Palalgia

By G. Deyke

One month.

Thirty-one stories.

Fourteen challenges.

Ten cases of lethal shovel-inflicted violence.

These 31 very short stories range from dark to inspiring, from violent to hopeful, from thought-provoking to silly, and from 55 to 1,000 words. Written entirely during July 2016 as a part of Flash Fiction Month.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G. Deyke
• Release date: Aug 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370725311

G. Deyke

G. Deyke is an indie author of games, novels, short stories, flash fiction, and the occasional poem. They will write anything from humor to horror to fairy tales, but have a particular penchant for speculative fiction: especially (though not exclusively) fantasy. They currently reside in a small village in southern Germany. Due to a tragic imbalance of their machismo-to-sense ratio, G. Deyke can never refuse a ridiculous challenge.

Book preview

Palalgia

by G. Deyke

Copyright 2016 G. Deyke

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for your download of this ebook. You may share it non-commercially as much as you like, provided it remains complete, unaltered and properly attributed: gift it, copy it, engrave it upon a custom-manufactured shovel and think of it as you bury things, or whatever you do with a custom-manufactured shovel. Just don't murder anyone with your fancy engraved digging implement. Doing so wouldn't actually infringe any copyrights, but it is nonetheless illegal, unethical, and – in most cases – downright rude.

Also, don't sell the shovel after it's been engraved.

If you enjoyed this ebook (presumably not while being murdered by a custom-manufactured shovel upon which it was engraved), please consider taking a look at G. Deyke's other work.

Thank you for your support.

Contents

Introduction

Tic-Tac-Toe

In the Garden of My Dreams

Before It Wilts

Christian zum Loe

Waiting for a Hole in the Silence

Paper

Seeding

Like the Dust in Your Hands

Cackling Up the Wrong Tree

The Birth and Death of Mystery

Yearning

Home

A Mother's Choice

Within All Things

The Serpents' Kiss

To Have Brought Them Joy

The Heroes

Let Loose by Fire

Ekpyrosis

Lampshading

MaskBook

Hunger

The Greatest Treasure

Diplomacy

Knock on Wood

Dysphoria

Birdsong

Palalgia

Beyond the Flesh

Interior Decorating

To Stand and Face the World

Closing Words

Find G. Deyke Online

Introduction

palalgia (noun): pain or suffering inflicted by shovels

Most excellent reader: before you lies a collection of thirty-one stories, each of them complete unto itself, all wholly separate, their only connection the fact that each of them was written for Flash Fiction Month: thirty-one stories for the thirty-one days of July, each between fifty-five and a thousand words, with nearly half of them meeting additional challenge criteria. Why, then, this unusual focus on shovel-related brutality?

The thirty-one stories that lie before you are the harvest of my third Flash Fiction Month: the first in which I've decided to crowdsource an additional challenge across the entire month. The winning challenge was issued by Amelia Mackenzie: the Traveling Shovel of Death must appear in at least two stories per week. Recurring characters could slowly become aware of the shovel, or remain hilariously ignorant.

The Traveling Shovel of Death, of course, is a murderous semi-sentient story-hopping shovel which travels from NaNoWriMo novel to NaNoWriMo novel to (as you'll soon read) FFM story, leaving a trail of corpses in its wake. It has graced ten of the stories before you with its lethal presence. Read on, enjoy – and watch yourself for accidents next time you dig a hole.

Tic-Tac-Toe

Challenge #1: write a story answering a challenge from another FFMer, which combines at least two elements not usually seen together.

(I was challenged by Tara Morrigan to combine romance, horror, and a game of my choosing.)

It was always a tie between us. She called for death and I for love, but neither of us could ever quite secure a victory.

She was the death that claws at the living, dragging them down into the grave. Her hair was loose and stringy; her eyes were wide and sunken; her breath smelled of mold and rot and decay; her skin was gray and green and riddled with worms, and around her knees and elbows and hands it sloughed from her bones. She was falling apart: bits of her flesh hung rotting from her joints, until at last they tore away and were left behind. She didn't mind the pain. It was a part of her, as much as breath and hunger and the pulse of a heart were a part of me.

Her tongue was dry against mine when we kissed, and squirming with worms. When I held her she would leave black juices on my skin. In her staring eyes I saw only her desire for my death. Still I loved her.

I gave her gifts, flowers, affection; she was not swayed. She tore at me with teeth and claws; I stayed firm. She would not love me til I died, and I would not die until she loved me. Move by move by move, we danced through an unending