Category Archives: Light

June 8, 2013

The Tyromancer

He was setting up across the street as I was leaving work: a card table filled with blocks of cheese and a hotplate. A sign hanging off the front read: Fortunes Told!

“Excuse me, sir! Can I tell your fortune?” he called as I tried to hurry past. I was the only one on the street, so it was hard to be inconspicuous.

“I don’t need my fortune told,” I said. Still, the cheese was making me curious. “So, how does it work?”

“With cheese. I’m a tyromancer,” he said, quite proudly.

“Uh, okay, how much is it?”

“It depends on how detailed you want it. $5 for regular, $10 for an extra detailed fortune. It takes more cheese that way,” he added.

I was intrigued and the cheese was making me hungry. “Okay, I’ll take a fiver. Can I eat the cheese afterwards?”

He seemed shocked at the idea. “Eat the cheese? Eat the cheese? Do you eat the X-ray film when the doctor is finished? Or the mechanics tools when he’s finished fixing your car?”

“What do you have to do with the cheese?”

“I just melt it. I’m a progressive tyromancer. Now, what kind do you want? I’ve got cheddar, mozzarella, gouda, gorgonzola—”

“Is there a difference?” I asked, as he looked prepared to list off his entire stock. “Surely if it’s a fortune, it’ll be the same either way.”

He shrugged. “Different cheeses emphasis different things. It’s like when you go to the doctor: different doctors will tell you slightly different things, although your condition will be the same. So, which one do you want?”

“I’ll take the Swiss, I guess,” I said. I knew immediately by his face that this was the wrong choice.

“I’d stay away from the Swiss at first,” he said. “We in the business call that the Widowmaker. The best fortune I’ve ever seen come out of a piece of Swiss was a divorce.”

“What was the worst?”

“Double decapitation,” he said. “Don’t ask—it’s not pretty.

“Fine . . . I’ll take the Gorgonzola. Is that okay?” He was looking at me with a small smile.

“Yeah, that’s fine. Perfectly. Let me just add a slice of Edam, just because I like you.”

He cut off slices of the cheese and put it in a frying pan on the hotplate. Then we both got close and peered at it.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“That’s just grease on top. That doesn’t mean anything.” The cheese started to melt and bubble.

“Ah ha!” the tyromancer said suddenly. “Do you know anyone by the name of . . . Bob?”

“No.”

“Really? I’m pretty sure you do.”

“Well, I have a second cousin named Bob, but—”

“I knew it! Never lie to the cheese. Bob is going to call you in the next five minutes.”

“Oh come on!” I said. “I only met him once when I was ten. He doesn’t even have my phone number.”

“The cheese doesn’t lie.” The tyromancer was staring at the bubbling cheese closely. “It looks like he has a business venture opportunity for you. It’s going to fail horribly in less than six months. You’re going to lose a lot of money.”

“Well, I guess that’s good to know. I’ll be sure to turn down any business ideas my cousin Bob gives me.”

Sarcasm was obviously not the tyromancer’s strong point. “Oh, you have to though,” he said. “It’s your future; you don’t have a choice.”

My phone rang and his eyes lit up like Christmas morning. “Ha, there’s Bob now. What did I tell you?”

I took the phone out and showed him the caller ID. “It’s my mom.” I put it up to my ear. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hi, you probably don’t remember me, but I’m your cousin Bob. I’m over at your mom’s house right now; she gave me your number. Listen, I got this great idea I think you might interested in: Chia Cars. It’s like the Chia Pets, but with cars. All I need is a bit of start-up cash—”

I ended the call and pulled out a $10 bill. “Okay, give me a sharp cheddar with a sprinkling of gouda. Let’s see what else you got.”

20 Comments | tags: cheese, divination, fiction, fortune telling, funny, quirky, short story, tyromancy | posted in Light

June 2, 2013

Gumdrop Miners – Alastair’s Photo Fiction

By David Stewart

I took another break from Visual Fiction this week and decided to do Alastair’s Photo Fiction prompt.

Gumdrop Miners

“Come on, pixies, down the hole!” the foreman yelled

The pixie miners lined up at the head of the gumdrop mine, dried and crusted sugar stuck to their overalls.

Saccrin checked his gum-saw and his bag of powdered sugar. When it was his turn, he grabbed hold of the rope and was lowered into the dim expanse below.

Their deposit was yellow and the intense smell of lemons engulfed him. In the gloom, he could see other pixies sawing out blocks of gumdrop, dusting the edges with powdered sugar and loading them on transports.

It was a hard life, being a gumdrop miner. He wore a mask, but still, diabetes and “gum-lung” were rampant. Plus, they paid him in chocolate coins.

“Hey Saccrin! Get your candy-coated butt over here. We hit a peanut brittle layer lower down; you’re on chopping duty.”

“Sugar!” Saccrin cursed and went to get his axe.

24 Comments | tags: candy, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, funny, gumdrop, mining, pixies | posted in Light

May 31, 2013

Good Old Sammy

By David Stewart

I know you’ve been there, so don’t even pretend you haven’t. You’re right on the edge of doing something you know you’re going to regret and if any other guy but Sammy was there, you’d just walk away, but it’s Sammy and so you don’t walk away and you end up regretting it.

At least in my case it’s Sammy; We’ve all got that one friend that we like, even though he (or she) sometimes annoy us—the one we couldn’t get rid of even if we tried. The one that makes us do crazy things, like skinny-dipping in the town’s water supply. And for some reason, you just can’t say no to him.

Good old Sammy.

A few months, I was on my way to play pool with Sammy and my other friend James, who we called Jerve. We saw a Ferrari pull up to the curb ahead of us, blaring loud music. A bunch of guys got out, all slow-motion and cool-like and went into a club called The Speakeasy.

“Hey, let’s let the air out of their tires,” Sammy said.

“Are you crazy?” I asked. Sammy didn’t answer; maybe he didn’t know the answer either.

“Come on, it’ll be fun. They’re probably jerks anyway.” Then, without waiting, he sidled up to the car on the street side and started feeling around for the valve on the front wheel. “Are you coming, or not?” he whispered, and Jerve—being dumb and prone to peer pressure—went to the back wheel and crouched down.

That’s the genius of Sammy: sudden and explosive escalation of events. One moment you’re going to play pool; the next, you’re vandalizing a sports car.

“Don’t leave us hanging!” he hissed at me. I could already hear the air hissing as it came out of the tire. I hate to admit it, but I’m not very good at resisting peer pressure either, especially from Sammy.

I went over to the other side of the car, which unfortunately was facing the club and fully illuminated by the streetlights. I was just bending down to find the valve when I heard a shout from behind me.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

I straightened up. It was one of the guys from the car, looking at me in a threatening way.

“I just dropped my keys,” I said.

Jerve stood up at that moment. “Hey guys, the air’s all out of this one.” He noticed the guy and took off running, immediately slamming into Sammy who was just standing up after emptying his tire. Jerve hit the pavement and smacked his nose, but the knowledge that we were in serious trouble picked him up and all three of us were off and sprinting away before the rest of the guys could get out of the club.

What followed was an exhausting slog of a chase. We weren’t in great shape and were puffing and wheezing before we’d gotten 100 feet. Luckily for us, the guys behind us weren’t in any better shape, so the whole chase happened very, very slowly. Sometimes we were all just walking, with Sammy, Jerve and me about two hundred feet ahead. The guys following us wouldn’t give up though and they kept yelling terrible threats and insults at us when they had enough breath.

I wanted to find a taxi, but there weren’t any in the area and I was too out of breath to call for one. We’d be staggering along for about twenty minutes and had gotten into a pretty posh neighborhood. Sammy suddenly lurched to one side and started pounding on an iron gate. The sign on the gate said it was the Honduran embassy.

“Yes?” said a voice from a speaker by the gate.

“We want political asylum!” Sammy yelled. “We’re refugees.”

“From whom?” the voice asked.

“From the US. We’re being persecuted.”

“Just a moment.”

It was more like two minutes before the gate opened. Luckily for us, our pursuers seemed to have had enough of the chase and just wanted it over with. They slowed way down until the gate opened, and then made a rush at us as we ducked inside. Then, between gasps, they yelled some perfunctory death threats and trudged back towards their car

The next few hours were rather awkward, as we met with the ambassador and Sammy tried to explain how exactly we were being persecuted. His argument boiled down to taxes.

When Jerve found out that they spoke Spanish in Honduras, he wanted to practice all the Spanish he’d studied so hard in school. Unfortunately, all he remembered was “¿Dónde ésta la biblioteca?” He kept saying it so much that they finally took him to the house library.

It was about midnight when they finally decided we were full of it and kicked us out. Jerve really hit it off with the deputy ambassador though; they started dating after that. Apparently she really liked the library too.

Sammy chalked the whole thing up to a great night out.

Good old Sammy.

13 Comments | tags: adventure, embassy, Ferrari, fiction, Honduras, quirky, Sammy | posted in Light

May 29, 2013

The Photo ID of Dorian Gray

By David Stewart

A one-sentence story:

The Photo ID of Dorian Gray

“I’m sorry young man, but you can’t use your uncle’s driver’s license to come in; not that a nice boy like you should be in a place like this anyway.”

That’s right: he moved to New York

15 Comments | tags: Dorian Gray, driver's license, fiction, One-sentence story, Oscar Wilde, photo ID, quirky | posted in Light

May 16, 2013

No Joke: Three Men Walk into a Bar

By David Stewart

I don’t usually do the Daily Prompts, but this one caught my eye.

Three men walk into a bar…

Source

…and stop at the sight of four figures in a tense standoff.

One man is holding a .45 caliber pistol. He is wearing a rattlesnake skin jacket and has a patch over one eye. His hand is steady and he has the look of a killer. A briefcase bulging with cash is open at his elbow.

The second figure is a woman holding a rocket launcher, and swiveling it rapidly back and forth between the other three. She is wearing a pair of orange pajamas and has long purple hair. She has a crazy look in her eye. Crumpled divorce papers lie at her feet.

The third figure is a monkey holding a blowgun and loading a peeled banana into it. Its back is shaved and a large tattoo proclaims it part of the “Armed Primate Expeditions”. A typewriter and sequined tutu are on the floor by the bar.

The fourth figure is a man in a speedo who has clearly just come from swimming. He is holding a towel, his hands are in the air, and his face shows that he is about to wet himself from fright.

Two of the men at the door look at each other. “Another bar?”

“You guys go ahead,” the third one says. “I’m just going to make a few notes for my next blog post.”

19 Comments | tags: bar, blogging, Daily Prompt, fiction, flash fiction, funny, quirky, standoff | posted in Light

April 27, 2013

Motivational Drill Sergeant and the Aliens

By David Stewart

My father, the Motivational Drill Sergeant, likes to tell this story, especially after he’s had a few Piña Coladas. That’s all he drinks, although he calls them Muzzle Blasters.

One night when my mother was off giving a speech to the UN, my father and I were at home playing the Game of Death. It’s a game he made up—basically a combination of the Game of Life and Risk with his own rules mixed in. He had already had a few Muzzle Blasters, and so I wasn’t surprised when he brought up the aliens.

With apologies to Milton Bradley

“Boy, did I ever tell you about the time I got kidnapped by aliens?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, although I could probably have quoted the story, word for word.

“It was about 10 years ago, before you were born,” he said. I didn’t enlighten him that I was older than 10. “I was out by myself, skulking around the perimeter of Dollywood, since I’ve always been suspicious of that place. I was just climbing a tree, when I was approached by two aliens. They were yellow, looked like flowers, and were exactly opposite heights.”

This is a detail he always puts in, although I’ve never figured out what “opposite heights” means exactly. I nodded and rolled the dice. “I’m attacking the wedding chapel,” I said.

“You only have four armies,” he said. “You need at least five armies to attack the chapel without a degree.”

“Yeah, but you said that if I cashed in my Fire Insurance, it was good for two more armies,” I said. He frowned a bit and then nodded. My father has made the Game of Death so complicated that I have to remind him of the rules sometimes.

“Anyway,” he said, taking another swig of Muzzle Blaster, “they asked me to come with them, to which I replied in the negative. Meaning, I told them to buzz off. The next thing I knew, I was onboard an alien spacecraft. I knew it was a spacecraft, because I saw the Earth in the window. That was a dead giveaway.”

“‘Are you out of your flowery, extraterrestrial gourds?’ I bellowed at them in my best drill sergeant yell. ‘How dare you kidnap me?’

“‘We need your help,’ one of the aliens said. He looked bashful and that made me feel better. ‘We’ve heard a lot about you.’

“That made me feel a lot better, but I didn’t as much as smile. ‘What’s the problem?’ I growled.

“‘We’ve spent years building up weapons of unimaginable destructive power but we’re too shy to use them,’ the alien said.”

“Did he blush orange when he said it?” I asked.

“He did, actually,” my dad said. “Are you sure you haven’t heard this story before?” He took my innocent look as confirmation that I hadn’t and continued.

“I said to those aliens, I said, ‘Well, who do you want to attack? Not us, I hope.’ ‘Oh no,’ they said. ‘We’ve seen enough of your TV programs to know you’d get way too angry. We were thinking of the innocuous creatures of Flufficon Four.’”

“I thought it was Cuddlius Three,” I said, forgetting that I’d never heard the story before.

“They wanted to attack a lot of innocuous planets,” my dad said. “Anyway, I stood up and slapped the main alien in the face. ‘What a bunch of spineless, gutless, yellow-bellied space pansies!’ ‘We’re actually closer to tulips,’ the main alien began, but I slapped him again.

“‘Shut up!’ I shouted. ‘If you got the flower-power, you use it, see? Nobody pushes you around and you don’t let a bunch of Flufficons or Cuddlians intimidate you. Ooh, what’s wrong, you waiting for an engraved invitation before you go attack them? Well, it’s not coming!”

“‘But—’ one of the aliens began but I cut him off. ‘But?’ I shouted. ‘But is something you sit on and you won’t conquer any planets sitting down. Now, stand up.’ They all stood up a lot straighter. ‘Get out there and conquer some innocuous planets and don’t let me see your sorry asses back here until you do. Also, if you could, drop me off at Dollywood before you go. Something about that Dolly Parton makes me suspicious.’”

While he had been telling the story, I had been quietly cheating and by now, I controlled most of the board. My dad looked down and grimaced.

“I’m nuking the retirement mansion,” he said, taking out a hammer.

“I thought you needed to roll two 12s in a row to do that,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, and proceeded to roll two 12s in a row. The hammer came down and the little plastic mansion was shattered. I don’t know how he does it, but no one beats my dad at games when he’s been drinking Muzzle Blasters.

13 Comments | tags: aliens, fiction, funny, Game of Life, Motivational Drill Sergeant, pina colada, Risk, science fiction | posted in Light

April 24, 2013

Classic Arguments – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Classic Arguments

The library had only been closed a minute when the whispers began.

“You know, it is a universal truth that a single volume in possession of a beautiful cover, must be in want of a sequel.”

“Shut yer rot, Austen, ya gloopy devotchka.”

“Double plus right.”

“As God is my witness, I’m never going to listen to you all gripe again.”

“This is the best of nights, it is the worst of nights.”

Suddenly, from the corner of the library with primary colors and board books and beanbag chairs came a roar of fierce joy:

“Let the wild rumpus start!”

Previous Week Update:

On February 13, I posted the story The Wrong Tourist, about a person posing and getting their camera stolen. So, in a fit of meta-fiction, I went down and posed by the statue in the photo prompt, handing my camera to a stranger to take my picture. However, instead of a creepy old man, it was a young woman with a much better camera than mine, so I don’t think she would have wanted it.

This was taken back in February, when I still needed a coat.

58 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, library, literature, writing | posted in Light

April 19, 2013

The Best Franken-steak in the World

By David Stewart

The laboratory had never looked so posh. Dr. Andrews hurried around, setting the table with gleaming cutlery and crystal. Under his breath, he hummed—to the tune of “Macho Man”—“Nobel, Nobel Prize. I’m going to win a Nobel Prize.”

An hour later, he was seated at the table with scientists and politicians from around the country. Waiters hired for the night brought in the meals, each featuring a huge steak that almost filled the plate. The gasps of surprise changed to exclamations of pleasure as they began to eat.

“I don’t know what the presentation you have for us is, Dr. Andrews,” one of them said, “but it’s going to be hard-pressed not to be upstaged by these steaks.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Dr. Andrews said with a smile, “because the presentation is the steaks. You see, I grew them myself.”

“I didn’t know you kept cows.”

“I don’t. I grew this meat right here in the lab.” Dr. Andrews stood up and a screen lowered behind him. “I have discovered a technique for growing pure muscle tissue quickly in controlled conditions.”

There were murmurs of surprise and a few of disgust. He caught the term ‘frankenmeat’.

“Is it safe?” someone asked.

“It’s completely unaltered beef,” he said. “The genetic structure is exact. Plus, I can grow just the meat and not the fat or bones, so it is better quality, healthier, and less expensive.

“This product is superior in every way,” he continued quickly. “If we were to only eat this type of meat, there would be no need for unhygienic feed lots: did you know that the majority of all antibiotics in the United States are fed to cows? Animal rights activists would be happier, plus it would be better on the environment: cows produce a ton of methane and a lot of water and resources are used to grow corn to feed cows for beef. This meat is also much cheaper: imagine buying the steaks you just ate at the store for 50 cents a pound.”

One of the politicians spoke up. “It sounds almost perfect. The thing is, it was grown in a lab. Who exactly do you expect to eat this?”

This is speculative fiction, but I’m curious: would you buy meat grown in a lab?

38 Comments | tags: beef, fiction, laboratory, manufactured, meat, science fiction | posted in Light

April 17, 2013

Canadianized Bees – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Canadianized Bees

“Mr. Prime Minister, I have disturbing reports from the Pickering Nuclear Plant. It’s bees, sir.”

“Dear God! You mean . . .”

“Yes, sir. Canadianized bees. They’re so huge they only drink maple sap, boring holes with their auger-like stingers.”

“Is there any good news?”

“They’re quite polite—they always ask before stinging someone. Almost no one says yes.”

“Should we warn the Americans?”

“The bees don’t really like heat. Some go to Florida for the winter, but most are heading north.”

* * *

Somewhere in Russia

“Sir, I’ve detected a mass of objects coming over the North Pole.”

“Is it the Americans?”

“Worse. Canadians.”

64 Comments | tags: bees, Canada, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, quirky, Russia | posted in Light

April 15, 2013

The Chronicles of the Moldlands: Forgotten Bagel

By David Stewart

Warning: While this is technically classified as Apocryphal History, some may consider it more in the genre of Horror because of its subject matter. If you have a phobia of mold, you’ve been warned. But read it anyway, since it’s a good laugh.

Life first sprang into being on the high plateau of Fridge, on the rising mounds of Forgotten Bagel. It was a primitive sort of life: growing, eating, spreading slowly, and happy just to discover the occasional half-buried blueberry. A filmy plastic covered the hills and so life was contained for a while.

The gods inhabited the Great House at that time, but soon there came the time of the Impromptu Vacation, and the gods departed from the house for the far country of Aruba. They never returned to the house again.

The civilization of Forgotten Bagel thrived until it had covered the hills and was straining to break the filmy bonds that constrained its expansion. It was the great explorer Schimmel Penicillium who led the first voyage to find the way out of the barrier. He came out into open air and into the strange land of Kitchen. He founded colonies wherever he found suitable ground and the Cillium Empire was formed. Schimmel claimed the title of Grand Mouchla and set up his capital in the caves of Bread Box, which were much more central than Forgotten Bagel. He assimilated the locals and for a while, the Cillium Empire grew like an infestation.

Try not to think of what this was originally

But there were areas of concern. Scouting spores returned to report a deep cavern of mystery named Trashbin that was filled with food and land of unimaginable richness, but was also inhabited by strange and wondrous monsters. Then there were the legends of the dark underworld known as Drain. The people of Drain were said to be dark and strong, with a touch that poisoned everything.

The Cillium Empire flourished and soon built foil mines and developed weapons and aircraft out of aluminum. So it was that the first Cillians landed in the wide basin of Sink and stood before the mighty entrance to the dark land of Drain.

Drain was wet and slick and the entrance was surrounded by slimy black fortifications. The Cillian forces were wary but approached with weapons at the ready. Still, they were not prepared for the onslaught that came. Suddenly millions of black Cladospores poured out, overwhelming the Cillians and capturing their aluminum aircraft and weapons.

The defeat caused panic throughout the Cillium Empire. The Grand Mouchla–at this time the great-grandson of Schimmel Penicillium–stationed guards around the borders of Sink. However, the Cladospores did not spread beyond the borders of Drain and slowly the panic subsided. Still, the Grand Mouchla did not like having such a potent threat so close to his empire.

Then one of the patrols came back with an interesting report. They observed water dripping from the dead waterfall of Tap. Some of the Cillian scientists conjectured that the Cladospores depended on this water and if they could totally shut off Tap, the Cladospores would die. The Cillians had recently discovered a cache of huge and terribly strong steel cables called Twist-Ties and now they undertook a project to bind these together and attach them to the upper portion of Tap, hoping to pull it closed.

After two generations, the grand project was finished and a long line of Twist-Ties was looped around the upper part of Tap and up to a hook above it. Cillian engineers winched the Tap up, but they quickly found that they were very mistaken about the workings of Tap and instead of shutting off the water, it began to gush out in a flood. The Cladospores were obliterated, washed down into the furthest recesses of Drain and a great threat to the Cillium Empire was gone. Some worried that this was only inundating the Cladospores with the resource that they needed most, but most agreed that while Tap was pouring forth water, the Cladospores would never again be able to emerge from Drain. And so, for a time, there was peace in the wide land of Kitchen.