The Greenlandic Windows

by Mickey Hunt

Jonathan T. Barron takes his new bride Isobel, a former police officer, and her toddler Scotty for a month long "honey and moon" at a mysterious stone house on the remote, frozen east coast of Greenland. The house, designed in trapezoids and possibly built before the first Europeans arrived, isn't the only mystery however, because the elderly caretaker's wife babbles on and on about space ships... in Greenlandic.  Fourth in the JTB short story series, "Greenlandic Windows" at about 11,000 words, received an Honorable Mention in a 2016 Writers of the Future Contest.  (Update 10/22/16: Read "GW" HERE.)

Attack of the Gravid Amazons

A mid-30ish couple's marriage is on the rocks. He's an acoustical architect and she's an ob-gyn. About the only thing they have in common is a love of bug watching, so they are taking an entomological expedition to Indonesia to try to patch things up. Then Earth is invaded by pregnant green women. Among other inexplicable places around the planet, they attack in Singapore where the couple is staying for a few nights.

"Gravid Amazons" [8050 words] was revised in September 2016.  

Read HERE.

See my related Monarch Butterfly Photos from the Blue Ridge Parkway SW of Asheville NC, September 25, 2016.  Watch my 32 Second HD Video of them.

Just Cold

by Mickey Hunt
  

     When the doorbell rang, Mr. Reynolds went to answer. The young man on the front steps popped open a beer can he had pulled from his ragged, oversized coat. “Are you on the wagon?” he asked, and offered Mr. Reynolds the first slug.

     “Lee,” Mrs. Reynolds called from behind her husband. “It’s freezing outside. The chowder? The children are hungry.”
     “We’re sitting down for supper,” Mr. Reynolds said to the boy. “What, what’s your name?”
     “Jeffrey. I’ve got some peanuts. Give them to your kids.” He set the beer down and fumbled at his coat. “That’s a nice manger scene in your yard. It’s like real.” 

"Just Cold" (1000 words) has been accepted for a December, 2016 release by an online magazine with an improbable name.

The story of the real Jeffrey (as shown on a WLOS Television News story).

UPDATE 10/24/16: Read "Just Cold" HERE.

Spark

by Mickey Hunt

"Welcome to the edge of the universe," I said cheerfully. "The very edge."

The clutch of tourists easing into my parent's store seemed overawed.  At night, part of our sky is lit with nebulae, pulsars, galaxy clusters, and all sorts of stuff, but the rest of the sky is black, pitch black.  As far as anyone knows, no electromagnetic phenomena, gravity, or nothing ever emanates from out there...

Find Spark at 365 Tomorrows.

Read it with a New & Better ending at Rapid River Magazine. (1/7/16)

Demon Dragonfly

by Mickey Hunt
      The slave Mao Ping picked himself up from the street and dusted off his elegant embroidered robe. His cowardly porter peeked from behind a vendor stall, stumbled out to him, and bent over to reclaim the brown, cloth-wrapped package.

      Happily, Mao Ping thought, the mysterious package did not appear damaged. It might be the open umbrella of a princess, but was heavier, as he had noticed earlier when they collected it at the wood carver’s shop.

Demon Dragonfly (2644 words) was rejected 29 times.  It was a finalist in the 2016 Neoverse writing competition. Read the story HERE.

 

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.

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.