Recently in Fiction Category

'Someone tell me where I went wrong, so I can find the words to this song. Please tell me how I was born, with no light to write on.'

Footprints in the dust, ripples through time, when the stars obey our commands, as far as light shines. We are human.

Went out to walk the street and feel the people, hear words that fill me with breath and wonder, to draw inspiration from the crowd. Life.

After a while you admit truth to yourself. You don't have a bad memory, you're just uninterested in remembering many things.

I got nervous when they started leaving me out of trivial office matters. It was as if they were on to the fact that I didn't care.

More than half of the recruits sitting in front of him don't have what it takes. Some are just too old, set in their ways-should probably be in high school somewhere. He scans the room for a hint from the handful that will be around next week, the few that aren't going to get themselves killed.

Jake shakes his head in despair. "If you're serious about becoming a time traveler, you will have to understand the basics. And before you can do that, you're gonna need to forget everything you think you know about the fourth dimension. You think there is a past, a future. You think that one's happened, the other may happen."

Jake speaks with disgust, walking between the aisles of desks. "You think both these things are something different than right now. Sometime before right now you were a bundle of goo goo ga ga at the teat--right. And what about the future, Hunt." Jake says, shouting over the top of the cadets head. The cadet doesn't dare offer a response.

"C'mon, Hunt," Jake taunts. "You've got a bright future, don't you. You're gonna be someone-you're going to fall in love, get married, grow up--isn't that right?"

Cadet Hunt shrivels inside himself, speaking from uncertainty. "Sure--"

"Wrong," Jake scolds. "In Time School, there is no future. There is no past. There is only this moment, there is only this experience. Everything that has or will happen is doing so right now. Remember that. If you cannot remember your name. Remember now-this moment. Think of time in any other way and it will swallow you whole. It doesn't care. As far as time is concerned, you're nothing. Time is. Time exists. And unless you can learn to exist along side it, time will swallow you whole."

1. Angels are flying so low, but no means no, I grab the cross bow, and i let the angel know, i'm not ready to go.
3. After sitting in silence at the table for over an hour, we started packing. Nothing else could be said. No one wanted to work anymore.
5. After acing all of those advanced technical exams, who'd ever think I would end up living in la la land.
7. Everyone lies to themselves, mind as well do it on something you like. I'm not judging, it's just, you don't seem to enjoy go-go dancing.
9. Only by stringing the tiniest moments together, can I ever experience its pleasure. this must be the key notion behind the pogo stick
11. Father says we're made to upgrade our existence. It may take constant revision but I will be victorious.
13. First thursday 2010: Discovered that love is forever. It lasts always, long after lovers leave. Love is my gift. It belongs to me.
15. Eventually Futuregirl got her refund. So did millions of others who were promised '3D' but instead received jazzed up modes of 2D.
17. I'm inclined to believe Futuregirl. I mean, she is from the future, after all. Put another way, would you follow 15 year old jesus or 33 year old jesus (more futuristic version)
19. Writers. You may recognize them as the ones that always have to have the last word.
21. Here comes the night shift-my back surges, neck broadens & fangs rip through my jaws. I scream, unleashing the terror. I am the darkness.
23. If there's one certainty in the universe it's that someone's getting a good laugh out of life on Earth.
25. sometimes your stride isn't enough. Your foot stretches and your shins burn. And the only option left is to run
27. Blizzard of a day, I can't wait to write, aching to get inside like impending frostbite.
29. I feel it in my heart beating a tune sublime. My life pulses with the force that makes stars shine. The glow is human. We are one of a kind.
31. If you don't give your dreams wings, you'll never fly.

She was one for me. She wants not love, it's gravity she's after. Things that can be felt, but never touched. She wants the effects of the Sun and all the sciences. The radiation tingles her biology. Her heart begs for that chemistry and her pulse is all acceleration. She's thinking of physics now, dreaming about soul mates. Two forms of energy that were once, one. She was one for me. I grew to love her. Then she was no longer my general speed. Her body, scents of relativity. Perhaps she is the same as me but doesn't feel the pull. She's special.

-jaebi
Fiction Scientist

What shocking new evidence lies behind the charge that commercials are the real cause behind adult delinquency!

Kids are funny. They're brains are not fully developed, so they can easily get the wrong idea in their head and zig when they should zag, go up when the should go down, left, instead of right, cry when they should be happy, be afraid when they should be brave, so on and so forth.

For instance, when I was a kid in the 80's, there was this movie called the Shining, based on a novel by mighty morphing Stephen King, that always terrified me.

But lo and behold, the movie is actually a feel good movie. Stupid kid:

What follows is a flash fiction piece by Thunder Falcon, a rare and quality soul. As she explains in the foreword, Thunder took a small strand of mine and weaved an intricate and alluring world. I'm honored to be a part of a world that we can as one make.

A fellow author and acquaintance of mine, often does these little 'finish the sentence' word plays, tapping various people with certain quill tendencies. Sometimes what results, is a provocative philosophical discussion. Other times, we get a short story with various different endings. The following flash fiction piece "Flickering Reminiscence" was the result of a particularly inspiring 'word play' that Jae Bi put out that I answered. Authors are listed in order of appearance. Much thanks to Jaebi.

A ray of light reaches through the blinds and gently pulls on Her eyelash.

He watches as she opens Her eyes, full and bright. As if the distance from dream to wake is as simple as stepping from one room into another.

"I leave tomorrow," He says. "After that, we may never see one another again. Tell me the thing that matters for us and for life. Tell me what it is you want me to know above all else."

She takes a concentrated breath and then says, (finish this sentence . . . ) "Now that I have chance to have it officially documented, I want it made absolutely clear that I asked you, to pick up some eggs at the store. You always remember the milk, no problem. You love milk. But you always forget the eggs, because you hate eggs. And then later claim, very innocently mind you, that I never told you to get them in the first place." She laughs making his heart grow weak. "But now I have irrefutable evidence."

The television screen flickers a moment and she smiles.

He had remembered shooting the video on the morning of her birthday. But the recorded memory of her waking up had been the real gift. Nevertheless, he vowed this would be the last day, the last time, he would ever play the tape.

"I leave tomorrow for that business trip. After I come back, we may never see one another again," he says with greater conviction.

"Oh, don't worry. I still love you, even if you don't remember anything I ever tell you." She smiles again, the light playing across her face as if she were alive.

How he wished, she were still alive.

Turning off the player, he picks up his suitcase, only half certain he will be able to break himself of the mournful habit. But as he walks out the door, he's already waiting to see her face again, if only as flickering light, playing over and over again.

It is not I that inspires,
but inspired I am,
by beauty, you are woman.
And I am mankind,
and I am mostly blind,
I strive everyday to see the light that she shines.
She looks not like me,
she looks not you,
she is for who without the world is left un blue,
who inspires everyday to feed the world the True.

The Alchemist Episode 1 and Episode 2 are available for download now!

The basic composition of nature surrounds them. Countless miniscule nuclei hover like planets, electrons and protons whir like moons and comets. Jasir reaches for the principle matter of life and death like an alchemist for the philosopher's stone. The weight of the stone is trivial as it can and must be willed to be denser, lighter or simply different. Anything is attainable.

Jasir plucks the chord of existence like a master composer. The air surrounding the four bodies in the room surges like a shaken image. A rogue wave traverses the molecules in the room like a Tsunami. It causes the center of the room to implode like the surface of a lake struck by a pebble. The surge snaps outward, a sound-bending explosion of matter.
Nothing under the surges influence is spared except its nuclei, Jasir. Atoms of the air, the furniture, walls and bodies flap like flags in a breeze. Solids bend and warp back into their original configuration like rubber bands, inertia reclaims order.

Jasir drops a short distance, feeling the ground rumbling when he touches down. Grasp and Taylon are convulsing uncontrollably. Taylon's lasso handle lays harmless and without the yellow bindings that protruded from it. The ball of light too, has vanished along with a spherical chunk of Jasir's house. Everything the ball of light touched is gone, all that matter simply scooped away. The sting in Jasir's shoulder reminds him to pull the knife out.

Good news for iPod and iTunes users! Follow the link above to download AudioShorts via the popular iTunes Store.

Even better, you can subscribe to the jaebi on iTunes channel and receive updates whenever there is a new story to download. Three AudioShorts are available with more to come.

Download, Sync, Go!

I saw a witch today,
It was early, before the end of the work day here in the city.
The Q train runs regularly, every 6-8 minutes or so, a time when there are always free seats.

I sat on a three seater. One free seat between me an another person. I didn't notice at first because her hands were covered. A natty old hood pulled over brown hair was what I saw first. Black pants and boots, both well weathered, hung loosely. I mistook her for a miser.

Then she readjusted her bag, grabbing the handles with those hands. You can always tell a true witch by her hands. This ones veiny digits gently caressed a string of rubies. The fingernails on her hand were pointed and pale. They could rake flesh easily. The skin was paper thin and seemed melted over a thin casing of meat and jagged bone.

Witch! So many spells she must have cast to have drained the life out of those hands. The rare jewels could have been inspired by magic and bolster her power. Making even her whisper a mighty blow.

Jasir watched from the exit as Calli ran for the barbed fence. When she reached it, he pushed his influence past her. His strength from the void laid the nickel gate flat across dirt like a knife smoothing butter over bread.

The fence of 10 feet was pulled into a sharp slope, still leaving ample space for a Mac Truck to pass. A second before the razor barbs ripped flesh but they suddenly wiggled into an upper layer of ground soot.

Calli crossed the path laid like a jacket over a puddle tenuously as if it could spring upright at any moment. She stopped at the edge of a barbed loop and turned to face Jasir--too close for his comfort. Once he lifted the fence she could have either got nicked or would certainly have gotten dirt in her eyes. He didn't have time to motion her backward so he envisioned a rope in his clenched fists and pulled.

The lowered section of fence slid away from the edges of Calli's feet. Once it was far enough Jasir pulled upward on an invisible tether and the nickel fence followed. A dirt cloud billowed outward toward Calli and Jasir exhaled sharply through his nostrils and the billow of dirt-dust fell to the ground like pebbles. Calli stood stationary on the far side of the tall fence, restored to its original function. She watched Jasir, unblinkingly and he started from a vibration in the center of the void-sphere--his moment at the motel room door with Calli. Even two hundred feet away a look from her eyes made him feel it.

Jasir backed into the building, swinging the door inward. His eyes stayed on Calli and it seemed as if he might never need her to leave. When the steel door closed, Jasir was left inside with two violent hunters and the feeling in his chest.

Though it seems he has always been able to control the atom, he does not know if it is true.

And though it seems that only an order of magnitude are the difference between stars and atoms, Jasir cannot say that this is true either.

What he does know is that once again, he is witnessing the stars align, like the glowing orbs of the atom within the void.