A Mind's Eye Reader (eBook)

Stort Stories From New Voices

S. H. Marpel (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018 | 1. Auflage
146 Seiten
Midwest Journal Press (Verlag)
978-0-00-010193-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Have you ever thought some very dangeous thoughts? 

Ones that could destroy all life as you knew it?

In these six stories by three authors, they do just that. Of course, fiction is safer than real life, so it's much easier to test things here. ...Or so we've been told.

In these stories are ideas that will captivate, and excite you to new thoughts and ideas of your own. Because the universe we live in is just a hair's-breadth away from the fictional ones we create.

If history is any judge, these authors may be writing are things that will be in our own present any time now.

Of course, that's only if you think their thoughts through...

A Short Story Anthology Containing:

- One Thought, Then Gone by J. R. Kruze
- The 95% Solution by S. H. Marpel
- Falling by S. H. Marpel
- Voices by J. R. Kruze
- The Case of the Walkaway Blues by J. R. Kruze & S. H. Marpel
- Keyboard in the Sky by R. L. Saunders

Excerpt:

(From 'One Thought, Then Gone')

I'D FIGURED IT ALL out by the first day as a high school sophomore. And I could care less. Because it wasn't real. None of it.

Schooling was another trap built to 'keep people safe.' And get them ready to have a job and accept the rat-race, wage-slave mentality.

Not that my parents or teachers or anyone else around could really understand what I was going through. They all just set it up as another 'coming of age' drama that always played out. All the older siblings I inherited had made it through, somehow. In their own ways.

The trick was - I knew they were all part of the same trap.

I didn't belong here, that I knew. And I was here to keep me safe from something far darker and more sinister than going on welfare, or being homeless, or doing illegal drugs and going to jail.

Something was out there much darker and more deadly than anything they could threaten me with. I could feel it in all my body from my bones to the lady parts that I was supposed to 'think with' at this age.

I didn't belong here.

And it became more and more obvious the more I tried to 'fit in' by attempting to work out the customs and morality they all had. All the 'now-you're-supposed-to's' that they probably filed in a non-existent loose leaf binder we were all issued when we were born.

The trick is that I wasn't born. I had no memory of it. And all the things they told me I liked to do when I was a kid - I didn't remember any of it. Because they were training me to just accept, just go along, just act on what they told me my memories were.

And they showed me 'movies' of when I was younger. Filmed on something called 'Super 8' and then later it was on 'video tape.'

All made up to just reinforce the programming I'd been given along with this body.

Life wasn't real. Life just sucked. Boyfriends, fashions, put-downs, come-ons, sports, band, gym, everything. Sucked.

Because it didn't make sense. And the more sense I tried to make out of it, the worse it got.

Until I got a clue.

The same day I met him...

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Textauszug

BY S. H. MARPEL

I

AS FAR AS GHOSTS GO, this wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary. An Elizabethan-era countess called Sylvia. She had some tricks and quirks to work through, but those were simple to solve.

Sudden flames, pieces of the building and furniture being thrown about, mysterious voices sounding from thin air – the usual.

Harpy, Rose, and Tom had all come and done most of the work. Pretty well, actually. And Tom had "Sylvia" all ready to go until she figured out that he was just another spirit guide. And then put all that mess back in play.

So Sal and Jude then "spirited" me in right in front of her inside a force shield that protected me from any off the fire and building parts she could throw at me. At that point, Sylvia knew the game was up. No human in their right mind would stand in front of a ghost who could throw fireballs and collapse buildings on top of them both. No human that she had ever met could just keep smiling and ask her for her life story all over again, like that was all he had to do on a nice sunny afternoon.

Not that England had all that many of these, particularly in her time. All that coal burning made the sun a bit dim. Like the West Coast Amerindians in what later became Los Angeles, Londoners had smog long before it was called that - and their version was a lot worse than the current version.

I do get carried away on describing these adventures we have. The writer in me.

I did enjoy all this, and so the smile I always had for ghost hunting. Because solving each mystery was always a rush.

This ghost “Sylvia” saw her light at last, and walked into it, leaving thick dust and smoking embers in the wooden beams of house remains, torn down where this ghost had stood for her final exit.

With her disappearance, smiles showed on all our Ghost Hunter faces.

Sal and Jude and I were mostly there for this final exam. Harpy, Rose, and Tom were top of their class and this was their final assignment. No, we didn't really expect this team to get as far as they did, and so they all got top marks. And that meant they would soon be on a search for their own human detective to work them them. Ben and Granger would start lining up interviews for them, and their field training would continue.

Harpy came over and literally swept me off my feet with a strong hug and her stronger wings. I never thought that she could kiss and fly at the same time, but I found out soon enough.

When she finally returned me to earth, I was flushed from several emotions. Sal and Jude weren't all that impressed with the display, but Harpy had just graduated, so there weren't any demerits they could throw at her.

Rose and Tom were in each other's arms already, so they just smiled. Harpy was beaming ear to ear, and made that more visible by tucking in her wings, disappearing them into her specially-tailored jacket pleats.

Sal and Jude's smiles returned as soon as they got on each side of me and each had an arm around my waist.

"Time for the graduation party!" I announced. Cheers all around, even among the dust settling and beams smoldering, and other leftovers from the ghost's theatrics.

At that, we all phased out and returned to the library, shimmering as usual.

II

ALL THE GUIDES HAD changed their outfits on the way, the girls into evening gowns, which I really shouldn't have been surprised with. Sal in a white sequined gown, open back with a high collar. Jude was all in black silk, and I still don't know how it stayed on her with all those long slits up the sides and down the front and back. Harpy wore a modified naval officer's long formal dress in a deep blue, under a matching jacket with small epaulets, with a gold crown topping off her tightly coiffed black hair. Tom was in a tux, and Rose wore a prom dress of beige satin, complete with a corsage that was complimented by Tom's boutonnière.

The library itself had been expanded with a second mission-style couch opposite the first, the coffee table had been doubled in width so that the two matching chairs now became four and were placed at each end of the coffee table.

I sat between Sal and Jude on one couch, while Tom was between Rose and Harpy on the other. Ben and Granger had two of the seats on one narrow end of the coffee table.

Ben and Granger were wearing gold chain and a simple medallion over their brown robes. While she had set the table with all sorts of sweets and drinks, he had decorated the ends of the nearest shelves with twinkling and mobile fairy lights - and I couldn't really tell if they were real fairies there or not.

Just as we were ready to toast to our mutual success, we found two more guests shimmered into view in front of the two remaining seats - Tom's parents, Beth and Sam. They had typically proud parent looks on them for their graduating son, as well as his fiancée. They joined us at our party and raised their glasses with ours.

We all sat and soon the story-telling began, and it was everyone's turn at telling their own best stories from their own history. I tried to stay quiet at these, since I would often get more inspiration for other stories - or later rework the ones I heard into modern versions. Tom and Rose compared notes of their training exercises to bring his parents up to date, starting with telling about their graduation exercise. Jude then led in with some of the hair-raising experiences she, Sal and I had encountered. Harpy told of some mysterious tales of meeting and saving the ancient hero Ulysses, hinting at a personal relationship she'd had. Even Ben was finally coaxed to tell a story from a distant place and time, although we couldn't be certain it took place even in this universe.

Tom and Rose excused themselves early, as they'd lined up several dances to attend. Rose was excited as her spirit guide training had taught her the ability to manifest to humans as one of them, and wanted to show off her dress, as well as try out some new "dance moves" on the floor with Tom. Some that were impossible for humans, but not for those two. They phased out in the middle of an embrace.

Sal and Jude looked at each other and then at me, but I wasn't included in their conversation. Maybe it was some sort of mental coin-toss, I don't know. For all their experience, they were still not much older than either Tom or Rose in terms of appearances. They had also still felt the urges and attitudes of their physical age, which involved me as the center of many of their affections.

Beth and Sam were all smiles about their son and his good fortune. And we toasted to their future. Sam remarked about how extremely lucky they were to find the Library and get into the training program there.

Beth asked the most pointed question of the evening. "I started wondering why there were so few ghosts and so far fewer spirit-guides."

Ben mused on this, and had a ready answer to share. "It's the 95% rule."

The rest of us were silent, waiting for him to explain.

"Somewhere between 1 and 10% of all humans end up becoming ghosts, the average is about 5%. And only about 5% of those then become free spirits. 5% of those actually become guides." Ben looked into his drink, lost in thoughts and experiences.

That prompted another factoid from my one human experiences. "You know, that's interesting. I ran into a parallel breakdown. Some scammers were running online training, and I got my trainer to admit that they ran it on a 3% analysis - only 3% would complete the training, only 3% of those would apply what they had learned, and only 3% of those would make their success from it. So it wound up being some 1 in 10,000 would achieve the success they had been promised."

Sal was curious, with that cute frown she had. "How did that make them scammers? It seems a natural progression."

"It was how they promoted it to get people to pay their price. Promising what they couldn't deliver. Then using loopholes in the law to avoid repaying dissatisfied customers." I took another swallow to build suspense. "That was bad enough, but what they didn't count on was the fact they were training people to use the Internet, where nothing ever disappears. One of their students compiled a list of all the government places to complain and posted it in online forums. So those government agencies started getting all these complaints coming in and had to do something with all that paperwork. Within seven years, those scammers were out of business and had to pay millions in fines, as well as paying back the students." It was an old story to, but still had many lessons in it.

Jude piped up with her own curious look. "So where did they go wrong, if people are going to do that anyway?”

"Intention and action. They knew it was a high-profit area, but weren't interested in giving more value than they received. That's the 'it's only business' justification. But the Golden Rule haunts worse than anything I've ever encountered. You can only get what you give, and when you give shade, you get darkness back."

Harpy raised her glass. "Story of my long existence. When I found John here, I was sick and tired of the various messes I'd suffered through in all the human history I'd lived through. The real fortune was that the Library had already recruited him so I could get into this training. That Golden Rule is another way of saying that Karma can be a real 'be-yatch' as the modern phrase goes." She took a long sip of her drink. "And now I have many things to un-do, all in line with my new job."

Sam saluted her with his glass. "And we are so...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.9.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• ISBN-10: 0-00-010193-1 / 0000101931
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-010193-8 / 9780000101938