Fiction Addiction

By D. E. Park

Here are still more (71 more!) tiny tales in a variety of genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Fairy Tale and Other—Speculative Fiction.

For example:
Follow the terraforming expedition to Planet Margarita.
Would you believe targeted marketing for a playground?
Experience the extreme forms of OCD.
Where would you find a social venue for angels and their pets?
Read early reports of organized crime in rural Wisconsin.
And many more!

Seventy-one more works of flash, micro, nano, drabbles and dribbles. Short (very short, really really short) tales, from the author of Flush the Fiction and Unwashed Fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. E. Park
• Release date: Feb 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310678370

D. E. Park

Dave is a vigilant champion against the magniloquent periphrastic battalions of blowhard, on the front lines daily protecting the virtues of brevity and whimsy. He's also demented and won't ever amount to anything.

Book preview

A Great Moment for Margaritas

The colony ship dropped out of hyperspace and the ship’s artificial intelligence HARRY4000 released the crew from coldsleep as planned. Flight crew first, then the science specialist monkeys.

First on the agenda was analyzing the probe images from the terraforming robots. Several petabytes of accumulated readings awaited review, from the first robot landing right up to this moment.

Captain Johnson pulled up the first image.

Looks like the robots did a good job setting up base camp. Snowdrifts, we’re going to need parkas.

No, Bill, see the temperature reading? Mean of 79°C, humidity zero—those drifts aren’t snow. They’re salt.

A Mission of Gravity

All units, status check please.

Propulsion systems ready.

Navigation systems ready.

Communication systems ready.

Orders. As per mission parameters, at oh niner hundred we will deploy, seek and engage active targets in the southeast sector. If we find any active targets, we will apply standard targeted marketing systems. If successful, we will deliver our payload and return to base for debriefing. It is now oh eighty five nine, rolling out on my mark…three, two, one…mark!

The lightly armored suburban assault vehicle sparkled in the morning sunlight as it rolled out from home base and turned southeast into The Haven at Harvest Creek Gardens subdivision.

Communications. Deploy targeted marketing, please.

The loudspeakers broadcast a jingling melody as the ice cream truck rolled past the playground.

A Serious Game

In a few hours, they’re going to burn out a part of my brain. It’s my sister’s fault.

She bought it for my sixth birthday. It’s a solitaire game, a piece of sanded pine cut with a router and thirty-three marbles, exactly. I remember being disappointed after I opened it.

I played the game and tried to enjoy it anyway. Counting the marbles as I laid them out on the board, counting them again each time I put them away.

One day I noticed the layout of the holes was imperfect. Several of the marbles were off center from the neat, orderly lines they’re supposed to form. The dimples in the wood are misaligned, which bothers me.

The universe needs much more order and precision, don’t you think?

There are exactly ninety-seven wood grains across the playing surface of the set; I’ve repeatedly re-confirmed the count. I soak the marbles in a jar of alcohol every night to kill the germs. Sometimes, my hand shakes while I carefully count out the thirty-three marbles, and I leave bloody fingerprints. From the repeated hand washing.

They’re going to try gamma ventral capsulotomy, the gamma knife. I blame Jenny.

Adynata

Okay, I get it’s a social club, exclusive clientele and all. Why is the entry way up there? I don’t understand.

The base of the door was several feet over our heads. While we craned our necks looking up, I tried to explain.

Consider it an entrance exam. All you need is Faith. Look, there goes Michael. The archangel walked directly up to the door, opened it and stepped inside.

That’s amazing.

Only the easiest bit. Here comes the real miracle.

Michael’s haloed pig winged its way through the door.

Yep, today is the day they fly.

Amber Alert

"All of our hard work. The ungrateful brats don’t care how much