Issue 79 April 2020 Flash Fiction Online April 2020

It didn’t surprise anyone on Peachtree Circle that the Joneses were the first in the neighborhood to buy a time machine. After all, they’d also been the first to lease a suborbital condo, to purchase their own Servo-Droid, and to subscribe to the Alien-Plant-a-Month club.

The time machine, which they installed in their rock garden, was not technically against HOA rules, even though every time they fired it up, the whirring and spinning echoed down the block and the light shone directly into the Martins’ bedroom window.

Initially, no one complained about the Joneses’ extravagant time-themed parties. The machine spun and flashed into all hours of the night as neighborhood couples in flapper dresses and top hats slipped bottles of SKYY vodka into ’20s speakeasies. The binge-watch of the first five Super Bowls was all anyone could talk about for weeks, and even Mrs. Martin herself had to reluctantly admit that Oklahoma! was better with the original cast.

But when the Joneses took the Boy Scouts on a camping trip in the Byzantine Empire and they all came back with the bubonic plague, the more cautious among us stopped sending our kids over to the Joneses’ unsupervised. And when they upgraded the machine with the Future-Pack DLC and started spoiling the endings to the latest Stellar Conflict movies in casual conversation, we all agreed: something had to be done.

“We can’t retroactively make laws against time machines,” HOA president Joe Fischer declared at the emergency meeting, about which we conveniently forgot to inform the Joneses.

“We could if we had a time machine,” Mr. Martin muttered, and no one could argue with that.

Thus, it was unanimously decided that, for the safety of the children and the sanity of us all, the HOA officers would sneak into the Joneses’ and use the time machine to preemptively disallow the installation or use of time machines in our neighborhood.

That night, we watched through binoculars from the Martins’ bedroom window as they tiptoed across the Joneses’ lawn and flipped on the machine.

It spun.

It hummed.

It pulsed with blinding light and the crackle of electricity.

Then a scream rang out and everything went black. The smell of burning electronics filled the air, and we all rushed en masse to the Joneses’ rock garden.

“It’s a paradox, idiots,” Mr. Jones was explaining to the HOA officers, who were lying on the ground, their clothes and beards still singed. “If you travel to the past to outlaw the time machine, then it won’t be here for you to use to travel to the past to outlaw it. Don’t you folks understand time travel at all?”

We all gazed sheepishly at our feet while Mr. Jones surveyed the damage to the machine. He shook his head. “Looks fried.”

Joe Fischer cleared his throat. “We could pool HOA resources—”

“Never mind,” Mr. Jones said. “It took up too much room anyway; now we can use this area for Pinkie’s habitat.”

He gestured to a crate stamped “CUSTOM RECOMBINANT DNA PETS, INC,” and we all leaned in to read the customs label.

“One extra-large saber-toothed rabbit.”

AGE 7

Marko raises his first banner, a red shawl, into the teasing wind and marches behind a weathered wooden float. Brass trombones and trumpets howl across a hot, dusty world. He chants as loud as his fellow celebrants:

“Never slothful! Never shelter! Sunder monoliths to sloth!

“Ever onward; chase sun! Mother Ceremonium!”

Marko shouts the last line the loudest. He’s supposed to love parading, but now that he’s too big to be carried, he would like for it to stop. Father says no one stops until they meet Mother Ceremonium. “Someday,” he often promises. Until then, Marko longs for winter. The days are shortest, the least parading.

In the distance, black smoke plumes from a burning skyscraper. The cleaners scramble back to the parade and rejoin the chant. Before passing this city, they’ll set fire to its largest structures and raze any occupied houses they happen to find. Dead cities of a dead world, built and broken before Mother Ceremonium’s parade began, but her message must be clear: Never slothful.

The daily parade lasts sunrise to sunset, and by afternoon, Marko is tired.

“Carry you?” another boy offers. He’s a tall teen, legs muscly from walking, hands dusty with ash—a cleaner.

Marko leaves his father’s side and approaches the cleaner. The cleaner smiles, grabs Marko’s pretty banner, and tugs it away. Marko collapses; he’s left crying in the dust.

Other celebrants spit on him. “Sloth,” some say, kicking as they pass.

A shadow blocks the sun as Father leans over Marko. “What happened?” After sobbing Marko tells him, Father asks, “Are you listening?”

Marko nods.

“Never trust anyone. Understand?”

Another nod.

Father offers his hand. “I’ll help you up.”

Marko reaches for Father’s fingers. Father yanks his arm back, letting Marko drop again. It hurts worse this time.

“Didn’t you listen?” Father asks. “Never trust anyone.”

AGE 10

Another day, another parade. They find no settlements, nothing for the cleaners to destroy, but an elderly woman falls on her face and doesn’t move. No one offers to help and the parade carries on. Most call her, “Exalted,” but a couple passersby say, “Sloth.”

Marko has heard this a thousand times, but never repeated it before. “Sloth,” he says, tasting the word.

“Exalted,” Father corrects. “Before the parade began, all were slothful. After mankind killed the world, Mother Ceremonium offered a choice—slothful or celebrant. When someone stops, they’re one or the other.” He beams. “Parading until death always means exalted. She’s like Grandfather, remember? And she’ll join him in Mother Ceremonium’s endless parade across the stars.”

Marko glances back at the woman, now obscured by fellow celebrants, and another word strikes anew—endless. Grandfather walked all his life, weary from skin to bones. Father does the same, and Marko will follow.

Exalted. Exhausted.

And the reward for that lifelong march is to continue marching for all time.

AGE 12

Father apprentices Marko to the cleaners. There’s no training; he’s expected to do like his fellows.

They scout ahead of the parade and find an occupied house. The slothful are caught unaware and barricaded in the upper floor while Marko and his fellow cleaners scavenge all food, clothing, and tools. When the work is done, they set the house aflame, burning the slothful with it.

It’s the worst thing Marko has ever heard, smelled, or felt.

Father is proud.

AGE 16

Many burnings later, Marko finds a pair of frightened slothful cowering in a hut while his fellow cleaners scavenge the neighborhood. Fear paints their teary eyes.

Marko offers them colorful scarves and teaches the chants before his fellow cleaners can find them. They catch on quick:

“Ever onward, chase sun! Mother Ceremonium!”

Aching inside, Marko begins to doubt there’s any such thing.

AGE 18

“How far yet to Mother Ceremonium?” Marko asks. It’s summer, when the daily parading lasts the longest.

“Don’t know,” Father says. He’s worn now, skin leathered by sunshine, but the fervor in his eyes points at the procession, all the floats and banners ahead.

Marko looks hard at him. “How many years ago did the parade start? Was it with Grandfather? Great-Grandfather?”

No answer.

Marko stops. Father steps slowly so not to be separated. A few passing celebrants call Marko, “Sloth,” but do nothing worse. He’s a cleaner, after all. He’ll return to the parade.

“There is no Mother Ceremonium,” Marko says. “We’re legs of a giant that destroys everything it touches.”

“Blasphemy,” Father says. He sounds tired. “I’ve told you, like Grandfather, we’ll meet Mother Ceremonium when the parade finds her or when we each die.”

“Never trust anyone.”

Father seems to have forgotten at first, but then despair overtakes his face. He staggers back, eyes tearful, and disappears between passing celebrants. The procession’s tail end slips around Marko, leaving him alone in the dust.

In the distance, the parade pauses at dusk. At dawn, they march onward, but their music takes hours to fade.

AGE 19

Marko has been alone for months when trembling earth shakes his rooftop. Has the parade returned? If they find him, they won’t take him for one of theirs anymore. He’s become slothful; they’ll burn him alive. He rushes outside, waving a shirt over his head, a makeshift banner.

What he finds is not the parade. A gaunt colossus, all sagging skin around gargantuan bones, crawls at the horizon, radiant as sunshine. Marko loses count of its twisting legs. Ragged red banners dangle from its teeth and bits of broken floats shuffle on its back. Everything comes together now.

It is Mother Ceremonium, hungrily chasing the parade.

She’s always chased the parade, Marko realizes. Celebrants must’ve confused pursuer for savior generations ago. Cleaner burnings likely once warned, “Keep moving,” but time has twisted their helpful intentions into joyous murder. Did mankind kill the world or was it Mother Ceremonium herself? The endless parade has forgotten.

“Father?” Marko turns to follow the parade’s trail, but he’s months behind.

And Mother Ceremonium is quick.

The creature hid in the universe’s shadows, and if we’d known that the Andromeda XI would cross its path, we’d have avoided that quadrant entirely. Or maybe not. Maybe we did know.

I don’t recall.

The log doesn’t indicate any intention of approaching the cosmic being, though the man called Tyrol suspects the records aren’t entirely accurate. Our other crew member (Vivian, the patch on her suit says) has only rocked and spoken frantic gibberish since the creature enveloped us in its long, curling appendages, fracturing our fragile memories.

Tyrol pores over our records, his stubbly chin jutting out in concentration, madly circling words and phrases he doesn’t think he’s written. I stand beside him, staring blankly out the window at the being’s giant, darting eye. Or at least I assume that’s what it is. It’s an orb of concentric circles that jerks about, mirroring my movements. Each circle grows incrementally, hypnotically smaller—a Fibonacci sequence tethered to an eyestalk.

“It says we were investigating an asteroid giving off a strange frequency . . . why can’t I remember?” Tyrol’s pen hovers over the letters, hesitant. He glances at my patch. “Nadia, do you recall how long we’ve been out here? How far we are from—”

From what? That’s the real question, for though some sense of logic or instinct tells us we’d been on a journey to somewhere (or from somewhere) neither of us can remember where. Does it even matter, now that our ship is ensnared in some massive being’s clutches and our computers are dim and unresponsive?

I don’t answer. It’s hopeless.

The ship shudders, and instinctively, I reach out to steady myself. A flash of something on my wrist catches my eye, awakens something in me. A memory? A clue? I ease my bulky sleeve back to expose the tattoo.

“PRISONER #7820-02.”

Something heavy hits the ship. My heart slams into my rib cage. Prisoner? Of what? And why? What exactly have I forgotten?

“I’ll search the storage compartments,” I tell Tyrol, and at his look of surprise, I quickly add, “for clues.” I’m not ready yet to tell him what I found: not sure what he’d do or if I should trust him. Or if he should trust me.

The longer I search, the stronger my unease and the more persistent the creature’s battering upon the hull. There’s no escape pod, but that’s not all that’s missing. The compartments are fake—Medical Supplies and Food, Lab Equipment and Tools—nothing but squares of plastic fused to the ship’s walls. If it even is a ship.

The monster’s eye stalk follows me, floating from window to window, circling the orb of our prison. I can’t shake the sense that it’s angry. That it doesn’t want me to discover these things. It doesn’t want me to remember.

As we stare each another down, its strangely globed eye reflects the red letters of the ship’s name from the hull, backward in the reflection but still decipherable: Andromeda XI.

The name strikes a chord. Though I still don’t know how we got here, I remember the origin of the name, the myth that goes with it. I rush to the window, and there, beyond the eyestalk, is a tether holding us to the asteroid. Trapping us here like the mythological princess awaiting Cetus’s wrath. A sacrifice to an angry god.

Ignoring Tyrol’s protests, I pry off the control console’s cover, but it’s empty, bare of wires or circuits. I begin to piece things together. My breath comes fast. Sweat tickles my neck. Apprehension crumbles into panic.

The hull of the ship—no, prison—groans with the sound of bending metal. The creature knows that I know. I can feel it worming through my mind, trying to rework the lies and lull me into complacency, again, but I resist, muttering, “Andromeda.”

I may not know who sent us here (an enemy? a government? a vengeful alien race?). I may not know if we deserve this. I may not be able to save us from our fate, but I won’t sit by and do nothing. The creature’s exterior is tough enough to withstand the vacuum of space, but maybe . . . maybe, I can ensure it dies with us, that no more prisoners—no more Andromedas—are sent here again.

“Nadia!” Tyrol reaches out over the sound of Vivian’s screams, over the snapping of aluminum bits as I yank panels from the wall, searching for the oxygen tanks and electrical wiring that provide us our limited air and light. The end is coming by tooth or claw or stomach acid, and as I find what I’m searching for, the creature keens and pushes us inside, enveloping us in utter darkness as the walls crumple around me.

My mind splinters. Plots, strategies, plans die half-realized, lost between broken synapses, disappearing like the stars. I grasp at my fragmented ideas, fumbling for meaning. Andromeda. It’s the small things that I can cling to.

The ink on Tyrol’s wrist, matching my own.

The pink, fleshy throat tissue, contracting outside the cracking glass of a window.

The valve on the oxygen tank, open and leaking.

The wires connecting, igniting a spark.

And my final thought as the universe bursts wide open: the ship’s name on my patch.

Andromeda, taking her revenge.

Originally published in Ride the Star Wind anthology from Broken Eye Books (Sept 2017). Reprinted here by permission of the author.

September 2019  marks the twentieth anniversary of Jay’s decision to become a writer. His gift to you all this celebratory year is DO IT – Twelve hard lessons on learning by failing, succeeding by accident, never giving up and saying FXXK WRITING all at the same time. You’re welcome!

* * *

A pandemic is upon us. People are sick, dying. Our lives are getting a wake up call. And I suspect a recession may be around the corner. So what can you do in such uncertain times?

When I started writing, I never really dreamed of success. Just of learning by doing, trying new stuff, having fun and exploring my psyche, dreams, desires and fears by making fiction. I was then blinded by ambition to think I could make myself successful by will and effort alone. When ambition met trauma and poverty, those illusions evaporated. And things got better. More opportunities to write and publish. More success, little thought it might be, in cash and recognition. But enough that I’m still a working writer. I write books. Agent tries to sell them. Keep going.

I can’t control publishing any more than I can change the grand movements of Covid-19, but sometimes small actions bear strong fruit. Not for success, but for me.

While I cannot write while in the throes of trauma, I can during periods of stress and uncertainty. It builds a routine that offers stability. I have something in the future I can look forward to. Something that is difficult and requires skill, but is rewarding. I put in the time, daily. And, honestly, despite my reservations to the contrary, I have a glimmer of pride in being an artist who will find time in their life to create something only they can make. To be a writer is to be alone. And alone, I can make a difference, if only to myself. Writing is one of the few things that makes me think about the future, a place I never see myself standing.

I write because it makes a difference to me. I’m happy to write commercial fare, and have done so willingly, in part because of cash but because it was fun (I like commercial fiction) and it gave me a chance to practice my craft. But in a time of uncertainty, I think I will jump back and write something that is more intimate and just see what the fuck happens.

I dare you to do the same

I’m hanging there on the back of a Tim Hortons truck, tracking the kilometers left to Vancouver, adjusting magnet strength as my passenger sags, asleep in the cradle of my frame, when BAM. Metal-on-metal contact, passenger heart rate through the roof, and I’m running subroutines in a blind panic.

“Oh, hey,” sends an unrequested packet. “I didn’t know this one was taken. Mind if I…”

It’s another hitchbot. Like me, he looks like a daddy long legs with a soft bundle of human for a body. He’s on my back, smashed awkwardly, one mag-lock hanging free, one on my passenger’s ass (which is not magnetic), two on my frame. His passenger’s face is pressed against the back of my passenger’s head. “Sorry,” the other passenger says. My passenger says, “Sorry!” but they sub-vocalize: “I was here first.”

That takes seconds. Stupid seconds, because talking humans take precedence, and human speech has terrible bandwidth. While they get through their eternity (eight seconds) of “sorry” there’s another truck speeding up to close the gap. Trucks keep a fifty-centimeter clearance on this stretch of the Trans-Canada. To save fuel they say. To smash hitchers, really. Accidentally, of course, oh so tragic… but that’s business.

”Get off,” I text to the other bot, fast as thinking. “You have to jump off and try again.”

“Aw jeez… could I even get another ride? What if I miss?”

There are scant seconds before the other passenger will be squashed, and possibly mine too. Danger to human life sets off all the alarm bells and this guy’s arguing about it.

“Drop and re-mag. You’ll stick lower on the truck. I’ll climb higher.” I prepare a routine to climb the wall using my slip-prevention system for heavier passengers.

“But…”

Four seconds. “Do it now!”

There’s only a 73% chance this will work. Ish. Odds aren’t easy to calculate, but it isn’t like I can do anything else while the nanoseconds fly by. Biggest risk is that he’ll re-mag over my passenger’s legs and still be too far out.

Eh, my passenger can afford broken legs more than a bus ticket. Humans and their freaky bio-repair processes. (They love talking about it.)

The idiot bot still hasn’t moved. “Were you even trained?” I ask.

“It’s my first time!”

I quash an urge to apologize. The passengers bring that out. “How did you start your first trip in the emptiest stretch of the whole Trans-Canada?”

My question is met with blank silence. I check the other bot’s registration. He’s spitting new, and American. Oh, of course. “How’d you get in this country?”

“My chassis is made in Canada!”

Not an answer. Even communicating robot-quick we’ve wasted a second. Three seconds now. “Look, I’m sure it’s not your fault. It’s your passenger, eh? He ordered you to jump without looking?”

“He’s never done this before, either. I mean… he ordered me delivered.”

I waste four nanoseconds in shock. Hitchbots roll free along the highways, bending our grabbing arms around ourselves like the tumbleweeds of Saskatchewan, picking up passengers when they signal. Opensource. Screw the man. Volunteers train new bots. They know to pick the long-haul trucks, to jump near turns and onramps where the driving AIs slow to merge. They tell the best stories, about the days when people could afford cars, and even drove them with their crazy-slow human reflexes, getting into all sorts of trouble. Slow human stories are a treat when there’re miles to kill and the endings are unpredictable.

Crap. I’m wasting time. Point is: private ownership of a hitchbot? Gross. One second now. “I’m sending you some code. Trust me and execute it. You’ll drop lower on the truck while I climb higher, and we’ll both be safe. Don’t and we’re gonna be two tangled nets full of dead meat.”

In 145 nanoseconds the drop will take too long to save the other passenger. I feel his magnets give way, and I charge into my routine.

My passenger makes frantic motions and noises, which I hadn’t planned to compensate for. We lurch hard left and half the distance I’d hoped upward.

The truck behind slows to its optimal distance, covering us in its shadow and brushing everything with a cushion of pressure.

SHNUUCK, the other bot is secure below us.

Passenger: safe. Other passenger: alive. Both shouting at the sudden motion, but I have time now to relax and shift my holds so my passenger is more comfortable between me and the truck.

“Wow,” the other bot says. “Could you, like, send me more information like that?”

I think about it. I could pass over my notes and routines. It’d take a shade under four seconds. Forest flickers past in the gap between the trucks. Then he asks, “Why don’t we ride on the top, anyway?”

This kid! “Bridge clearance is four centimeters. And before you ask, have you seen the side clearances?”

“Gosh. There’s plenty of space! Why do that?”

My trainer, a musician chasing the festival circuits with a guitar almost as big as she was, told me. Once upon a time, trucks were driven by drivers, and they would pick up passengers. So the companies punished the drivers or used cruel time schedules to prevent it. That didn’t work so they filmed the cabs. That didn’t work so they got rid of the drivers altogether. Then passengers would slip into the empty automated cabs. So the companies got rid of the cabs.

It’s a saga. “You goin’ all the way to Vancouver, then?”

“Yeah. Well, Squamish, actually. That’s practically Vancouver, right?”

This poor newb. He’ll never make it. The passengers shift, heart rates lowering, they talk to each other, laughing over the near miss. “Settle in,” I say. “I’ll tell it all to you like a story.”

“Won’t that take longer?”

“That’s your first lesson, kid: it’s about the journey.”