Bedtime Story, Part III

There was once a ragged tramp of a girl with dust in her hair who had no home, sleeping under stairwells and on benches in the big city where she lived. Sometimes she would sing and dance for coins, or sweep courtyards and water flowers. Though dirty she was a pretty girl, and men often asked her for favors. "Only for a heart, I'd only do it for a heart, not for your love but mine, and only for a heart," she would say with her dark smile.

Bedtime Story, Part II

There was once a girl who lived in a tall tower - not in the middle of nowhere guarded by a dragon, but in a green park in a big city. She was not a princess, though she was beautiful. The girl who loved her, a ragged tramp of a girl with dust in her long dark hair, would visit every day. "Come with me," the girl below pleaded. "I will show you the world and all my love. "I haven't the heart," replied the girl in the tower. "I haven't the heart."

Bedtime Story, Part 1

There was once a boy who lived by the sea. He loved to build sandcastles too close to the water, so that the waves would destroy them, making him feel like a powerful and capricious god.

One of the sandcastles would not wash away, though, even when the waves rushed over all else, smoothing out the sand. It did not become a lump of sludge, either. It stood, a little crookedly, for three days and three nights. Finally he took a shovel and smashed it.

Inside the sandcastle was a beating heart, bleeding but alive. He picked it up in trembling hands and felt rooted to the spot.

Last I looked he was still there, under the stars, not sure what to do next.

Phantom Limbs is Published!

Just got my contributors' copy and $15 check in the mail, since I was on vacation. So happy and proud! Click here to buy.

Something I wrote for Creative Writing

Prompt was "death scene". I thought it came out well.

There’s a song I’ve got stuck in my head as I watch my premature infant struggle to breathe in the incubator. By Death Cab for Cutie, a song called “What Sarah Said”. It’s got a nice piano backdrop to it, better than the hiss and whir of various machines trying to hold back the inevitable.

My baby is only about the size of my partner’s two fists pressed together. My partner is still recovering from her ordeal. I’m not sure if they’ve told her the percentages, the steady unravel of all these months of expectation and hope. She’ll pull through, the doctors say, but they don’t want to stress her until she has a better handle on remaining with us.

Technically it’s not “my” baby in the sense that I am not a man, I did not insert Tab A into Slot B. But my cousin donated the sperm. More importantly, I’m the one who held my love’s hair back as she threw up from all those days of morning sickness, the one who fetched her toasted seaweed chips and pho from the Asian market downtown when she yearned for them, who rubbed her feet, who picked up the slack of taking care of the two cats and chinchilla. I feel this is pretty much the same amount of involvement as a father has. I was convinced I was okay with being Mommy Number Two.

She’s such a misshapen doll, our baby. We came up with girl names once we knew, but if I start thinking of this little scrap of fading as the name we liked best, I know – just know – that I’m going to break.

This was supposed to be a celebration of life.

“It better not be contractions,” was how she broke the news to me, “but we should get this checked out.”

How I prayed. You’d think a minister’s prayers would hold weight, but then again there is no guarantee that heard prayers will not be denied anyway, for part of some greater scheme. I have to hold onto that.

She waves her little hands feebly. I wonder where she thinks she is. I wonder how much she’ll notice the slip from here to eternity.

I’m not even sure why they bothered putting her in an incubator if they’re so sure she’s not going to make it. I suppose because you have to let them go on their own schedule. You have to try, so you don’t spend the rest of your life wondering if you accidentally blocked a miracle.

My stomach growls, and I am dismayed at such a mundane thing breaking into what is supposed to be tragic. Yet I am not crying. I’m not doing much of anything. I am sitting very still, watching the millimeters’ rise and fall of her little chest, and I have an alternative rock song running through my mind’s ears.

I’m not sure how you love a lump of flesh that will soon become a shoebox’s worth of burial. What earthly good does that love do anyone? All I know is that I do. Maybe it’s best that my partner is not present.

I must tell her myself, when she wakes. I owe it to her.

The fingers stop moving. The breathing dwindles. A lump is a lump is a lump.

And I’m thinking of what Sarah said:

That love is watching someone die.

I've been anthologized!

My short story "Attempts to be a Mormon Bohemian" was published in an online issue of Aoife's Kiss in 2007, and it was voted best of issue! And is now published in Wondrous Web Worlds 9!

If anyone has read it, and my bio within, and wondered about it, I think they did that to protect me back when I was under 18. I would have sent them a new bio if they requested it but the one they have is pretty funny.

Whee!

All's Well That Ends Well

The greatest short story I ever wrote, "Phantom Limbs", has had difficulty finding a home. I sent it first to Aoife's Kiss, a magazine where I had my first story ever published back in 2007. The reply back, from editor Tyree Campbell, was the most enthusiastic response I have ever received, including the phase "oh absolutely, gobsmacking yes!"

However, he suggested that I try sending it to a bunch of publications that could pay me higher rates and give me more prestige, listing them for me. I tried each one in succession, a process of many months. Eventually I went back to him and said he could have it.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Finally, earlier this week, more than a year after our communication, he found me again! I had slipped through the cracks of his busy life. He wanted to know if the story was still available.

Upshot: at some point in the next few months, depending on where he finds a slot, I will be published in Aoife's Kiss and receive $15. Even better, I have a friend in the industry again.

Write-A-Thon Day 3

Private Roberto

By Donaya Haymond

The squad was immensely skeptical of the experimental robot at first, meant for seeking out and defusing mines. It had a set of retractable wheels for fast movement on roads, and eight pullout spindly spider-legs for rougher terrain. One long, hinged appendage tapering to a delicate multipurpose toolkit could disarm a standard piece of unexploded ordinance in a few minutes, while two stubbier mechanical limbs had the machinery to explore the ground and carefully do any excavation required. It had cost millions of dollars to develop and build, and was a great, shining hope for a future with far lower soldier and civilian casualties than in the wars of today. It also looked really, really silly.

It was a hobbledehoy of an artificial creature - all ungainly bits soldered together, the occasional loose part held tighter by duct tape, giving those observing it the distinct feeling (no matter how inaccurate) that a stiff breeze would make it crumple into a heap of scrap. It rolled erratically, like metal tumbleweed, when using its wheels; and its eight-legged scurry was similar to that of a tarantula with some kind of nervous system disorder. The military is concerned with function, not form or aesthetic. Prettiness lies within the domain of consumer products.

Codenamed “Private Roberto” and always referred to as “he” to prevent the enemy from targeting such a valuable piece of technology, its moniker immensely gave rise to jokes among the ranks that it was of Hispanic descent.

“You’re looking depressed, Private Roberto. Do I need to get a priest for you to confess to something you’ve done?”

“So, Private Roberto, is your family from Mexico, El Salvador, or one of those other countries?”

“Feliz Navidad, Private Roberto! Do you miss old Eve and Wall-E back at the hacienda?”

Private Roberto, of course, only replied with a gentle “Whir?” That’s all he ever said to anything. All other communication from him consisted of blinking lights or a message on his little screen, black digital typeface on a pale green surface, such as POWER LOW or PLEASE CHECK LEFT WHEEL. Whatever could be said against him, one couldn’t deny his programmed politeness.

As the months went by, despite the initial skepticism, it became clear that Private Roberto was very good at his job. He could clear a few hundred square meters of an open field, all by himself, in less than three hours, eliminating the breath-holding, tense tedium that was such work before his deployment. He had to be supervised by the bomb squad, but as they got used to how he operated, they found themselves with more time in between assignments to relax a little, write letters home, chat, and even play cards from time to time, on folding chairs while they kept an eye on what they were starting to think of as a pet. Their feelings towards him became close to one they would have had with a trained sniffer dog, even if Private Roberto was a good deal lumpier and more standoffish.

One day the technicians sent Private Roberto to inspect a patch of woodland before they sent any human beings there. He whirred, obliging, and quickly tiptoed to the assigned area to fulfill the mission. Less than ten minutes later, though, he stopped.

“What’s going on, Roberto?”

“You know he’s not going to answer.”

“I know it sounds stupid, but I worry about him when he’s out there.”

He let out several whirs, and the humans hearing it hoped they were only imagining that there was worry in those sounds, some kind of anxiety from a tool not meant to have emotions. Roberto tiptoed back to his handlers for input, one appendage held slightly away from his body.

He had a baby bird gently cradled in what passed for a hand. It was still in the ugly-cute pink stage with bulbous purple eyes, quite still and cold.

“Did he kill it?”

“It’s been dead for hours. Look at the ants crawling on it.”

“Why bring it to us?”

“I think the people who built him put in some kinda fail-safe to keep him from harming living things. Maybe he wants to check.”

“Whir?”

“It’s okay, Roberto. It’s dead. You can keep going.”

“Whir?”

“It’s dead, Roberto. As in…not alive. It was, but now it isn’t.”

“Whir.”

Roberto deposited the body of the baby bird at their feet and went back to his job.

Three of the men took Roberto fishing with them the next time they had a day off. They were neither reprimanded by those above them, nor mocked by those around them. One of the three took a photo of Roberto in a borrowed cap and jacket, with a fishing rod propped up next to him.

A new kind of bomb he was not programmed to recognize finally wounded – that is, damaged - Roberto, not beyond repair but enough to require extensive reworking. The reaction of his comrades surprised the journalist who had come to cover the newly declassified technology.

“No, you can’t just slap new parts on Roberto and make him go out again!”

“He needs rest. He’s done so much for us.”

“At least a furlough before he comes back into combat, if he can’t be honorably discharged.”

“Give him a Purple Heart!”

“Yeah, give him a Purple Heart!”

And so, after some consultation, Private Roberto was one of the first non-organic beings to receive a military medal. All his friends came to the ceremony, since he didn’t have any family…yet, anyway.

Write-A-Thon Day 1

E Equals MC Scared

By Donaya Haymond

The multiverse theory in physics states that there are an infinite number of universes, each one slightly different from the others, so that every possibility, every action and reaction, is explored somewhere, somehow.

In many universes, including our own, Albert Einstein is the greatest physicist of the 20^th century. He is acknowledged as one of the most intelligent men ever lived, and, even with his flawed personal life that included multiple infidelities, a kind and basically good man.

According to the multiverse theory – one of the theories that came after him, and would have troubled the same man that claimed “God does not play dice with the Universe,” – there is at least one plane of existence where he heard the news of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the newspaper. Perhaps in this same reality he had a slow sinking feeling when he realized it was his work, his breakthroughs in science that allowed this swift cut of the Gordian’s Knot this war had become.

There is at least one universe where he quietly whispered, “Oy vey,” and needed to go for a walk to clear his head. There is at least one where he did not manage to eat anything for the rest of the day. There may be ones he looked at the trees, the grass, nature outside, and wondered if one day all would be blighted by fallout.

It is possible he managed to calm his feelings of guilt and sorrow, knowing that this bold stroke probably saved the world from years of further war, this horrendous war that had claimed so much he loved. Or, in the chill of his grief and feelings of responsibility, he could have simply mourned. He could have mourned for the innocents of Japan who had not decided to fight this fight, who were merely born in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could have mourned for the children as yet unborn, whose genetic code would be warped by radiation, and who would have parents with all kinds of cancers and traumas, a great scar in their history.

He would have feared for what this meant for the future, a harbinger of another world war fought with nuclear weapons, which he predicted would lead to wars afterwards being fought with rocks. He might have had an inkling of the frightened decades to follow, hovering over buttons and having nightmares of a thousand, thousand mushroom clouds born of the two original parents.

He could not have known, unless some divine revelation showed him; that the Cold War never would ignite; that at least once freedom and democracy would peacefully erode at the harsh walls restricting whoever it could. Maybe the cosmos will never be kind enough for such visions to ever take place.

Did he embrace a friend or family member silently? Did he sleep at all that night? Did he stalk empty rooms, wondering if he did the right thing, if they did the right thing, if there could have been some other way, if knowledge is worth it for its own sake, if tools should be built when one cannot foresee all their uses?

The price of fame, as history has shown, is the public illumination of what the famous would rather have remain private woes. The price of wealth is constant demand upon it by those who wish to benefit from the wealthy. The price of beauty is a steady numbing to praise, a devaluation of all other of the beautiful person’s virtues. The price of knowledge, of adding to humanity’s store, is having on your shoulders everything that results from that knowledge, good or bad.

Some universes he regretted this more than he was able to resign himself to the bleak reality. In other universes, it was the other way around; he allowed himself to be consoled with thoughts of hands needing to get dirty, certain things that had to be done for the sake of a greater mercy.

Universes being infinite, there must be at least one where no bombs were dropped in the first place. There must be at least one that diverges even further, with no Albert Einstein born, no World War II, some other cities targeted, no cities targeted, more cities targeted…Again, though, the cosmos is probably not kind enough to ever let anyone see these differences and results, let us pick and choose which one we want to live in. Or with.

300 for 30: Day 27

(This was originally written on commission for a sci-fi magazine, however, they have requested that I double it in length. So I thought I'd preserve the original 584-word micro-fiction here as today's 300-for-30.)

What We Found on Europa

The first probe to land on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons discovered by Galileo, managed only to land upon the ice and roll around for a few hours, its multi-million dollar drill too fragile to break through the layer, which was thicker than expected, and allow it to dive into the waters below. Though the scientists involved in the mission pointed out that this proved there at least was liquid water, which had only been conjectured before, the public did not consider the mission a success. The robot was abandoned to crackle in the freezing temperatures.

It took more than a century for a private conglomeration of businesses, hoping to find rare and useful metals to compensate for the increasing scarcity of materials on Earth, to scrape together the funds for another exploration of Jupiter’s moons. They were hoping to emulate India’s recent monopoly of the rich Martian mines. One of the fleet of radio-equipped robots landed upon Europa, and did make it through the ice layer to the ocean. It measured increasing warmth as it descended, suggesting heat escaping from the core. All was darkness, though, and the sea-rover soon ran out of power, with nothing to charge its solar panel.

A hundred and sixty-eight years later, Free Luna of Earth’s Satellite, in association with New Earth Mars, sent a variety of crafts, some with humans in stasis aboard and some not, out to near space in an effort to find places where human life – and the lives of what non-humans we had managed to transplant – could expand. Europa had liquid water, we knew, and was at least in our solar system. All attempts at Venus had failed horribly, so away from the sun was our goal. Perhaps we could harness the heat of the core to groom the moon, make it Earthlike enough for us.

I am the first human ever to dive in a submersible craft into the depths of Europa’s oceans. I was supposed to share this with a partner, but she suffered a heart attack coming out of suspended animation. The technology is sadly not yet perfect.

Let those listening in from New Earth Mars, the nearest substantial settlement (not counting the temporary encampments on some of the larger asteroids in the Belt), and those on Free Luna and Mother Terra herself once the news is spread, let them know that I have come face-to-face with life.

It looks much like a small squid or large cuttlefish, only slightly larger than my hand, but has three eyes, huge and lovely eyes. It must feed on the tiny crustaceans my scanner is picking up, which in turn must live on bacteria nourished by the chemicals spouting from deep sea vents like the ones our ancestors discovered at the bottom of their sea.

I don’t know if it’s intelligent, the way we are, or even the way a dolphin or a chimp or raven is. I don’t know if it registers me as life, even. But it is blinking colors at me, the bioluminescence that is the reason for its vision, and I am blinking colors back at it as best I can, using my pen light.

It is too far for me to go home again, and I will never see another human face. Yet I do not regret this, not any longer. For in this encounter, at the bottom of this chilled soup of an alien sea, I have found God.

Happiness Was a Warm Gun

(Author's note: This was originally written for a horror-story contest on Fanstory. Didn't win, but got some very good reader responses.)

I woke up cold and shaking, fumbling for my syringe and the pack of disposable needles. It took thirteen flicks of my lighter to get a flame bright enough to see where the kit was. No matter how many times I'd done it, the injection still hurt, still made me hiss long and low as it sank into the flesh. But the drug - I needed the drug. Nothing was more important than the drug.

Eight pills I took, little bitty ones, my whole body shuddering with the jitters and fears of my want. Algae growing in my water bottle, hard to wash down, wanted to spit but swallowed. I needed to get clean water and food. I'd have to face the world. God.

I hoped to slip out without getting the attention of my landlord and all the other tenants, but no such luck. He came to the door before I'd even got my bra on. Bang, bang, rent due, I'm-going-to-kick-you-out-sister-unless, and the 'unless' was something I knew I'd never be able to rely on again.

"Just a second! Let me get dressed properly!" I called, nearly ripping seams in my rush to open the door before he kicked it.

He wasn't angry this time, though. Pale. He badly needed what I couldn't give him.

"Miaka..." With a desperate futility I retrieved a check mailed from my brother, who kept begging me to move to New Zealand and take refuge with him, no matter the difficulties involved. "Look! I can pay you for this past month! And I'm going to move out. There's got to be a flight I can take if I bribe someone."

"Miaka, money isn't going to help me anymore." The landlord opened the door wider and reached through, grasping my hand. I didn't like it when people touched me without permission.

Twisting my wrist but still trapped - damn how shriveled-up and weak the stuff made me - I looked at him with a mixture of sorrow, pity, and fear. "No. I'm sorry. I can't spare any. You know how hard it's become to find?"

"Of course I know, hon. And that's why I have to take it from you. I'd rather not hurt you." He couldn't. I would rather die than lose my stash. I wouldn't let him.

I wasn't a naturally violent person, but the need for the drug did things to people. The needle was still in my other hand, tip not yet discarded, so in the ensuing panicked scuffle I jabbed it into his eye. He screamed and collapsed to the floor, releasing me in order to try to get it out. Gushing blood, vitreous humor and aqueous humor - worst names for pain-juice ever, I might add, words change over the millennia and this wasn't funny at all - and me crying and saying I was sorry, gathering up what I had left of value into a bag and clutching it to me.

I should not have looked back at him, and I really would have preferred becoming a pillar of salt to what my punishment was. When he yanked the needle back out...his eye came with it. He let go and the skewered eyeball, like the world's most grotesque hors d'oeuvre, fell a few inches to the floor and bounced.

He stopped yelling then. That's what it does when it starts, makes them quiet and dreamy. So, of the two of us who were there, I was the only one who vomited when his new eye coalesced into being. His other original eye and the new eye gently plopped out, also bouncing gently before coming to rest beside his head. Another pair of eyes followed quickly.

If he was very lucky, the virus would stop with his eyes, and he would just lie there making new ones until he died of dehydration. If he was unlucky, he'd have other organs coming out the orifices (or at least trying to), gruesomely and relentlessly, before sweet, forgiving death came to claim him.

I did my best to recover composure and dry my tears. The kindest thing to do would be kill him now, but I had no weapons and would be beyond overcome if I had to touch the thing he was. I pleaded his unhearing forgiveness once more, and then rushed into the street, doing my best to admit nothing.

There was no huddled tent of skin, growing, flowing, knotting around skin skin skin she can't move for all that skin. I didn't, didn't, didn't hear the dispassionate retching of a wretched man on his hands and knees, puking up sections of hearts, lungs, stomachs, and I don't know what else.

I knew how to fly a helicopter. If I could make it to the air base without being robbed by someone still untouched, like me, then I might be able to get to an airport in a city where the epidemic was under better control, where I could prove I was healthy and they could let me take a plane to hide in my big brother's house and have nightmares forever.

My medical research company had only wanted a way to cheaply and ethically produce replacement organs for transplant patients, and if one of the top leaders of the project hadn't been kidnapped by terrorists and forced to hand over what they needed to weaponize it, that's all that would have happened. We would have made the world so much better. Instead we - no time, surprise, you see, everything so fast - we - we - We barely had time to come up with any antidote at all. It was inconvenient, with ironically heroin-like side-effects. The city crumbled in horror before we had time to distribute it widely.

Thanks to me, five of the families from my building were already safe. But now I had so little, and the antidote had to be taken multiple times a day to remain effective, and if I stayed even a few hours more I would be gone. I couldn't vomit again. I would pass out.

I found an unchained bicycle and increased my speed with relief. There was still a chance. I thought about New Zealand, green and stable and peaceful and clean.

The streets were full of carrion birds, rats, and cockroaches. I nearly crashed when a murder of crows fluttered almost in my face. New Zealand. New Zealand.

A few hundred thousand medical monsters were all that stood in my way.