Flicker, p.1
Flicker, page 1
FLICKER:
A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND POETRY
By Tyrean Martinson
Flicker: A Collection of Stories and Poetry
COPYRIGHT 2016
Tyrean Martinson
Wings of Light Publishing: Gig Harbor, WA
Dedicated to all the writers and readers who enjoy the short stuff: poems, hint fiction, drabble fiction, flash fiction, and the like.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Seedling*
Green Planet*
Iron Fairy
Robot Sonnet*
Robot Sonnet #2: Fear Not!
Robot Sonnet #3: Cry Havoc!
Robot Sonnet #4: Somebody, My Love
Robot Sonnet #5: I Dreamed
Robot Sonnet #6: My Love is Like
Robot Sonnet #7: Shall I Compare Thee?
Cloud Download*
multilevel traffic*
Big Money*
Story Addict*
Memory Is
A Lonely Companion
Lady
The Pen Cuts Deep
A Lost Art
Life is Good*
Ocean’s Promise*
Rain Rhythms
Water-colors
Magic Swirled*
Bested by Beauty, Brawn, & Brains*
She Laughs*
Bargain*
Candlewick*
Flicker Stories
Barely Wrapped*
Red Carpet, Take 1*
Red Carpet, Take 2*
True Treasure*
Birds of a Feather
When Okay is Enough*
Resolutions for Fall*
Ghost Pepper*
Doors Open for Dessert*
Shame*
Conversations Through Time*
Scars
The Dangers of Coffee Shop Writing
Victim*
Winter Remembrance*
Snow Bounty
Some Days
The Jacket
Too Much Spice
Haunted by Reality*
Solution
Tickling the Ol’ Ivories
Suburban Spring*
Far, Far Away
Spring Fever*
Jealous
From Death to Dawn
Assassin’s Blush
Dangerous Butterfly
Belladonna’s Walk
Kissing Boys*
Cass in Boots
Parental Angst
Talk Peace*
Crumbs on a Plate*
Four
My Dad’s Instructions*
Staying Safe
Seared Bronze*
Heat
Cold*
The Biggest Waterslide*
Major Tom*
This is Not the End (A Found Poem)
Rings of Light
Siren’s Kiss*
Watch Out*
Extra Long Cape*
In His Shadow*
Sidekicks Anonymous*
Essays on Battle Tactics
The In-Laws*
Tone Deaf*
The Tail of a Star*
Pyro Pink*
A “Special” Guest
Point of View*
New Life*
Buzz*
The Bridge Snap*
Pink*
Works Published Previously
About the Author
Introduction
Flicker: A Collection of Short Stories and Poetry includes most of the short works I wrote between the fall of 2013 and December 2015. These short works range from extremely short in length, from haiku and hint fiction to flash fiction and short fiction. Forty-eight of these works found publication in magazines before becoming a part of this collection, and forty-two new works reside in these pages, as well. If a story or poem has been published previously, it will be marked with a “*” and the details of the previous publication may be found at the back of this book.
Flicker contains an eclectic mix of types of writing, as well as subject matter, from light to heavy, from real world to speculative worlds. Some works are appropriate for middle grade readers while some works are appropriate for more mature readers who can handle heavy content that may be similar to the evening news. Please be aware of that as you proceed into the book.
Although I believe that the poetry and story lengths are known to most readers, I’ll give a brief account for each form present in this book.
Haiku: Although traditional represented in the American public school system as three lines of poetry with syllable lengths of 5-7-5, haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that relies on a “cutting” represented by a juxtaposition of two images and a seasonal reference. Modern Japanese and American haiku has moved away from the 5-7-5 syllable length line structure to two to three lines of short, but varying length.
Senryu: While similar in structure to haiku, senryu focus on human foibles instead of nature.
Sonnet: There are many forms and styles of sonnets, but the ones in this book follow Elizabethan sonnet rules loosely with fourteen lines and this rhyme scheme ababcdcdefefgg.
Free Verse: Poetry that does not follow any rhyme, rhythm, or syllable length pattern.
Found Poetry: Poetry that uses “found” words and phrases from other texts to create a new poem of newly combined words and phrases.
Hint Fiction: Hint fiction tells a story in 25 words or less.
Micro Fiction: Fiction that tells a story in 140 characters or less.
Dribble Fiction: Fiction that tells a story in 50 words or less.
Drabble Fiction: Fiction that tells a story in 100 words or less.
Flash Fiction: Fiction that tells a story in 1,000 words or less.
Short Fiction: Fiction that tells a story in less than 7,000 words (some magazines will allow up to 10,000 words).
Seedling*
When it was his turn to speak, Dunnie hesitated. He knew what he should say. It was a simple question of whether or not he wanted to try and fit in this year at school. It was seventh grade. He had six years plus kindergarten behind him so he knew what the acceptable answers were, even to something as simple as giving his favorite color and activity so the teacher could remember his name out of the one hundred and twenty five students she had to deal with every day. But, something made Dunnie want to be honest this year.
“My name is Dunnie Cunningham. I like the color orange because it reminds me of sunrise, and sun on my back, and my grandma’s oatmeal cookies.”
A few boys he’d known since kindergarten snickered and made whistling noises.
“This isn’t dateline,” hissed Randy from across the aisle.
The snickers became chuckles.
“Excuse me, Randy, I already know your favorite color is red because you like cherries and the colors of the football team uniforms,” said the teacher in a patient, but firmly tired voice, as if she had heard everything that someone like Randy could say, or would ever say.
Dunnie held a small smile back, although it tugged at the corner of his lips as Randy slouched in his chair. Despite being the class clown for as long as everyone had known him, Randy wanted teachers to like him too.
“Your favorite activity, Dunnie?” the teacher prompted.
“Gardening,” he said, and then he looked out the window. “I like to make things grow.”
This time, his answer was met by an uncomfortable silence. He had just reminded everyone of that incident in kindergarten that had never been explained away.
But the teacher was new in town. She didn’t know about the incident, so she said, “Thank you, Dunnie. I’ll remember that when we study our unit on plant life.”
Dunnie nodded, not sure if he should add anything else. As the teacher asked Teddy Fowler about his favorite color and activity, Dunne thought back to kindergarten when he had first discovered his gift. He still couldn’t explain it, but he had learned how to use it more carefully. He had never covered a building with plants again, or surrounded a classmate with brambles. He looked sideways over at Randy and caught Randy looking at him.
Randy’s eyes flicked away quickly, and then he bent over his notebook. He liked to draw comical caricatures of his classmates.
Dunnie didn’t pay attention to Randy’s drawing that much, but he looked at the scars on Randy’s wrists. Randy always wore long sleeves, even at football practice. Dunnie felt bad about that. Randy had been teasing him, but he had over-reacted.
As the teacher walked over to another part of the room to talk to Wendy Grover, Randy shoved his notebook across the aisle at Dunnie.
A picture of a boy covered in thorns with the words “Do you remember this?” under it glared off the page at Dunnie.
Dunnie shifted in his seat, and looked over at Randy’s accusing eyes. He looked down at the page again, and scribbled on it. He erased the thorns. He drew scars on the boy in the picture, and then a plate of cookies. He added his own words.
When class ended, Dunnie still had Randy’s notebook.
Randy hung back from the rest of his friends and waited for Dunnie, although he kept an eye on the door.
“Here,” Dunnie said as he handed Randy his notebook.
Randy took it, looked at it, and grunted. Then, he shrugged his shoulders and looked sideways at Dunnie. “I’ll think about it.” He walked out into the hallway and into the sea of middle schoolers.
Dunnie followed at a slower pace, with an open bubble of space around him. He was that kid; the one with plenty of elbow room in a crowded hallway. Whether he answered t
An apple core sailed out of the air from the side of him and hit the ground right by his side. Dunnie picked it up, felt the residual life and worked his gift. The core sprouted roots from the seeds inside. He held it up and looked across the hall at Teddy Fowler and Randy.
Teddy Fowler’s mouth hung open, and he flattened himself against the wall of lockers behind him.
Randy’s face went white, but he crossed the hall to Dunnie. “So, it was real what I remembered.”
“I’m sorry, Randy. I really am,” said Dunnie. He held the apple core with roots out to Randy. “Plant it in your yard. It will grow.”
Randy eyed the apple core. “It’s not going to grow all over me?”
“No. I learned how to control it.”
“Cool,” Randy said. “You know I draw comics, right?”
“Yeah,” Dunnie said, not sure where this was going.
“So, I need to show you the comic I’ve been drawing since I was in kindergarten. It’s called: “Plant-boy.” He hesitated, and then took the apple core. “He was a villain at first, and then I saw him helping his grandma growing his vegetable garden, and I drew him from villain to hero.”
“Plant-boy is a terrible name.”
“I was five.”
“You could rename him.”
“We’ll talk about it. I figure you can give me some ideas.” He held up his notebook. “I’ll be there after practice. Hold this for me until then.” He dropped the apple core with roots back into Dunnie’s hands and walked back over to Teddy.
Dunnie watched Randy punch Teddy on the shoulder and laugh. Then, he looked down at the tiny apple tree in his hands. New seedlings were fragile. He would have to make sure it had plenty of sun and water to grow.
Green Planet*
save
arboreal
life desperate
cries of children fall silent from
hunger
save the
planet, kill a
child, infanticide trends
allow more room for obesity
death
adopt
a tree while an
orphan becomes a child
soldier, hungry for food, family,
love
Iron Fairy
Leaning against the prow of the simple tugboat, Saryah searched the horizon for the sight of her island, her refuge and home. Even with Queen Tirania’s edict hanging over her head, Saryah refused to let her home, and especially her workshop, fall officially into the war zone. That was like admitting that the Bone Fairies had won it, for with every new war zone, the Bone Fairies took more of the Plant Fairies lands. The kingdoms had been at war for many years, and the Bone Fairies’ hold kept getting stronger, and the Plant Fairies kingdom kept getting smaller. It wasn’t right, and went against everything in nature. Saryah wouldn’t let them win. The little tiny life growing inside her kicked in agreement. She smiled. Ian would be proud. They had a little fighter on their side. She knew it.
And then she looked down at the water and closed her eyes tight against tears that threatened to overcome her resolve. Ian had been taken. When her rose-wings were being torn from her shoulders by one of the Bone Fairy soldiers, she had seen him bagged by another Bone Fairy and thrown into one of their wagons. When reinforcements arrived, they had saved Saryah, but the Bone Fairy prisoner wagon had already been flown away with a fierce contingent of Bone Fairy soldiers to guard it.
Queen Tirania said that all fairies must keep level heads in this war, to be smarter than the fires of revenge. Saryah couldn’t do that. She wanted Ian back, and she wanted to fly again. She wiped away a stray tear and looked up to see the island ahead.
Dark clouds streaked the sky above it, and the ground lay littered with dying trees and other debris. Wherever the Bone Fairies went, destruction followed, but she knew that if the Plant Fairies would take a stand, new life would grow.
A shuffling step and the scent of water on rock alerted her to Crank’s presence, and she ran her hand over her face once more before turning to face the Bridge Troll.
Crank’s warty face furrowed in thought, and he shook his head at her. “I don’t think this is the right course to take, Miss Saryah. You know that I don’t, but understand you need to get things out of your workshop. Heard you were working on some mighty important projects for the war effort.”
“That’s right,” she said, trying to keep her face devoid of emotion. “I need to recover the plans and make sure that nothing falls into enemy hands.”
“But shouldn’t Queen Tirania of the Plant Fairies send someone else? It’s a might dangerous mission for a fairy in your condition, Saryah.”
Saryah folded her arms over her pregnant belly, and merely said, “A fairy without wings isn’t a fairy without magic, you know.”
“You know that I didn’t mean anything about your wings,” Crank said. He reached out towards her with one of his meaty hands, and then pulled back suddenly and put his hand in his pocket. Crank was small for a Bridge Troll, just twice Saryah’s size, and not as clumsy as most of his kind. He brought out a small set of tools, obviously troll made but tiny enough for a fairy to use. “Here,” he said, gruffly. “I thought you might be able to use these, if your workshop is ruined.”
Saryah took them from him, and marveled at the strength and weight of them. They were better than any tools she had every owned. “Thank you, Crank.”
“Saryah?”
She looked up at him, surprised to see that he had a faint blush on his cheeks. “Yes?”
“Look me up if you need anything, or if you decide not to stay on the island. I’m in Bridge Housing #8, on the Straddle Bridge here in Rose Capitol.”
Saryah nodded, not sure what to say.
“Now, I don’t want you to take that the wrong way,” he said, blushing even further. “I’m just concerned about you and your little one, like anyone. That’s all.”
“Of course, thank you, Crank,” she replied softly, and she looked back over the bow. He was concerned like anyone, he had said, but no one else had been concerned. There was no one left to be concerned. Ian was gone. Her parents and her sister had been killed or turned in the battle with the Bone Fairies long ago. Her fellow scientists all thought her work for the war effort was dangerous and crazy.
When the tugboat came close the island, and started salvaging from the wreckage, Saryah thanked Crank and his crew, and used her fairy magic to push her torn wings for the short flight to shore.
“Remember, to send for me, if you need anything!” Crank called after her.
Saryah waved to him, but kept going, not looking back. She didn’t understand his kindness: the tools, the offer, it seemed like too much from a friend, especially a troll friend.
Despair filled Saryah as she fluttered weakly towards her home. Storm debris and dark death magic lay over the island, burying the village and anything that had lived. With effort, she found her home, crushed under a stray branch. She landed, her wings drooping, and let her tears fall. It was gone. Everything that she had with Ian was gone.
A soft kick in her belly told her she was wrong. She had to live, had to make her way past the wreckage, and get Ian back, if she could. She paced away from her home and found the secret door still intact under a dying fern. Pulling up the door, she looked furtively around and then ducked inside.
She lit the stairway with her fairy magic, and walked cautiously downward. She couldn’t hear anything or see anything out of the ordinary. When she reached the workshop door, the lock stood unbroken. She ran her fingers over it in her special pattern and it snicked open, to reveal her workshop in just the order that she had left it. Closing the door behind her, she quickly went to the tables and gathered up all of her diagrams, stuffing them in her magic purse, along with her prototypes. She had thought for a moment of living here, until she had seen the destruction outside, but now that she had seen the death of the plants above she knew it was only a matter of time before the Bone Fairies discovered this workshop. She took everything, including a small picture of Ian that she had kept on her desk.
