Short Story Saturday

Short Stories of fiction mostly. Published weekly.

Don.  Yer dead.

Posted on by Josef Havelka

He was hunched over the small pocket watch on his counter as I peered into the store through the dusty window.  The dingaling of the old door chime as I walked in broke his concentration.  His hands moved so smoothly as he covered his work with a dark cloth.  He appeared to be blinking to reset his eyesight to give me a visual once over.  Running his hand over his grey hair, he stood up and addressed me.

His voice chipped away at the air in a staggered tone, “So you finally made it.”  He knew who I was, there was no need to play games.  I was there to kill him.  The hunt was over.  Seeing the man behind the legend had me curious as to how he had stayed hidden for so long.  But he wasn’t hidden anymore.  Here he was standing before me.  Of all the stories I had heard about him, he was much thinner and older than I expected.  I tried not to smirk as I spoke the line I had rehearsed all these years, “Don.  Yer dead.”

“Straight to the point.  I admire that.” He replied, not sounding as decrepit as he did before.  And with a quick gesture of his wrist the room fell dark and I could hear all of the locks to the doors and windows bolt shut.  My concentration remained steadfast and directed towards him.  I only had one shot at this and I wasn’t going to screw it up.  My gaze never faltered as the skinny man before me began to morph into a giant gargoyle type creature.  Giant leathery wings sprouted from his back bringing more darkeness into the room.  His hands were distorting into something that resembled both eagle talons and cat claws.  

I could tell his head and face were changing, but because of his wings, I only could see a slight silhouette of his not-so-human features.  As I watched him transform, his elephant-like arm swung towards me.


Szzzrrrrrackkkk 

Thuwunk

His arm fell to the floor.  He was fast, but I was faster.  The copper lightning barrel I had strapped to my back was now in my hands charging for a second round.  He definitely wasn’t going to be an easy adversary.  I was going to have to slice him up piece by piece.  But that’s what I do.  My job is to track down and prevent creatures from island hopping through dimensional portals.  

Don has been one step ahead of me for many years now.  He damaged his inter-dimensional transportation device a few hundred years ago.  He almost had it working again.  It was sending off a faint signal that most would have missed.  But when my partner came here on a hunch and never returned, I knew what had happened.  I knew it was Don and I knew where to find him.  I also knew the most important thing of this hunt:

I knew that today- Don dies.

More Excuses

Posted on by Josef Havelka

A little over a month ago I wrote that I was going to write short stories every Saturday.  I wrote two and they weren’t even back to back weeks.  Today is Saturday and I don’t have a story. All I have is excuses.  Excuses of being awesome.


I know I shouldn’t be down on myself.  The goal I set was for me.  I’m not disappointed that I didn’t write a short story this week.  The week was full of my Anniversary, a Union meeting, nightshifts and my daughter’s birthday.  Not a typical week by any means.

200! Not too shabby for being a nobody.


I’m proud of the fact that I am still doing a daily blog post.  It’s also nice that I receive “Likes” and comments that encourages my writing.  Even today’s excuses one makes me happy because it means I’m still making an effort to write every day.  Besides pushing myself to do a short story once a week, I need to figure out how to reach a broader audience.  I know that there are millions of people out there missing out on my awesomeness and they don’t even realize it!


No more excuses.  I need to get back on track and write some short stories.  

Next week…

Just Visiting

Posted on by Josef Havelka

Photo courteousy of NASA


The first time an alien visitor came to earth- he brought with him a vision of peace.  It was quickly misunderstood and feared.  Humanity wasn’t ready to stop fighting.  Even as the visitor tried to spread words of love and compassion he was met with anger and fear. 

Some people understood what he was trying to tell us and began to spread his teachings and thoughts.  After many years, he was hunted down and killed in a spectacle for all to see.  The government at the time had no idea what they had done.  By killing the first non human visitor to Earth, they had started a movement.  The minds of mankind had now been closed off to the chance of a higher knowledge.  

As the visitor died in front of the crowd, he spoke his last remaining sentences.

“I am.”

 “Alone.”

His followers wrote this down hastily in hopes that someday, future generations would learn what we had done as a species to the one creature who was trying to save us.  His final words were spoken in French.

“Je suis.”

“Seul.”

Thousands of years later, wars continue to erupt over the misinterpretation of the writings of his truest followers.  The words changed and morphed from how we could become enlightened into a story of God.  A story that would cause wars filled with death and murder amongst mankind.  Although peace was the original teaching from our first visitor; war was forever brought forth over two final words that were erroneously passed on for generations.

Jesus. Soul.

DOS Grampa.

Posted on by Josef Havelka

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I would be doing “Short Story Saturday” on my blog.  This is my first short story.  Please enjoy.


Looking over his shoulder I said, “Next type in the command line RT 90 FD 20 RT 90 FD 20 RT 90 FD 20 RT 90 FD 20.”  A moment after he typed in the keystrokes, a small green square appeared on the monitor.  He glanced up at me with bemusement.

“When did you learn this?”

“Back in 1982- I was about six years old when I was taught the basics of DOS and how to use the turtle to draw images and shapes.  Most of the computer monitors were either black and green or black and orange in color.”

Leaning in, I typed a few more commands and more images took shape on the old monitor.  I straightened up and went on to tell more of my youth, “Even the early computer games were all text based and had limited commands that they could understand.  The Internet was but the dreams of science fiction.”

Looking down at him, I could see in his eyes that he had more questions than I would have answers.  Feeling a tap on my shoulder, my wife spoke that dinner was ready.  “Time to put it away.” I said, “dinner time.”

“Thanks Grandpa.  Same time tomorrow?”  I smiled and nodded, rustling his hair.

I removed my VR headset, put down my gloves and wandered over to the dining room where dinner waited on the table.  My wife turned to me asking, “Did you have a nice visit with your grandson?”

Six months earlier, our ten year old grandson had visited.  He and his father had set up the VR gear in our living room in order to keep in touch while they went traveling.  “It was great. He’s growing up so quickly.  It’s nice to know that I can still teach him a thing or two.”

My wife smiled.  It was a smile that I programmed in from both old pictures and my memory of her.  She was a never-aging replica of the woman I once loved.  As real as this one seemed, I could never forget who she was when she was alive.