Hollman woke each day never knowing what to expect. He earned a handsome salary by keeping the truly wealthy happy and comfortable. He could never explain how or why exactly he ended up with this career, but he was perfectly happy with it. Each day was an adventure, some more than others, some tedious, but never dull.

Hollman’s last employer was a very wealthy but very elderly man. Three months ago, he passed away. Given the nature of his profession, Hollman was very well connected with his potential employers, but even so, open positions came few and far between. This left most days generally uneventful.

That morning, however, an expensive courier knocked on his door, asked for a signature, and offered him an unmarked white envelope. Inside the envelope was a small card, of heavy stock. The card was neatly printed with a time and date, early next week, and an address, in Nebraska of all places. With no better plans, Hollman decided to buy the plane tickets he needed to set out to attend the mysterious appointment.

Hollman had researched, of course, and was prepared. He arrived at Lincoln airport with just the right time to spare. Ready to hire a taxi in case, he was not surprised to see a man in a well-tailored suit holding a sign clearly labeled “Collins”. He simply approached, flashed the card the courier delivered last week, and was shown to a limousine.

The ride lasted just over an hour, as Hollman had expected. When it was complete, and he found himself departing the limo to enter a truly palatial home, Hollman’s suspicions were all but confirmed. If he was lucky, he was about to get a job working for Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world. A comfortable employer, indeed.

A short wait in a plush lounge chair, in an equally plush lounge, was preceded by a polite but quite thorough security check, performed by a pair of burly gentlemen. Almost to the minute printed on the card, Hollman was summoned by a butler. He was lead through long hallways to enter into a wide room featuring a massive table surrounded by over a dozen large chairs, with thick carpeting underneath. Paintings covered the walls, with statues and sculptures on ornate tables scattered in between. Seated at the far end of the table was just the man Hollman expected, Warren Buffett.

“Hollman Collins, I presume?” the greeting echoed lightly.

“Indeed, Mr. Buffett. Thank you for inviting me into your home.”

“Very welcome, of course. And please, call me Warren. Come come, have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair beside him. “Let me come right to the point. I have a very special assignment, and I’ve been informed that you might be just the man to complete it.”

He continued on to describe the details to Hollman, who upon hearing them accepted the assignment immediately.

Hollman’s first task was to recruit the allies necessary for completion of such an ambitious goal. Through some extended negotiations, perfectly natural for someone with his experience, he arranged a face to face meeting with Burt Rutan.

“Mr. Rutan, I don’t want to waste your valuable time. Very simply, my employer is very interested in you. Or to be more specific, with your company, Scaled Composites. You produced the ship that won the Ansari X-Prize, correct?”

“Yes, that’s right. We completed our second flight, securing the prize, just over two months ago.”

“Exactly. At this point, you represent the most space-worthy private corporation in the world. Being a private corporation, the option to hire your services on a contract basis exists, correct?”

“Technically, yes. But Scaled Composites is not currently seeking external contracts.”

“Yes, that may be. But rest assured, one has found you.”

After a brief, but intense, negotiation Burt was won over. With the first player of the conspiracy lined up, the plan was set in motion.

Hollman’s next high profile target was Sir Richard Branson. A better co-conspirator could hardly have been designed from scratch. A massively rich dare-devil was the exact type to fit into the next empty slot, and the previous experience with his airline only sweetened the pot. In order to successfully convince Branson, and other key individuals, Mr. Buffett allowed Hollman to set up a base of operations in one of the less used, but still lavish, wings of his home.

It was early February of 2005 when Mr. Branson arrived for Hollman’s interview.

“Mr. Branson, my employer has a business proposition for you,” Hollman began.

“That’s why I’m here, chap! I know that much, but how about some details?”

“We feel that you are the perfect individual to spearhead a new industry: commercial space flight. We believe it is a natural extension of Virgin Airlines.”

“Sounds exciting. Sounds quite expensive, as well.”

“Yes, expensive certainly. But uniquely beneficial. You may be interested to know that we have already recruited Burt Rutan to work with us, head of Scaled Composites, producer of the SpaceShipOne craft, winner of the X-Prize. We are quite devoted to this endeavor.”

“Sounds like you’ve something specific in mind, what’s in it for me?”

Again, the negotiation was heated and exciting. Again, a new and important name joined the list of conspirators. The plan’s motion accelerated; within a few months the agreement between Sir Richard Branson and Burt Ratan was announced publicly. The smoke screen was lifted.

With the visible cogs in the machine cheerily spinning, the hidden mechanisms behind were also beginning to turn. What was needed now was some grease on the gears; cash to keep the machine operating smoothly. Burt Ratan had agreed to secretly kick-start the operation with their $10 million prize, but with those monies rapidly dwindling, new funding options were critical.

The next visitor to Hollman’s operation was none other than William Henry Gates III.

“Mr. Gates, I’ve called you here to reveal to you an amazing secret, and to recruit you as a member of our operation. I work for Warren Buffett, and I have enlisted the help of Burt Ratan, creator of the craft that won the X-Prize only a year ago, as well as Sir Richard Branson. You’ve likely heard the press about their plans for commercial space flight.

“Let me assure you, this is but the benign public face to our organization. For a select few, we are engineering a monumental opportunity. What we need, though, is a clean source of funding. We have the money, but we need a safe path to use to drive it to our ends. We would like to recruit you with our unique benefit package, and your charitable organization as our monetary vehicle. We would like to donate over thirty seven billion dollars, with a certain percentage diverted for our own goals.”

What followed was a detailed, and convincing, explanation of how the plan for this money would unfold. What really sealed the deal of course, as for everyone so far, was the offer for Bill to join in. This position is all about the benefits.

That was seven years ago, in early 2006. After around three and a half years, the first flight was ready. It took three more years to perfect the process, and complete construction.

Then finally big day arrived. The secret moon base was complete, and ready for habitation. Set up on the “dark side” of the moon, it was completely invisible to the Earth, and all its man-made satellites. The launch pad was located, and the launch times were selected, carefully to avoid detection.

The final result was the construction, and habitation, of the most remote corner of the world. A secret base, the new home for the most selective and elite group ever. For some, a vacation home. For others, just a new home.

In August of 2011, when Warren Buffett moved to the moon station permanently, he allowed Hollman to accompany him.

“Hollman, boy, it has been a truly impressive journey, these seven years.”

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I’m honored that you invited me here.”

“I really couldn’t say goodbye without letting you come here, to see the fruits of your labor. Here it is, my little corner, where I can live out the rest of my days in peace. Thank you, thank you for helping me fulfill this dream.”

Authors note: Although real-world persons and events have been woven into this story, it is a work of fiction.

“Axe!” Gwam shouted, and Reth below picked up the basket and gingerly stepped away from the tree.

Gwam gripped the axe lightly between two fingers, at the middle of the blade end, looked carefully, and let it fall to the ground below. Gwam preferred the climb down, with both his hands free.

When he was down on the ground, Reth handed him the basket, picked up the axe and stepped to the next tree to be harvested. Gwam gladly took the opportunity to stretch his tired limbs on the ground while his friend climbed.

Harvesting and gathering was usually women’s work, but the sweet Bajoog fruit was a special case. Growing only in the limbs of tall trees called for climbing, and requiring axe work to harvest turned it into a mans duty. Gwam could usually convince himself that he really was content to avoid running around all day in chase of game.

Gwam’s father died hunting at just the wrong time for him. It was tragic enough, but it left him a young boy, just shy of manhood, without his father to guide him there. A year earlier, and he would have had time to adjust to a new family, and surrogate father. A year later and he would have already completed his rites. But it was neither, and he became eternally stuck in the limbo between physical adulthood and true manhood, and often stuck with women’s work.

After repeating this cycle five or six times, the sun fell below one fist, and the pair decided to set out, back to the village. Gwam grasped one side of the basket, Reth the other, and they began their march.

It was a special time of year, the only part of the year that the Bajoog fruit ripened. The villagers used the Bajoog as a part of their annual ritual to appease the gods. The fickle fruit served as the tribute to Rina, the goddess of the harvest. It was her fruit that ripened at the time of the ritual, and only then, naturally.

The women were back in the village, preparing the various sundries needed for the coming week of dancing, singing, feasting and storytelling. The men were out hunting, much meat would be needed.

“Here is the fruit, mama,” Gwam announced, as he and Reth placed the heavy basket just inside the hut.

“Very good!” Drae replied. She put down the doll she was crafting, and trundled over to inspect the fruits. “Rina blesses us!” she continued. “These Bajoog are wonderful. This will be a good ritual.

“And keep your mitts off the grog!” Drae shouted at him.

Drat.

Without any alcohol to help him pass the time, the next two days shifted from restful to boring. Drae kept a close enough eye on Gwam that he couldn’t sneak a drop. Finally though, the ritual week was upon the village. From that point, no one could hold him back. The first night featured a telling of the island village’s history, by one of the most respected elders.

“Long, long ago, before the time even of our distant past, the world was water. All water and no more. Our island was born when the god Wexu created it for his own amusement. He created the wide land, so large that it would take a strong man three moons to walk from our beach to the other side. He put the beach on the edge with the water, and he put the hills and the plains in between, and he was happy.

“He showed his creation to his wife Rina, And she was pleased. She filled the plains with grasses, she created the forests and the flowers, and the wonderful fruits, and it was a good place. They showed this new place to their children, Tiro and Fria. They saw it, and were happy.

“Soon the daughter Fria was lonely, so she created the beasts, and the men and women. It is Fria to whom we owe the delicious meat of the plains animals, and the delicious joy of mating, for she created it all.

“This week, marked each year by the ripening of the Bajoog fruit, is the time to celebrate all their creations, and to assure that hey are pleased with us. Most especially, it is to appease the god Tiro, who is vengeful for his lack of his own creation of this world.

“It is Tiro who delivers the pests who eat our vegetables. It is Tiro who delivers the diseases that kill our game. It is Tiro who delivers the storms and the heat waves that shake our huts and burn our skins. Always we respect Tiro, but for this week we remind him of our reverence and obedience, and we thank all the gods for their wonderful creations.”

The audience cheered, and there as much dancing and celebration. Gwam, however, quietly snuck out the back.

With much maneuvering, Gwam had gained a role in the next night’s ceremony. He was to be but one of the many dancers supporting the shaman at the center of the proceedings, but he was still proud of himself for his involvement. Wanting to perform perfectly, he would spend most of his time until that ceremony practicing the steps.

Retreating to a secluded spot on the beach, where the fishing was poor due to the shallow water, Gwam prepared himself. Using a fallen branch, he marked a large circle in the sand, and stood in the middle of it. Crossing the circle would mean bumping into another dancer tomorrow night, so practice was necessary until he could perform the gyrations, steps, and leaps while remaining carefully within the ring.

He started with a short meditation, head bowed, facing the wide ocean. Dancing by no more than the light of a nearly full moon, he made quite a few mistakes. The circle required retracing a number of times. After his short meditation and frenzied dance routine repeated four cycles, he had finally completed the entire routine without mistake.

Looking up from the prone pose that the final flourishing leap left him in, Gwam was astonished to see a figure walking towards him. The figure was dressed in the most regal gown Gwam had ever seen, and was walking on the water! Gwam rubbed his eyes, believing his heavy exertion to be confusing his mind.

The figure, though, remained. Gwam stayed fixed where he sat on the sand, unable to believe his eyes. Unsure of the proper action, in the strange situation he found himself, he took none.

The strange figure’s gait matched his flattering dress, outdoing even the swagger of the village chieftain-ess. When the figure reached the sand, he came to stand three spans in front of Gwam, and looked deep into his eyes.

“That was a wonderful performance, Gwam,” the figure said, a royal twinge on his words that reminded Gwam of the shaman’s voice, when reciting holy words.

“Who, who are you? How do you know my name? How did you walk on the sea?”

“Stand up, Gwam. I am Tiro, your most under appreciated god. You do not recognize me?”

Gwam, on his feet for only moments, fell to the sand at these words. On his knees, forehead to the ground, he shook as he shouted, “Great one, it is you! Why have you blessed me with your presence?”

“I said stand up boy!” This remark further convinced Gwam of the figure’s identity. Only a god would know to call Gwam a boy, though he had now passed his twenty-first winter. “I have a special mission for you. As you well know, I am jealous of the joy of creation that my sister and parents have enjoyed. I have created my own land, and I have decided to offer it to the people of your land.

“You will gather the trunks of twenty trees, and use them to construct a boat to carry you to there.”

“I am very sorry Tiro, your greatness. What is a boat?”

The god explained to Gwam the entire theory of sailing and boat making. He instructed Gwam in the construction of a simple but serviceable raft, capable of carrying men, and sailing on the wind with a sail of animal pelts. This Gwam accepted as his god given duty.

“You will complete this boat before the second moon. When the second moon shines, you will ride the boat towards the morning sun. It will take at least three days, so bring food, and you will strike the wonderful land that I have created! Bring all the village folk that the boat can carry.”

“Yes Tiro! I will do it!”

Gwam forgot all about the dance he was to perform the next day. He noticed how far the moon had moved in the sky and decided to return home. When he got there everyone else was asleep, so he joined them in slumber, his dreams filled with boats and sailing.

Gwam arose late in the morning, after his tiring experience last night. He ran to his mother and explained, “Mama! Under the moon last night, I performed a ritual dance, and I summoned the god Tiro! He told me to build a boat, and to use it to sail to another island!”

“Boat? Sail? Did you have too much grog last night?”

“No, mama! The god, Tiro! He visited me, on the beach! He has charged me with a solemn task. Will you sail with me to his island?”

“Tiro? An island? You are sick Gwam.”

“I am not! I will build his boat, and I will find his island! You just wait and see!”

Gwam soon found that Drae’s reaction was shared by the entire village. Not a soul believed that Tiro had visited him, and each person Gwam told thought him insane for the idea of traveling on water. Nobody would help him build the strange boat he spoke of, all thinking that it was simply the product of drunkenness or derangement.

Finding himself alone in his task, Gwam set out immediately. He skipped the ceremonial dance, giving up his once coveted role for his much more important one. With no one to help, the boat Tiro described would be a very difficult project, within the time allotted.

Gwam began with the rope. Tiro had described a long thin weed that grew in the marshy area near the village. For five days, Gwam gathered and dried clumps of this weed, and wove it into ropes.

With the rope in hand, Gwam formed a harness. After using his small hand axe, meant for harvesting Bajoog fruit, to fell a small tree, he would hack off the branches, twine the trunk up in the harness, and drag it back to the beach where Tiro had appeared.

The animal pelts were the most difficult part to obtain. Gwam started by collecting every winter garment of his together, everything he owned that came close to Tiro’s description. This covered only half of what he needed. He bargained for a few more, and resorted to stealing the rest. One here, one there. Few people even noticed their belongings missing.

With all the materials gathered, Gwam had used over half of his allotted time. He began sleeping less, and at the beach instead of in his hut. Construction was difficult with no other people to hold or lift the heavy logs or help sew the pelts into a sail.

Progress was good, however. In Gwam’s mind, Tiro was smiling down on him from above the clouds, speeding his progress along. By the fifth morning, Gwam had the large logs all bound together, forming a passable raft. The sail game him trouble, however. Gwam had no experience with the pelts, having always received complete clothing, helping the tribe in other tasks to pull his weight.

For this task, Gwam chose to return to the village. He would speak to his mother, or anyone in earshot, of his mission. He would beg for assistance, and offer a share in the riches to be found on Tiro’s island, just for helping and joining him on his sea journey. Some listened politely. None offered assistance.

Gwam worked hard to make his sail. He continued well into the night by firelight. Some time past midnight, company arrived.

“Can I help?”

Gwam spins into a low hunter stance instinctively at the unexpected sound, and turns. “Liee!” he exclaims.

When Gwam was young, Liee was his promised. Due to Gwam’s failure to complete the manhood ceremonies, they were never married. Nonetheless, a bond remained between them.

“I could not let anyone see me, but I want to help you Gwam.”

“Of course, I need all the help I can get!”

They talked as they worked, late into the night. When the sky began to grow bright, they both realized how long they had been at work. Liee rushed home, before anyone might notice her absence.

Liee joined Gwam again for the next four nights. With her assistance, Gwam finished the sail in that week. This left one week to complete construction, and thankfully little to do. Gwam attached the sail to the mast, and the mast to the boat.

With the next, second, full moon just two days away, Gwam wanted to rest. His shoulders ached, his head swam from such little sleep, but on a quest from the gods he could not pause. With his extra time, he preached to any villager that would listen; occasionally he would talk even to those who did not listen. In secret, he attempted to convince Liee to join him on his journey. Despite his best efforts, he remained the only passenger on this great voyage.

So, on the night of the new moon, Gwam struggled with his boat, and launched it into the sea all on his own. He had managed to beg enough food from his old friends and family to feed himself for the trip. Gwam was sad to be leaving his home, but could not deny a charge from the gods.

Gwam woke on the third morning from his launch with high spirits. In only hours, he would complete the third day of his voyage. As Tiro proclaimed to him, this would be when he would locate the new island. Sailing was more difficult than Tiro explained. Gwam could not rest and let the wind carry him, he needed always to shift his position to catch the wind, a tiring process. When the sun had reached its highest point though, Gwam shaded his eyes to look ahead, and saw something green on the horizon.

Prompt: ACWClub #62.

The door hissed open, and a man stepped through. He walked directly to Stan’s table and stuck out his hand. Stan saw this, and thought that it was a strange thing to do. “Stan?” the man asked.

Stan looked up at the sound of the voice, with his eyebrows twisted in a questioning gaze.

“Oh shit, it must really be as bad as they said it is,” the strange man said, his eyes showing more white than usual as he looked at Stan.

“Look, your name is Stan. You’re a member of the 23rd infantry unit, and yesterday you were on the front lines of an invasion. See, this is your tag,” the strange man said, and tugged at a piece of plastic pinned to Stan’s shirt front.

Stan looked down, but when he looked back up, the only effect was that his face was more screwed up than it had been at the strange man’s appearance. He remained silent.

“Look Stan! I’m your best friend! Or I was, until yesterday afternoon. It’s Jack, don’t you remember me just a little bit?” Jack leaned in closer, his hands resting on the edge of the table, as he searched Stan’s face for a glimmer of recognition.

After a brief pause, Stan began, “I can hear you speaking. I can understand your words. But what you are saying confuses me. I can’t remember anything more than two hours ago, anything besides this room.”

“Okay, let me try to orient you. It all began almost a hundred years ago, in 2068. That was when the first successful Earth colony on Mars was established. It was a crowning moment in humanity’s history.

“Mars was fresh new uncharted frontier, like Earth had not known for half a millennium. The early days were without parallel, the news coverage was everywhere, the scientific breakthroughs came in droves. Things quieted down pretty soon, of course.

“The Earthers got back into their own routines, and the Marsers set up their own new usual routines. It wasn’t until seven years ago when the problems began to surface.

“Factions on Mars were warring for resources, and the people nominally in charge back on Earth were unhappy about this. Earth had come to depend on Mars as its primary scientific research center. Now with all the money, materials, and manpower tied up in their civil war, nothing was left over for Earth. A few years of negotiations and peace talks got nowhere, and an invasion force to restore order was set up. We were both on the front lines.

“We were all the best soldiers that Earth could muster. With the cost of flying us over, they weren’t sending duffers. But even we weren’t ready for what the Marsers had in store.

“Okay team, we’ve been assigned the left flank,” the commander bellowed with his usual voice. “We’ll be deployed at the base of this valley,” he explained. At that moment, the spot he was referring to lit up with a pulsing red dot on the holo map floating at the center of the drop craft. “From there, we hike around to hunker down in strategic points along this ridge here,” he continued, swiping his hand through the map, a slice of it glowing green beneath his touch.

“Our job is both recon and support. We are the first in-person survey of the battlefield, and last to forces to move, when we’re needed. Any questions?”

Silence, the room full of cold stares.

“Alright then! Touchdown is T-minus twenty minutes. Get your heads screwed on straight while you still can!”

Touchdown, and the hike up the valley, was completely routine. The civilian Marsers were probably wondering what the unscheduled landings were about. There was no time for them to investigate closely, but the military branch knew all they needed to.

The battle started right on schedule, and continued like a scene out of a training manual. Everything seemed to go right for team Earth, and Mars had relatively little return fire. The entire Earth unit was mobilized. Having expected more resistance, they were in the wrong position for the battle that was unfolding. Then it happened.

With a line of sight to almost every Earth fighter in the battle, the Marsers opened fire with a myriad of brilliant beams of light. Only those who saw it indirectly were able to recount the details. In only moments, the beams disappeared.

The Earth fighters were standing fixed in their tracks, looking about themselves with wide eyes and furrowed brows. Some dropped their weapons to the ground, some walked in circles. Some fled, and some threw themselves to the ground. Precious few remained coherent, and found themselves the new leaders of a very confused group of troops. One of them called a retreat, and that is when the 23rd infantry decided it was time to lend a hand.

Only the commander, taking an extra moment to survey the status of the batallion on the holo, and myself, reloading my weapon at just the wrong time for the call out, were spared.

Clearly the Marsers had noted our entrance, and were expecting us. The beams returned, a dense field, at least one striking each member of the team. The 23rd reacted much as the rest of the troops, and soon joined their fellows in retreat, some carrying, some carried.

“You, Stan, were carried. You probably got two or three direct shots, in your location,” Jack informed him.

“Right now your earliest memory is probably waking up in this bed isn’t it?”

Stan nodded.

“As best as anyone has been able to figure it, The Mars scientists have figured out a way to completely block access from the conscious mind to the memory centers, in the form of a projectable weapon. The beam overloads part of your neural pathways. At best, you can’t remember anything you used to know. At worst, you’re knocked out, or even might get brain damage.

“We were tricked. They knew we would believe that they were not ready, and they knew how rapidly and accurately their memory weapon could fire. They lured us into the open, and managed to hit over ninety percent of us in those two volleys.

“It’s quite disorienting, I have been told, what you’re going through. Some of the docs have managed some very promising results, concentrating on the victims who are worst off first, of course. For the rest of you who can still function though, heck you might even enjoy it!”

Jack invited Stan to follow him, and joined up with a group of a half dozen other men. He explained that they were all victims of the memory weapon, as Stan was. And that Stan once knew each of them, and they him. Now, they were all wearing name tags on their blue jumpsuits. Jack handed Stan a matching suit.

“Get dressed, Stan. And fill out this name tag. You’re in for one heck of a night of first experiences!”

Prompt: Sunday Scribblings #10.

“Oh yes daddy, please!” her sister Jane, two years the elder, echoed.

“Please, please!” they chorus, hopping on the bed.

I don’t know what fascinated them so much about this story, I seem to recount it once a week for them. But being a father, my little princesses have a special place in my heart. Whatever their reasons, I continue to indulge them.

“It was back when daddy was just a kid. Older than you girls, but still a kid, a teenager. I was in high school, actually. That’s a lot like your school, but it’s for the older kids.

“Mommy went to that school too. We didn’t know each other at first, it was a big school with a lot of people. We were in the same grade. We had a class together a few times, but we never really knew each other.

“Mommy was always popular, she had a lot of friends, and they were always together. Daddy wasn’t. I had friends, but not so many. There were really three of us. My two friends, Mitch and Dave, could tell that I liked Mommy, and told me I should ask her on a date.” The girls grinned at each other at this point, as they always do, and made kissing noises.

“I was terrified of course, and refused. They thought that was funny, and they would tease me about it again and again. One day, they were joking about me being scared, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. ‘Ok!’ I yelled at them, ‘I’ll do it!’ They were just as surprised as I was.” The girls giggle behind their tiny fists.

“I was still scared, so I didn’t do it right away. Mitch and Dave sure didn’t let me forget it, though.” As I speak, I cross the room to begin tucking Jane in. “So I worked up the nerve, I had no choice now. That year, we didn’t have any classes together, so I had to figure out a way to meet her.

“Mommy was a cheerleader, so I started going to all the games that she cheered at. But she was busy cheereleading. Before, she would be getting ready, and after something was always going on. I could see her, but I couldn’t get close enough to talk to her. I kept going, and after three more games, I found out the school needed a new person to be the mascot.

“I normally wouldn’t have done it, but I was determined now. I applied, and got it. Now I was still going to the games, but I was in a big fluffy tiger suit, dancing and being silly.” More giggles. “After three games I got my chance. Our team won, and it was a big important game. Everybody stayed on the field to celebrate. I walked up to her and took off my fuzzy tiger head.

“She seemed a bit surprised. ‘Alice Westman?’ I asked. ‘I took this mascot job just for a chance to meet you. I’d really like it if you’d let me take you to dinner some time.’ She started to laugh, for just a moment, but then she stopped and looked at me.”

“Why’d she laugh daddy?” from one girl.

“Why’d she stop?” asked the other.

“I don’t know girls. You’ll have to ask mommy.” I wink. “So she looks at me funny like that,” I make a face, too silly to be anything like the one I am describing, and the girls laugh. “Then she just says, ‘Okay,’ turns around and walks off. I was happy. Too happy, because weI didn’t even ask when, or where, or anything. Somehow she already had her phone number written on a piece of paper back in the boys locker room, in my bag. That’s another thing you’ll have to ask mommy about, I still don’t know how she did that.

“So I call her, and that weekend we go out on our first date. Mitch and Dave were surprised that she said yes. I was too, but I was happy. I fell in love immediately, if I hadn’t really already. Mommy did too, sooner or later. We went to college together, then in a few years we moved here, and you girls joined the family.”

I tucked in the last corners of the covers, which always unravel themselves during story time. “Goodnight my angels,” I told each with a kiss on the forehead.

“Good night daddy,” Beth and Jane singsonged, one after the other, smiles gracing both faces.

I smiled back, switched off the light, and quietly shut the door.

Prompt: Sunday Scribblings #9.

“What was that?” the captain bellows, grabbing the padded arms of his seat as the ship lurches dramatically. “Status, Jenkins!” he barks.

“Checking, sir,” I answer obediently, holding back any other comments with a combination of duty to my superior officer and plain fear. As my fingers dance across the controls, I thank my lucky stars that I’m not the ship doctor, she is going to have her hands full judging from the force of that blast.

“A sudden and intense abnormality has developed,” I answer, “some sort of electrical storm, centered almost exactly on our position. Sensor data reveals no anomalies detected in the area until just moments before the initial impact.”

“I’m going to need more information than that!” the captain shouts, barely audible over the blare of the klaxons.

I bite back another rude remark, and begin to report, “There is a nearby cloud of particles which has spread explosively with the electrical discharges. The molecules are unlike anything else recorded in our database, but based on their composition they should have been inert. It seems now that that is not the case, and they somehow triggered this storm. I’m charting out what I think the course with the least interference will be based on the density of those particles.”

Jenkins’ shoulders droop as he completes the course chart. “Sometimes I hate this job,” Jenkins thoinks to himself, as he taps out the commands to transfer the data to the helm control computer, “I wish I had an easy job like Meyers there on helm, just following the directions he’s given.”

All at once, I hear, see, and feel the acute effects of a nasty blow to the ship’s hull. It’s unfortunate how many scrapes this ship has been through in the short couple months we have been out here. Add one more notch onto the bedpost.

The captain immediately and forcefully takes charge, as usual. Jenkins, the tactical officer is in the crosshairs, being the source the captain must turn to for the information he now desperately needs. Jenkins manages to come up with the details of the problem, and a plan to get us out of it gracefully, but I’m happy to not be in his shoes.

The captain’s voice booms as soon as Jenkins announces that his charting is complete, “Meyers, get us out of here!”

“Aye aye, sir,” I parrot out. My console lights up with Jenkins’ data. It looks rough. The storm is spread out for some fifty to one hundred thousand kilometers around us. I’ve been provided with a narrow twisting tunnel to the point at the nearest edge.

I take hold of the controls and prepare myself for the precision work ahead. “Ion drive is operating at one-third capacity,” I report, “Thrusters remain at peak efficiency.”

Flying a ship of this size is always a challenge. With such a winding course, it becomes only worse. And to make things more exciting, Jenkins continues to monitor the cloud, and adjust his course plans as I go along. I got into piloting after my first try in a jetcar as a teenager, and I’ve been hooked ever since. The stress that having so many other peoples’ lives resting on your shoulders puts on a man during a flight like this, though, can be a bit much. This particular flight keeps me on my toes the whole time, with plenty of secondary blasts making it tough to keep on course.

About halfway through the flight, as things are just finally beginning to calm down, I think to myself, “It’s times like these when I really wish I was the ship medic. Life must be much easier on the lower decks, with no captain yelling at you, assistants left and right, and endless panels of specialized equipment at your beck and call.”

Back on Earth, I graduated medical school at the top of my class. I’ve always been a wonderful doctor. In fact, for a long time, medicine wasn’t even a challenge for me. I was excited to hear about the new space program, and of the need for doctors on board each craft. Space has always fascinated me.

Once we got up here, so far from any previously charted area, everything changed for me. While I used to be one of the top doctors in the country, now I regularly find myself stumped and searching for a lead on the cure. When the ship pitched and I fell against the wall, I knew it was going to be another busy day.

The scrapes and the bruises came in shortly after the impact. I was glad when nobody came in with anything more serious. A lurch of the ship at the wrong time can give you a broken bone too easily. I thought idly how horrible it must feel to be the helmsman, in charge of keeping the ship steady, after that jolt. In an hour or two, the mystery cases started showing up.

The bridge team tells me it was an electrical storm. That was probably just their best guess. For the whole mission, the bridge has been reporting mundane things like electrical storms, but people show up with the most unusual symptoms. So, I set in for the long haul that I knew would be coming.

Patient number one rests on the bed, with the computer running scans. Patient two has all of patient one’s visible symptomps, but is also unconscious, so gets personal attention first. The heart rate is off, and the extremities are cold. I pull out the medi-pak, and attach sensors to the patients’ temples to monitor brain activity, and start pushing buttons on the handheld device that lets me investigate the heart. It turns out the heart rate is slow because it is not beating normally, but spasming slightly at the end of every compression.

As I do what I can to keep the patient alive long enough to figure out how to help him, my mind wanders. This job has turned out to be more than I really wanted. I enjoyed being a doctor back on earth, where I was really good at what I did, instead of here, where any day might present a challenge that I cannot best. “I really wish I had a desk job instead,” I think to myself. “Something that isn’t so stressful. Maybe tactical officer. Just reading sensor scans all day. Yeah, that wouldn’t be nearly as stressful.”

Prompt: Sunday Scribblings #8.

I grew up in Chicago, the fourth of five children. My Pa was a truck driver, he was barely ever around. My Ma was a waitress, on the good months, usually working two jobs every day just to keep food on our plates and clothes on our backs. The clothes were all hand-me-downs for me. Every once in a while there would be a pair of new shoes under the christmas tree, or some jeans on a birthday. My brothers and sisters and I, we had it hard, and we all looked out for each other. We had to.

Even so, every few weeks somebody would come home with a black eye, or worse. Most kids, even the bullies, were smart enough to know that the other two brothers would take care of you if you messed with one of us, but some just couldn’t back down from a challenge, or had something to prove. It was my two sisters that had it the worst. They usually wouldn’t even tell us who it was. Or sometimes they pretended that the son of a bitch was really her boyfriend. We pretended to believe them, because we didn’t want them to hurt any more than they had to.

Only two of us finished high school. I was one of the lucky ones. After school was over, I was always out somewhere looking for work, but nobody ever seemed to want a kid like me. I spent so much time out on the streets looking for someone with an open job who wasn’t a racist, one day the streets just felt like where I belonged. Ma never would have approved, but with her at work more than she was at home, it was easy to hide it from her. I ended up joining a gang. They didn’t discriminate, long as I did what I was told.

My brothers were the only people who I actually told where I went all the time. From day one, they told me it was a bad idea, but they never convinced me. Who’d have thought that they would have been smarter than me, with the diploma, when both of them were dropouts? Either way, when I needed it, they would still cover for me. Like I said, we all looked out for each other.

Life with the gang was a lot of what you would expect, as long as you haven’t watched too many of those fluffed up shock-umentary shows on TV. Family is great and all, but having the gang to turn to, having the guys there each day, and just living the action, it’s addicting man. The documentaries say that we just join the gang because we want to have a place to belong. That’s a half truth. Plenty of us want that, and get that, but that’s not the only reason for any of us. It just plain feels right. When you know the boys have got your back, you’re more confident. The whole world is just a better place to be in.

For my first few weeks, I didn’t see much action. Mostly they sent me out to tag our turf. That was something that always needed attention, ans it’s perfect for the rookies. Some days, they’d have me run lookout for one of the guys dealing pot on the corner.

About two months in, I was in the right place at the right time. One of the boys was missing, so I got to fill in on my first robbery. They handed me a mask and a gun, and before I knew it the car was speeding off. It all happened faster than I could handle. It was over and we were back, a few hundred dollars richer, before I caught my breath. The only thing I knew for sure was that the rush felt better than anything I had felt before.

It took hard work for me to build up enough respect to get back into the robberies. I was dedicated though, and it was all worth it. I couldn’t get enough of the power, the quivering store clerks just begging us to take their money. You probably seen those videos on TV, of the clerks with the guns and the bats and all. That ain’t real, that sort of thing happens one in a million.

It was the puzzle of figuring how to get in, grab the stuff, and get out that really hooked me. Just like with my brothers and sisters, with the Stompers I was one of the few people around with a high school diploma. It didn’t get me much early on, besides an extra reason to get put down or beat up.

Once I finally got to do some of the arrangements for the gigs, that’s when things really started going good for me. Whatever it was that gave me what it took to get through school, it gave me an edge over the other brothers. They were impressed when I planned a gig and it went down without a hitch. Most of them did. Everybody says they love the action, but nobody really likes it when things go wrong. They like a smooth running operation.

In short order, I was setting up all the robberies that the Stompers were running. I’d make suggestions and the boys would listen to me. Before long, the Faces, that’s what we called the guys in charge, were paying attention to me too. Once I was in charge, the stunts got riskier, but the payouts were five and ten times better than what everyone was used to before. And they were fun damnit! I had the guys working for me, eating out of my palm. I remembered the few months back, like another lifetime, when I was pounding those streets for a regular job. All those high end shops that wouldn’t have me for a clerk, they became my inspiration. I decided that I wouldn’t stop until each and every one of them was working for me, instead of me for them. One way or another.

I arranged special teams. The smash and grab sort of guys, they got the robberies that they enjoyed. I can’t blame them, it’s a thrill. But then there were the better guys, the ones that could keep things cool. They became my marketing department. They were the front line. Either the shop owners agreed to buy from Stompers Warehouse, as I fondly referred to it, or they became the suppliers. It’s surprising how many of them refused at first. And how many of them came back later, to change their tune, when their stuff started disappearing. Those were the best ones, by that point they’d do anything to stay on our good side.

We had some close calls now and again. You never know when a clerk has more balls than brains, or which shop heard about us and installed a new security system. The silent ones are the worst. When our scouts didn’t notice them, we lost a brother or two to the pigs. That was by far the worst. Everyone stayed in on my schemes either way. The cash was too much for any of us to turn down.

It was that great success that finally did me in. See, in our gang, there were the Faces who ran things, and everyone knew it. Anyone who didn’t know it learned quick, or else. Like I said, I ended up being one of the Faces. Plenty of the guys, they just like the action, and they need a place to belong. The guys that did the best work for me were those sort. Every once in the while, you get a power hungry sucker. They’re the problem. They take extra breaking in, to keep in line. Some of them are just too dumb to learn though.

One of them turned. It was this short kid named Jared. There were a couple times he got a lesson, I didn’t think he was getting back up. He always did though. And he always had that hungry look on his eyes. When the Faces kept him in his place, he’d try to take over the gigs and put himself in charge. We didn’t like that at all. He didn’t like being taught how to behave.

As best as I can piece together, he had the balls to wear a wire on the day of a big robbery. He got the whole planning session on tape, and he had the cops waiting for us around the corner. I wasn’t there, of course, but they snatched up all but one of my guys. Jared must have worked hard to swing the lineup in his favor; there were some of the biggest cowards we had there that night. Why didn’t I notice that?

So with Jared’s tape, and enough guys to point me out as the Face for the whole operation, I wasn’t a free man for much longer. I won’t ever forget the sneer on that detective’s face when he strolled into that interrogation room.

“So, you’re the fence huh?” he asked. A vein in his forehead bulged like it might burst any moment as he slammed his fists on the table.

“What? That don’t make no sense man. Nobody called me no fence before.”

“You fool, a fence is someone that traffics stolen goods. From what I hear, you’ve been doing a hell of a lot of that. Not to mention the stealing to get the scam started.”

I knew how to handle myself in an interrogation room, since I had slid by on plenty of minor charges in my days coming up. I was confident at the time, even. I didn’t know about that wire Jared had worn until later.

Turns out, five or six of the boys that been out there smashing the windows, grabbing the loot, and running the rackets pussied out and ratted to the men in blue. They got off with petty charges, while I’m here in my gray jumper suit that blends in with the walls, looking at a certain ten to fifteen.

It was one hell of a roller coaster ride while it was going, but now I wish I had listened to my brothers.

Prompt: ACWclub #61.

As I started a gentle stroll around the display tables out front, I heard the bell jingle, announcing the customer coming through the door. I looked up to see a woman in a complicated pink dress, yet not complicated enough to hide the few extra pounds she was carrying. I put on my best customer service smile and dove right in.

“Welcome to Shoe Town, may I be of assistance?” I ask.

“Yes, indeed. I have an event to attend this evening, and I simply must have a new pair of shoes to wear,” she replies. With the angle her chin points at, I don’t need to guess what sort of event, and I get a good idea what sort of shoe.

“Let me see, perhaps something in a black pump? Or is that the dress you’ll be wearing to the event, something matching might be better?”

“No, not this dress. But you were right on with your first guess, with what I’ll be wearing, that will be just perfect.”

“I take pride in my work, miss, it was no guess. Give me just a moment, please,” I told her, and gestured towards the nearest chair on the floor of the shop. I disappeared behind one of the tall shelves and returned in just moments.

With one box in each hand, I stood in front of the customer and took another look at her. “If you would please brae your feet, I think I have the right shoe for your event here in my hand,” I told her, gaining an extra moment. The hair looked done up, but not well. Her short and jerky movements proved her earlier chin-point to be an act. Her initial appearance of sophistication dissolves before my trained eye. I set down the box in my right hand, and shifted the one in my left to the front. I flipped the lid of the box open as I knelt down in front of her. The shoes slid easily onto her feet, just the right size.

“My, these look fantastic and fit perfectly!” she said, with a breathless inflection.

“As I said, I take pride in my work, so would you like to take this pair?”

“Yes, they’re wonderful.”

In just a few moments, the shoes were back in the box, and I was ringing her up. She paid with a credit card, but I noted the conspicuous missing label of any precious metal in the design on the thin piece of plastic. How could she have fooled me at first?

With another sale completed for the day, I felt comfortable closing up a few minutes early. I began the familiar ritual: Flip over the “Yes We’re Open” sign to say “Sorry, Closed For Now.” Shuffle the heavy keyring back and forth to get both the lock and the deadbolt latched on the front door. Head into the back room, shutting off the floor lights, and the lighted sign out front.

The evenings after work are the reason that I still keep up this old shop. I inherited it from my father a few years back, when he succumbed to colon cancer at only 47 years old. This shop was all he had to support the family while I was a kid, and I realize now what hard work it was to keep us fed and housed. I still wish that I could thank him now, for what I didn’t when I was a kid.

Dad’s still with me, though. I never expected what I found in the locked room in the back of the store. When I first inherited the shop, it was a struggle just to keep everything in service, so I ignored the small room that I couldn’t find the key for. I just didn’t have time for it.

Then one day, after figuring out a new method to keep enough shoes in stock, but not too much, and keep them organized in the cavernous shelving system in back, I was rearranging the boxes. I found a key. It was clearly a key from the shape, but I had never seen anything like it before. I set it aside, not knowing what else to do, at first. A week later, when I opened the drawer it was sitting in and saw it, that locked room in the back leapt to mind. That night after closing, I tried that key on the locked room, and it opened the door. That was a year and a half ago, and things haven’t been the same since.

I suppose you could call me crazy. It’s true all the same though: I make magic shoes. Just like my father did. I’m sure now that this is really why my father left me the store. Even with all the hassle, being your own boss is nice, but it’s nothing like the magic room in back.

I don’t think my father wrote the book. It took me most of a year to figure out how to read what little I can now. It seems like a school textbook, the early pages contain the basic material, surely not by accident. If I hadn’t been able to get started, realize and believe what this book was on the first day, things might have happened much differently. But I could, it was written that way on purpose. The pictures helped a lot, but they only last through the first quarter of the book or so, and are few and far between by that point.

There was even a complete pair of shoes lying right next to the book, and I quickly realized they matched the picture by the first set of instructions. Dad must have wanted me to have a head start, as always. If the book itself enough wasn’t enough to convince me, that pair of shoes would have done it. They looked completely ordinary. They felt completely ordinary. When worn, they still seemed completely ordinary. But they protected the wearer’s feet, from just about anything. Sitting on the table, they were just leather and rubber, light and pliable. They still felt that way on the feet. Try as you might, though, you would never be able to hurt my feet while I’m wearing them. I tried everything I could, even slamming the door on those shoes, and I never felt a thing.

It’s almost like each separate chapter is written in a new language; progress as I work through is terribly difficult. It took a few months, but I managed to work myself up to the next set of instructions; I built a pair of shoes that let me run faster than any olympic sprinter. Don’t be surprised that you haven’t heard of this before. I knew immediately that letting anyone at all know what went on in that back room would be the end to my adventures. Surely that’s why the lock took that strange key, which I now wear permanently around my neck.

Since then, progress has continued slowly but steadily all the time. Of course, I have to run the store during the day, so it is only on the weekends and evenings that I can dedicate to my extracurricular activities. By now though, I’m convinced that one day I’ll be able to build a shoe that will let me find my father, and thank him for everything he’s given me, while he was alive, and in this special store. It’s long overdute, and I’m going to work through that book until I find out how.

Prompt: Sunday Scribblings #6. (Artistic license: this story is about shoes, not my shoes.)

Ricky is the eight year old son of a single mother. His father ran out when he was three, and his mom has struggled ever since to make ends meet. She tries hard to give him an allowance, but it still only totals one dollar each month, and Ricky always spends it on the same thing. So, faced with something as valuable as an unclaimed quarter within his grasp, he tends to become rather single-minded. He rushes to pick it up.

Through the rest of the school week, Ricky keeps his eyes open as always. He’s always been surprised, but also secretly very pleased, that people are so careless about their change. To his young disadvantaged eyes, each one is a gold mine. A nickle here, a dime there, always vigilant, Ricky builds his fortune one coin at a time.

Luck strikes when one of the richer kids at school idly drops twelve cents of his change in the cafeteria. Ricky glances quickly, sees nobody looking, and snatches them up into the coinpurse that he always carries, a christmas present from Santa two years ago. He tries to act nonchalant for the rest of the period, but inside he is bubbling.

When lunch period is almost over, he strides up to the teacher keeping watch over the cafeteria. “Mister Robertson, can I have the bathroom pass?”

“Why yes Ricky, you may have it. But be quick, the period is almost over.”

Ricky snatches the pass from the teacher’s hand, and rushes out of the room, while trying hide his hurried mode. He rounds the corner and bounds into the boys bathroom just down the hall, and promptly enters the toilet stall furthest from the entrance.

Holding the bottom edge of his shirt up to catch the coins, he empties his tiny purse. He carefully counts the total as he lifts each one back from the impromptu pocket up into the purse. “Ninety-four!” he exclaims, unable to contain himself. With a quick glance around, he sees that noone else is in the bathroom, and his sharply surging embarassmant fizzles flat.

Through the four remaining classes of the day, Ricky fidgets and bounces with his barely-pent-up energy. His teachers easily recognize the gleam in his eyes and let him be, so long as he doesn’t grow too disruptive. After what feels like an eternity, the final bell for the day rings, and school is out.

Ricky sets out home with a quick energetic trot to his step. Three blocks from the school, he takes a familiar detour towards the busy main street of his mid-sized town. In just a few minutes, which magically pass much more quickly than those that passed back in school, his eye catches the sign for the shop he’s looking for. He sprints down the rest of the block and steps through the door, a wide grin shining from his face.

“Master Ricky!” the shopowner greets him warmly. “It’s so nice to see you. Amassed another unscheduled fortune have you?” He asks, while already reaching under the counter. He knows what Ricky is going to ask for.

And Ricky knows that he knows. But he goes through the ritual anyway, because it truly is a magical thing, “Yes I have Gus, thank you. One chocolate bar please.”

Gus pulls out the cheapest bar in the shop, places it on the counter with a flourish and recites, “That will be eighty-five cents.”

Ricky empties his coinpurse onto the counter besides the candy bar, and his small fingers shuffle coins around adeptly. In the barest moment, there are two piles, eighty-five cents which he leaves, and another nine which he carefully scoops back into the purse.

Gus watches with a smile as Ricky counts out the coins, takes the change left over and the candy bar, turns and leaves the store. It’s the kids like Ricky that keep Gus in the candy business, and keep his shelves stocked with the best quality chocolate at a specially low price. It’s the feeling he gets when he can share the pure joy of a simple bar of chocolate with the people that enjoy it the most.

Prompt: Sunday Scribblings #4.

Why do I mention this? Well, one of them was Writers of the Future, which is the grand result of a writing contest: the winners get published.

Not that I didn’t know/expect that writing contests exist, but seeing the results in my hands got me to thinking. And I thought, “I could do this,” while reading most of the stories therein. Plus, not only do the winners get published, they get some hefty prizes: $1,000 for first place, each quarter. Then each year, the quarterly first place winners are judged again, the winner garnering another $5,000.

With the possibility of fame, fortune, and riches hanging in the balance, how could I do anything besides begin writing? So I did! I began outlining my ideas. Then, at the very end of August, I picked one, and started outlining the story for that idea. I’ve begun writing that as a short story, which is looking like it might end up in the 10,000 word range.