Tag Archives: short story

Firestones

When Cincin saw the huge fallen tree in the road, he stopped short. By force of habit, his mind probed for the hungry tendrils of the firestone - but no. The firestone was gone. He crouched down with his hands on his knees, to wait out the wave of nausea that passed through him. With a firestone, this log would have been no obstacle. He’d have summoned his full strength, more than he usually could, and pushed the obstacle off the road. Or he’d have used the other members of his party like extensions of himself to coordinate, and get the tree off the road somehow. Or come up with some clever plan to do it. He had to get the firestone back. He needed its power. He could persuade the group to turn around, raise a peasant army in the surrounding towns, and storm the city, to take back his firestone by force. Or he could go back alone, and shamelessly beg his friends in the Senate - or the people of the city - for just one more use of it. Or figure out some other key thing his city needed. Or make them need him.

But no. He’d given up the firestone freely. He let the sense of loss pulsate through his soul. He was alone now - he had his traveling companions, but he had no firestone. And it had never helped him do anything he couldn’t have done himself, if he had been just a little cleverer, more determined. And - he forced his thoughts onto this track now, out of the well-worn rut reaching out towards the firestone - this wave of loss was just a sign of weak places where he could become strong. He had to learn to do without - but he could mimic the patterns the firestone had taught him.

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Short Pieces - Two Stories and an Inspiration

Bird Watching

I heard the chickens in the henhouse grow silent. I loaded my shotgun and peeked around the corner. It was another zombie. Sometimes my birds quiet down for unrelated reasons, but it seems my chickens learned that the walking dead take longer to find quiet flock, and I'd found fourteen roving undead raiders by listening to the volume of their clucking, over the past week alone. A stopped cluck is right twice a day.

 

Eat My Shirts

There were twelve dresser drawers, and twelve moths; somehow, one had been trapped in each drawer during my vacation. Maybe some elaborate prank?

Whimsically, to claim some positive feelings out of the experience, I decided to name the bugs after the months of the year. The first three drawers contained little of lasting value - socks, undershirts, these things are easily replaceable. Drawers five through twelve contained little damage, because they mostly held things that moths don't eat - leather belts, tie bars, synthetics.

The fourth drawer, however, was full of my beautiful warm-weather shirts. Polos as thin and soft as a summer breeze. All of them had great big holes in them. April is the cruelest moth.

 

Inspirational

Of course I am an inspiration to you. You know this. I know this. But perhaps some of your friends do not. Perhaps I inspire you in so many ways that you don't know how to describe it all, or even where to start. At times you might find yourself asking, "How can I explain the extent to which Ben is an inspiration to me and others around him?"

My friends, you need no longer be perplexed by this quandary. You need only but explain: I am so inspirational that an "Inspirational Quotes" Twitter account follows ME:

inspiration