eclectika

This is a continuation of a previous post. If you'd like to read it first, click here . Danny managed to sit in his seat just as the last bell in the school chimed. He barely avoided another tardy by bolting down the hall while ducking under the little windows in every classroom door. His dad had dropped his mother and sister off first before driving like a crazy person to get him to school. Like a scene straight out of an action film, the van had rocked back and forth it dodged cars, swung around corners and squealed tires. When his father skidded up to the school, he yelled, “GO! GO! GO!” "Danny run!" shouted Molly from the school's main door. Molly was Danny's best friend and the one always helping to keep him out of trouble. "You'll be late again if you don't hurry!" Danny turned to say goodbye to his dad but the van was already screeching around the corner and headed out of sight. Quickly he started running toward Molly. She waved hi...

This is another installment of my "Untitled Story." The preceding portion can be found here . Gregory Santo sighed at the stack of parchment glaring at him from his desk. This latest batch of border reports would seem less daunting if it represented more than a single day. Looking around his cramped workspace revealed similar piles stacked on chairs, overflowing shelves and collecting dust in the darkened corners of his time room. The Council had assigned him the honor of serving as interim security coordinator but any comfort taken from the position being temporary faded little over five years ago. Pushing his chair away from the desk, the young acolyte stood and picked his way across the room to a leaded window. Throwing the latch, Gregory swung open the small porthole hopeful that the stacks of paper behind him would suddenly rush through it to freedom. Barely a rustle could be heard as the night air was heavy and unmoving. Father Santo sighed deeply and watched t...

Prologue The Ingrams He remained frozen in place. The small form at his feet was barely moving but he knew nothing would be the same no matter what he chose to do next. Whether it was primal instinct or basic fear that motivated the man, Frank bent down and scooped the young child up in his arms. Holding the fragile form close to his chest, he slowly and steadily picked his way across the field toward a small shed where his wife was absorbed in mending a saddle. The old farmer could feel heat radiating off the small boy pressed against his shoulder. Fevers like this rarely ended well. He picked up his pace and finished crossing the field. Frank Ingram was a simple man. Life had always been governed by the steady rhythm of routine and he liked it that way. When some of the younger men in the town would begin to wax philosophical and debate the meaning of life or ponder the true origins of the relics strewn around the countryside, Frank would usually shrug his shoulders and ...

A single recognizer moves quietly down a forgotten corridor of structs–its destination a brightly lit gate floating 200 kilocycles ahead. Inside, a program makes the proper calculations to halt the craft before virus detection scanners pick up their presence.  Once in the right place, this program sends a signal to its user. From a terminal in San Francisco, Edward transmits an electronic address and a new mission.  Several years ago, he would not have needed to sneak around and break into a system like this.  Back then, he would just have the Master Control Program do it for him. Things are different today. No longer are the resources of Encom–one of the most infamous names in the valley–at his disposal.  Today, he's lucky his parole officer even allows him to have access to a terminal at all. Dillinger is name all but forgotten now and today that suits his purposes just fine. The recognizer remains motionless as its program finishes probing the system to...

The thing you need to know about flying is that it takes less effort than you might think. Just like swimming, most of the work is done by the stuff all around you. In a pool, that stuff is the water that holds you up if you want it to. When you're flying, the stuff you float in is air. Danny had just discovered this secret to flying not more than five minutes ago. At first, he tried to fly by flapping his arms as fast as he could. If you think the sight of a seven year old boy flapping his arms up and down is funny, you're not alone. All of the people who noticed Danny would stop and watch for a moment, giggle and then walk off to wherever they needed to be. It wasn't going very well. Tired and feeling very silly, Danny was about to give up when he heard a quiet voice say, "Don't fight the air. Maybe you should make friends with it instead?" Danny spun around to find the owner of the voice but there was no one standing there. "Make friends with the air...

Prologue I’ve always tried to keep things simple. You could say that my gift to the world was to simplify the many things we’ve made so complicated. When a family member or a friend had trouble with one of their gizmos, gadgets and whatnots, I’m usually the one that fields the call. Most of the time I can decipher where their problem is and explain the solution clearly and generally quickly—it really all depends on how well they listen. Imagine how difficult it must be for me now to relay the events of the past few months to you, as they have been anything but simple. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that I am somehow responsible for the giant purple ‘hole’ in the sky that now looms over Denver or the strange glowing orbs now present all around the Flatirons. Though I will explain these phenomenons, I can assure you that neither was directly caused by me. The strange reports of the creature now referred to as “The Gravel Man” are, I assure you, greatly overstated and not at all ind...

Like so many of the streaming services today, Amazon has become a production house to provide engaging content for its subscribers. One of the things that Amazon does differently than the others is test the waters with limited runs of a show or just create a pilot to gauge interest and see where things go from there. Oasis is currently just a single pilot episode designed to generate interest for the show and, if a full-scale production run looks as promising as this pilot, I'm in. Not only does the pilot introduce us to a rogue's gallery of interesting characters but it somehow manages to make us care about them in very short order. As I mentioned earlier, Amazon releases shows like to this to test if there's an audience willing to watch. When you're done, you can write a review on their site or (in some cases) even fill out a short survey about what you saw to more formally gather data. Out of 12,000 viewers/reviewers on Amazon, 85% of them rate it five sta...

Clouds surround me as I navigate the currents in the sky. My gondola turns into a headwind and I strain against the oar vainly trying to steady the only thing between me and the distant ground below. I steer left, then right, looking for a pocket of clean air. The clouds surge toward my little craft and I brace for the worst until a ray of sunlight to starboard. Pulling hard on the oar, the gondola swings quickly in the wind and enters the gap in the clouds. Carry speed from the storm behind, my craft slips easily out into open sky. Down below me, green rolling hills shoulder small towns and the arteries that connect them. I imagine settling down in one of them and begin to scour the countryside for a piece of land to call my own. Off in the distance, there seems to be a golden shimmer just before the horizon. Using my spyglass, the shimmer seems to be composed of many smaller objects moving together. As they get closer to a small town, bells begin to ring. The melody that greets me ...

i think i am dead. i believe they killed me but i can still feel it. i can feel its heartless beat, gaze, and breath upon my carcass. It did this to me—it's what left me here. It's what calls the shots, watches your moves and pronounces judgment. i hate it, but i obey its call anyway . . . George Larmer stared into his square mirror on the morning of Public Festival. He studied his face. It wasn't as if he expected to see anything new, but he couldn't help but hope. Form his hairline, past the bridge of his nose and down to his chin his eyes would follow. George found nothing more than a long overdue zit, which was of no consequence to him. George's facial self-examination could have well lasted throughout the day if it had not been for the uninvited entrance of his phlegmatic dog Camus. Camus did not stay long, but simply eyed George for a minute and sauntered off. George always felt uneasy in his dog's presence, as if he were being scrutinized but it w...

In the mid-sixteenth century, there was a ship commissioned to bring fear to those traveling to the West Indies. Armed to the teeth, the galleon was said to be capable of cutting a vessel in half with a single volley of cannon fire. The hull’s exterior was coated in a tarry pitch that gave it a black shimmer when slicing through the waves. To match the hull, the rest of the ship was finished in black lacquer. It was rumored that the Queen herself had secretly requested and funded this operation to protect her interests from colonists tempted to forget their governing body. Setting sail with a skeleton crew of 30 men it left Spain known only as the “Xiphias.” It was never heard from again... Fifteen years ago, the bow of a 16th-century ship was found buried under a coral formation near the eastern coast of Barbados. Samples from the ship’s bow revealed high traces of a chemical also found in tar. As a coral reef had grown around the find, excavation rights were denied and study of t...

Once upon a time there was a pear. This pear was quite plump and all the other pears aspired to be as juicy. On sunny days, the pear would make sure to find a leaf or two that could provide adequate shade. No one knew exactly how the pear had become so plump and juicy. Some of the other pears speculated that it had retained all the water intended for some of the less fortunate pears on the branch while others simply reckoned it was blessed to be that way. One thing everyone could agree upon was that the pear was destined for something great. The pear itself knew the other pears were jealous but it couldn’t be bothered with such petty affairs—it was, after all, destined for greatness. Summer was coming to a close and all the pears were busy making their final preparations for the harvest season. Some would be chosen and others, if they had not grown enough, would be left to the birds and the fall frosts. Most of the pears were busy drinking up as much water as they could and spent t...

I have a confession to make. I’ve been having an affair now for the past several years. I've known her since we were kids but grew distant in high school. It wasn't until many years later when standing in line at the DMV that I bumped into her again. Having her with me in that line reminded me how much I enjoyed her company. We saw each other quite regularly after that until I met my wife a few years later. During the first year of my marriage, I couldn't maintain the affair but would often wonder if I'd ever see her again. It wasn’t until the second year with my wife that I started to rekindle the affair and found that things would go better at home after each encounter. When my son was born, of course, there were a few months when I didn’t make the effort to keep up the affair and lost touch with her entirely. These were dark days of stress and unhappiness. Eventually, I started sneaking her into the house and became less frantic. Looking back, it's a wonder I...

Just off the well-traveled road of life is an interesting detour through a field of tidbits that surround the mountain obscura—its highest peaks cradling the Shrine of Trivia. Many have made the trip but few have done more than gather at the mountain's base for a spell before finding something useful to do. Guarded closely by irrelevance, the mighty walls of this great temple allow passage to a select few—dedicated monks who have taken the solemn vow of mediocrity. Those who have clawed their way up through the mountain's chaffy forest will soon find themselves caught up in a series of trials. For the first trial, one must successfuly negotiate the garden maze of minutiae—many who enter this maze become so caught up in the garden's intricate distractions that they never leave. Should you look away from the garden long enough to notice the threadbare rope of timely quips, a quick social climb will bring you to the platau of disappointment. It is here that most decide the...