James Pyles's Blog, page 141
June 23, 2018
One Child’s Life
The strangers with her on the rooftop paused in unison. Before Rahab laid them under stalks of flax in order to hide them from the soldiers of the King, she said, “I know that Hashem has given you the Land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants […]
Who Murdered the Lady in the Lake?
Simon sighed as he read of Gordon Park’s suicide in Garth Prison. He’d been convicted of murdering his wife Carol Ann six years ago, but continued to declare his innocence, claiming that she left him for another man. The last threat to exposing Simon died with Park. “Poor Carol Ann. You shouldn’t have kept trying […]
A Very Nice Rejection
This is what I came home to after a long and miserable work week yesterday. Oy. On the other hand, it’s very polite and didn’t actually say my writing sucked, plus the editor was encouraging in inviting me to submit to them again. I realized that all of the stories that have been rejected (three […]
June 22, 2018
Ghostbusters, Ocean’s 8, and “Gender Flipping”
I think I may have seen the 1960 film Ocean’s 11 at some point decades past, or at least parts of it. It had an all-star cast which included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. The sole primary actress featured was Angie Dickinson, and the movie (as I understand it) set […]
June 21, 2018
Mr. Bartholomew’s Temporal Train
Twenty-five year old elementary school teacher Preston Dunn arrived at the train station just before six on Sunday morning. He normally slept in on the weekend, but he was enormously curious about the strange train ticket that had been delivered to his home by special messenger three days ago. Well, he was also intrigued by […]
June 20, 2018
Who is a Nazi and Why Should I Care?
Nazi: noun 1. historical a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. adjective 1. of or concerning the Nazis or Nazism. That’s the dictionary definition of “Nazi.” Of course, there’s a lot more to it, and to get the details, please visit the Wikipedia pages for Nazism and The Nazi Party. Why am I […]
The Target
Peter took a taxi from JFK into Manhattan, seeing the driver frown in the rear view mirror when he gave the address. Anna had met him outside Terminal 4 where she’d given him the item secured in a laptop case. He was the only one in the organization who could deliver it to the target, […]
Social Experiment
“They’re beginning to panic, Vym.” Vym and Qloutyd were watching the news broadcasts from their alien stealth ship in low Earth orbit. “Naturally. They expect Venice to be flooded in a century according to their belief in this climate change phenomena. They could hardly expect the famous canals to actually dry up.” “They’re blaming…wait a […]
June 19, 2018
When Julia Wore Her Thorns
The mask of thorns was almost a part of her now, as if it were growing out of her skin instead of inexorably piercing it, boring through muscle and bone. Blood, thick as syrup, slowly described glacial paths across her face, then down her delicate throat and onto her chest and shoulders. Julia’s body was […]
June 18, 2018
Frozen Love
It had to be as beautiful as possible, but because of the ice sculpture’s size, Victor had to use automated industrial saws and chisels. It didn’t help that he was working alone in a freezing warehouse, but he required absolute secrecy. He sat behind the console of the remote control unit and directed robots with heated metal arms […]
