Ray Daley's Blog, page 29

Salary Man (flash fic)

Salary Man

May 28, 2013

Ray Daley

The Misthkthos had been on Earth over a year when I talked to my first one. They’d come in peace, landed in a quiet region and strolled out of their ship into the night to check out our planet.

Easy enough to spot them as aliens you’d think? Then you’d be thinking wrong because they look just like me and you. Admittedly with subtle differences but you could have sex with one of them and never know it. Don’t worry, no chance of them getting you pregnant or leaving you with a nasty alien STD. Our blood chemistry differed slightly.

But that slight difference was enough to mean we couldn’t catch their diseases and they couldn’t catch ours.

So how did I spot him?

Sitting at a table in the truck stop diner wearing a faded red plaid shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. He looked like every other wanna-be cowboy in the joint.

“Mind if I sit here?” I asked, gesturing to the empty seats opposite him.

“Help yourself, free country or at least that’s what they say.” He had the twang of the accent and the world-weary cynicism down to a tee.

I started eating my burger and fries. “Damn good food here.” I said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” he replied “I always stop in here when I’m in these parts.”

He hadn’t blinked, his poker face was near perfect. His one mistake, the subtle tell that gave him away.

I figured I’d see if I was right. I lowered my voice. “Hello Space Boy.”

He said nothing. He took another gulp of his coffee with his right hand.

“Tell me I’m wrong then.” I said quietly.

Again he said nothing.

I fixed him with a gaze. “I could repeat it, only louder if you want? Or you can tell me I’m wrong?”

He put his coffee cup down onto the table and looked me right in the eyes. “What was it?”

“What gave you away, you mean?” I said.

“Yeah. I thought I had this whole routine perfected. No-one ever noticed before.” he said.

I glanced toward at his left hand. “Pass me the salt.”

He was probably unaware he’d been fiddling with the salt cellar from the moment I’d walked in and almost certainly from the second he’d taken his seat.

His people had a glut of many of things on their planet. Salt however was in very short supply. They’d seen our oceans full of the stuff and made their way across the stars to trade with us. But as they’d learnt our many languages from TV and radio transmissions they thought they had a good idea how visiting aliens were received.

IE:- very badly and with deadly force.

So they’d chosen to hide amongst us until the time to trade was right.

“Damn. Was it that obvious?” he asked me nervously.

“Only if you know what to look for. And I did.” I replied.

“So what’s it going to cost me to keep you quiet? You know we hate violence. I’ve got plenty of great technology I can trade?” he asked me.

I smiled at him. “I guess that ship of yours is pretty well hidden?”

He nodded.

“Good,” I replied “then you can give me a lift home. I’ve been stuck here ever since I crashed in Roswell a few decades back. I promise I won’t tell if you don’t?”

He smiled at me. “When do you want to leave?” he asked.

I looked over to the counter and called to our waitress. “Miss, can I have this to go please? I think I just got a ride home.”

Salary Man

Officially Announcing The End Of An Era

I will be releasing 3 more free ebooks this year, in October, November and December.

One per month, as I have every month since November of 2011.

As of 1st January 2017, I will no longer be maintaining a free monthly release schedule.

There will be a few pay titles going online (through Smashwords only) but there will no longer be any kind of regular release schedule from me.

This is for several reasons.

I’ve lost my love for writing, and doing the monthly releases as well as having create covers and advertise across the 30+ places has become more like a chore than the fun it used to be.

It’s been over a year since my Mum passed away and I’m not finding it easy. She used to be the person I’d pitch ideas to. Without her, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to either start or complete stories.

So what does this mean for my readers?

What’s already up will remain up. What’s already free will stay free.

If I can find the motivation, I’ll release the novel. That WILL be a pay title. I put a lot of time and effort into it. It effectively cost me my job. So I will expect some kind of return from it.

I may or may not contnue to keep writing.

I’ve got a lot of completed stories that can potentially go out of for submission as they are.

Not all of them are saleable, some of those may end up becoming free releases. Eventually. I can’t say when.

All I can offer as solid fact right now is there will be no regular ebook releases from me as of next year onwards.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the stories I’ve already released and will enjoy the 3 that are left in the pipeline. I’ve enjoyed reading your reviews and comments.

I’ll be archiving stories to the blog that were online in other places that aren’t my social media pages so there will be more to read coming.

Thanks for reading my stories.

Paying your taxes, not your dues

It’s gotten to be THAT time again.

I, a British citizen have received that unwelcome email from Mister Amazon asking me to file for taxes in the United States Of America.

Sadly, because I sell books through Amazon US, I have to.

The IRS will get something like 0.0001 of a cent but they’ll take it all the same.

And this is why I can call myself an author, not a writer.

Because I pay fucking taxes. Fucking taxes in a country I don’t even LIVE in!

The fiendish plan (flash fic)

21st Aug 2015

“We have uncovered their fiendish chemical warfare plot to carpetbomb our beloved country with dihydrogen monoxide.”

“Sir. That’s just plain water. So you mean our enemies are going to make it rain on us? Because I understand certain parts of Nevada are quite desperate for rain.”

Epic badgering

Yesterday I read about becoming a slush reader for somewhere I won’t mention.

Mostly because I don’t want to attract competition.

Today I got my email telling me what to do for the 1st stage.

Which was reviewing all the stories from 2 issues of their magazine.

This was extremely good fun, I got to read several interesting and enjoyable stories (as well as some slightly not so enjoyable stories) and wrote them all up.

I’ve sent my reviews back, now I just have to wait until next week to see what they say.

So I’m currently an acting badger untrained.

Mightier Than The Sword (flash fic by Ray Daley)

They’d burnt the crypto within seconds of learning the General’s intentions.

“I’m gonna fire those birds, boys. Light up those god-damned Commies and nuke ’em back to the fucking stone age!”

He’d forced his way into the Battle Management Room, taking out our Air Commodore with a single shot. No, no-one was able to explain how he’d sneaked a loaded weapon into the bunker either.

Lots of RAF Police had tried to stop him. They made a rather nice ornamental torso pile near the door now. And he had amassed a collection of 9mm Brownings from them.

General Messing was on high alert now, anyone who even looked vaguely hostile earned themselves a terminal dirt nap.

But he took no notice of me. Innocent me, the guy who delivered his signals every hour, on the hour. I’d nearly bought the farm the first time, earning my survival pass by waving my handful of paper, showing I wasn’t.

At least that time I wasn’t.

As the hours had drifted past, it became clear to us that General Messing was determined to launch, codes or not. He’d spent every moment trying to brute force them, and by sheer luck he’d already happened onto half of what he needed to light up Russia.

3pm, or rather 1500 Zulu. The hourly signal run.

Messing’s gun was raised as I opened the door and immediately dropped to the table on seeing me. “Ah, the signal wallah. Enter, enter.”

I’d been the only living person to get anywhere near him, and it had given me an idea. “How goes the war sir?” I was trying to make idle conversation, mostly to distract him.

“I’ll get there sooner or later. Shame they destroyed the codes. So what’s this then?” Messing looked down at the paper I’d placed on the desk before him.

“Classified signal sir, needs your signature. Do you need a pen?” I offered him a ballpoint pen, my favourite Bic.

General Messing waved it away, pulling a rather nice Mont Blanc from his jacket pocket. Then he made his last mistake. He looked down to sign the log.

And I stuck the ballpoint into his ear, jamming it in as far as I could, killing him instantly.

General Messing, or least what was left of his corporeal being hit the table face first.

I called the RAF Police from his desk phone, they got there in less than three minutes. They were surprised, but full of praise. “You’re a bloody hero! They’ll give you a medal for this!”

I shook my head. “No they won’t. I’ll be lucky not to go to prison for killing a General.”

They protested, “But you’re a hero!”

I smiled. “No I’m not. I’m just a clerk with a pen. He never saw me coming. Bloody good job too.”

THE END.

Finding America (flash fic, from a reddit prompt)

“And so we walked off, to look for America.

Sadly, after walking for thousands of miles we gave up on ever finding this dreamlike place. Little did we know it was already beneath our feet, we merely had to look down.

But we had spent our whole journey looking forward, to the horizon.

America, no more.”

I Hate Rewrites!

Today I had to find a story for submission and the piece I chose fell short of the minimum word count.

Which is annoying.

So I had to pull a little under 200 words out of my arse to make it. I do not, repeat DO NOT like rewrites. Nor do I like edits.

Generally I like to write a story and then leave it the fuck alone because it’s finished and there’s nothing more I can do to it to improve the beast.

I’m not one to edit. I don’t like adding things either.

I will do occasional updates or rewrites on the fly if I’m typing something up that I’ve hand written.

This is why I am a 1 man operation. No-one dares ask me to alter or rewrite or edit because they know I’ll tell them to fuck the fuck right off.

“Does not play well with others.”

Hunting With The Robotic Lions’ Pride (Flash Fiction)

“We’re fighting Lions today? You DON’T say? You see this bit of paper? Oh, you can’t read? Well it says I’m too ill to go into combat today. Yeah, sorry about that. You all have a LOVELY time! Love you, miss you, bye now!”

(waits until they’re out of earshot)

“Hope you DIE SOON!”

(looks around)

“I guess there’s about to be a whole lot of widows, needing to be comforted? And just me to do it. It’s a dirty job, but I think I can manage.”

A Boy and His Dog (flash fiction from IO9)

“When I was a kid, you had to be careful when the battery went flat. Several million tons of metal falling from the sky at high velocity is deadly. But kids manage to find the humour in any situation.

You could hear them shouting from miles off into the distance ‘Big Dogs! Landing On My Face!‘ It always made me laugh. Until it almost happened to me. It’s not a laughing matter.”

A Boy and His Dog by Sandara