Short Stories Category        

At World’s End

The hills were silent as the evening began its dance. Mercifully no light shone anywhere, other than what the moon’s gaze permitted as it commenced its rising over the statue that many called Freedom.

In the midst of this splendor, there was an intentionally anonymous female. She was a witness to this scene frozen with vibrancy, squeezing the joy of this moment for all it was worth before it vanished and the violence of life returned.

It was good hear the crackle of the sky and no other noise, she thought. Now, this was heaven wrapped in a bow to her.

Poetry, whatever that was supposed to be in these times, had finally lost its ego and became a thread that quietly watched and absorbed. Or some such concept like that, when all the chatter that made it was forever muted.

What all these metaphors actually meant, she had no idea. Nor did she really care, because what did that matter? She only knew that when nothing really held history anymore, strange things could come to light and capture meaning, without the weight of definition to justify it.

Civilization had made such mental juggling necessary, where one was forced to defend ad nauseam every iota of reasoning and action. At least, what had passed as ‘civilization’, with its falsetto gaslighting as it drained itself into a black hole of its own making.

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Because I Am Free

The roads leading away from the old city are finally quiet as I walk in their darkness, away from the violence and bloodshed that the city has brought to us once more. We, the ones who guard the water that everyone wants no matter the cost to others.

And, no matter the cost to themselves.

When The War Arrived

No one remembers who fired the first shot, or when the first bomb fell.

But we do know one thing. In the moment when the war’s first scream was heard, there was no going back to the pretense of the peace that came before.

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There Was A Man With A Secret

There was a man with a secret, one that he did not even tell his wife.

If he did make the secret known, everything would change and chaos would ensue! The laws of physics would cause the magnetic poles to shift! Calderas everywhere would burst into a violence that would murder the skies for centuries!

Well, that sounded good, anyway. Corny and melodramatic, the perfect words for a sappy opening of one of those bad novels that you found on the side of the road after seven generations of garage sales fetched twenty-five cents for it.

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Sabbath’s Silence

The silence in the pine forest weighed heavily upon the biota that resided there, spreading like a contagion throughout each member of its body. What was its cause? Was it torpor? Dread? Or, was it a desperate hope of a prayer so intense, all sound had collapsed into its bones?

In its midst, a voice broke the stillness. One voice, and one voice only.

The voice was that of a tiny bird of prey, one so small she could be overlooked. Known in these parts as a ‘Northern saw-whet owl’, she could be seen as many things, depending on who did the observing, or who was doing the hiding.   Read more….. »

I Am The Avenging Angel

 

You were there ten years ago when all that was good collapsed.

You were the one who let it happen.

You watched, and did nothing.

You were a spectator to bloodshed, but not a witness full of blameless innocence.   Read more….. »

How To Think For Yourself

 

My dear friends, have you ever seen people being led around, as though they have not a thought of their own in their own heads?

Have you scratched your head wondering, how did this come to be?

Have you read or seen the news, followed tweets and other social network posts, watching the downfall of loved ones, hated ones, and celebrities as they devolve from free people into bot-like minions?

Have you ever gasped in disbelief at their stupidity, knowing that you would do so much better than they ever would?

If you have answered “yes” to even one of these questions, if you have ever felt this way for even one second of the precious life that the Fates have gifted you, my good dear friends, I can tell you this with utmost confidence:   Read more….. »

In A Thousand Words

 

So we, like ‘we’ meaning Paul, Mal and yours truly the one and only moi…. Isaac!, we were walking down Alii in good old Kona Town, going from the library to meet up with Gloria when she finished up her shift at Basics Store by the pier. I think it was cruise day, and everyone was all boarding the trolley to go to Big Box to buy plastic pineapples and leis made in China and that, and I think Mal was just finishing up another hardly working stint selling his homemade pictures to all the tourists.   Read more….. »

I Followed All The Rules

 

I follow all the rules of the good nation that I live in.

I have followed them perfectly all of my life.

If I can keep all the rules until my awakening next month, I will become apprenticed to teach what I have learned to those who will come after me. I have much to be grateful for, all the good things I have been given.

It is a great honor that will be bestowed upon me, to be entrusted to teach as I have been taught. The leaders have told me so, and I believe them because they speak truth.   Read more….. »

Protocell 3: Dormancy

‘Protocell 3: Dormancy’ is available now on Amazon for purchase as a paperback and an e-book.

Get a sneak peak and read the first chapter here!


ONE

All endings have a beginning.

An extinction was about to take place. Based on all calculations and predictive analyses of all involved, the extermination was almost guaranteed to go on as scheduled.

The extinction was to occur on a rocky planet covered in waters of blue, one that was placed third from a medium-sized hydrogen-helium ball located somewhere near the middle of its galaxy. The exact time and date of this extinction were unknown factors to almost all life forms that existed in the temporal realm of three-dimensional space, except for one in particular whose knowledge was beyond most concepts of knowing.   Read more….. »

Entropy

Entropy by J. Kuzmier --  photo by John B. at JohnBdigital.com     

At some point in time, there was a woman. What kind of woman meant nothing. If you thought about it, who cared if it was a woman, a man, or a child? So what? Seriously, it really was stupid to get bent out of shape trying to distinguish one from another. Even though everyone spent wasting a lifetime doing so, as they slowly wasted away.   Read more….. »

Almost Midnight

Almost Midnight by J. Kuzmier --  photo by John B. at JohnBdigital.com     

Now available for purchase as an e-book on Amazon!

It’s almost midnight here on death row. At any moment now, my time on this earth may be up for good.

The law saved his life once.

But now, the law has come to take it away.

When the clock strikes midnight on life’s clock, some fairy tales end in tragedy.

Or it measures the end of a day that never saw the light.

The promise of a new day, will it come after the clock strikes?

Fate has a way of claiming her dues.

Blood Moon Rising

Blood Moon Rising by J. Kuzmier --  photo by John B. at JohnBdigital.com     

It was the night of the lunar eclipse, the fourth in less than two years. There would be a blood moon rising in the east, and it would hide in Gaia’s shadow at the appointed time. When it did, everything that had been predicted would come to pass, but few would have eyes to see. Despite this blindness, everything would be in perfect alignment and all in precise order, if all actors in the prophecy performed as they were directed to do.   Read more….. »

Diva’s Web

Diva's Web by J. Kuzmier --  photo by John B. at JohnBdigital.com     

She lays next to you, the object you always desired. The night is still, and the only sound you hear is the whisper of her breath on your body. It warms you. It chills you. A contradiction, just like everything about her.

It’s impossible for you to know what the right thing to do with her is. Should you remain with her, forever? Should you desert her, never to see her again?   Read more….. »

Mile Marker 327

Mile Marker 327 by J. Kuzmier --  photo by John B. at JohnBdigital.com     

The day is too hot, and the road is too boring. It’s sucking Foster’s soul dry, but that would mean he had a soul. But he doesn’t, since he threw it in God’s face so many years ago on a day he doesn’t want to remember.

So he stays on a road that depletes whatever zombie shell that’s left over from his long ago grand holy gesture. The road may lead to certain death at day’s end, or worse. But he doesn’t care. He tells himself this all the time, every day knowing that death or worse awaits him, that he might kill or be killed on this path he’s chosen.

But he never leaves the road. He would rather be dead than remember. He’s dead, anyway. Because would God ever want him back, when Foster threw his soul in the Almighty’s face all those years ago?

So starts the premise of Mile Marker 327, on another day that alternates between complete tedium coupled with the undercurrent of violence awaiting the man who calls himself Foster. It’s another day that’s too hot for the calendar to agree, and another violent client awaits Foster at the end of the highway he travels. God forgot about him long ago. He knows that, because there’s nowhere for him to go without the soul he discarded, and isn’t sure if he wants back.

Without his soul, this is the path Foster’s condemned to, with no end in sight except for perhaps the mercy of a bullet or some other tragedy.

Or is it? Get your copy of Mile Marker 327. Available on Amazon as a Kindle edition.