Core Truths: A Collection of Speculative Short Stories

By Lisa Fox

18 speculative short stories...

• A father and his young son face a choice-risk their lives by extending kindness to a person who is not supposed to exist or risk their souls by walking on.
• In a dark and starless world where magical creatures are hunted and destroyed, a captive girl's courage sets in motion a wish that

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crystal Skipper Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987985717

Lisa Fox

Lisa Fox is a pharmaceutical market researcher by day and fiction writer by night. She thrives in the chaos of suburbia, residing in New Jersey (USA) with her husband, two sons, and Double-Doodle puppy. Her work has been featured in Dark Matter, Bards and Sages Quarterly, Metaphorosis, New Myths, Brilliant Flash Fiction, and Luna Station Quarterly, among other journals and anthologies. Lisa has had work nominated for the Pushcart Prize and for Best Small Fictions and is a previous winner of the NYC Midnight Short Screenplay competition. You can find Lisa and her published work via her website: lisafoxiswriting.com or on Twitter @iamlisafox10800.

Book preview

Core Truths

Lisa Fox

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Crystal Skipper Press

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa Fox

All rights reserved

Published by Crystal Skipper Press

Available in eBook and Paperback

Print ISBN: 979-8-9879857-0-0

eBook ISBN: 979-8-9879857-1-7

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author.

All characters and events in these stories are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

1.Something Rare and Beautiful

2.Don't Blink

3.To Lure Gavin Back Home

4.Dare I

5.Worms

6.You Won’t Feel a Thing

7.A Dignified Death

8.The Rise of the Mariner’s Star

9.The Outlaw of Unintended Consequences

10.A History Lesson

11.The Riverkeep

12.Taking Hope

13.Vanished

14.Skeletons

15.The Odds Are Even

16.A Little Bit of Sunshine in Hell

17.Core Truths

18.The Healing Power of Witchcraft

Acknowledgments

Publication History

About the Author

To my boys, Ryan and Aidan

No wish too small,

No dream too big

Introduction

Core Truth—it’s the nebulous, quintessential ‘something’ that defines us as individuals. It guides our beliefs and decisions; it determines the trajectory of who we ultimately become.

Whether we like it or not.

Selflessness, selfishness, fear, and ambition.

All core truths.

Devotion to family. Love of money. Unwavering commitment to duty. Compassion toward humankind.

All core truths.

The characters in this collection confront hard truths. They challenge personal long-standing beliefs and question ideals society imposes upon them. They examine their own reality and the nature of the ‘self.’ They weigh goodness against justice, their own desires relative to others' expectations, the value of one versus the needs of the collective.

Sometimes their journey leads toward a rare and beautiful epiphany or resolution. But not every ending is happy.

It is my hope that as you enter the various worlds created in each of these tales, you will discover these characters’ truths and consider how you would react if faced with the same circumstances and choices. I firmly believe that literature—whether it’s speculative fiction or grounded in reality—not only gives us the opportunity to observe, but allows us to safely look within ourselves, perhaps consider our own core truths and find the drivers of our ‘why.’

Your truth. I cannot wait to see it.

-Lisa Fox, April 2023

Something Rare and Beautiful

The old woman sat on a weathered park bench; a multi-colored shawl draped over her hunched shoulders. I watched as her gaze fixed on the crows gathered around her. They squawked and pecked about, flying off when they realized she had nothing to offer. She tugged her wrap, swaddled like a newborn longing for the womb.

Henry looked up at me from his digging. A pile of worms squiggled atop a fresh mound of dirt in the patchy grass. He stopped his play and pointed toward the bench.

What’s that, Daddy?

An Elderly. A special sort of being. Very rare.

Their kind existed in museum exhibits and history books only. I tried not to stare at the wrinkles etched into the Elderly’s skin, patterned like tree bark, or at the way the hollows of her cheeks sank beneath her defiant, protruding cheekbones. A halo of white hair, cloud-soft, framed her face. Through heavy lids and sparse lashes, her eyes twinkled, blue as a midday summer sky.

I’d never seen a creature more beautiful.

A curt breeze swiped dead leaves from the grass, lifting them in a crackling eddy that whirled toward the old woman. Dusk danced at the edges of the horizon. Yet she sat, immune to the fading sun, to the winds that taunted her, rocking to the cadence of her own quiet humming.

Henry scratched his head as he stared. Four parallel marks peeked out from beneath the collar of my son’s standard-issue shirt. Glowing red through his pale skin, they ran adjacent to his carotid artery and just as deep, sustaining life in their pre-programmed allotment. Only five years old, Henry had a near-full lifeline. The dull heat of the one remaining mark on my neck reminded me I had but one decade left to raise Henry on my own.

I felt a familiar pinch in my gut. Worse than any hunger, it was the pang of absence. In those rare moments when I considered my mortality, I missed Adrienne the most. My wife expired far short of the forty years The Order allocated humans to live.

It was the amount of time deemed statistically sufficient to maximize our contributions to society’s greater good. All that was full and productive contained within a forty-year span. Time beyond that was superfluous as the body initiated its physical decline. A human’s vulnerability to alterations in its cellular composition or to any number of pestilence outbreaks after the calculated peak period was expensive, the cost for life maintenance misaligned with any potential benefit.

Can I talk to it? Henry pointed at the woman, regarding her with wide green eyes. Like Adrienne’s, they held a glimmer of promise in a tedious world.

Her, I corrected, lowering Henry’s hand. "Can you talk to her."

Henry scrunched up his face and tilted his head. An Elderly is a person?

I glanced over at the Elderly, who tugged her shawl closer as her body shuddered in the breeze. She didn’t belong here. I wondered how she’d evaded The Order and survived on her own for as long as she had.

She is a person, Henry. Like you and me, just… I struggled for the word. Malfunctioned.

Henry lowered his head, pushing his toe into the ground.

Like Mommy.

Nodding, I rested my hand on Henry’s shoulder.

Like Mommy, I said. But different.

The last time I saw Adrienne, we were finishing our evening Order-issued rations, laughing over the mundane wonder of our respective days, when she froze, the fork halfway to her lips. It crashed to the plate, and she was gone. I hadn’t noticed the absence of her markings that night, but then again, I had neither been looking for them nor thinking about them. I was looking at her, thinking about how her laughter was sweeter than any birdsong and how blessed Henry was each night when his mother sang a lullaby.

My wife and the life I knew dissipated into the stale kitchen air, as if neither had existed. We were simply living our lives when her body self-destructed, erasing her from Henry’s world when he was but a toddler, leaving me as my child’s sole life guide.

I tried my best.

Can I talk to it? To her? Please? Henry looked up at me with hopeful eyes and a protruding lip. The same look he gave when his cookie ration wasn’t enough to satisfy him.

The generation that preceded my parents endorsed The Order’s edict: human beings were never intended to be a burden, youth shouldn’t sacrifice their ambitions, livelihoods, and dreams for the sake of a generation incapable of productivity. They stood in line in a show of nationalism, unflinching as their own markings were implanted beneath their skin. They didn’t question The Order, even as their own children were marked from the moment they entered this world; the tracks of a defined lifeline carved and embedded within each infant before government doctors cut the cord to liberate baby from mother.

Who was I to question their vision?

Yet this woman—this Elderly—defied the lifespan the Order granted, just as Adrienne had. On the day after Adrienne’s expiration, an Agent had visited, citing our residence with a Level Three Programming Error—a premature halt of the markings’ integral clock. Adrienne’s death was deemed classified; I was never to speak of it, or of her, to anyone. But I told Henry everything I could about his mother, painting her in the vibrant hues that colored her life. Inconsistencies did not exist, according to The Order, but I knew differently. The probability we’d randomly encounter another in the park on this day was incalculable.

Please, Daddy?

Heat teemed through my cheeks as an icy vulnerability crawled over me. Under The Order’s edict, it was our duty as productive citizens to report any unusual or suspicious activity to the authorities. Defying that order was a punishable crime. I didn’t want to think about the penalty for consorting with someone who wasn’t supposed to exist.

No, Henry, it’s too dangerous. I scanned the sky for hovering drones or the telltale flash of surveillance devices hiding in the treetops.

But the Elderly is little! She can’t hurt us! Henry said. Besides, you said she was like Mommy.

I said she’d malfunctioned like Mommy—

—And that makes her special. Because Mommy was special. Henry crossed his arms and pouted.

I glanced past my son toward the woods beyond and a memory of Adrienne beaming as she retrieved a small, grey kitten from beneath a pile of leaves. Despite my admonitions, she’d handed it to Henry, who squealed with delight as it squirmed in his arms. The Order forbade pets, viewing them as an unnecessary encumbrance. Yet, Adrienne kept the cat hidden and safe beneath our porch until the day it left us, shortly after she’d expired. Somehow, I think it knew she was gone, and it missed her almost as much as we did.

Henry, do you know what serendipity means?

Seren-what?

Never mind. It’s like when Mommy found our kitten in the woods. Do you remember?

Henry shook his head. Again, I felt a twinge as I thought of Adrienne’s smile when she snuggled the tiny forbidden creature to her cheek, and how Henry had reached his dimpled hand to touch it, to touch his mother.

The Order forbade such recklessness.

I held my breath. A shiver of lightheadedness consumed me, as if I were underwater, on the cusp of breaking through the surface. Neither Henry nor I would ever have an opportunity like this again.

We’ll go talk to the Elderly. But for just a minute.

Henry grinned, pumping his small fist in the air, which I caught and promptly lowered. And only if she allows us to.

Henry let go of me and trotted toward the woman with sure and rapid steps. As we approached, I wondered if my own mother would have resembled this being, had we lived in a different time. I’d never said goodbye; Mother had faded in her sleep, the imprint in her rumpled sheets still warm when I’d discovered she was gone.

The Elderly looked up, gasping at us. She shrank into her shawl.

Hi! I’m Henry. My son extended his hand.

Trembling, the woman glanced from Henry, to me, to Henry again.

My Daddy says you’re special.

The Elderly’s expression relaxed; the tense wrinkles framing her eyes smoothed as her lips struggled for a smile. She released the grip on her shawl and reached out to Henry.

Hello, she said. I’m afraid your daddy’s wrong. There’s nothing special about me. I’m just a relic with a broken timer.

Henry and I knew all too well the heartbreak of malfunction. As the woman sat alone on that bench in a world that didn’t want her, I supposed she did, too.

The Elderly’s eyes widened as she regarded my son, his tousled blond hair, his bright eyes. Rumpled play clothes. Dirt embedded beneath his fingernails.

But you, young man, she said. "You’re remarkable."

Re-mark. Ubble. Henry giggled. What does that mean?

You’re the first person to talk to me in four hundred thirty-seven days. Most folks passing by pretend I’m not here. They walk away when they see me. I think they’re afraid of me. Or they’re afraid of… Her voice trailed as she looked up at me, both of us recognizing that, without Henry’s intercession, I would have remained a silent observer, too. Or worse.

Henry frowned. That’s not very nice.

No, it’s not, I said.

Why would people do that, Daddy?

I rested my hand on Henry’s shoulder, again glancing toward the sky and the trees. The longer we spoke to this woman, the greater the risk for us all.

When people are afraid, they often do things that aren’t nice, I said.

I thought about how The Order was born of necessity in the aftermath of the Five-Year Scourge, when scientific and financial resources were exhausted to preserve humanity’s eldest and frailest from a plague that targeted them. With little left for the youth that powered the world, some say our society bled out and even died in those years. The Order’s edicts supposedly revived and revitalized us, marking humankind with new hope.

Besides, the Elderly said, The Order prohibits engagement with people like me.

Well, I think that’s dumb, Henry said. I’m not afraid.

Turning toward the woman, Henry cupped the Elderly’s gnarled hand between his palms gently, as if holding a baby bird. I bowed my head, overcome by the empathy that flashed over my young child’s face. My Mommy had a broken timer, too, but she died when she was twenty-four, Henry said. Her name was Adrienne—

Henry, I warned.

The woman glanced at me, eyes soft, eyebrows raised, as if sharing our secret.

I’m so sorry about your mom, Henry, she said. You must miss her terribly.

Henry nodded, blinking back tears.

What’s your name? Henry asked.

My name is Dorothy. She smiled. Funny, I can’t remember the last time I said that. My friends used to call me Dot.

It’s nice to meet you, Dorothy, Henry said.

Dot, she corrected.

Why are you here all by yourself? Don’t you have a family?

Dot fidgeted with her wrapping and drew in a ragged breath. I flinched as I watched the flashing red pulse beneath her sagging skin. Noticing my stare, Dot rested her hand against her neck, massaging it. The flashing stopped. The remnants of her marking faded in and out, her one line as faint as an errant scratch. She didn’t have much longer.

They moved on a long time ago, once I— She paused, and her eyes changed; pupils dilated, black encroaching over blue, sure as night consumes day. They’re probably long expired by now.

Coughs exploded from deep within Dot’s chest. Spasms wracked her body, leaving her gasping. She covered her