Tag: Short Fiction

The Final Illusion

~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

Another NYC Midnight Short Story

The Grand Opera House in Galveston – photo by the author

Tonight I’m sharing another NYC Midnight contest entry. This one made it through the first round of the Flash Fiction challenge this year. I had to write a 1,000 word or less story in 48 hours in the thriller genre with the setting in an auditorium. And I had to include a ladder in the piece.

Here’s my summary of the story: Magician Mark Ruska and his wife Gigi are involuntary accomplices to a pair of armed assassins during a live show. Working together, the Ruskas perform a dangerous illusion that will be their only escape.

And here is the story, complete in 999 words. (Not counting the title)

The Final Illusion

Every illusion depends on misdirection. The magician, Mark Ruska, paced the stage of the Grand Palace, noting where the set pieces would be during the performance. Everything had to be perfect. On the other side of the velvet curtain, murmurs and shuffling footsteps sounded as the audience filed into the auditorium.

“You done?” The man at the side of the stage motioned with his chin. His hands were busy holding a matte black gun. A red, ridged scar traced across his brow, above eyes the watery gray of a shark’s.

Mark’s wife Gigi stood beside the scarred man. She wore a black tuxedo coat and pants—the outfit matching Mark’s. She nodded to Mark, then wiped her face.

“We’re ready.” Mark scanned the fly space overhead. Heavy sandbags and counterweights hung suspended over a metal catwalk. At the top, accessed by a thin metal ladder, was the wide concrete hallway leading to the rooftop doorway and to an entrance to the theater’s third level.  

“We’ll do our job and you guys can go,” the man said.

Mark doubted that. Neither the scarred guy nor the assassin perched on the catwalk had bothered to cover their faces. They would not leave anyone to identify them. Hopefully, their sound and lighting guy, Jim, would stay in his booth, isolated and unknowing of the drama.

At last, the house lights dimmed, the curtains opened, and the show began. The scarred man slid hidden at the side of the stage. Mark wheeled out the large steamer trunk, big as a coffin, that held their equipment.

As they worked their way through the first set—levitation, a transformation illusion, and Gigi’s disappearing rabbit trick, Mark wondered who was the intended victim? The Grand held two hundred seats among three tiers, including six balcony boxes with another twenty-four places. The boxes were positioned directly next to each stage side. Whoever sat in those seats would be at the perfect angle for the catwalk sniper.

 A silver-haired man wearing a dark suit sat in the middle box at stage left. Two younger men, both with thick necks and arms that strained the sleeves of their polo shirts, sat behind him. Mark, holding up a chain of clinking triangles, risked a glance at the scarred man. The gunman leaned forward, weapon lowered, his gaze fixed on the man in the box seat.

With a flourish, Mark held the metal triangles up. The chain magically separated into two parts. When the applause faded, he spoke. “For our next trick, we will need a special assistant.” Their usual routine would be to call on a pre-screened audience member. Mark turned to Gigi, hoping their decade of performing this illusion in this theater would allow her to understand his desperate plan. Mentally counting off his steps, Mark rolled the trunk to the position he had noted earlier. Gigi met his gaze, smiled and turned to bring out the folding screen.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our backstage assistant, John.” Mark waved to the scarred man, motioning him forward. Several beats of awkward silence followed as the man scowled and shook his head.

The next few moments would determine whether they would walk out or perish in the gunfire. Mark assumed they planned to kill their target at the show’s end, hoping the distraction of everyone exiting would cover their escape. Now, some in the audience began to mutter and confused laughter sounded. The silver-haired man half-rose from his seat and looked around. Would the sniper take this as his chance? Mark held his breath, waiting.

Finally, the scarred man strode onstage. “There you are!’ Mark led the man to the steamer trunk. Gigi spun the wooden box, showing the audience the lid and locks. As she helped him into the trunk, Gigi whispered escape instructions to the gunman—instructions he wouldn’t be able to follow. Mark rattled the lock and spoke to cover her voice. “One person goes in, but who will come out?”

Mark leaned to whisper to the man inside. “Listen to the music and wait for the drumroll.” He slipped the lock from its fake, unsecured position and threaded it through the clasp holding the lid closed, then spun the box to show the audience. After he helped Gigi move the screen into place, they walked behind it. The lights dimmed and music played.

In normal times, the audience member would open the fake unlocked panel on the steamer and Gigi would climb inside. Mark would escape the stage by climbing the ladder up to the top and take the door to the third level, reappearing in the audience at the end of the drum roll. It all came down to timing. If they got this right, they might have a chance.

“Go out the back, get security, and call the police.” Mark kissed her. “Don’t look back.”

Gigi squeezed his arm. “I love you.”

The music rose in a crescendo, covering the squeak of the metal rungs as Mark climbed. The lighting changed to dark blue with silvery flashes that looked like stars. All distraction to keep the audience on edge.

When he reached the catwalk, Mark slipped off his shoes and crept toward the sniper. The man remained focused on his target, not noticing as Mark neared.

Four feet away, Mark swung the nearest sandbag in an arc at the gunman. The bag, with its thick rope, knocked the man to the edge of the metal ledge. He grabbed the rope, wrapping his hand around it to steady himself. Mark rushed forward. He pushed the man off the catwalk, then released the counterweight to the bag. The sniper, still grasping the bag, plummeted onto the stage. At the end of its line, the bag jerked to a stop. The sniper fell the last twenty feet—onto the steamer trunk.

The police arrived. An ambulance carted off the handcuffed and injured criminals. Mark looked for the silver-haired man, but he had vanished into the crowd.

THE END

What Can You Say in 100 Words?

~ mstturpin ~ 2 Comments

Exploring brevity

Photo by Andrew Shaw

Tonight I cancelled my membership to Medium, the home for much of my very short fiction, short stories, and essays. Most are still posted there, but I don’t write there often enough now to justify the cost of membership. Many of the short stories I wrote over the years I compiled in my first book of short stories and I will need to comb through the rest to see if I want to put them in a second book.

For now I’ll share a selection of my micro-fiction. I love the challenge of micro-fiction, taking a story and condensing it down to just enough words to carry the scene. They’re satisfying to write and I hope you like them also.

Escape Velocity

She left behind what held her down

Freed from the tyranny of Earth’s gravity, she floated past the cryo-pods where crewmates rested in dreamless slumber. Machinery hummed like human breath. How far they’ll travel, pioneers.

She remembered another traveler, sent from a dying planet. A child, falling from the sky. Saved, he grew into secret powers. How odd the only things that hurt him were fragments from his lost home.

She wiped frost from the viewport and bid goodbye to Earth before her own cold rest. A beginning, without prejudices and limitations. She wonders — when they reach that distant place, will she be able to fly?

Photo by the author

Frog Looks Back

He had lived there so long, in his forest of grass, that he only remembered flashes of his former life. Like the pop of the paparazzi’s cameras — quick frames of hangover mornings, thin false smiles, fake friends who would run at the drop of a dollar.

What had he done to earn the reward of solitude? Jilted a witch? Spurned a wizard? His royal world brought down to a muddy pond littered with flies.

Even so, when she stooped to offer a kiss, he turned from the lipstick smear of her lips. Regretting nothing, he’d choose to stay a frog.

Remote Recollections

The eve of her sixty-ninth birthday Vera Holloway clicked the remote control and turned on her television to a scene from her sixth birthday.

“That’s odd,” she said. Vera the child huffed at blazing candles.

Tapping through channels she discovered every program starred her, Vera from Uncertain, Texas. Channel eight featured a high school football game, marching band all brass and drums while she kissed David Keller goodbye to Vietnam.

Memories hazy and half-forgotten-crunch of autumn leaves, sweet bite of strawberry snow-cone, skip and scratch of vinyl records. Last click. Who was that old woman, staring from the blank screen?

Photo by the author

The Lighthouse

Byrne Macleod lived alone at the lighthouse for forty years. Every night he lit the torch and watched the dark ocean for ships that never passed the rocky shore.

“Why stay, Grand Da?” His great-grandson, fisherman’s heir to seas stripped bare, asked each time he rowed over to the island.

“Someone must wait for them.”

Great waters rose and receded, wars raged and cities burned with plague while Byrne kept vigil. Through eyes dimmed by salt spray he searched the waves.

At last they came, the voyagers. The celestial ships hovered overhead, their journey not by sea but by stars.

Photo by the author – edited with the Waterlogue app

The Secrets the Moon Holds

She ran along the path, a shortcut through the park near her home. The blue-white glow from the full moon the only illumination as she dodged through trees as familiar to her as the furniture in her living room.

She emerged from the woods onto the concrete sidewalk, a thirty-three year old woman still able, she felt, to pass as one much younger. Still happy for the inconvenience of being carded when she ordered wine, her mock indignation hiding her false pleasure.

The moon her only observer, she fussed with the zipper on her jacket and reached up to pull loose a strand from her ponytail. Messy enough to give the patina of truth to her exercise, the flushed cheeks and high color on her chest.

Home at last, she paused before she turned the knob and pushed open the door. If he greets her with a kiss, she wonders, will he taste him on her lips?

En Passant

She sets the board as they always have. The black is hers, to match the color of her hair — once dark as coal, now grey as ash.

Brew the tea, light the candles, draw the curtains, pull out the chair on his side of the table.

Fifteen years she’s waited for the match, her opponent forfeited much too soon. The hard pain in her chest, sharper than fear, tells her this may be the night she joins the game.

She would sacrifice her pawn but she plays by the rules. As any good player knows, white always goes first.

The Serving Girl’s Legacy

A drabble in 50 words

The barista, the rumor, the hundred-dollar tip. Co-workers congratulated her, her manager promoted her, her boyfriend doubted her.

“How did you earn that?” He frowns, cold as cream on a Frappuccino.

“It was really just a ten,” she says, but he’s gone.

Two lies and one truth — She’ll miss him.

Photo by the author

The Children’s Garden

“Go ahead. I’ll rest.” Rose Watson’s grandmother sank onto the park bench. “They’ll keep me company.” The grandmother waved at a circle of sculptures — children, bronze figures cavorting in the grass.

“Okay. You sure you don’t need…”

“I’m old, not incontinent.” The grandmother laughed. “Better scoot, the garden’s closing.”

Rose hurried to the restroom, casting a glance at her grandmother. Had she ever played like those statues? She’d worked years in a factory, supporting her family.

Rose returned to an empty bench. “Grandmother?” Childish laugher answered her. In the dusk she searched, never noticing the extra figure in the circle.

Photo by the author

A Closed Path has no End

She followed the ghost girl past the warning sign, along the sun dappled path into the dark woods. The trees parted, branches bowing to lead her through the forest until at last the girl turned.

“Here.” She pointed, her spectral arm sweeping across a mulch of sweet pine needles.

The hiker knelt — her knees pressed into soft soil. With trembling fingers, she brushed the dirt from the white, rounded dome, so like a bulb planted in shallow earth.

“Your grave?” she asked. How sad to spend eternal rest not blessed in consecrated ground.

“Oh no,” the girl replied. “It’s yours.”

Afterlife Positions Available

~ mstturpin ~ 2 Comments

A short story

I submitted the story below to a contest recently. It didn’t place so I’m sharing it now. In this one the genre was open and I was assigned two prompts that had to be included: career advisor and mosaic. I went with fantasy/magical realism with a humorous touch. I hope you like it, but if you don’t, please don’t tell me.

Afterlife Positions Available

An hour and ten minutes after Ellen Tyler collapsed into the koi pond at the Dallas Arboretum, she woke in a sterile white room. A fluorescent light buzzed overhead. Was this a waiting room, in a clinic or hospital? She hoped they took Medicare. Puzzled, she patted her chest. Her clothes – the same cargo pants and matching shirt she had dressed in that morning – were dry and clean.

Right before splashing in the pond, she had felt nauseous and dizzy. She had leaned over, snapping a photo of an orange carp, until a sharp pain in her arm made her drop her iPhone into the water. When she reached to retrieve it, she blacked out. Afterwards, blue and red flashing lights, shouting, and her sister Trina’s shocked face filled some of the blank spots in her memory.

The door on the other side of the room swung open and a tall, wide man filled the doorway. He wore a wrinkled gray suit and had the pleasant, smiling expression of a television weatherman predicting sunny weather.

“Hello! Sorry about the wait. We weren’t sure when you would arrive.” He stuck out his hand. “You must be Ellen. I’m Milton.”

Ellen squeezed the man’s hand. Then, not knowing what else to do, she followed him into his office. A dull metal desk filled one half of the room. Files, folders, and yellowed paper covered the desktop and overflowed onto the floor. Milton stooped and removed a cardboard box from his chair, then pulled over a wooden chair for Ellen. 

The white walls held two posters—one had a photo of a kitten clinging to a clothesline and the words “Hang in There” scrolled across the top. The other sign featured a montage of at least thirty images. A sheet-covered cartoon ghost held the center square, surrounded by several other pictures that looked like they belonged on the covers of horror novels. There was a gnarled being with knife-sharp nails, a thin man with solid black eyes, and a transparent, shrouded figure. As she stared at the poster, one of the images, a woman clothed in a long black dress, waved at Ellen.

“Where the hell am I?” she asked.

Milton’s face turned red. “You’re not in…” He coughed, “…that other place.” He shuffled a stack of papers and pulled out a glossy brochure. Handing it to Ellen, he said, “This is the Career Placement Agency for the Afterlife.”

“Wait.” Ellen fanned herself with the flyer. “I’m dead?” How could this be? She had celebrated her 71st birthday last month, but she had also received a perfect checkup from her doctor.

“You expired this afternoon.” Milton laced his fingers together. “Heart attack and drowning.”

How embarrassing. Ellen always assumed she would pass quietly in her sleep at age 101. What a ruckus she must have caused. Trina would never forgive her for insisting on tromping around in the summer heat instead of enjoying an afternoon matinee in an air-conditioned movie theater. Her sister loved the movies. Trina would have to find someone else to share her senior discount pass at Movie Plex.  

“I thought the afterlife was filled with harps and angels, not work.” Ellen held up the brochure. The cartoon ghost from the wall poster graced the cover. The title, written in Comic Sans font, read “Guiding Your Choice for Eternity—A Mosaic of Diverse Opportunities.”

“These experiences are designed to bring purpose to your life after death. I’m here to guide you in choosing which form your spirit will take.” Milton pointed behind him, to the collage of images. “Each afterlife represents at least one of our six core skills—comfort, entertainment, education, inspiration, caution, and remembrance. For example, you could choose Lady of the Lake or ectoplasm entity.”

“I drowned in the damn koi pond, Milton. I can’t imagine haunting knee-deep water for the rest of my time. And that ecto thing just looks like a blob of green goo.”

“You have leftover anger issues. Maybe a spot as a poltergeist?”

Ellen huffed. “Spend eternity chunking pots and pans in someone’s kitchen?”

“It’s not just pan chunking.” Milton sat up straight. “It’s entertainment.” When Ellen didn’t respond, he continued. “Do you like travel? I have an opening for a Vanishing Hitchhiker.”

“Can I give it a trial run?”

Milton clapped his hands. “Of course! I’ll see you back in a week.”

After the first three nights of waiting on a desolate country road for a car to pass by, Ellen wished that time would pass more quickly in the afterlife. The fourth night, a farmer in a rusted pickup with bad shocks gave her a ride. Grateful for the company, she forgot to vanish, and rode with him into town. She had to walk the six miles back to her post.

When the week was up, she met with Milton again. Her past wasn’t dark enough to qualify her as a revenant. She wasn’t deeply melancholic, so wraith would not be a good fit. She would end up a ghost orb, floating over a swamp and being mistaken for a ball of gas.

“What else is there?” Ellen pointed to the cartoon ghost in the collage. “How about that one, but without the sheet?”

Milton sighed. “I hoped to place you in an entertainment or inspiration position. Most of the other careers require a commitment to a static location.”

“That’s fine. And I know a perfect place.”

Ellen floated along at Movie Plex, creating cold spots in the ladies’ restroom and leaving the scent of popcorn in newly cleaned theaters. Her sister bought a ticket the second week, for the new Tom Cruise flick. Ellen settled in the empty seat next to her and whispered, “Hello.” When Trina turned her head to peer at the vacant spot, Ellen waited until the air conditioning kicked on with a burst of cold, then brushed a strand of hair from her sister’s face.  

“Well. Hello,” Trina said, and smiled. 

THE END

I Can’t See You Because the Light is On

~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

Source

Dear Gables Residential Services:

Thank you for installing the security light across the courtyard from my apartment. I feel so much more safe now, especially when I get up in the night to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. The 1 million candle watt bulb you placed in the device illuminates my apartment so well that not only do I not have to turn on a lamp when I get up, I have to be sure to apply sunscreen before I go to bed.

I tried installing black out curtains in my bedroom, and they mostly work, except when the fabric gets pushed to the side. Then I’m awakened by a bright shaft of light hitting me square on the face, usually about the same time the late night freight train comes wailing past our complex.

When the light was first installed, I had a moment of disorientation when the timer kicked it on around 2:00 a.m. I woke up and thought I was somehow in the middle of a prison break, and expected to hear the clanging of alarm bells. I swear I saw my downstairs neighbor hop over the fence around the pool and take cover in the landscaping.

But I can rest assured that no one scaling the wall outside my apartment will go unnoticed, since the light shines directly vertical onto my building, leaving the ground below in comforting darkness.

If anyone did manage to break into my living room, the light is bright enough that they will see how to disconnect my television without a flashlight; which I won’t notice anyway, since I have taken to sleeping in my closet.