Photo-Microfic: The Bargain

Photo taken by Steven Ormosi with his Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version.

The Bargain

The demon passed up through the table demanding his yearly sacrifice. I was expecting him, of course, as per the terms of our agreement. One tenth of my soul each year, paid in ten equal installments in exchange for a lifetime of happiness with my then-estranged son.  My son came to the house the very night I made the deal and we worked everything out.  I promised to be a better parent than I had been when he was young.  He promised to give me that chance.  It was all I wanted. 

My boy died in a crash two weeks later. I’d raged at the demon for having the gall to come for his pay at the end of the first year, but he only said, “Our bargain was for a lifetime, you didn't say whose.”

Each year he came to take what I had promised and each year he journeyed back to hell with a little more of my essence.

This was now the tenth year and I could not say that I was any emptier than after the first.

Photo-Microfic: Nightmare Alley

Photo taken by Steven Ormosi with his Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version.

Nightmare Alley

It tore through town like a hurricane, leaving crushed cars and downed phone poles in its wake.  The creature was the size of a house and we could do nothing more than watch, rapt, eyes barely peeking over window sills in darkened living rooms, hoping against hope that it would not round on us.

Old Joe Smith was stupid enough to amble outside with his .45, drunk from the night’s 12-pack.  The slug bit into the thing’s carapace and it screeched some sound I’d wager’s never been heard before or since, then swiped him from the ground like a kid lazily snatching a doll from the floor. I swear it locked eyes with him for a moment. Old Joe was completely silent, hypnotized by the thing's stare. Without warning it bit his head clean off, dropped the rest of him from its slowly unclenching claw and continued right on through town and into the forest beyond.  The trees went down like tall grasses under a man's foot.  Joe’s blood sprayed the pavement on Howard Street the darkest red I can ever remember seeing.

An army man, name of Phillip, came through the next day and told us all that we were bound by law not to tell anyone what we had seen the night before.  He gave us money and told us to keep our mouths shut or we’d be disappeared quicker than you can blink.

And we did.  But I’m old now.  The money's gone and I’m dying.  And I needed to tell someone.  I can’t take these nightmares to the grave with me.  I just can’t. They’re yours now. All yours.

Photo-Microfic: Pit Stop

Photo taken by Steven Ormosi with his Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version.

Pit Stop

The blown out husk of the convenience store breathed tattered, flapping plastic at me as I approached it.  I stepped on the crude no smoking sign on the way in.  The owners must have put the plastic on the windows before everything went bye bye.  I laughed to think of that thin sheet trying to do anything to stop the holy hell that Ma Nature threw at us.

I stepped through the mostly doorway, peeked up and down the aisles, and saw they’d been cleaned out already, just like every other store within the last thirty miles.  As I walked out, I spied one last pack of cigarettes behind the counter and snagged it.

Back outside, standing on the ‘M’, I lit up the first of the pack, took a drag and exhaled.  Then I got back to walking.

Photo-Microfic: Quiet Company

All pictures in the Photo-Microfic set were taken by me with my Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version.  This picture features that pig on Jon Colgan's shirt.

Quiet Company

He stood there just staring at me, cigarette hanging from his lip.

“What?” I asked him, “What is it?”

He did not make a sound.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

Still no sign that he understood or gave a damn what I was saying.

I blew it off, “Forget it then, don’t talk to me.  I could care less, just stop staring at me like that.”

I took the cigarette out of his mouth and maneuvered the series of ropes and pulleys so that his limp body was facing the other way.

“You’re in time out now, I hope you’re happy.”

Photo-Microfic: Storm's Comin'

Photo taken by Steven Ormosi with his Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version.

Storm's Comin'

The weather man says it’s going to be the worst storm we've seen in fifty years.  I guess we have to believe him.  People all over the state are out buying supplies: water, gas, canned food, flashlights.  The wind is getting stronger outside. The smaller trees are beginning to bow like perfect gentlemen. We do one final check to be certain all the windows are closed. 

“Are we sure we have everything we need?” my roommate asks.

“We've got five candles and a large bottle of whiskey.  I think we’ll be alright.”                

Photo-Microfic: Memory Trays

Photo taken by Steven Ormosi with his Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version.

Memory Trays

We smoked our cigarettes and talked noisily about better days.  They reminded us of our youth, or maybe they just reminded us that we once had a youth. The full ash trays echoed dreams at us of the persistence of hope against logic.  How long had it been since we’d emptied them? I couldn't remember or care. Maybe tomorrow we’d throw those nostalgia burdened butts in the trash, but not today. Today we stood on the porch and laughed, conjuring memories of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Tomorrow we would get back to real life, but today... today we were all doing just fine.

Photo-Microfic: The Tree

Photo taken by Steven Ormosi with his Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version.

The Tree

The Tree Men come so rarely these days that I almost couldn't believe he was in my back yard.  When he was near enough, he rested, motionless for a moment and took stock of the situation.  I reverently waited for him to speak.

“You've done well with my idiot brothers,” he said.

“It makes me so happy to hear you say that," I responded, glancing at the other trees in the yard, "I take care of them the best I can.”

“I thank you for that.  Keep telling them that I love them.  I fear I will not be back for a long time.”

He made a slow circle and began to lumber back the way he came.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Back,” he said without turning, “Back home.”

Photo-Microfic: No Ingress

Photo taken by Steven Ormosi with his Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version. Featured in this picture: Gabe Soto.

No Ingress

Twisted lumber reveals a time less placid and I cannot help but stare.  The storm has left these people with no way down to the beach.  Oh, the humanity.

Below the stairs to nowhere, boards and screws litter the ground, filling in recent footprints left behind.  They are part of the landscape now, no longer taming it.  Even the gulls want no part of this carcass.  Driftwood to driftwood, sand to sand.

Photo-Microfic: The Sky has Fallen

Photo taken by Steven Ormosi with his Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+. Click on the picture for a larger version.

The Sky has Fallen

Like an inverted night sky, the pinpricks of light from below beam up to me, inviting me to come down and play.  Through drooping eyes, I apologize to them, no more tonight.  I’m content to just stare down at you for now.

Before my bed reels me in, I concentrate on the abyssal negative spaces that surround the dots.  There is so much more blackness than light, but who would ever mention it?  That’s the thing with darkness, no one ever wants to notice it.

Photo-Microfic: At the Track

This is the first in a run of microfiction stories that were inspired by pictures that I took.  All pictures in this set were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S3 and edited in G+.  Click on the picture for a larger version.

At the Track

The horses line up at the gate all in a neat row.  Behind me I hear the bellow of a man who has bet the last of his money on a sure loser.  I don’t spoil the surprise for him.

“Baby needs a new pair of shoes,” he yells out.

His baby will be wearing a newspaper wrapped around its feet before the end of the day.  I wonder if I haven’t become too jaded to care.  I wonder that instead of caring.

The Device

They knew.  He knew they knew.  And worse, there was nothing he could do to stop them now.  Was there? No way he could think of.  He slumped down onto his sofa and waited for them to come for him.  Or the other thing.

*****

It was a perfectly normal looking car, but the bomb squad donned their vestments and a sole agent slowly approached the vehicle.  When he reached the side window, the agent peeked in and his eyes widened. 

“That’s it,” he reported through his comm.  “It’s the real McCoy.”

He opened the door slowly and felt a bead of sweat roll slowly down his brow.  He cursed his inability to brush it away.  He blinked and looked at the device again.

“Careful,” he heard through the comm.

“I know that, goddammit.  If you had any idea what I was looking at right now, your pants would be so full of shit they’d fall off your ass, so please shut up and let me do my job.”

The agent pulled his helmet off and wiped his soaked forehead.  He reached inside and pulled out the box that housed the device.  He stared at the thing, no wires, no count down.  How was he supposed to shut it off?

He was the only one who knew how this thing worked and he didn’t even know how it worked.  Not exactly.  The agent pushed the first button, it set off a sequence of lights.  The sequence.  He went with his gut and trepidatiously punched in its opposite.

The device did nothing.

*****

When they broke in to the house, he was silent.  They hauled him off for questioning.

The agent asked the man, “How did you design it?  Why?”

The man remained silent.  His lips traced a vague smile.

“Is it off?” the agent asked.

The smile grew, “That’s the question, isn’t it?  How can you turn off destiny?”

Writer's Gon' Write

Well, I should be asleep, but I've been up reading and writing and now I'm all jazzed.  I've got a four week writing workshop starting tomorrow and I'm psyched to get going with it.  We'll be doing all manner of short fiction: Twit-fics, micro, flash, you name it.

Anyway, I think that if I have a plethora of extra stuff I'll probably just start posting it up on here.

Here's one that I wrote today, as an appetizer.  And that means I can't use it for the workshop.  Yell at me if  I do.


55 word fic:

After All

I crouched in my corner and stared into the abyss. It was dark, too dark to see, but I knew what was out there. I had created it, after all. The blackness breathed at me and I desperately breathed back. It was all I could do to convince myself I was still whole.  Still me.