sulked, how he occasionally became tense, how he cried, how he became delusional.

But she isn’t returning. And although he finds what he terms as ‘alternatives’, using money, none satisfied him, like she did.

Now the sun has risen, the pills have failed, his sleep like before, in absentia.

Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Photo credit:Dale Rogerson