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Grant’s Last Campaign

On a porch near Saratoga Springs, he gathers his forces from a rattan chair. The Great Captain, bundled in blankets against the summer air. Death is close, tasting like a damp cigar. “Grant’s Last Campaign,” the newspapers call it. He scratches away. Shiloh, The Wilderness, Cold Harbor. Has he said enough? Too much?

Blue lines sway along a sandy Virginia road. They serenade him with “John Brown’s Body.” Ahead, fast columns block the retreating army. More blood. More bodies to molder in the grave. Word comes from Lee. He will meet.

It’s all there, complete.

Victory is the only justification.

The rising cost of love

By Jim Anderson

Two years ago, he’d given her a St. Bernard with a cask of peppermint schnapps clipped to its collar.

She’d given him a white pickup the size of house. Last year, he’d bought vehicles for both of them. She grabbed the giant black truck, leaving him the little red SUV.

This Christmas, he wouldn’t be out-done or out-foxed. He sold one of his core enterprises, enduring weeks of bad press and death threats from displaced workers. He bought an estate in the Swiss Alps that included a mansion, several ski-chalets and a town.

She’d get it all. He didn’t ski.

I wrote this drabble for the Story-a-Day Challenge (storyaday.org). The prompt by Brenda R. called for creating a fan fiction of “your favorite or least favorite TV commercial.”

Yes, Today

By Jim Anderson

It was my day to drive. Nature provided a misty rain for our 50-mile commute. I didn’t focus on Neilsen until I had backed the car to the bottom of his driveway.

I slammed the brake. “What the hell is that?”

Neilsen turned toward me. He was wearing a hard-shell, full-face mask. Black, with big white letters across the forehead: “NOT TODAY, SATAN.”

“I lost a bet,” he said.

“I’ll say. You can’t teach in that.”

“I have a plan to work it into my lecture.”

“You’ll be fired.”

“I’m tenured.”

“There are loopholes,” I said.

And I was right.

I wrote this story in response to the Story-a-Day Challenge (storyaday.org). The prompt required having a character wear the mask described. Once again, I chose to write a drabble, a story of exactly 100 words.

Homecoming

By Jim Anderson

Lord Galt’s return to the Castle of the Mountain Kingdom was sudden and unexpected. It had to be so. The King had been vocal in his criticism of his uncle. His words stopped short of condemnation, and yet were poison in the minds of his loyal subjects. He may as well have pronounced the Syllables of Doom. But Galt made it through, and brought with him the Board of Inspection, rescued from a garbage heap in Maldenar, each of its seventy hooks still bearing an iron latchkey. The King, delighted at the retrieval of his keyboard, forgave his uncle everything.

I wrote “Homecoming” in response to the Story-a-Day Challenge (storyaday.org). The prompt for today required using ten specific words in a story. I chose to write a drabble, a story of exactly 100 words.

Here is the story with the ten words bolded in the text:

Lord Galt’s return to the Castle of the Mountain Kingdom was sudden and unexpected. It had to be so. The King had been vocal in his criticism of his uncle. His words stopped short of condemnation, and yet were poison in the minds of his loyal subjects. He may as well have pronounced the Syllables of Doom. But Galt made it through, and brought with him the Board of Inspection, rescued from a garbage heap in Maldenar, each of its seventy hooks still bearing an iron latchkey. The King, delighted at the retrieval of his keyboard, forgave his uncle everything.

Until you walk it

By Jim Anderson

Jerry limped to the top of the hill, then stopped. The two-lane blacktop wound down the hill and disappeared into the trees. Beyond the trees, out of sight, lay the river.

Jerry had driven this road many times, hundreds of times, but never walked it. You don’t know a road until you walk it, he thought.

He looked back. A gauzy haze hung on the horizon. Three black threads of smoke rose into the gray sky.

Nothing moved on the road. No cars. No people. No dogs.

Jerry’s feet hurt. His shoes were not made for this.

He went on.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge: Road at Thin Spiral Notebook.

Tony’s baby

By Jim Anderson

Parenthood hit Tony Lawson like a summer storm. Yes, very much like that. A sudden, unexpected stroke of fury, a violent collision of opposing fronts.

“Tony, you jerk, meet your son.”

The sky was cloudless above the executive lot, but the air crackled around the words.

Tony fumbled his iPhone, and it fell toward the brilliant concrete.

He caught it, held it against his heart.

There stood Sandra behind his silver S-Class, rolling a big navy-blue stroller forward a few inches and then pulling it back, coming closer each time to the rear-bumper of the coupe.

My baby! he thought.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge: “Parent” at Thin Spiral Notebook.