The Ghostly Buccaneer

The wind whipped at my tattered jacket sleeve. The unholy mixture of salt, blood and sweat sickened me. My severed stump floated on the waves, sailing true north, until the menacing visage of the great white crested the surface and swallowed my dearly departed appendage.

Across the water, standing astern, laughing, the ghostly flicker of the Buccaneer gripped my eye. But with relief I heard his mast crashing into the sea. Our gamble had worked. The Hell Frigate drifted away helplessly.

The hunt was just getting started. I knew it would continue throughout the Seven Seas and into my nightmares.

Genre: Pirates

News: January Is Genre Month

Happy new year!

The month of January has officially been dubbed Genre Month. Each story this month will fall into a specific genre, whether it's a western, a mystery, a romantic comedy, or James Joyce.

If you have any suggestions for genres you would like to see me tackle, let me know. Or perhaps you have your own 100 word genre piece you'd like to submit. I encourage you all to join in the 100 word fun.

Mr. Flanagan’s Lawn Gnomes

Mr. Flanagan's yard was famous for its lawn gnomes. Every child on the block knew the tiny mischief-makers loved to drag unwary passersby into the yard and subjugate them to all manners of horror.

Bobby O'Shea supposedly disappeared while picking crabapples straight from the branch. Seamus Kennedy refused to say how he got his broken foot, but Mr. O’Leary had forced him to deliver groceries to Flanagan’s front door the day before. The gnomes bullied away lunch money and tricked children out of their shoes.

In hindsight, using Flanagan’s hedge as our homerun fence was almost certainly a bad idea.

A Matter Of Life And Death

I was moments away from death. The oxygen in my blood stream was starting to expire.

In reaction, my diaphragm flattened, almost instinctively. The simultaneous contraction of my external intercostal muscles forced my lungs to expand. My ribs elevated, extending the length of my thorax.

All this action, seemingly involuntary, but triggered by long forgotten impulses, had decreased my internal intrapulmonary pressure. My body had established a new pressure gradient from the outer atmosphere to my alveoli, causing air to be sucked inwards.

I had once again successfully executed the carefully calibrated intake of oxygen and nitrogen into my lungs.

Riding The Rails

Whenever I see a steam engine locomotive, I think of hoboes. Hopping on boxcars, riding the rails, free to travel the entire country, taking orders from no one.

As a child, I dreamed of life as a hobo. On Halloween, I would dress up in a tattered jacket, cut the fingers from my wool gloves, and go begging for candy. We once rode the Amtrak to Chicago, and I tried to board the freight car.

I have since learned that hobo life is not so romantic after all. Hoboes are just homeless alcoholics like the one who murdered my father.

Triassic Park

“I've got a great idea for a movie. It's about a scientist, who discovers a way to clone dinosaurs from their DNA. He gathers experts from all over the world, and together they build the world’s first dinosaur amusement park on a remote island.

“Everything is wonderful, but the scientist finds he can’t control nature. The dinosaurs break out of their enclosures, and begin rampaging. The most dangerous are the small dinosaurs, because they are faster and it’s easier for them to prey on humans."

“You mean like Jurassic Park?”

“I guess, kind of. But mine doesn’t star Jeff Goldblum.”

The Legal Department

With a heavy thud, Kirby threw a thick file onto the desk, joining the mounds of paper already stacked higher than the tip of his hat.

He heard a sigh from the other side. "More?" a voice asked.

"This is the report on Tommy Evans you asked for. I think we can safely say he belongs in the bad pile," Kirby responded with a squeak.

“I miss the old days, when I could just keep the list myself.”

“Well, we can’t afford to be sued again. It would be the end of Christmas.”

Santa sighed again. Lawyers had ruined everything.

Nine Days

Later, he explained the solitude was good for him.

He was content and productive, his mind open, ideas flowing. “I am focused and connected to my surroundings”, he thought. He last left his home 9 days ago.

A bead of sweat falls to the table from his ice water. On the wall, the clock approaches 9:00pm, eighteen seconds away. He knows this without looking, he senses it.

He grappled with what to do next, but everything made sense. The police scanners were quiet, news was normal. He was safe. Tonight, nine days later, he could kill again. The cycle continues.

From guest contributor, Kevin Reitz

The Dictionary Of Forgotten Words

He found it long ago, in his grandfather’s attic. The cover said Dictionary, but it looked more like an old journal: yellowed, desiccated, stained and crumpled. It contained a list of words, one to each page, words he had never seen before.

Every time he discovered an unfamiliar word, he wrote it down on a clean page. The next time he opened it, the definition had magically appeared, in his own handwriting even.

Once the word was scribed into the book, however, it escaped from the language, never to be uttered, written, thought of again. His dictionary that consumed words.

The Castle

The castle has stood at the top of the hill for one thousand generations. Legend says that it has never fallen to enemy attack. Certainly, it never will.

The walls, seven men tall at its lowest point, thicker than two elephants nose to tail, seem to grow out of the Earth itself. The towers loom above the ramparts, from which you can survey the entire valley. The moat stretches three horse lengths across. A stone facade forever impregnable.

The villagers to the south look up and whisper a prayer every morning. Please protect us from the ghosts of empires past.