Category: Flash

Flash: Fish Boy

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Borrowed from the Interwebs

“Ledbetter, Presby. Fresh meat incoming.” The nonce glanced around the triple-berth in a split-second inspection. “It’ll do,” he banged the ‘lock edge in approval before he swam down the corridor to inform the other understaffed berths of new pilots arriving. They had been under zero g maneuvers for the last hour to match paths with the incoming staff-and-stuff ships.

“Time to roll out. Why don’t you go first?” offered Ledbetter to his wingman, while he tucked a picture into his quick-dress under vest.

Presby rolled out of his hammock-like bunk where they had been ordered to out of the way of the real sailors working the zero-g maneuvers. The sprawl of limbs to stop twists and torques, his brace to open his steamer, and his adorning of quick-dress took a simple handful of minutes. By unmodified human standards, Presby executed an elegant ballet of movement within microgravity, showing skills developed over three relative-years in space

Once Presby was dressed, Ledbetter did the same maneuvers in a quarter of the time, with Presby in the same space attempting to secure his bunk against the wall. Every rotation Presby needed to control, Ledbetter used to his advantage. A quick flick from Ledbetter’s foot pressed the bunk’s rail hard enough for Presby to twist the knob into place; Ledbetter let the push off from the rail to tuck his legs for positioning the hem loops under the boots which kept the pant lines of the quick-dress pants regulation straight. He landed by the airlock between their berth room and the corridor waiting for their nonce to return.

“Fish, I hate you,” Presby said, hanging sidewise to their one egress in the middle of the room.

Ledbetter smiled, “Come on unmod, bossman says we got fresh meat to tenderize.” He watched as Presby grasped one of the handles and pulled himself in the regulation up-down the regular unmods needed for orientation.

Presby had been broken of that three-dimensional limitation the first month of pilot training. Those that didn’t stop vomiting washed out and became simple sailors stuck inside the big belly beasts. Then Presby had passed muster for fighter training, something only one in a hundred pilots qualified for. He was as close to three-dimensional situational awareness as an unmodified human could get.

“Four relative-months setting up for them. They better be worth it,” Presby said.

“Nonce let me look through the profiles. One for red side is a birdman.”

“Of course red is getting that one.”

“You guys got me. It’s only fair.”

“Can you imagine a triple of natural three-D thinkers?” Presby got a far away look in his eyes. “If only they could drop the mod in after birth.”

“Modify to the planet, not to war.” Ledbetter quoted one of the Tenets of the Human Unity.

“And draft them all come war.” Presby snarked back the solider corollary, one of the several perverted adages the front-line men had developed from the high-brow political Tenets humanity had crafted since jumping to the stars.

Nonce Curtis swam back their way while the other two berths prepped for the receiving presentation. “Belay that chatter boys,” he ordered.

Kempler, the furthest away, who had been running simulations when zero-G had been announced, fell out into the corridor in his flight suit, with the blue strip of their squadron along the legs and arms of the suit. Pilots got a regulation exception, with flight suits treated as equal to quick-dress or anything less than full dress, and sometimes the brass let the fighter pilots have flight suits count as full dress if they at least tossed on their rank jacket with patches.

Elrod and D’Aunno came out of the middle berth. Each triple berth had room for the primary three of a triple flight, an alternate, and two trainees. Ledbetter was the First for his triple unit, D’Aunno was First for his, and Kempler was First by default for the last group, but nonce flew when they were understaffed and therefore was acting first. Kempler spent a lot of time in simulations trying to be worthy of being wingman to Twenty-Clash Curtis. Blue Wing at full staffing had twenty members. Nonce and his second, plus the full squad with alternatives and trainees. They had six.

Ledbetter knew the staff-and-stuff drop was about to double their numbers to twelve. Red, Yellow, and Green Wings after the last year’s battle had been equally stripped, and were about to be equally re-staffed. They would have two relative-months to get the new guys seaworthy as the Determination returned to the front lines. Ledbetter had been through fifteen cycles of picking up fresh meat, train, going to the front lines, getting blown to bits, and returning when the ship had bled out all the air, people, and replacement parts.

He touched his vest where the picture of him kissing his girl rested against his heart. Nearly nine relative-years in battle since leaving home. The draft demanding regular tribute from the mermaids of his planet. The perfect three-dimensional thinkers made perfect fighter pilots. Those below the surface tossed their throwbacks to the Unity draft, the ones whose modifications had failed, the ones lacking fins and gills like him, stuck between sky and sea. He, like an open clam, had dove at the Duty and Honor to keep the Galactic Incursion from crossing the line into humanity’s colonies.

And, most importantly, to swim among the stars like his brain had been built to do within a sea.

He didn’t know how many years had passed at home since he left. Misty’s last letter had caught up with him toward the end of his first relative-year; it had been bundled together with all her other letters in his first staff-and-stuff drop when he had returned from the front, the sole survivor of his Wing.

She had been dying at a hundred and fifteen; she had never received a single letter he had written her but had written him every year on his birthday faithful to him through two husbands and nine children, two of them his, born from the required donation so his home world wouldn’t lose his genetic diversity. They tweaked his kids enough they swam true.

He remembered Presby’s shock at discovering his “five-year contract” had been five relative-years and what it meant. He wondered how many of the new Fresh Meat would suffer a similar shock.

That the speed ship out, a quick five relative-days for them translated to fifteen years for most of the Unity.

That this Duty and Honor was a one-way trip.

That the front lines drafted until death do us part.

(words 1,104; first written 2/23/2026)

 

This was a Writer’s Group assignment: “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.” Write a 1,000 word story based on a randomly drawn picture. I got the above. Now I can’t ever do anything the easy way, so even though it is February and I had already decided to do a romance for whatever I drew, once I had that picture in hand it had to be anything EXCEPT for a romance. The story in my head was much more complicated with, space battles and the Fresh Meat guy discovering exactly what he had signed up for instead of me just telling what happened with Presby. But when I hit 500 words, I sped things up, and when I hit 940 words I did it again. Beside it is 10:30 pm and the group meets tomorrow. Today was it. Write or die. It is written – now I sleep.

 

Flash: Summer is Here

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Picture provided as Prompt for the Flash, Origin Unknown

The sign struggled with its messaging like the last autumn leaf clinging to an oak branch. “SuMmer IS heRe.” Merideth read the various sized letters on the ancient broken marquee below the faded blue paint and blinking neon motel sign. “I guess?”

“The autumnal equinox isn’t until tomorrow so we can roll with it,” Sabine said. She always knew things like when the moon cycle was and what zodiac sign went with which, and assured Merry that they would remain best friends forever with their Capricorn and Scorpio mix. “Although I think that sign hasn’t been changed in three years.”

“So, stop here?” The white compact had slowed as far as it could without actually stopping or turning into the gravel parking lot.

“You can’t drive any further, and I can’t drive after I take my meds.”

“Thank you.” Merideth’s gratitude was heartfelt. “I don’t think there is another motel for fifty miles and the mountain fog is getting bad now that the sun has completely set.” She angled Sabine’s car into the parking lot moving around two semis parked at the edge to get to the door marked office. “The semis are promising.”

“Nah, I can hear their engines running. The guys are sleeping in the trucks, not the motel.”

Once parked in the otherwise empty lot, they both fell out of the car, using it for support as they stretched in the rapidly darkening twilight. The gravel crunched under their feet once they regained their balance enough to make their way into the office for check-in.

Merry tapped the sign right under the office sign. “Newly remodeled.” She looked around at the two wings of the motel painted a sad mix of blue and peach visibly chipping and peeling in the blinking fluorescent lights. The sign itself had faded to barely visible gray lettering. “This one I don’t think I can stretch to any form of the truth.”

“If we go with remodeled this century, it might work. We are only twenty-five years into the new millennium.”

Merry nailed Sabine with a look of overdramatic disbelief, then they both laughed as they entered the office, the door jingling as it hit a bell above the entrance. Inside smelled of air conditioning mildew, forgotten cigarettes from when people smoked indoors, and bleach. Behind what looked like bulletproof glass with a small passthrough underneath sat a largish woman knitting a brown something. The space on the customer side was chipped tiled floor, a plastic tree with more leaves on the tile than the outside autumn leaves had dropped for tomorrow’s beginning of fall, and two chairs with their pretend leather seats cracked from age.

“Welcome to The Grand Sleeps Motor Lodge. How can I help you girls?” the woman asked as she set aside her knitting needles.

“Room for two. Separate beds if possible.” Sabine said, moving her purse to pull out her wallet. “Just for the one night. You take Visa, right?”

“Sure thing. We accept all major credit cards. I will also need a driver’s license.” The woman tapped the pass-through in front of her. The white linoleum had been worn down to wood in the valley.

Sabine shoved the two requested pieces of plastic through the dip.

Pulling out the computer tray from under the computer desk covered with yarn, the woman tapped a couple of keys and then ran the back of Sabine’s driver’s license under the red beam of a scanner after which she knocked the credit card against a second machine in the typical tap to pay manner before returning them. “All set,” she said before passing an actual set of keys through the passthrough with a large faded blue plastic number attached. “I set you up for room nine, just four doors down on your left. That one got freshened today so you should be all good.”

“That was fast, thanks.”

“Yep, we are all modernized here. Enjoy your stay. Put the keys into the key drop in the morning and we should be square.”

(words 672; first published 3/11/2026)

Created for a writer’s guild meeting off a visual prompt of a landscape picture.

Flash: Magical Menace Mode Part Two – Special Meeting

Erin Penn Leave a comment


ID 235386222 | Pink Wand © Chernetskaya | Dreamstime.com

Jennie shifted her bag to quickly unbuckle the shoulder strap and hop out of the car as soon as they got to Bill’s house; her dad needed to get to the Sunday evening service. “When will you need pick-up?” he asked as they pulled along the curb.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said, moving like Houdini to extract from the sedan to escape the litany of questions she already had survived—who will be there, is a parent going to be there, what are you planning on doing. “I’ll get Chris to drive me home.”

“I don’t know. It’s February and ice can be tricky, especially for new drivers.”

Stepping out of the car, shouldering her bag, she held the door open a moment to point at the driveway, “No worries, that is the Escalade in the drive, looks like they just arrived, and he has one of the chauffeurs with him.”

“Ah, I see. Robbie. Okay then. Curfew is eleven; tonight is a school night.”

“Daddddd—”

“Do you want it to be the normal nine?”

“Thanks, Dad. I love you lots.” Jennie shoved the door shut and rushed away. Catching up with Chris and his driver as Mrs. Dinniman opened the front door. “Hey Mrs. D! Is Bill upstairs?” Jennie asked as Bill’s mom stepmom stepped aside to let the three of them in and started walking to the staircase.

“Yes, he is. Meghan is already up there. Remember, the door stays open.”

Jennie bounded up the stairs, Chris saying a quick “Mrs. D” before taking them two at a time with his long legs.

The woman welcomed the other adult behind them. “Hello Robert, I was about to put on a kettle for some tea and was planning on catching some Antique Roadshow or CSI. Bill already absconded with the pie, but he left two pieces behind…”

The adult voices faded behind the teenagers as they turned down the “L” shaped hall of the second story. Bill’s bedroom door was open on the left side. Inside, Meghan had shoved piles to the side on Bill’s desk to work on her advanced chemistry class. Bill laid on his stomach on his bed working on the English Shakespeare assignment, swiping through on his tablet. When the other two of the newspaper crew arrived, Bill swung up to armgrip Chris in welcome. They pounded each other’s backs.

Bill and Jennie exchanged awkward glances before a microhug. Jennie continued to walk in to drop her bag beside the chair Meghan was in, hugged Meghan, and then dropped down beside the bag in her normal spot when they met at Bill’s place. Chris and Meghan did a finger wave at each other, before Chris and Bill belly flopped onto the bed, which groaned under their combined weight.

Both of the boys had been shooting up faster than they had been putting on muscle, but Bill was five nine, and Chris passed six foot at the start of Junior year. His father had been a power forward in the NBA, and he still stood at six nine. Chris took after him, even playing the same position in the Washington Wigwams, and though he looked completely stretched out, every last bone was covered in dense lean muscle making him a deadly power forward with the scholarship to his father’s alma mater already sewn up while he was still a Junior.

Meghan rotated the desk chair to face the room. “Alright, what is the big secret that made you drag me out on the one night I had off this week?” She stared at Chris, who was usually the leader of the group.

“Not me this time.” He held up his hands in denial. “Bill said I had to be here. I’m just glad because it gets me an extra day to see if this tooth will heal. My parents are going to kill me when they found out I had another tooth knocked loose on the paint.”

“It’s still loose?” Jennie asked. He had called her last night after he had gotten home from the away game since she was the night owl of the friend group.

“Wiggling like a wigwam.”

“Dude, you got to stop throwing elbows with people.” Bill said beside him.

“Not my fault this time. The Roosters came to Play and Play Hard with home field advantage after the trouncing we gave them last time, and Damien is a monster of a Senior. I think he had gotten held back a year at some point.” Chris touched his front tooth gingerly before smiling. “We still beat them by twenty points.”

“So if not you, then who?” Meghan refocused them.

Jennie raised her hand slowly. “That would be me…mostly…and Bill…kind-of.”

“And why couldn’t this a Discord?”

“Bill, could you…”

“Gotcha.” The seventeen-year-old grabbed one of his pillows and tossed it at the open door, closing it.

Jennie inhaled deeply before putting her backpack into her lap and unzipping the top. “Okay, first off this is yours…” she passed a red-banded wad of one hundred five dollar bills up to where Meghan sat, “and this one is yours.” Jennie tossed another wad to where Chris lay on the bed.

“Jennie…this is.” Meghan fanned the money confirming everything within was fivers. “What is this? Did you rob a bank?”

Chris handled his wad, lifting it up and down with a consideration mask on his face before setting it aside on the bed.  He had a game face firmly in place.

“No. Um.” Jennie looked up at Meghan. “I don’t think so?”

Bill blurted out. “She waved her magic wand and the money appeared.”

“She what now?” “The fuck?”

Jennie pulled out the ostentatious pink plastic wand they had given her at the Christmas party from her backpack and shook it a little. “Bill did a big wish and I waved my magic wand and money appeared.” She nodded to the two wads she had just given out. “There were four piles. Since his wish was for just $500, we figured it was one for each of us. It happened Thursday in the newsroom.”

“You’re kidding,” said Chris after he and Meghan stared at them for a long moment.

“You’re not kidding.” Meghan said seconds later.

“Nope.” “No cap.” “Jinx.”

Silence followed until Bill broke it with, “So….now can we try for enough money to get me a car?”

“No.” Jennie said sharply.

“Hell, no.” said Chris. “Nerd…and nerdettes…if you even need money, let me know. I got you.”

“What is your allowance anyway?” Jennie asked. The group didn’t talk much about Chris’ situation. His dad left the NBA after his mother had a stroke to take over the family pie-making business, which was already two manufacturing bakeries delivering to supermarkets throughout the state. Under his direction, it had expanded to cover four states and was moving to open facilities in a fifth state this summer. The multi-million-dollar company never had taken the stock route to raise capital; the family still owned everything personally. But they worked and worked hard at it, and Chris’ dad insisted he attend public school and made sure the local public school had been worth attending.

“It got changed to a paycheck with I started working after turning sixteen.”

“Your dodging, Stretch.” Meghan complained.

“Forty-three thousand a year.”

“43!” “Your fucking kidding!” “Wow, that is…” The rest of the group sputtered.

“No way that is a part-time salary on the books.” Jennie’s eyes narrowed; she shook the wand at him, enjoying the sparkle and the whoosh of the tinsel tassel.

“I got a bonus for that project we did in seventh grade, encouraging one of the bakeries to go all solar. Remember, we got them to cover the roof.”

“Those big flat manufacturing roofs just beg for solar panels.” Meghan muttered.

“Right, and we got the parking lot covered too since Jennie was going hard in her green phase.” Chris rolled to sit up. “Anyway, you remember the expectation that the break-even would be about five years, if ever? They were worried about maintenance. It was three because they put in the data center in the next county over and drove up everyone’s water and electrical as a result. Even with adjusting for maintenance and repairs, I get ten percent of the savings for the bonus idea as part of my pay because of the ‘We Want Your Ideas’ program to encourage line workers. The bonus only applies to the first five years, so it wasn’t suppose to be anything, but it turned into a big deal with the data center, so I got everything bundled once I turned sixteen in March spread out over my first year’s salary.”

He leaned forward on his knees. “Guys, you were part of the presentation and the research and all of that. You helped make it happen. I was going to wait until summer, but each of you was going to get a quarter of the bonus. Only fair.”

Jennie pulled her legs against her body. “How much?” she whispered.

“Well, after taxes, me and Mr. Pierce in accounting worked it out to be a little under four thousand each.” Chris shrugged. “And it may be more. My job this summer is to implement it for every plant that is cost effective. Right now, I’m working with the planners for the North location to have it all built-in. I was hoping to see if any of you guys would be available to be my assistants come summer. I was still working things out with HR; they don’t want to finalize anything until you are all over seventeen. The laws for sixteen years old make them twitchy.”

“I’m in.” Bill stated immediately.

Laying her head on her knees, Jennie said quietly. “I could…yeah. Not doing fast food again would be nice.”

“I’m already committed to early-in.” Meghan reported. “I’ll be leaving on June 30th.”

Jennie snapped her head around. “You did not sit on telling us that.”

“I did. Because I knew you would be like this.”

Bill held up his hand. “I want it known I do not have any secrets.”

“Other than being bi?” Jennie snapped.

“Hardly a secret.”

Chris held up the bundled cash wad of $500. “I don’t need this and some of you do, why don’t you—”

“Can’t.” Jennie jumped in. “I…it has to go to you. Figure out a charity or something. It…” her eyes unfocused as she tried to figure out what she was feeling, “…if you don’t want it, it has to go to someone with a true need that you…personally…want to help. An individual.” Her eyes cleared as she looked around the room. “That seems to be part of the rules. Small, individual, needs.”

“Oooookay, witchy woman.” Chris got off the bed to put the money into his backpack. “I’ll figure out someone that meets that requirement. I usually donate to the animal shelter and to that eco-group you had hooked me up with, but I don’t think those meet the requirements.” He tucked the money away, then around to sit on the floor opposite Jennie, stretching out his long legs. “Meghan, call us to order.”

“The special meeting of news nerds is called to order at…” Meghan tapped her tablet awake, “…eight thirty-four, Chris Fletcher presiding, Meghan Gomez secretary, Jennie Williams vice president, and Bill Dinniman hosting.”

“Jennie, you called the special meeting.” Chris prompted.

“Well, newflash. I may have a magic wand.” Jennie unfurled her legs and waved the wand again.

“Are you sure?” Meghan asked.

Jennie set the wand between her and Chris. “Not at all. We only have two eye witnesses, and one of them had their eyes closed at the moment the money allegedly materialized. No one else was in the room. But circumstantial evidence points to something unusual and outside the normal laws of physics occurring. I have a personal bias toward magic, so my judgement might be compromised.”

Meghan, Jennie, and Chris looked at Bill. “I was in the room. We were talking about the weekend, I think, and I needed about five hundred dollars for a fundraiser so I could bow out of that, which would free me up to attend the Model United Nations practice. We joked about making the money appear and Jennie, the witch in question, asked me to close my eyes and wish real hard, which I did. The money was for Pierce’s Eagle Scout and after all he had done for me to get mine, I didn’t want to let him down, but Carrie Jones and Eve Rodsky both wanted extra work with MUN and I am trying to figure out which to take to prom and I had to be there too. It was tough and I wished super hard. When I opened my eyes, the money, wrapped in four groups of $500 was on the floor. I don’t believe I was the cause. I have wished numerous times for money and things, and you all know how much I want my own car, and nothing along these lines have ever happened. Evidence would indicate the story lies in a different direction.”

He smirked at everyone. “And, yes, I realize the irony of the photographer having his eyes closed during something this big, but what are you going to do?”

“Jennie,” Chris looked across at her, “Bill here has a reasonable rebuttal against him being the cause of this…”

“Disruption of reality.” Meghan provided.

“Thank you. Disruption of reality. What other things can you report since his eyes were closed.”

“Well, I had the wand in my hand. I had been enjoying listened to the tassel of tinsel whoosh.” She picked up the wand to demonstrate, with a shake. “Once Bill had his eyes closed I said ‘Abracadabra’”—Meghan made a sound, interrupting Jennie, but then said quietly “sorry, continue”—“right, and I circled it around, the floor like this and flicked it.” Jennie demonstrated the movement but nothing happened. “Then there was money.”

“Right,” Chris said. “Meghan, you had something?”

“I was watching the voice to text writing things out and saw the mention of a ‘tassel of tinsel.’” Meghan gestured to the wand. “There isn’t a tassel.”

“Sure there is.” Jennie asserted, waving the wand again, watching the shimmer on the tassel wrapped just below the wand foiled headpiece.

“No,” Chris said gentle, “there is no tassel.”

Jennie looked up at Bill and he answered, “No tassel that I can see.”

“But it is right here!”

“Eyewitness account are the most problematic.” Meghan assured Jennie.

Bill interjected. “But, if it is Magic, for real, maybe she can see something we can’t.”

Chris nodded. “Jennie, describe the wand to us in detail.”

“No, wait,” Meghan said, “let’s all draw the wand as we see it before we get influenced by what she is seeing.”

“Do you have crayons to draw this princess perversion?” Jennie waved her wand again.

“Do I got crayons?” Bill snorted before hopping off his bed and going to his art closet. “Do you want crayons, magic markers, colored pencils, or a camera?”

“No camera,” Meghan said. “We had pictures at Christmas and nothing looked wrong there, so the photo lies. Actually Bill, can you pass a photo around of Jennie with the wand?”

“Sure, let me boot up the monster. I downloaded it from my phone ages ago.” Bill moved to sit in Meghan’s lap, but she hopped out of the way and joined the other two on the floor.

While everything was coming online on his heavily graphics-oriented computer, Meghan stood back up and went to the art closet and pulled out paper for each person. Jennie asked for pencils and Chris for markers. They started drawing while Bill waited to open his computer, get the software up, and searched the files for the Christmas party with the whole high school newspaper and their advisor. “Here is Jennie with her award and gift. Wizard-in-chief.”

“Jennie, do you see a tassel?” Meghan asked.

“Yes.”

“Anyone else, does it look different on the screen than on the floor here?”

Everyone reported no difference.

“Okay, it is nine-thirty. Draw for another ten minutes.” Chris ordered before asking, “Anyone have a ten curfew tonight?”

“I got to kick everyone out at ten-thirty.” Bill said as he started to draw the picture on his screen using his graphics software.”

“I’m good until eleven if you can drive me home, Chris.” Jennie said from where she was curled up against one of Bill’s bookcases drawing.

“I got you covered.” Chris assured her. “How about you Meghan?”

“I can text Mom and say you will drop me off between ten-thirty and eleven.”

“Okay, I such at drawing, this is as good as it gets.” He laid his drawing facedown, then stood up. “I’ll let Mr. Blue know the plan and be right back.”

(words 2,813, first published 2/1/2026)

Magical Menace Mode Series

  1. Magical Menace Mode (1/25/2026)
  2. Magical Menace Mode Part 2: Special Meeting (2/1/2026)

Flash: Magic Menace Mode

Erin Penn Leave a comment

ID 236270372 | Pink Wand © Chernetskaya | Dreamstime.com 

“Magic Menace Mode activated!” I whispered with force.

“What are you doing Jennie?” Deborah who sits in the seat next to me asked.

My palms tingled from holding my fists tightly. “Shh. I just want out of here,” I said as I opened them up and shook them out.

“Don’t we all?” Deborah used her stylist to scratch down the next day’s reading assignment, or to doodle. It really didn’t really matter which.

The class was bullshit, put together by the overlords of the odious. Whitewashed lies unusable in the futurescape of the blinking minutes of mankind. History, math, English, science. None of it matters when computers will read, think, and create for us. Even voting isn’t going to be a thing much longer. Everyone knew that.

But if Magic worked, the rules would change.  Imagine everyone with purple skin. Try to pick out people-of-color for target practice when colors vary for lilac to royal! Would light or dark became the new focus?

I recorded the three chapters to read tonight and the fifteen questions we were to turn in and flipped the notebook cover close on the flatscreen. Three minutes left in class before bell. Then I had newspaper, which no one read, lacrosse which no one came out for, and a musical practice, where no one sang on key but the parents will sing praises of. I could slip in the reading somewhere in there; my tablet had enough charge to pull that off.

I waited for the classroom to empty, the teacher darting out first to make it to the parent lines. Another stupidity. No buses to save tax money; instead all the parents left work early and waiting in long lines with engines running, angry at the wait. That wasn’t saving time, money, resources, or anyone’s sanity. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I made my way to the newspaper room.

Bill was waiting for me; he lost his key the second day.

Him losing the key was a ritual. Every year since sixth grade all of us news nerds would get a key, he would lose his between the first and fifth day. As a freshman, he managed it without even leaving the room. Then Meghan would misplace hers sometimes around Christmas, and finally Chris sometime in March. I was the keykeeper for the group by default.

“S’up.” Bill followed me in the room, before bearing off to head toward the graphics computer to download the pictures he had taken today and see if any of the ones other kid emailed in were usable by administration rules. “Meg working today?”

“Fast food. She left last period.”

“It’s gonna hurt when she graduates this year.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” I booted up the ancient monster we use for article assembly and formatting, and did a quick scan of the articles Chris approved for Friday’s publication. It was his quarter as editor-in-chief, a job that bounced between him and me and one of the freshmen we were training up to take over when the Junior crew graduated; Meghan had pushed four years of schooling into three years by attending college courses over the summer. Chris did most of his work during lunch now that basketball season was at its height.

After twenty minutes of quiet clicking, me doing a lot of format tweaking, we both sighed. Mine was because of the ancient software which thought if you moved something one line it needed to pop it over fifteen points had finally agreed to fit everything but the last page into the space needed. It took a delicate hand and earned me the prize of grand wizard at the party before winter break. The group bought me a wand for my Hogwarts and Kane Chronicle obsessions. Bill’s sigh was because he had finished flipping through the pictures from the week and had flagged the ones for me to put in our “This Week at Washington Wigwam” back-page spread.

“Ten minutes until practice.” I said before I picked up the plastic monstrosity of a wand they had given me, with its humongous pale pink gem and silver foil decorations, and started waving it around randomly.

Bill rotated his neck, cracking it loud enough I worried he had broken his spine for a moment. “MUN wants to do an all-day special practice Saturday and my Boy Scout troop has a fundraiser and I can’t decide which to go to or would look better for the college applications I’m filling out.”

The newsroom was full of overachievers, from Bill’s Model United Nations, Eagle Scout, and track commitments to Meg three advanced college credit courses plus two part-time jobs. Some days I felt like the lost cause; my family didn’t have college funds, so unless someone would offer me a free ride including a way to get to university and back and housing and food, it was the salt trenches for me after graduation next year. My present virtual job editing (and writing, shh, if you pay enough) essays for high school students wasn’t much for resume fodder, especially with AI muscling into my territory so strongly this past year.

“Maybe I could wave this wand and you and I could get an extra $100.” I shook the plastic toy, the tinsel tassel shushing with movement.

“Make if five hundred and I will be able to dodge the fundraiser.”

I smiled at him, rotating the chair to face him. “Deal, you wish really hard now.”

He laughed and put both his hands alongside his head and scrunched his face, closing his eyes. “Go!”

“Abracadabra.” I circled the wand over the floor, and then flicked it over the center of the area I had delineated. “Bammo!”

I inhaled sharply.

“Did it work?” Bill asked jokingly, then opened his eyes to discover it had indeed worked.

Stacked on the floor were four neat bundles of five dollars, each strapped together in red bands indicating a hundred bills in each pack.

“I think that is a little more than we asked for,” he muttered.

“To be fair, all three of you bought me the wand, so I guess the extra two are for Meghan and Chris.”

“Want to try that again?” he glanced up at me. “Ten thousand would get me a car.”

“No, no.” I shook my head, staring down at the windfall. “Not today.”

(words 1,061; first published 1/25/2026)

Flash: Jacks and Sleds

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Ivan Lopatin on Unsplash

Mason finished setting the new, undamaged piston rod in place, holding the half of the broken rod between his teeth and the rest of it behind one ear as he hung upside down in the engine. Reaching as far as he could, blood rushing to his head, he rotated the crankshaft with his fingertips, moving all four of the replaced rods smoothly.

One steam engine repaired.

Pushing up, backing out, and twisting sidewides, then stopping a moment to get unstuck from the broken rods catching on things and making sure nothing else broke on the vehicle, he finally escaped and landed on his feet in the good solid Midwest clay soil. A deep inhale reminded his lungs how they worked, and blood returned to his feet, making him lightheaded.

“All fixed, Fat Man.” Mason eyed the jackalopes chowing down a bison carcass before turning to his customer. Damn stupid, if you asked him to take those psychotic carnivorous bunnies with razor sharp antlers and teach them to fly, but he and Santa didn’t shoot the breeze much. “Try not to bounce her off any more buttes.”

“You are a good man, Mason Carter.” The large man approached his steampowered ride. He knocked his boots against it and climbed aboard.

Mason snorted. “Sure Nick, I believe that based on all the coal I got growing up.”

Picking up the reins tightened them. The jacks raised their bloody mouths from their feast and hissed. The man-in-red’s voice rumbled out, “You are a good man, but you were a very naughty boy.”

“That I was.” Mason tucked his thumbs into his Levi’s. “Still am according to Amy.”

“Your woman should know naughty.”

“That she should. But she is a good a girl as they come, now.”

Nick touched the brim of his straw hat. “Thanks again for coming out at midnight. Presents are under the tree and payment in the bin.”

“See ya around, Fat Man.”

“Tell your granddad I said hi.” Santa clicked his teeth and the jacks came to attention, two dozen of those crazies leaped together, once, twice, the steam engine screamed, and the sled took to the sky.

The bison blood and skeleton faded, as these thing were wont to do when the magic recedes from the word of modern man. Mason focused on the Fisher constellation as he moved back into the world he lived in most days. White glittering against the eye-burning black circled counter reality for a heady moment before wobbling rainbows trailed into his mundane world, a single moon visible in the December Christmas night sky.

After tossing the metal rods into a very particular pile for melting down later, he walked wearily from his clapboard workshop next to the railroad tracks to his adobe house. Slipping into the warm building, he checked the tree, noting the presents had doubled to eight, and tucked the stuffed coyote his grandfather had given him back into his son’s arms. His granddad was such a narcissist and was tickled pink his great-grandson looked so much like him.

Poor kid. Life isn’t easy for those of his bloodline that see through the veil, and little Lucas could see everything. Mason hovered over the crib, just breathing and watching the baby blowing bubbles into the fur of the stuffed toy, the little chest raising and lowering with each precious moment of life.

The mundane beat out magic any day.

When the chill air had thwarted the overheated cheeks from hanging upside down, Mason climbed under the wedding ring quilt his wife had been gifted from her ex-coworkers at the Last Ace Saloon. He pulled her back gently against his front, and she wiggled into place. Kissing her shoulder, he snuggled deep into their joint nest.

“Everything good,” Amy sighed, more asleep than awake.

“Yeah, I got Nick back on his way.”

“I hope you got paid this time.”

His late-night customers rarely paid in coin or livestock, and the complicated trade of favors between supernaturals was beyond anything his woman needed knowing. She understood his grandfather made sure they would never go hungry, but in return for that wealth of support his grandson might need to crawl out of bed at midnight on a Christmas. That was enough for her. Food and safety for her and her littles. Mason’s hand drifted across her soft belly and kissed her shoulder again. “He dumped a load of coal into the bin for us. No worries about heat this winter.”

(words 750; first published 1/18/2026; written 1/14/2026 – Joined a new writer’s group this week (1/13/2026). The challenge given to each person in the group to bring to the next meeting was write a 750-word story based on a random roll. Mine was – character: A Man; plot: gets stuck in Santa’s sleigh; setting: in the Wild West.)