There’s 3 books of these stories available on Amazon. Put your e-mail address in the box below and I’ll send you the first one for free, as a PDF.
Not only that, you’ll get new stories as I write them. That’s about one a week, at the moment.
And they’re more fun to find in your in-box than more ‘BUY MORE STUFF!’ messages too.
Sarah is having an affair with John’s brother, and John doesn’t know.
Though in fairness, nor does Sarah.
As far as she’s concerned, John’s just started meeting her for lunch every Tuesday, and they’ve made unorthodox use of the office stationery cupboard.
John, for his part, never told her about his evil twin, since he thought Jack had been killed after that duel they’d had on top of the Orient Express.
Jack, meanwhile, doesn’t actually know Sarah is John’s wife, and thinks it’s the easiest seduction he’s ever done.
Cupid turned to Magpie, who’d been looking after his bow. “What.”
37 Chiswick Road turned off their lights, and darkened London.
The day wasn’t unusual. We’d talked about spreadsheets and TV and gone home.
But then the lights went out. First that house, then their neighbours, then their street, until the dark spread from Twickenham to Epping.
And we looked up, and saw the stars.
It was just for 5 minutes, but in those 5 minutes we saw what the city had hidden. More than we could understand, across distances we couldn’t imagine.
The next day, we didn’t talk about spreadsheets, and we didn’t talk about TV.
We talked about exploring.
My grandfather’s pocketwatch tells you the exact time you’ll die.
Nothing useful, like the date. Just the time. I’m going to die at 12:04 PM.
So’s my wife.
So’s my daughter. I asked her to hold it for me one day, and looked to see if the hands changed position. They stayed fixed.
My neighbour too, and the girl who makes sandwiches in the café near work.
Something’s coming, and it’s going to arrive at 12:04 PM.
We could leave town, but either that fixes the day, or there’s just nowhere to run.
I look at the clock. It’s 11:59.
Magic-users saw us as disabled, sub-human, so they kept themselves hidden.
Then the Dark Lord came. He could turn any spell, deflect any curse, and destroyed all challengers.
He said it was the Gifted’s destiny to rule. We existed on their sufferance, why should they hide from us?
His acolytes cheered, and the Dark Lord rode into London on a wave of fire. “Submit, or die!”
His brains were blown out from 800 yards by the 3rd Light Infantry.
Silence filled the wizarding ranks, who now remembered there were seven billion of us, and the real reason they’d been hiding.
I blew a kiss from my bedroom window, giving no thought to where it might land.
It touched the cheek of a pretty girl, marked it red as blood.
Her father saw her sullied, and beat her for indulging her desire. The neighbours saw her dirtied, and spun their whispers throughout the town. An easy girl, a slattern, not worth the spit that landed at her feet.
She made her bed, they said. She chooses where she lies.
And I? Heard nothing, saw nothing, never even thought of her after that day. It was, after all, just a throwaway kiss.
I blew a kiss from my bedroom window, giving no thought to where it might land.
It touched the cheek of a pretty girl, who smiled at me and walked on.
The next found her in the orange grove, and she blushed and asked me my name.
But I said nothing. It was just a kiss.
When I blew the next, she swatted it away. Now she walks with another man, and I can only watch as they pass by my bedroom window.
I curse her for leading me on, when my only crime was to blow an innocent kiss.
“1996 Chateau Musar, you smooth talker! But it’ll take more than that to get into my panties.”
“It’ll take a bottle of White Lightning and some cheap weed, as I recall.”
Mary laughed. That was our first midsummer on the hill: awkward sex and stoned stargazing. Now we were both married with kids and careers. But on midsummer, we came back here.
“Y’know, back then I thought I’d love you forever.”
“What happened?”
“I grew up.”
“Was it worth it?”
The lights of our hometown flickered on below us. It hadn’t changed. We had.
Our glasses clinked. “Yeah. It was.”
Every second Tuesday, the immortals play poker in East London.
So far, Elvis is winning.
“Dude, you should have seen their faces. They shot me, poisoned me and threw me in the river. Then I walked in the next morning and sat down at breakfast. Breakfast!”
Constantine sighed. He’d heard this story before. “Your bet, Razzers.”
“Oh, yeah. Fold.”
Elvis hummed ‘Hound Dog’ under his breath, and raised.
“Again? Again, Presley? Gods, I used to have an empire. Fine. Fine. Call, you bastard.”
Elvis flipped his cards. “Kings. Uh-huh-huh.”
“Fututa sum hic,” Constantine spat. “I should have seen that coming.”
—–
This one is from the prompt ‘Constantine XI, Elvis and Rasputin play poker’, and will teach me to make throwaway remarks in my e-mails.
I let Hitler live.
And don’t expect any sermons about changing history. That’s why I built the damn time machine.
But when I grew up, we learned about Brauer, and the razing of Paris.
I killed him.
When I got back, there was Eichel. I killed him too.
But no matter how many times I tried, there was always someone else. Another head on the hydra. Because these people don’t come from nowhere… they come from a mess of politics and economics and fear, and that’s not fixed by killing one man.
Changing history’s easy. Society’s what needs the work.
As I walked I met a smoking man, in a forest deep and black.
He said, you lost, and I said yes. I can’t see where I’m going, the path’s too dark.
He said, that’s not the forest. Seeing what’s ahead of you doesn’t come easy to anyone.
Can you show me the way out?
Yes, with a condition. You’ve got to come back.
He sucked on his cigar and blew out a smoke ring, and I thought: so you’re just leading me in circles?
He said, that’s right. But you’ll know the way better on the second time around.
—–
This one is from the prompt ‘Death is the tall man smoking a huge cigar’. Hope I remembered that right.