The Confabulator Cafe

Category: Confabulation

  • Nicholas Does Science

    Nicholas and his fascinating obsession with science.

     

    Their home wasn’t enormous, but it was more spacious than average to afford extra room for books and research. It was also located near the center of the underground town and had belonged to Storykeeper families for generations. “Nicholas, where are you?” Eidald called as he searched the house room by room for his adopted son.

    “You know that boy is probably in your study. I think he may love those books more than your father ever did.” Zofiya looked up from the pile of chia seeds that Nessa, their daughter, and she were harvesting.

    “I suppose I should have thought of that first.”

    “Yes, you should have,” Zofiya’s words were brining with hostility as they had been for the past ten harvests. Just when Eidald thought her ire was lessening it would flare back to life. “When you find him, tell him to come help separate the seeds.”

    “Actually, I had something I wanted to show him.”

    “But not Nessa?” Zofiya’s words were laced with daggers. Nessa hunched lower as if she could escape remove herself from the middle of her warring parents.

    “If she wants to come along, she can join us,” Eidald answered slowly, knowing that he was surrounded by a minefield of wrong answers.

    Nessa looked back and forth between them before finally whispering, “Uh, okay.” She brushed her hands off and hurried to Eidald’s side.

    “We’ll be back in time for the dimming meal.”

    “You probably shouldn’t have said that,” Nessa whispered on their way to the study. (more…)

  • Wednesday’s Child

    Prompt: It was Wednesday, the day of kindness.

    The sun dipped low on the horizon and with its descent, Savina could feel the tension settling into her shoulders. In the reddening sky, the smiles on everyone she passed felt sinister. A reminder that the truce of today would not continue through the night. She resisted the urge to clutch her knapsack to her body. She forced herself to keep walking with her head held high.

    Once she left the crowded market, her steps quickened. She had to make it to her hideout before the night settled around her. The path through the woods was treacherous in the dark, full of roots that came alive in the night to snag ankles and cracks that opened in the ground to swallow feet. She could not afford to have an injury when the sun rose.

    In the morning the villagers turned into a band of pitchfork-brandishing and torch carrying monsters.

    The day of kindness. What a misnomer.

    It was the day that the villagers let the outcasts come into town.

    They fed them.

    They bathed them.

    They cared for their injuries.

    If they were sick, they gave them medicine.

    After all, where was the fun in hunting prey that was too weak to put up a fight? (more…)

  • Black Magic

    I took another drink of whiskey, letting it warm my stomach and dull my magic. Losing control now would be disastrous. Now, when I was so close to the semi-finals. The Miss Galaxy title was everything that I had left. That and the cash prize it promised.

    I waited off-stage while a lovely Deltan attempted to play the lyre. She must have been nervous because her extra tentacle kept tripping her up. I would be on stage soon, singing that stupid song. I mean, it was by far my strongest song. The only talent I had these days, now that I’d found a way to dull my magic.

    The Deltan must have reached the end of her performance because the crowd cheered. I could never tell with alien music. I watched in horror as she glided off the stage. The crowd was waiting for me and it made my stomach churn. I took one last drink to soothe it. Why did I ever think it would be a good idea for a witch to go on stage singing about old black magic? I must have been drunk when I filled out that form. That song gave entirely the wrong idea about witchcraft.

    “And now for a real treat, ladies, gentlemen, and other folk,” the announcer said. I braced myself. “All the way from Earth, we have a real talent here. This is the first time a human has made it this far in our contest. Please, everyone here at Janis Spaceport, give a big cheer for Eliska!” (more…)

  • The Sands of Time

    The sunlight streams in through the open window, waking me up three minutes before the alarm went off.  I look over at my sleeping husband, and can’t help but to bask in the warmth of the happy feeling residing in my chest.  We’ve been married for little over a month, but waking up next to him has yet to get old.  Part of me hopes that it never will.  The alarm goes off, causing Clark’s arm to fly out and slam into the offending clock radio until the beeping ends.  “No, dear heart, it’s time to get up,” I say, shaking his shoulder.  Another beautiful Thursday morning.

    Once I am sure that he is awake, I slip off into the bathroom.  Partially because I take longer, but mostly because Clark simply isn’t a morning person.  It will be at least fifteen minutes before he is dressed, and another twenty minutes before he needs anything in here.  I beat him to the kitchen, as always, and start a fresh pot of coffee.  I can always guess how bad the night before had been based on how much of the paper I can read before he joins me in the kitchen.  It must have been pretty bad—I make it through all of the local and world news, and half of the sports.

    “New case?” I ask, offering him a mug.

    “Lord, yes,” he replies, with a weary nod.  He pours a dry bowl of cereal, and pulls the comics page out of the paper.  “Three different missing person cases.  One of the servers in the industrial district went down, and it was utter chaos.  Honestly, we’re lucky to only have three cases.”

    “Why would a server crash create a missing person situation?” I ask. (more…)

  • Maxwell Edison, Werewolf Hunter

    Maxwell paced the darkened student med lab, waiting for the DNA results. His prey was a pretty, quizzical biochem major named Joan. She was suspiciously fervid when it came to her studies. There was a good chance she was at the science lab after hours herself. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, she was studying, but he was pretty sure he knew what she was.

    The machine dinged and he checked the results. Bingo.

    Joan was a werewolf.

    He picked up his cell phone and gave her a call. He was actually a little shocked she answered, considering the time.

    “Hello, Joan? Max Edison. We have Advanced Biology with Professor Luna together?” He paused while she took a minute to place his name with his face.

    “Yes, of course. Hi. I’m glad you called.”

    He smiled a predatory smile. He’d spent half the semester manipulating her so that she’d give him her phone number. With his broody good looks and silvered tongue—so to speak—he’d finally won her over, despite her hesitations. He wasn’t one of them, after all, and they rarely dated outside of their pack.

    “How would you like to go see a movie with me sometime?”

    She giggled and agreed. They picked a day and time.

    “Excellent. I’ll pick you up Thursday at nine.” He pretended to jot down her address as she gave it to him. He already knew where she lived.

    He already knew everything he needed to know about her. (more…)

  • Mansion

    “Bernard!” Philip’s voice carried easily across the grungy one bedroom apartment. Bernard knew that tone, knew what it meant, and knew the fear that would be reflected in his eyes would only enrage Philip more.

    “You didn’t wind the bloody alarm! Do you want me to lose my job?!” Philip emerged from the bedroom, suspenders hanging loosely from his pants.

    “I’m sorry, papa. What can I do?”

    “What can you do?” Philip stumbled over an empty bottle. Bernard had a second to duck before the bottle was kicked at his head. “You useless piece of shite!”

    Bernard felt a whimper crawl up his throat, and wished he had let the bottle hit him.

    “Now I’m going to be even later! What do you have to say for yourself?!” Bernard hugged his knees to his chest as Philip’s kicks seemed to find every sensitive organ.

    “Papa?” he whimpered as blood blotted out his vision.

    “Stop you’re whining. You have no idea what the real world is like. Your existence should have been ended with a hanger.”

    Bernard remained still as his blood dripped slowly onto the floor until he heard the sound of the door slamming. He relaxed and was rewarded with searing pain. Bernard listened to the sounds of human misery as he waited for the strength to get up and clean his blood off the floor. There would be hell to pay if Philip got home and found a bloody mess.

    He closed his eyes and listened to babies screaming their hunger to empty rooms, and young children playing with laughs just a little too desperate. The sound of the lock jiggling sent a bolt through him and he attempted to push himself from the floor.

    He can’t be back yet! (more…)

  • Arbor Day

    Marvin’s war with the squirrels began with the roar of a chainsaw. He stood in his backyard wearing a Budweiser baseball cap, a pair of short shorts, and a farmer’s tan. Red body hair nearly hid a faded “April” tattoo that arched over his round gut. My daughter Tressa watched him front the fence line, as I sweated in to a fresh hole that would soon be home to a young oak tree.

    I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand and tossed the shovel aside. “Honey, come on back and give me a hand.” Don’t make eye contact with him, I thought. He might come over here.

    Tressa wandered back to the hole, weaving across the grass. She seemed to drift rather than walk as her new spring dress swirled in the breeze. “Why does he have the month tattooed on his stomach?”

    “I don’t think that is the month, kiddo. It’s a woman’s name.”

    “But his wife’s name is Sandy.”

    I wasn’t sure where to go from there, so like any good parent, I let the line of questioning vanish. Marvin helped out by cranking up a Jackyl cassette on a beaten-up boom box. He downed a can of beer, crushed it, and then tossed it in a growing pile of aluminum next to his patio door. The King of Beers was lucky to have such a devoted subject. Marvin gunned the chainsaw in time to the music as he laid in to an old maple in the center of his yard. Squirrels fled, leaping from its limbs to a nearby oak or fleeing to the grass to be chased by Red, Marvin’s barking pitbull.

    Red snatched a squirrel that had moved too slowly and shook it. Red strutted to Marvin’s side and dropped his prize. Marvin stopped cutting and patted the dog’s head before picking up the squirrel and punting it over our fence. Tressa hurried over to it.

    I called after her. “Don’t touch it, Tressa. Squirrels can carry diseases.”

    She dropped down to her knees beside the body. “Poor squirrel. He’s a mean man. Why is he cutting down the tree?” (more…)

  • The Election

    “Dear, what are you looking at?” The man, hunched over in the doorway, looked over at his wife. She had one hand on her hip, the other held back the dark curtain just enough to poke her sun-spotted nose through the opening. She glared at something outside.

    “It’s back!” She said and let the curtain flutter back into place. She turned to her husband, her white visage a stark contrast against the panel behind her. “What will we do?”

    He sighed and hobbled over to the door and flipped the bolt into place, slid the chain lock over with a click, then grabbed his wife’s hand. “For starters, keep yourself away from the windows! If it sees you, you’re as good as gone!”

    If not for the stillness in the neighborhood, you wouldn’t know anything was amiss. The sun was shining, a slight fall nip chilled the air. In the distance, children could be heard playing and laughing– they had nothing to worry about. Not yet, at least.

    The season was beginning to turn and with it came the election. And with the election came the monsters creeping around the neighborhood. Yes, even in the light of day. One must stay diligent or else you’d be trapped by one. They’d quick-spit their vitriol in your face and then you’d be devoured. The thought sent a shudder through the man.

    “Don’t leave the house! They’ll be gone in a few days,” the man said. They agreed to stay shuttered in until the election was over. (more…)

  • Bunnies

    Orlen stood back and looked at their work. “Do you think it’ll work?” he asked his brother, Neven.

    “Now you want my opinion?” Neven snapped as he knocked on a length of the solid wooden fence.

    “Cloth wouldn’t work, Orlen.”

    “How do you know? Rosella said they tried it and it worked on their section of the Vine.”

    “Yes and Derek, and John, and Pearl tried it on their Vines and those damn beasts barrelled through it like it was nothing. We can’t risk them getting through, the Vine is too fragile right now.”

    “I don’t know what those damn hunters are doing.”

    “Oh come on now, Neven. They’re doing the best they can. We need to plant more diversion crops to draw them away.”

    “Who’s got time for that?”

    If you didn’t spend half your free time drinking, perhaps you would have time for that! Orlen bit his tongue though.

    “Perhaps if we put up a sign up sheet for it?”

    “Sure, why not.” Neven shrugged. He leapt over one of the short fences that separated the property from the main road. (more…)

  • Fear, Rejection and Spring Traditions

    “We fear the wrong things you know.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “We should be a afraid of not getting a job someday.” He nodded solemnly.
    “Economy is bad.”
    “Exactly.”
    “That is what we should fear.”
    “Agreed.”
    “Not this other stuff.”
    “Agree again.”
    “So are you going to ask someone?”
    “Doubt it.”

    Damon jumped down from the air conditioner he had decided would make a good chair. He was wrong. He hated these chats with Derek. Derek was, for lack of a better idea, Derek. Full of bravado and bluster, but had no depth to him at all. If he was a tree he would be cardboard. Yet he put up with Derek, and Derek put up with him. It worked, and in college they would either both grow up or drift apart. They accepted that by laughing about it sometimes.
    “You going to ask someone? Kristen Shaw?” Derek stared at him as if it was not just answered a moment ago. (more…)