Force of Habit

By Damon L. Wakes

Do you like alien invasions? Superpowered nuns? Dark fairy tales that seem kind of out of place alongside all the alien invasions and superpowered nuns? Well, tough: you're getting them anyway, because this is the tenth Flash Fiction Month anthology by bestselling author Damon L. Wakes. Written one-a-day in July 2021, these very short stories are sure to stick with you (for better or for worse).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Damon L. Wakes
• Release date: Aug 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005037031

Damon L. Wakes

Damon L. Wakes was born in 1991 and began to write a few years later. He holds an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester, and a BA in English Literature from the University of Reading.When he isn’t writing, Damon enjoys weaving chainmail and making jewellery. He produces items made of modern metals such as aluminium, niobium and titanium, but constructed using thousand-year-old techniques.Damon’s other interests are diverse. He has at various times taken up archery, fencing and kayaking, ostensibly as research for books but mostly because it’s something to do.

Book preview

Introduction

Can you believe I’ve been doing this for ten years? Ten years! I hadn’t even heard of Flash Fiction Month until three days before the event in 2012 and now here I am having spent a full third of my life doing every single story and every single challenge every single year.

If this is the first of these books you’ve ever opened up, then the first thing you should know is that it doesn’t matter that this is the tenth in the series because the stories are almost entirely unrelated and even the ones that take place in the same fictional universe will frequently have nothing to do with one another. I can’t promise they’ll never hark back to something in a previous book—especially the superhero parodies, because needlessly complicated interwoven backstories are a staple of that particular genre—but I can guarantee that you’ll enjoy them regardless. Or at least that if you don’t enjoy them, it’ll be for an entirely different reason.

The second thing you should know is what Flash Fiction Month actually is. It’s a month-long annual event that challenges participants to write one story a day for the whole of July: 55 words minimum, 1,000 words maximum. On top of that, some days include an additional challenge and where that’s the case the requirements of the challenge will be noted in this book. Obviously all of them were written in a hurry but I like to think I’m pretty good at this by now and the need to come up with something new every single day means that there’s some interesting stuff in there that you wouldn’t get to see if I hadn’t absolutely had to produce a story on that particular day.

Ten years, though!

Ten freakin’ years.

Blimey.

1

Don’t Bother, They’re Here

Challenge #1: Write a 55-word story in which the main character's actions are rooted in fear but this is never explicitly stated.

Wow, you’re not afraid of anything! Candy batted her eyelashes at Chaz. How about we go on the Tunnel of Love next…

Chaz stared at the clown nearby, clutching a red balloon. It grinned, giving a creepy little wave.

No way! He ducked back into the entrance of the Ghost Train. Let’s do that again!

2

It’s Not What You Say, It’s the Way That You Say It

People of Earth, announced one of the two creatures descending the chrome landing ramp, I am Kurthklob and this is Munge: we come to your world bearing tidings of peace and love.

The assembled crowd watched in awe, silent but for a few hushed mutterings. Suspicious mutterings. This moment wasn’t quite what everyone had expected.

Why, uh… Professor Drummond—the esteemed spokesperson for all of humanity—wondered for a moment how to broach the subject, then decided just to go for it. Why are you made of dicks? she asked.

We hail from an ice moon six parsecs from your planet, explained Munge, jiggling down the ramp behind Kurthklob. I assure you, any similarity to human physiology is entirely coincidental.

Professor Drummond couldn’t help but notice this didn’t quite answer the question, but felt it best not to point that out in so many words.

The two creatures reached the bottom of the ramp where they waited, quivering, their several dozen appendages(?) flailing seemingly at random.

Is there anything that you wish to ask us? asked Kurthklob, at last. We understand this must be a significant adjustment for your people: the knowledge that you are not alone in the universe.

Well, said Professor Drummond, there is one thing that concerns me…

We understand, said the second creature. We have analysed your culture. We realise that in your narratives, this occasion is often imagined as one of bloodshed and the blowing-up of historic landmarks. Please understand that our species has endured countless wars: it was only by giving up our primitive notions of domination and conquest that we were able to unite and craft the voidships that brought us to you. This has been an undertaking of astronomical effort: we would not waste it on brutish conflict.

No, explained Professor Drummond, it’s not that. It’s…

The ‘dicks,’ as you call them.

Yes.

There were loud murmurs from the crowd nearby.

I really don’t know how better to explain this, said Munge, in the same monotone as always. Our species evolved under very different circumstances to yours. It is inevitable that the unique selection pressures involved would produce very different results. It is—if you will forgive me—quite naïve to expect visitors from another star system to look like humans wearing forehead prostheses.

It’s not so much that you don’t look like Klingons, explained Professor Drummond. It’s that—

You look like something from a dodgy Japanese cartoon! yelled some rando in the crowd.

Kurthklob began to flail vigorously, which really didn’t help.

Drummond tried a more diplomatic approach: I think the real concern is that your limbs are so distinctly phallic, rather than merely different to ours.

The similarities are entirely coincidental and utterly inconsequential, said Munge, possibly a little more forcefully than usual. We do not use them for that which dicks are used for.

Okay. It’s just that you’ve been repeatedly shoving one of them into some kind of...thing...the entire time we’ve been talking.

Kurthklob held up the thing. This is a translation device. It is how we are talking.

So speech for you is—

Please allow me a moment to confer with my colleague.

Oh, please don’t!

There were a few exceedingly awkward seconds of conversation, during which it was difficult to tell where Kurthklob ended and Munge began—especially because everybody on the planet was doing their best not to look directly at them.

Our civilisation developed around thermal vents in a pitch black ocean beneath an ice sheet, explained Kurthklob, eventually. Communication is primarily touch-based, yes.

Your language actually proved quite difficult for us to interpret initially too, put in Munge. Our earliest efforts—at a time when we erroneously believed your methods of communication to be far more similar to ours—focused on what we thought to be video footage of a heated political debate, but was in fact not.

This was met with absolute silence, save for one person near the back of the crowd coughing softly.

It seems that anecdote was not as relatable as I had thought. Munge was quiet for a moment.