Road Trip: C.M.'s Singles, #7

By C.M. Simpson

An urban-fantasy short story incorporating:

 

A curious fairy.

A terrified cargo hidden in a truck.

An illegal auction.

A troll.

And desperate measures.

When Mélange sneaks aboard a long-distance hauler to look for those in despair, she finds herself taken far from home, to the sinister side of humanity's contact with the Otherworld.

Faced with unfamiliar technology too big for a fairy to operate, and hunted by a troll, can she stay alive long enough for Paranormal Operations Squad to arrive and save her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.M. Simpson
• Release date: Mar 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224214587

C.M. Simpson

I spent the first twenty years of my life living in different parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory. My father was a teacher who liked to travel, so he took teaching appointments in all kinds of places. I don’t think I stayed in one place for more than four years at a stretch. I wrote stories for most of that time, drawing on the different landscapes we encountered and giving a hyper-active imagination somewhere to run. Seeing so many different places gave me a lot of food for thought as I stepped into the world of adulthood and took my first full-time job, and I never stopped writing and exploring the worlds in my head. So far, I have written four collections of short stories and poetry, and a number of novels, with many more to come. I hope you have enjoyed this part of my journey.

Book preview

Road Trip

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C.M.’s Singles #7

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C.M. Simpson

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A curious fairy.

A terrified cargo hidden in a truck.

An illegal auction.

A troll.

And desperate measures.

When Mélange sneaks aboard a long-distance hauler to look for those in despair, she finds herself taken far from home, to the sinister side of humanity’s contact with the Otherworld.

Faced with unfamiliar technology too big for a fairy to operate, and hunted by a troll, can she stay alive long enough for Paranormal Operations Squad to arrive and save her?

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License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright Page

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Road Trip

Third Edition

C.M. Simpson

Copyright © March 27, 2024 C.M. Simpson

Cover Art—Fairy © Junichi Shimazaki at Dreamstime

Cover Photography—Lightning © Watjarin Julawong at Dreamstime

Cover Design © November 24, 2023, C.M. Simpson

All rights reserved.

Author Forward

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On July 10, 2016, I decided to start writing my first, brand new, short story in six months. In a few weeks’ time, when I have settled into my new job, I will be back in that space, again. For now, I am publishing my short story back list for the year, and then planning to move into figuring out what my next step should be.

In 2016, I was totally lost for inspiration, and with no first line springing to mind, I turned to my Title Generator for a starting point. I have four columns now, two starting columns and two endings, each 100 lines long. I roll a d100.

On that night, the first roll of the dice resulted in a 69 from the second starting column which equaled ‘berries.’

Berries...okay, I thought.

My second roll was a 48 from the second ending column—Fairy. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to do with that. I thought I’d just write a story that had fairies and berries in it, and see how that turned out, which meant, of course, a return to the urban fantasy setting of the pixie dust world...or did it? There was only one way to find out.

Six days later and there wasn’t a berry in sight in the tale, and the story had gone where it wanted, so the title had to change.

For those of you familiar with the