Tag Archives: Alastair’s Photo Fiction

October 5, 2014

Describe Your Typical Day

I woke up late, of course. I swear that nothing short of Ragnorak could get me up on time. I have seven alarms, all set in sequence, with increasing volumes. It wakes up the deaf guy three houses down, but not me.

The clock said 7:45 when my brain finally decided to allow my eyelids to open. The sickeningly familiar jolt of adrenaline got me out of bed and into the shower before I even realized I was awake. Ten minutes later, I was out the door, briefcase in one hand, bagel in the other, sprinting for the bus stop.

I couldn’t miss the bus. If I missed the bus, I’d be late for work again, and if I was late again, I’d get fired and if I got fired . . . a dark web of consequences fractalled out in front of me. Can’t miss the bus.

I was 100 meters away when I saw it. “No!” I screamed in impotent rage, like a weaponless berserker. It passed me, not slowing. I threw the bagel at it. No effect. I threw my briefcase, which bounced off the fender. No effect.

An open patch of wet concrete was in my way and I tripped and landed headfirst in it. As I floundered through it, I saw the bus about to disappear around the corner. “Stop, you filthy—” I screamed, adding an arcane racial epithet for Belgians which was both uncharacteristic for me and totally unexpected.

The bus stopped. The driver stepped out. I could tell by the look in his eyes that his ancestors were Belgian.

I made it to work by 8:57, filthy and bruised, but not late.

The door was locked. It was Saturday.

26 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, bus, fiction, flash fiction, funny, morning, routine | posted in Light

July 14, 2014

Superdad

By David Stewart

This is the first time in a long time that I’ve had the time, energy, and Internet access to do the Sunday Photo Fiction story. Hopefully, though, I can continue this from now on though.

Superdad

“You know, Harry,” I said, sitting down on a bench overlooking the lake. “This is where I went to camp when I was young. That’s when I found I had powers.”

“Is this like how you say you have eyes on the back of your head?” my son Harry asked.

“Kind of,” I said. “Except I could use my mind to move things. I was out one night and suddenly—POW!—a boulder almost fell on me. I picked it up with my mind and threw it in the lake. SPLASH!”

“So, you’re like a Superdad?” Harry asked, skepticism oozing from his expression. “Well, do something now to prove it.”

“Ooh sorry, I’m retired now. Being a father and all, you know.”

“Yeah. Can we get ice cream now?”

“Sure,” I said. Harry stood up and walked towards the roadside ice cream stand.

“You almost had him there,” a middle-aged man sitting nearby commented.

“I don’t know; kids are pretty shrewd these days. Excuse me for a moment.” I could see a swimmer across the lake struggling in deep water. I pulled him into the shallows, turned and nodded to the man, then followed Harry to get ice cream.

13 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, fantasy, father, fiction, flash fiction, lake, quirky, superpowers | posted in Light

May 19, 2014

Currents Run Deep

By David Stewart

Currents Run Deep

Triliton’s mining ship the Ocean Duchess set sail from Dover with the mission to strip mine the ocean floor. It was carrying a new machine that extracted all nutrients and left only bare rock behind. It was also carrying a saboteur.

<Five days later>

“They got Tre!” Joy said at the Ecological Army headquarters. “They caught him setting the dynamite.”

“Is he alive?” Nel asked.

“They brought him into a small room for a couple hours. He’s unrecognizable now. Here’s a picture I stole from a security camera.” She turned her iPad.

“Bastard!” Nel squinted. “I never thought I’d see Tre in a suit. Is that a Mercedes he’s driving?”

“Yep. They made him the Director of Environmental Affairs. Six figures. He won’t return my calls.”

“It just shows the evil we’re up against.”

<Five years later>

Joy could barely restrain from punching Tre when he turned up late one night at her apartment.

“How could you, Tre?” she demanded. “You sold yourself to the enemy.”

“Haven’t you been getting my donations?” he asked. “They were anonymous, but I thought you’d figure it out. Plus, the mission is finished.” He flipped on the TV.

“TRILITON’S ENTIRE OCEAN MINING FLEET SUNK. ECO-TERRORISM SUSPECTED.”

6 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, eco-terrorism, fiction, flash fiction, mining, mission, sabotage, ship | posted in Dusk

May 11, 2014

The Best Mother’s Day Ever

By David Stewart

Happy Mother’s Day everyone. This is my bizarre tribute to mothers everywhere. For those of you who don’t know, this is part of a weekly photo prompt, where the challenge is to write a 200-word story based on a picture. Skip down below the picture for the story.

For my regular readers, I’m sure you’ve noticed I haven’t been posting much lately. I have been working hard to finish a manuscript of a novel so that’s taken most of my time. I just finished today, so I should be posting more from now on.

The Best Mother’s Day Ever

“Happy Mother’s Day, honey. I got you something really special!”

“What is it?” Debbie asked, taking the box from her husband Robert’s hands and opening it.

“It’s a gun,” he said. “You shoot yourself with it.” Seeing her look of horror, he continued quickly. “No, no, it doesn’t hurt. You know how you never have enough time to do everything you need to? This gun helps you split up your body so you can do more things at once. Great, eh?”

“Uh huh, I see. How does it work?”

“You just point it at a body part and fire and it detaches. You can still use the body part and control it though. You shoot it again to reattach it. Imagine how efficient you can be now.”

“Sounds great,” she said brightly, and shot him.

Twenty minutes later, Debbie was sitting on the couch, eating an ice cream sundae and watching a movie. Robert’s left arm was cleaning out the gutters; his right arm and legs were out picking up the dry-cleaning; his head was watching the kids; and his torso was mowing the lawn, somehow.

She smiled. This was the best Mother’s Day ever.

18 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, chores, dismemberment, fiction, flash fiction, gun, Mother, Mother's Day, quirky | posted in Light

April 27, 2014

How Much for the Tractor?

By David Stewart

How Much for the Tractor?

“How much for the tractor?” Robby asked.

Jed made a show of calculating. “Let’s say six grand.”

“I’ll give you four.”

“5500 then.”

“I’ll give you five grand if you also throw in your old picnic table. You don’t use it anymore anyway.”

“Fine, I’ll give you the tractor and the picnic table for five grand and your push mower.”

“What? That push mower is still pretty good. But okay . . . if I can kiss your sister—”

“What!”

“Hug! Hug your sister.”

“That’s not up to me . . .”

“Just don’t beat me up if I do.”

“Fine. But in that case . . .”

<20 minutes later>

“Okay,” Robby said. “So I get the tractor, the picnic table, a hug from your sister, three steaks cooked medium rare, a hundred shares of stock in your son’s future company, and an invitation to your Christmas party and I’ll give you five grand, the push mower, a load of gravel, a set of wind-chimes made out of coral, and you can be best man at my wedding. Sound fair?”

“Sure. Can you pay in cash?”

“I don’t have that much right now, but here’s what I can offer you . . .”

24 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, bargaining, fiction, flash fiction, funny, sale, tractor | posted in Light

April 20, 2014

The Rage Within

By David Stewart

The Rage Within

ADX-Florence Supermax Prison, Fremont County, CNN

The guards say that no inmates ever went near Karl Zakharin’s zen garden, scratched out of a sandy corner of the exercise ground. Not unless they wanted one of their fingers to become a grisly addition, the center of a newly-pinked swirl of sand. Every day at 10:00 sharp, the crime boss would smooth out the sand and spend an hour drawing circles and whorls with a stick or arranging cigarette butts in an aesthetic fashion.

“Just letting out the rage that’s trapped inside,” he would say to anyone who asked. The guards were not so trusting and routinely dug up the sand patch, looking for contraband. They found nothing.

Three years later, the mystery was solved. A codebook, found 2000 miles away in a gang hideout, detailed the complex language through which Zakharin communicated with his vast syndicate. Authorities also found a commercially-built drone, which had flown high overheard every day, capturing the day’s messages.

Confronted by this evidence, Zakharin only smiled his customary leer of filed points. “It was therapy,” he told guards. “The rage was confined here behind these walls. I was only letting it out into the real world where it belongs.”

Zakharin is believed to have ordered the murders of 136 people while incarcerated.

19 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, CNN, code, crime, crime boss, fiction, flash fiction, murder, prison, Supermax Prison | posted in Dusk

April 13, 2014

What if…?

By David Stewart

What if…?

Rick Forrest was driving the Number 45 bus, empty, back toward the garage when he saw a man waiting at a lonely bus stop on the opposite side. There were no more buses that day, so he slowed and slide open his window.

“Hey buddy, no more buses today!”

The man looked up. “I’m not waiting for that bus.”

“This is the only bus route out here,” Rick said. He was about to drive away, when the man stood up and took a step into the road.

“The bus will be here any moment. Do you want to take it too? There’s room.”

You’re crazy! was on the tip of Rick’s tongue, but something in the man’s intent look made him pause. “I have to finish my route.”

“Come on, there’s room. It’s worth it.”

Rick suddenly had an insane vision of himself parking the bus by the side of the road and getting out to wait with the man. Crazy. He stepped on the gas and drove off.

A dark red bus was approaching. He watched it in the rear view mirror as it stopped and the man got on. Then the bus vanished into thin air.

Rick finished his route and went home, but every single day for the rest of his life, the same question went through his head: What if I had gotten on that bus?

6 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, bus, countryside, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction | posted in Dusk

April 6, 2014

Snowing in Summer

By David Stewart

The Snow Tree

“Daddy, let’s go! Let’s go!”

My youngest daughter Terri was bouncing up and down with impatience. I could understand. The weather was broiling and the whole world was sunnyside up.

We walked to the cemetery slowly, keeping under the shade of the trees. Then we saw it up ahead, the snow tree, gently shedding its delicate frozen blossoms.

It seemed like half the town was there already, making snow cones and throwing snowballs that melted with a hiss as soon as they left the shade of the tree.

It was amazing how incurious our town of Gooseneck was. The tree was obviously magical, but there it was, dropping snow all year round, so what were you going to do?

Terri and I played under that tree every day that summer. But it was the last. The town ran into budget problems and sold the tree to a casino for fifty million dollars. We were sad to see it go.

Although, not as sad as we were when we realized that the tree had been planted to keep a pack of ghouls that were buried in the cemetery frozen for all eternity. They were pissed when they thawed out.

Nobody saw that one coming.

8 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, ghouls, magic, monsters, snow, tree | posted in Light

March 31, 2014

My Father is Dying in the Desert

By David Stewart

My Father is Dying in the Desert

The Stone Emperor was dying. It was just the two of us now, wandering across the burning expanse of desert, towards the far-off dream of the ocean. I staggered along in his shadow as he towered over me. The sand trembled as he walked—one step for every fifty of my own.

“I must stop.” He sank down slowly onto the sand. More rocky scales fell from his skin; more of his molten blood oozed out.

“We are almost to the ocean, Father!” I shouted up to him. Ever since he had adopted me when I was little, I had ridden on his high, craggy shoulder, but not now. Now he literally glowed as his life’s magma seeped out through a thousand cracks. Humans could not know the diseases that afflicted a rock giant.

“This is the end,” he rumbled. “You have been a good son, more faithful than any of my own strata. Stay with me, until the end.”

The sun went down slowly and although the air was cold, the escaping life of my father kept me warm.

“God in heaven,” I prayed. “Keep him alive until we reach the ocean.”

During the night, I awoke to rain falling, hissing and spitting as it cooled and healed the Stone Emperor’s skin, sealing in his heat. God had not brought us to the ocean; he had brought the ocean to us in the desert.