Friday Flash: "The Fairy Tale Mash Up"

"The Fairy Tale Mash Up"
Kate Frost

            Little Boy Blue woke from his nap and realized he was in a bed, not under the haystack he’d lay down under. He sat up and looked around the unfamiliar bed chamber. The walls were a bright blue; there were several small stuffed sheep dolls on the bed. He climbed down and walked around the room. Strange small wheeled objects in various colors were strewn about the floor. The door opened and he jumped.

            “Oh good you’re up,” the woman said. She was carrying a basket with clothing. “Grandma’s going to be here soon. Can you pick up your trains? You’ve got some books in the living room too.”

            “Trains?” Little Boy Blue asked.

            “Yes, trains,” she said. The woman point around the floor. “Are you feeling alright?” She walked over and felt his forehead. “No fever. Well, get yourself awake and get those picked up.”

            He watched her leave the room. Blue dutifully picked up the things she called trains, stopping to spin the wheels on some. He could hear her singing and ventured toward the sound. A large room at the end of the hall contained oddly shaped benches and chairs. They felt soft to his touch. Blue realized the singing wasn’t from the woman. There was a strange picture on the wall, the images were moving. A woman, with barely any clothes on, was singing and dancing. Blue spun around and ran; he tripped over books on the floor. The boy quickly gathered up the books and retreated back down the hall into the room he’d awaken in. He closed the door behind him.

            “What is this strange place?” he asked. No one responded.

            Blue sat down in the middle of the floor, the books he was holding were as brightly colored as everything else he encountered. He looked at the words on the covers, most of them were about someone named Thomas, but at the bottom of the stack was a large book with the words “Fairy Tales.”

He flipped the pages of the fairy tales book. There were egg shaped men, geese wearing bonnets and other oddities. He stopped turning pages when he saw a little girl in a red hood, carrying a basket through the woods. There was a wolf looking out from behind a tree at her.

Blue flipped back to the beginning of the story. The boy read Little Red Riding Hood in horror. By the end of the story he cried tears of relief knowing Red was safe. He clutched the book tightly to his chest and looked around.

“This must be some nightmare,” he said. Again no one answered. “Maybe if I go back to sleep, I’ll wake up and be home again.” He looked up. “I promise to never sleep in the field again!”

Little Boy Blue climbed back into the bed. He closed his eyes tightly and wished to wake up back home. He wished over and over.

“Are you alright?” A man’s voice asked.

“No I’m not! I want to go home! Please!” Blue cried. He refused to open his eyes.

“You must be having a nightmare boy. Serves you right for sleeping in the fields,” the man said.

Blue opened one eye and saw one of the woodsmen who worked with his father standing over him. He looked around and brushed hay from his legs. Tears of joy filled his eyes.

“I’m home! I’m here! It was a nightmare!” he said.

The boy jumped up and hugged the woodsman. Then he remembered his dream. He remembered his sister. Their mother had asked her to take a basket of corn to the old widow in the woods today.  

“You’re a strange boy,” the woodsman said.

“I need your help!” Blue said. He grabbed the man’s sleeve. “My sister is in danger. She’s going into the woods and there’s a wolf in there! Please, you have to help!”

“Right, a wolf. I’m not falling for that again. The kid over at the Miller’s got me with that last week. Try it on someone else kid.”

“What!?”

Blue watched the woodsman walk away. Nothing he said could stop him. He realized it was up to him to save his sister. The boy ran. He ran across the sheep filled meadow and passed the cows wandering in the cornfield. He found the path he knew led to the widow’s and ran as fast as he could. Red was nowhere along the path. As he neared the widow’s tiny cottage, he heard his sister scream.

Just outside the cottage was a tree stump with an axe stuck in it. The boy grabbed the axe and struggled to get it out of the stump. Finally, he pulled it free and ran into the cottage. His sister was backed into a corner. A large wolf snarled and advanced on her.

“Blue help!” she called out.

The wolf spun around. Seeing Blue, he charged at the boy. Little Boy Blue raised the axe and struck the wolf down before it could harm him. The siblings hugged tightly. They were interrupted by a pounding that came from a closet. Blue took the axe and held it over his head. He yanked the door open. The old widow was sitting in the closet.

“Oh, thank goodness!” she said. Red helped her up. “I hoped someone would come along to rescue me. I left the door open for little Red and when I turned around there was a wolf. I’m so glad you’re alright,” she said to Red. “We’re so lucky you have such a brave brother! You both deserve something special.”

The two watched the widow go to the cupboard and open its large doors. The shelves were filled with treats and candies. She pulled a cake from the cupboard and held it out towards them, smiling. Blue noticed her teeth were quite sharp. He remembered one of the other fairy tales in the book from his dream.

“Uh oh.”

    

               

Friday Flash: Clockwork Pumpkins

Clockwork Pumpkins
by Kate Frost


          Gears ground and creaked as a platoon of clockwork creatures, their heads and torsos encased in ornately carved pumpkin hulls, followed their creator across a fog shrouded farm. The pumpkin patch they crossed was full of ripe orange globes nested among the thick green vines. Professor Mender pulled the goggles out of his frizzy graying hair, pulled them over his eyes, adjusted their gears and zoomed in to inspect the crop.

            “These will do nicely,” the Professor announced. “Start the harvest!”

            The pitch of the spinning gears rose as his clockwork companions fanned out across the field. Bright white light spilled from the holes in their gourd covered heads, giving the patch an eerie glow as they dutifully marched their loads to a waiting steam wagon at the edge of the farm. The Professor walked to a bright yellow tent that had been pitched nearby.

            Inside the tent the Professor’s granddaughter, Dabble, sat on a bright red silk cushion patiently waiting for a smaller version of the harvester automatons to pour her a cup of tea. The pie pumpkin clothed servant sway back and forth from the weight of the white china teapot that was just as big as the gourds used to conceal most of its clockwork features. It poured two cups of tea for another servant, who then served the cups to Dabble and the Professor.

            The Professor threw back the tails of his long coat as he sat on a golden pillowon the opposite side of the table from her. He cleared his throat to get the girl’s attention and point to the worn brown top hat she still had on, a pair of goggles similar to his were perched on the brim, nearly concealing a pink lace band. She reached up and plucked the hat off, handing it to a waiting attendant.

            “Can you build me a pony?” Dabble asked.

She was looking over the food trays as she asked and settled for some tiny triangular sandwiches and several gooey caramel topped treats. Her grandfather leaned back and took a huge bite from a small fluffy glazed cake. It was pumpkin flavored. The professor turned up his nose, swallowed politely and tossed the remaining cake back over his shoulder. Two large squirrels began fighting over the rejected treat.

“I can make you anything you want,” he told her. “What kind of pony would you like? You know before you were born I made the steeds that General Werwick’s army rode when they overtook the city of Caramoor. The battle lasted for two months and brought an end to the Seventh Great War. They were magnificent steeds, forged of the strongest metal from the depths of the Great Schism. The steam that poured from their nostrils could blister a man five feet away and there were turrets on either side of the mech capable of…”

His granddaughter had gone wide eyed and stopped mid chew. She looked as though she were about to cry.    

“…Um, perhaps something with a nice soft saddle and a pink feathery mane would be more to your liking,” he said. “I still have the gold and white paints I used to make the swans for the People’s Hospital at Glencommon.”

“That would be lovely,” she said. She clapped her hands. “Can it have baskets?”

“It most certainly can,” he said. The Professor slipped a notebook out of his overcoat and began jotting down notes. “And how about a parasol? A retractable one.”

“Oh yes!” Dabble bounced in her seat. “That sounds wonderful!”

A foghorn blew, drawing their attention outside the tent. Both immediately turned their gazes to the gray sky above. A dirigible sailed slowly over them, its search lights waved out into the fog. Someone on board yelled course corrections and the ship began a lazy turn towards a barely visible palace.

“Looks like Prince Matthias has returned,” the Professor said.

“No,” Dabble corrected. “That’s Prince Elias. See, there’s the red gears you put on his ship.” She was pointing at the ship.

“Is it now?” The Professor squint, then pulled the goggles back down over his eyes. “Ah, so it is.”

“Mrs. Potts says he’s not really the Queen’s son,” Dabble whispered.

“Really?” The Professor leaned down, lowering his voice to a whisper as well. “And what else did Mrs. Potts say?”

“She said they just tell everyone he’s her son because they don’t want people to know the King had a baby,” she told him.

“Well, I’m sure that’s not exactly what she said, the King actually had a baby by another…yes, well that’s just a silly rumor. More tea?” The Professor steered Dabble back to the table.

“Someone is coming!” Dabble said.

A small squad of horsemen wearing royal military dress rode towards them. The horses were grey, their manes and tails dyed to match the royal family’s colors. The Professor recognized the leader as he waved off his companions and continued alone. The other horsemen fanned out along the edge of the woods.

General Werwick halted his steed several feet from the tent. The horse whinnied and took several steps back as one of the tiny clockwork approached to take the reins from the General. Mender motioned for Dabble to sit back down and went to the General. They shook hands.

“How goes the army?” the General asked.

“This should be the last harvest I need,” Mender said. “How is the King?”

“The nurse doesn’t see him lasting more than a month. Matthias and his mother have already begun making plans to eliminate Elias. Most of the army will side with them I’m afraid. Matthias is quite popular.”

“We’ll have enough troops to give Elias a fighting chance. If the King believes he’s the better successor, then I will do all in my power to see it happen,” Mender said.

The Professor bowed and returned to his tent to watch the harvest with his granddaughter.     

For this weeks Friday Flash I can thank both author Alethea Kontis and artist Steven C Gilberts for inspiring. Here's a link to the Shroud issue with Steven C Gilberts' clockwork pumpkin art on the cover. 

               

Gearing up for National Novel Writing Month

Next month National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) will be upon us again. This will be my third year participating--with last year being the first year I complete a novel. I'm excited to be participating again and this year I'm even planning to donate to show my support, my issue is that I can't decide what I want to do this year--there's also the other issue of having my previous novel edited and only about halfway retyped for my husband to read as I promised him he'd be able to do long before this November rolled around. 

I've gone through about eight "perfect" ideas now and have lost interest in every one of them. I gave myself until the end of our vacation last week to decide on the current four ideas that have popped into my head the last couple weeks. Here I am at Monday and, at best, I'm down to two of those. The two I've decided to discard are the flash fiction entries here in my blog. I'm sure I could do more with both of them, but I don't want to right now. Of the remaining two, one falls into the children's literature/mystery category and the other falls firmly into the mystery genre. 

Mysteries are my first love and no matter how often I move on to something else, I always find myself wanting to finish a mystery of my own. I have a very clear image of my protagonist and his life, which has me excited because I haven't had this clear a picture of a character since the two main characters in the novel I wrote last year. I'm wondering if he's finally the character who will help me complete my first mystery. But I also realized when examining his life that he's gay and I'm second guessing my ability to do him justice. The rational part of my brain is telling me to just write the story and see where it takes me. 

The children's literature idea came to me after reading Liana Brooks' post in which she discusses the void in role models for boys in today's children's literature. I have to agree with her: As much as I love super heroes and fantasy worlds, I want a new "Hardy Boys" for my son when he's old enough to, hopefully, enjoy reading as much as my husband and I do. That had me thinking that maybe I needed to create one of my own. I've got the idea there but the characters I'm not completely convinced are the right ones. 

The more I sit here and write this, the more I think that perhaps the mystery is the one to go with. If only because of the feeling I have about the protagonist. But being the person that I am, I'll probably end up spending at least the rest of the day second guessing everything.   

            

Friday Flash "A Book Found"

            “I forgot a book,” Kelvin Adams said.

            He and his mother were standing in line to check out at the library. He’d just hand his books to her and was looking over the list they’d made when they first arrived.

            “Do you know where it is?” his mother asked.

            “Yes. Can I go get it?”

            “You’ve got time, but don’t run,” she told him.

            Kelvin walked as fast as he could back to the children’s section. He passed the bean bag chairs and wood cut out jungle animals and head for the back corner, where the mythology books geared towards children were. He pulled the paper back out of his pocket and began walking down the shelves looking for the numbers on his paper, running his fingers along the spine of the books as he went. He went back and forth and finally dropped down to his knees and start on a bottom shelf. The Really Big Guide to Greek Mythology was on the bottom shelf at the center of the books. He pulled the book out from the shelf and looked at the cover. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something on the shelf sparkle. He leaned back down at the books on the shelf.

            Through the gap left by the book he’d pulled out he could see another book laid on its spine behind the other books. Kelvin pulled some of the other books out from the shelf and pulled the sparkling brown book out from the shelf.

            “Can I help you find something?” A woman’s voice called out.

            Kelvin turned around and looked down the end of the aisle. One of the librarians was standing at the end of the aisle, she was looking at the pile of books he had on the floor, her arms fold across her chest.

            “I found it,” Kelvin said. He waived the book he’d just pulled out at her. “It fell behind the others.” He quickly began putting the other books back on the counter.

            Once he was done, he grabbed both books and rushed back to the check out line. He stood behind his mother and looked over the big plain brown book he’d found. It no longer sparkled. There was no writing anywhere, not even a tag with a catalog number on it. The cover was originally dark brown, but there were water stained areas. The edges were bent and frayed and some areas of the cover had scratches. He opened the front cover. There was no barcode or even an old check out card inside. He went to flip the next page and see if there was a title there.

            “Don’t open it here,” a man’s voice said.

            Kelvin snapped the cover shut and looked around. No one was behind them in line and no one was looking his way. His mother was laying books on the counter and chatting with the librarian. She reached out for the books he was holding. Kelvin looked around once more and then hand them to his mother. The librarian scanned the books they’d picked out. When she came to the brown book, she opened the cover, then closed it and set it into the pile of books she had scanned.

            “Is there anything else I can help you with today?” she asked his mother.

            “No thank you, that will be it,” his mother replied. “Can you help me carry these Kelvin?”

            He took the brown book and looked around again. No one seemed interested in him. Kelvin then took more of the books and followed his mother out of the library. While sitting in the back of the car he opened the cover of the book again, peeled up the corner of the first page and stopped. His mother had plugged her mp3 player into the radio, selected a playlist and then began singing along to somebody named REO Speedwagon. Kelvin lifted the page and found a blank second page. He sighed and reached to close the book. He stopped when he noticed the page began to fill with fancy printed letters.

            Property of Kelvin Adams

            Kelvin gasped. He slammed the cover shut and looked up at his mother. She was still singing her heart out. He let the book sit in his lap and realized it felt warm. Kelvin touched the top of the book and felt a heartbeat. He smacked the book off his lap and onto the floor.

            “Ouch!” someone said. It was the same voice he’d heard in the library.

            “Did you say something honey?” his mother asked.

            “Uh…no” He was looking at the book.

            Once they were home he left the books they’d gotten for his report in the living room and rushed up the stairs with the brown book. He slammed his bedroom door and hide in his closet, clutching the book close to his chest. It still felt warm and he could feel a heartbeat beating against his own. Finally he decided to try and open the book again.

            He did a quick flip though all of the pages, starting at the back. The book was blank, except for the page that now said it was his property. He flipped to the next page and wait. In neat block lettering the words “see page 103” suddenly appeared.

            “But there aren’t any page numbers,” Kelvin said. Down in the bottom center of the page, the number one appeared. “Whoa!”

            Kelvin turned the pages slowly. They were still blank but now had page numbers. At page 103 he stopped and wait for more words to appear. Instead of words smoke poured out of the page and moved to the center of his bedroom. He crawled out of the closet and watched it become a thin man wearing a stripped suit.

            The man looked around the room, which was full of Star Wars merchandise. He turned and smiled at Kelvin.

            “What is thy bidding my master?” He bowed before Kelvin. 

             

My first attempt at Friday Flash and short fiction

I'm finally going to give Flash Fiction a try. I hope everyone enjoys it and feel free to comment.

Everyone in John Franco’s life knew if they had to call after 10 PM it better be because they were dead, dying or his house was on fire. So when the phone rang at two in the morning, both he and his wife bolt awake and immediately began mentally ticking through the list of their elderly relatives while listening for the smoke alarm. Kirsten answered the phone reluctantly and then shrugged.

“There’s no one there,” she said.

John took the phone from her, ready to start cursing at whoever the prankster was. A voice he hadn’t heard in years poured through the receiver in a panic.

“Calm down Craig,” John said. He slid out of the bed, covered the mouth piece with a hand and said to his wife. “Go back to sleep…”

“Who is that?” she asked.

“An old college buddy,” John replied. “He’s…had some problems over the years. He needs a lot of help.”

“Do you need me to do anything? Call anyone?”

“No, we’ll be fine, he just needs to talk.”

He pulled the bedroom door closed behind him and made his way down the short hallway of their single story ranch. He checked to make sure his daughter, in her pink princess filled room, hadn’t been awakened by the call. She was cuddled up around a purple unicorn in a deep slumber. John closed her door and then peeked through a crack in the door to the room his sons shared. Both boys were sprawled in a similar fashion across their beds. He closed the door all the way and head across the living room and into the kitchen.

“I thought we agreed there would be no contact,” John said.

“John, I can’t get back in!” Craig was shouting.

“Sssh!” John lowered his voice to a whisper. “What do you mean you can’t get back in? What did you do?”

“I just went out for a little bit, I needed to stretch. You have to help me, you’re the only one remotely close…”

“I don’t have to do anything!” John told him. “You’re so stupid! You could ruin everything! I can’t believe you didn’t learn from the last time!”

“John, PLEASE! My wife will be getting up for work in a few hours. My kids! You have to help me!”

John sighed heavily and slumped against the kitchen counter. He ran a hand over the ceramic tiles he and Kirsten had spent three weekends trying to get adhered to the counter properly. He swore he could still smell the paint from the newly painted butter yellow walls. He listened to the hum of the old refrigerator and looked at all of the drawings and notes the kids had stuck to it with various cartoon character magnets. Craig had enough sense to stop talking and give him a chance to run things through his brain.

“Give me your address,” John said finally.

“Oh, thank you, THANK YOU!”

“Craig I’m not ever doing this again. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, don’t worry. I’m realizing now how much I have to lose. I won’t make this mistake again.”

John hung up after jotting the directions down on the back of a grocery store receipt. He moved quietly past the kids’ bedrooms and carefully opened the bedroom door. Kirsten had already fallen back asleep, but woke up as John was pulling on the exercise pants he’d laid out for his run later in the morning.

“What’s going on? Where are you going?” she asked. Her voice was sluggish from sleep and she yawned. “Is your friend OK?”

“I need to get him home,” John told her. He grabbed his wallet off the nightstand and kissed his wife on the forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Be careful.”

With no traffic on the expressway, John made it around the city to the exit he needed in a little over half an hour. He followed the various turns and found himself in a middle aged, middle class neighborhood full of boxey split level homes with single car garages jutting off their sides. The street in front of Craig’s dark paneled house was empty, giving John a spot to park. He closed his car door quietly and walked around the garage to a gate leading to Craig’s backyard.

As Craig had said a door on the back of the garage was opened slightly. John slipped into the door and closed it behind him. The garage was dark, but he was quickly able to find the door into the house. It squeaked as he opened it, causing him to stop and listen for anyone moving towards the door. No one came. He head down to the lower level, into a large family room where a gigantic TV was tuned to CNN; the volume was turned so far down the newscaster were barely whispering.

On the couch in front of the TV was a sandy haired man the same age as John, who appeared to be sleeping. John walked up behind him and felt for a pulse. It was there, slow and steady. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement along the wall near the floor. John walked over and flipped on a floor lamp, illuminating the corner. And a purple blue mass of tentacles; two of the tentacles were writhing around each other. Much like the way his mother in law wrung her hands, John thought.

“Please hurry,” the mass said. It was whisper in John’s mind, just like the whispered voice he’d heard through the phone.

He could feel the panic and terror in the voice. It made the tentacle running from his brain, down his spine, pulse rapidly. He looked over at the unconscious body.

“Come on, let’s get you back home,” he said, picking up the pulsing mass as it reached out to him.