Deprescience

by Mickey Hunt
   As a child, our son Timothy told his teachers he was adopted. During adolescence, he wailed in misery, certain that his best friends had moved away. By age twenty, Timothy’s grief sank into glum desolation, and he would lie on the bed all day, bemoaning an imaginary poverty. None of his therapists could free him from his flawed perception of loss...

This story (about 1000 words) can be found at Every Day Fiction.

See my Top Story of the Month interview about "Deprescience" at

Flash Fiction Chronicles.  (Note: the interview has vanished.)

Folly Blaine recorded a podcast of the story that you can listen to HERE.

The story came out as a reprint in August 2015 in Beyond Science Fiction.

The Gingerbread Puppet Boy

by Mickey Hunt
The wrinkled old man sat patiently beside his luggage in the bus station and stared toward the glass door at the far end of the waiting room. What was this madness? he wondered. It had all started so innocently.
   He chuckled softly to himself . . .

   His wife had wanted a son, plain and simple. But the doctor had told them even before they were married years ago this was impossible. She would be barren.           ...continued

Wayman Publishing-Amazon

Note: This story appeared December 1, 2012 in the anthology Open Doors: Fractured Fairy Tales, available for purchase from Amazon at the above link, either as a printed book, an audio book, or an e-book.

See my creative non-fiction bio at Wayman: Featured Author

Shoreless Ocean of Eternity

        Before the seas rose and covered much of the land and before the Great Chaos overwhelmed civilization on Earth, the State of Israel devised a plan to prevent the breakdown from even beginning to happen in the first place.

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        A man of medium height and dark, receding hair stood back from the door and looked up at the imposing edifice.  The building was not particularly large, but it preserved memories of fear, death, and unthinkable horror.  Not a prison, but containing the memory of prisons, remembrances of prisoners.  He put the keys into his pocket and said to the young woman beside him, “It’s closed then.”

Shoreless Ocean of Eternity (9,880 words) has been rejected so many times that I finally gave up submitting it to other people's publications. It is a prequel to my novel in progress, Clouds Fall to Earth.  Read "Shoreless" HERE.

Guest Lecture

by Mickey Hunt
   The guest speaker paused to survey his audience one final time. There was a professor or two, and scattered throughout the cavernous lecture hall were probably three dozen students—both undergraduate and graduate.
   Dr. Gimbel’s audiences were growing smaller and they didn’t laugh at the jokes anymore. People were losing interest in his subject. Thankfully, it was his last appearance on this particular university tour...

Guest Lecture (855 words) was first published in July, 2012 on the website of the speculative fiction magazine Residential Aliens, but for some reason they took the story down.  I updated it and it was accepted as a reprint at the Literary Hatchet (Issue #12) and published on August 16, 2015.  The 300 page magazine is available free as a download, or $14 for a hard copy. You can find more information at the link above or HERE. The artwork is cool.

Lastly, you can easily find and read it RIGHT HERE.

I'm Not a Baby Anymore

by Mickey Hunt

      Dad adopted me when I was a pup and we don’t look alike at all, but no matter. He was single and kind of old for raising a baby, and not the most responsible parent, either—I mean, he was okay until he . . . but I’ll explain that situation in a minute.

      Our friend Jake and his girl Sally would sit around the campfire with us and tell stories.   (I love being outdoors—all the delicious smells!) Sometimes they’d be drunk and argue. I was too young to remember it happening, but my favorite story was about my adoption...

I'm Not a Baby Anymore (726 words) was published at Rapid River Magazine and can be read HERE.

When Earth Whispers

by Mickey Hunt

During the first seconds of last spring’s devastating earthquake in Lynchville, California, some people believed they had fallen ill, some assumed they had been struck by lightning, some thought a truck rammed their house. Those living adjacent to railroad tracks wondered if a train had derailed. I was praying in my study at the church early Sunday morning. As the furniture jerked back and forth and books tumbled through the air, it occurred to me that the world was ending and I would die.

When Earth Whispers (6600 words) won an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, the 3rd Quarter of 2014. Events in the news [Summer 2015] made the story even more relevant than when it was written.  Read the story in full HERE.

Arrangements

by Mickey Hunt

        David Welch, Sr. arranged flowers, but right away you probably adopted the wrong impression about him, because he made the art form nearly into a masculine sport. As with the great chefs and composers of the world, most of the top floral designers are men.

        I suppose his regular work lent masculinity to his love for color, pattern, balance, theme—all those elements contributing to a finished arrangement. And his were not just “arrangements”—the masses of flowers you see at weddings or funerals—rather, they portrayed natural environments and worlds in themselves reflecting an idealization of life. He was a landscaper and a retail nursery owner—had been all of his adult life.

        He didn’t actually begin flower arranging until his wife died four years ago. That’s when he ordered several boxes of flowers and made the funeral displays himself, weeping off and on. Those displays were simple, like what you usually see, he being a beginner, though they served well enough.

        Funeral flowers . . . they never help anything . . . they’re mere thoughts, symbols of sympathy and consolation, and not real in themselves.

        Hannah is real. She emanates a beauty that catches your eye, yes, but becomes even more apparent and satisfying the more you watch her, the more you get to know her. A complicated beauty and intelligence that might intimidate most men, the beauty of a talented movie star when she isn’t made up and glamorized. She was a friend of David’s daughter, Olivia, and was the same age as her, and she worked at the nursery in the summers, the Bluestone Nursery and Landscaping. Hannah was pursuing a horticultural degree at North Carolina State University, and when she graduated, she came on board as a manager...

[Arrangements continued]

Arrangements (4316 words) was revised and re-titled on 10/17/14.

Update 10/24/16:  Watch a HD video of me handing out the first five paragraphs of this story at an anti North Carolina HB-2 rally in Asheville.
Part One.  Part Two.

Get Ready to Be Amused and Made Angry