Tag: Contemporary

Flash: Ann Kirlin draws

Erin Penn

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

“Knock, knock.” Kirlin said, pretending to knock on the frame of my open door. She came in and flounced into one of the leather chairs in front of my desk. “Tippitt.”

She left it at just a name. I was impressed she made it nearly four weeks before coming to me. Her predecessor hadn’t made it a day. The one before that set a record of forty-two days, but that was because she had been in quarantine with COVID for four weeks.

I closed my laptop and moved it to the left, then laced my hand and waited, appreciating her efforts at colorful business attire. The bright red shirt with the embroidered bolero jacket matched the rose clips holding back her hair. The red against my pale skin would look like death; I squashed the envy.

“Don’t get me wrong, he is absolutely brilliant, but he is also absolutely infantile. My two-year old has a better grasp of reality. Really Dr. Gallagher, how come he doesn’t drive you crazy?”

Time to explain the care and feeding of the development teams, especially the Green and Yellow ones.

I moved my scratch paper over and picked up a pen to fiddle with. “I don’t manage what Tippitt does. It makes my life easier.”

“What? You’re the vice president for development.” Kirlin waved her hand around. “The best ever according everyone in the department.”

“Really, well, that is nice to know. The metrics says the turnover is down.” Nil since I took over three years ago, except for the administrative assistants and that is only because I had a special project I was working on with them. “And patents are up, so I’m glad to hear word on the street that people are satisfied.” I sighed, “Except you sound like you have an issue.”

“It’s just Tippitt being Tippitt near as I can tell. But … Tippitt!” Hands got thrown in the air. “Like yesterday, the calendar popped up saying to remind him to call his mom about her birthday. Like a scheduled reminder.”

“Did you remind him?” I smiled, knowing what normally happens.

“I not only reminded him, I nagged him, and eventually grabbed his phone, opened it and called his mother and handed it to him when I got back from transferring David to daycare.”

I didn’t comment about her having the ability to open his phone.

“I take it, that was effective?”

She rolled her eyes. “He was still talking to her when I clocked out. But, man, why couldn’t he just call her on his own?”

“Have you ever dealt with your geniuses before? I am not talking about smart people or high IQ people, but people who when you give them two and two, you will get an orangutan.”

Kirlin snorted at that example. “No, not really.”

“You don’t manage these types of people. Just guide them.” Glancing down at my sketch, I saw yet another attempt to solve the problem I ran into for my private project. Three months and I still haven’t figured out how get the water tension at the scale needed for the miniaturization. I might need to corner Kolbash. “For Tippitt, and most of the others, I just give them the space to do what they does. Less headache and a whole lot more accomplishments results. It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to explain to the board, but it gets the work done and keeps the ulcers away.”

“So you just let the five teams go their own way?”

I pulled the sheet off and crumbled it, tossing it into my little stack I go through during my four hours of play on company time. “Not exactly. Like I said, I guide them. Sometimes as intense as you did with the phone call to keep them on project, and other times, well, I hope it doesn’t get bad.”

“And how often is Tippitt bad?:

“Oh, you just had to ask.” I tapped the pen on the pad. :Umn, so you know how some people have a green touch and can grow any plant?”

Kirlin took one of my balls of paper and started to smooth it out. “Sure.”

“Well, Tippitt has the fecal touch.” She frowns at my drawing and reaches for another. Part of me wanted to keep my project private, but I had reached the point any consultation could benefit me. I pushed the pile to her. “Anything he touches can and will become a shitstorm unless handled properly. But, on the plus side, just like things growing wonderfully in shit, what comes out the other end just might be something beautiful. Or really smelly.”

“How smelly?”

“You worked in security.” I pointed at two drawings she was comparing. “Condenser but the scale is mircons.”

She nodded her understanding.

“You remember the OSHA visit a couple months ago because of complaints from neighboring companies about an afterhours light show?”

“Yes. Sumpter and Niemeyer had to escort the inspectors for two days.”

“Well, someone,” who I later had a long talk at, “told Tippitt the lights weren’t bright enough on the panel for people to distinguish.”

Kirlin raised her eyes to mine. “What … what did he do?”

“He figured out how to increase the LED luminosity by a factor of three.” I rubbed the back of my head, remembering that headache. “With no change in wattage or significant change in equipment.”

“That isn’t possible!”

“Yeah, I wish.” I shrugged. “But, new patent! Well, two. And a visit from OSHA that had me in meetings with the board for a week. Shitshow and flowers.”

She laughed. “That sounds like Chuck.”

I did not comment about her using his nickname.

“Yeah, I have an ongoing bet with Pantuso that if I can have customer give me a legit complaint about how dangerous gravity is for their instruments that Tippitt,” or Kolbash over on the Yellow Team but she doesn’t need to know we got two crazies regularly endangering the building, “will invent anti-gravity or null gravity.”

“I can see that happening,” she pulled a pen out of her messy bun, “Love the man.”

That is what I am hoping for. Matchmakers are us. Happily married couples stayed with companies that took care of them and their families. And keeping someone happy who adds to the bottom line to the tune of hundreds of millions every year was high on my priority list.

“So, what are you trying?” I tilted my head to see how she was changing my design.

“If I understand the problem, the water surface tension is creating blockages because water molecules bond differently at the micro level. But if you change the shape, like this …”

Oh, I am liking her art degree a lot.

(words 1,127; first published 12/6/2023)

A Match for Green Team Series

  1. Ann Kirlin transfers (1/16/22)
  2. Ann Kirlin draws (2/13/22)

Flash: You Have Mail

Erin Penn

83063602 © creativecommonsstockphotos | Dreamstime.com

“You got mail.” Bryan’s mother yells as he tries to rush from the front door to his bedroom before getting dragged into his family’s daily drama.

Well, that was a new way to get my attention, he thinks as he goes over to the pile of unpaid bills, second notices, final notices, advertisements, announcements, and other pieces of postal paper tilting off the table inside the front door. He digs down one level to find it. While there, he pulls out all the circulars, political ads, and other non-money crap so that the pile wouldn’t fall over anymore, and took the lot to his room for final processing and junking. The junking took seconds, just a look-through in case he grabbed anything wrong or something fell between circular pages.

Leaving thick white envelope. Just his name and address. In the upper corner where a return address normally would go is an anime emoji of a cat smiling. Daffney? She always signed her texts with that. What did she need to send through the mail? How did she even know his address? They were just internet friends since graduating high school, and he had been evicted from at least six places since the last time they physically met up.

Sliding a finger to pry open the flap, Bryan dumps out a key and a sheet of paper with an address and a line saying “Locker Number 117.” The number matched the number stamped on the key.

“Girl, what are you playing?” he says pulling out his phone and immediately texts that exact question to Daffney. While waiting for an answer, Bryan snaps a picture of the address, has his phone read it and run it through the map app. The address is identified as a business and a second tab opens showing the hours of operation. Another two hours until close and the map app says it is less than ten minutes from where he lived.

Why not? I need to get food anyway.

He yanks off the vest from his retail job, throws it on the pile of mostly clean clothes in one corner of his miniscule bedroom, and picks up the flannel jacket hanging off the hook by his door. After the sacred check of Key, Phone, Wallet, Charm, Bryan heads back out to the bus station. His mother yells something to which he just responds “Out!”

He isn’t sure she was yelling at him, her most recent boyfriend, or one of his half-siblings. Still, his answer stood. And there was no second yell he heard through the closing door, so it wasn’t that important.

The bus ride takes more like thirty, making it full dark by the time he arrives, but a fast food is at the stop, a few doors from the storage facility. Bryan picks up some burgers and a drink from the dollar menu, then beats feet down the sidewalk, feeling the night crowding, until he safe inside the lit locker area, nodding at the attendant as he passes. Juggling the bag of food, he checks his phone. Daffney hasn’t responded yet. He shoves the bag under his arm, places the phone in his pocket, running a finger over the charm he keeps there and sighing in relief upon feeling the active hum, and then pulls out the key.

Inside the small wall locker is a box about the size of a shoe box. The dingy box has been crushed, uncrushed, taped, retaped, duct taped, and had a mismatched lid firmly mashed on.

“Really, girl?” Bryan shakes his head, lifting the lid. The box is stuffed, a pristine white letter on top with a pile of well-handled money underneath. The numbers and faces on the bills look different than normal, not the ones and fives he is used to. “What the fuck?” He pulls the letter out, shoves the lid back on the money, looks around to make sure no one noticed his reaction, then shoves the box back in and relocks the wall locker.

Dear Bryan,

If you are reading this, I’m gone. Sorry about that, but we’ve talked about it enough it shouldn’t be a surprise.

“Oh, girl.” Bryan feels a sob catch. They talked a lot in high school while in detention, less so since, but their lives hadn’t gotten better since graduation.

It was painless and don’t worry, the body will never be found.

The money is yours. It’s not much but it’s everything I got. You know Beth stole everything and Curry broke what she didn’t steal. No way was I leaving them anything to find. They took enough from me.

Good luck. Maybe this can help you get out of your situation.

I’m out of mine.

Daffney

PS The locker is paid for until the end of the year. Empty it before then.

“What did you do?”

He willed the letter to make new sentences, reveal new information, but nothing.

The money would need to go somewhere his parents would not find. They weren’t as bad as hers were; they never actually hit him.

But still.

He’ll come back for it tomorrow first thing in the morning and run by a bank before work. A different one from normal. Because sure as the undead walk the night, his mother would ask for “her” chunk if she found out about this windfall. And each time she asks, her chunks keep getting bigger. even though the bills never seemed to get paid.

(Words 847; first published 2/6/2022)

Series – No Regrets, All Dead

  1. Prepping a Meal (Zombie Version) – Link to 1/25/2022
  2. You Have Mail – Link to 2/6/2022
  3. Naked Truth – Link to 2/20/2022

Flash: Ann Kirlin transfers

Erin Penn

Photo by Huawei Nova 4 on Unsplash

“Knock, knock.” Ann Kirlin poked her head into my office. “I heard you needed another admin assistant in development and was wondering if you would be up to me transferring over.”

I looked her up and down. The brunette had a latino flair about her, from her wavy hair caught back in a messy bun to bright colors for her nails and clothing. Dark eyes had khol shadowing, giving them unexpected depth. Plump and maybe in her late twenties, early thirties. Rings on some of her fingers but none on the left ring finger. She could do.

“Sure, have a seat and I’ll let you know what you are in for.” I gestured to the comfortable chair in front of me. “Got a resume on you?” Giving a quick glance over the sparce notes on her bullet point sheet while she sat, I noted a hole about three years after college that lasted for five years before she got hired last year here. That would line up perfect with a small child or two after marriage, then reentering the workforce when the younger one hit day care. Maybe not so perfect for my needs. Now how to ask about the home situation without asking about a home situation, although with an internal transfer I have a lot more leeway on all those pesky human resource limitations. The minor in physics provided some hope; I wonder how that dovetailed into her applied art major.  “Not happy over in security?”

“No, I love it there.” She smoothed her tie-dyed skirt. “Mostly. At least once a week they send me over to support the call center, and I cover the entry desks from eleven to three so they can each take a lunch hour. That leads to a very broken day, but it does let me have my lunch between three and four so I can pick up David from kindergarten and drop him off at the daycare near where his father works.”

“If you transfer to us, would you still need that window as your lunch?” An incoming email notice grabbed my focus for a second. Annoyed, I snapped the laptop closed then moved it aside before placing her resume on the blotter in front of me and breaking out some scratch paper.

“Would that still be an option?”

“Of course. One of the benefits of being in development is making your own hours. Though as admin for the Green group, the position we need to fill, you will need to match up your hours to best support the lead and his support staff.” I laughed a little. “Actually what they need is someone to be here during normal working hours to answer the phones and take messages. The administration assistant duties will also include scheduling conferences, filling out material requests, dealing with the lawyer team for the patents, and some personal duties.” I knocked my pen against my pad when I say this last task.

“Personal duties?”

“Yeah,” Placing my pen on my blotter, I scratched the back of my head. “This is why the last one gave notice. The guys on the Green team forget things like drycleaning, eating, getting gas for their car, buying presents for family. And by team, I mostly mean Tippitt, though Furr really does need help keeping his wife happy.”

“Dr. Tippitt?” Kirlin looked confused. “I’ve talked to him in line at the employee cafeteria. He doesn’t seem the distracted type.”

I leaned forward, I guess a bit suddenly considering how Kirlin moved back in her seat. “Tippitt talked with you?”

“Yes. He and I like the Mexican bar options and bump into each other a lot when I am grabbing snacks to eat while I am covering the entry desks.” She shrugged. “I think that is when he is coming in to work.”

“Yeah, he likes the noon to eight shift, maybe midnight.” Rubbing my face, the thought of this week’s time sheets needing sorting out brought on the edge of a headache. Green team wasn’t the only development team whose standard working hours defied definition. “I’m glad to hear you already have a relationship with him.”

“He is the one who told me that the position opened up and recommended I apply for it.”

“Really!” I couldn’t keep the wonder out of my voice. Scrambling to find something to cover it, I said, “Toni only gave notice this morning. I didn’t know Tippitt was in yet.”

She made a face, her eyes darting around my office. “It’s nearly five. He has been at work for hours.”

“It’s Friday and he is over forty hours.” He was over forty hours on Wednesday, but that is an issue for another day. “Sometimes he doesn’t bother if he already has the hours, but I think he is right in the middle of a thought, so it makes sense. Just a couple more questions.”

“Salary?”

“Ten percent over whatever security is paying you. Plus our admin start at three weeks combined vacation and personal, doled out in hour increments so you can take the kid … David, was it? … to the doctor easily. Note that if you transfer away, your salary and leave time reverts to the standard for first year employees.”

“Oh, wow.” Kirlin blinked. “That is unexpected. Okay.”

“Now my question is your art degree.”

She made the face again, part disgust and part frustration. This time a commentary on herself instead of me. “I like doing sculpture but with a mathematical base, things like fractals and multi-dimensional shadow shapes. I thought I would be the next big thing because no one really does it outside of computer graphics, but the reason why no one does it is because no one buys it.”

“Ah, okay.” I wrote a quick note to myself. “Everyone in development gets four hours in a lab once a month to work on a project of their choice. More outside working hours if they want. And I mean everyone. That would include you. If you make something patentable, the lawyers will help getting it locked up for you, and the company has first dibs on utilizing the result but you retain control and can sell the rights to others as well. The Green team will set aside an area for you. Remember to requisition the materials you will need. Toni never participated in this benefit, but if you want to work on your sculpture, you can. Toni gave only a week’s notice, so I am really glad you are on the ball about this. Let me work out your transfer with security, but I think you should be able to begin training on Monday.” I held out my hand. “Welcome aboard.”

(words 1,121; first published 12/6/2023)

A Match for Green Team Series

  1. Ann Kirlin transfers (1/16/22)
  2. Ann Kirlin draws (2/13/22)

Flash: Jingle Balls

Erin Penn

Photo by Ussama Azam on Unsplash

“Jingle my balls,” Karen muttered carrying the metal red globe like a meteor hammer, wrapping the ribbon around her right hand. “Jingle my balls. I’ll jingle your balls alright. Enough is enough big guy.”

The office party was talked about for years to come.

(words 44, first published 9/14/2022  – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)

Flash: Light Spear Expanded

Erin Penn

Photo by Vadim Sadovski on Unsplash

“Alright people what have we got.”

The room was secret, secure, and unknown except for the people invited in, though the topic focused on what the entire planet was talking about: the light spear carving its way across the planet at incredible speeds.

Dr. Cuvier jumped in. “Estimated death toll, about 100,000 thanks to the cut through Imphal slums. Hawaii is bracing for its turn in two hours.”

“Earthquakes are subsiding. The cut is only about six millimeters wide,” Dr. Agassiz responded when eyes rotated to him from the population expert.

“We’re in America. Give me inches boy.”

The scientists around the table winced, a few breaking out their phones to do quick calculations.

“A quarter inch, a little less.” Dr. Agassiz answered promptly without the phone consult. “Atmosphere turbulence has some rain effects, making mudslides likely in Asia, and preliminary computer modeling indicate mudslides over the next few days.”

“The beam is hovering about,” the woman next around the table glanced at her phone, “a foot above sea level. ”

Someone across the table, not any of the three men in military uniform or the man in a freshly pressed suit sitting in between them, interrupted. “Wait, it’s not going below sea level? I thought it was cutting through mountains.”

The woman glanced at those in charge and the civilian nodded his head, so she responded. “Most mountains we care about are above sea level. As geology indicated, the damage from beam is about a quarter inch across, but the full light effect is closer to four feet diameter. We got eyes on it in Mexico and I have a video if anyone wants to see it. It moves too fast to verify its shape, though we suspect a perfectly round cone, but we are working with our Hawaii group for better visuals. Modeling is backtracking it and we are swinging around telescopes.”

“Thank you, Dr. Horner. Acquisition any resources you need for that modeling.” the vice president said before moving his eyes to the next in line.

“Only two satellites are down so far, working on moving the two GPS over Hawaii out of the path now.” the telecommunication specialist immediately dropped her eyes to the largest phone in the room. Those next to her noticed her screen provided real-time data; somehow it worked through the shielding and scrambling.

Dr. Horner squished down the jealousy of the specialist getting permission to bring that device in the room. She queued her note for resource acquisition to send out to her team the minute she made it back to the surface.

“Whatever the source, it’s stationary in relation to the planets,” said a man leaning back in his chair, arms crossed.

One of the military officers raised a hand, before rolling it around in a circle. “Wait, backup, how can that be? It’s going across the planet at nearly 1,000 miles per hour.”

“Actually,” Dr. Lehmann sighed the longsuffering sigh of someone used to explaining things to those less informed, “the planet is rotating about 1,000 miles per hour under the beam. The source of the light spear doesn’t have to move except to follow the planet around our star. It’s a lazy man’s solution. Lazy alien solution, I guess.”

The military man narrowed his eyes at the astrophysicist, not liking the lack of respect at all, but managed to say with flat professionalism, “Thank you.”

The doctor shrugged.

The important eyes switched sides of the table to the man who had interrupted. “Eugene, speculation?”

“Bear with me a moment. First, I want to get rid of what everyone’s first reaction is. It isn’t an alien weapon.”

“Yeah, right.” Someone muttered snidely from the brainstorming side.

“Can’t be. Too automated. This is a probe, a six-millimeter probe.”

Dr. Horner raised a finger and Eugene Bascom nodded at her. “Its damage is six-millimeters, the beam is 1.314 meters wide.”

“Good point. Thanks.” Eugene, best selling science fiction writer and Georgetown University professor of biochem leaned back to think a moment. “The beam vaporized everything.”

The white-hair hunched-back female next to him shuffled her papers. “Nothing has stopped it yet. In Mexico, they tried several reflective surfaces without effect. Diamond, platinum, even q-carbon.”

“The damage area is a probe, the rest of it is … analyzing? Yes, what is a probe without analyzing the results.”

The telecommunication specialist, who didn’t even bother with a name tag like the rest of them, spoke up, “Spectral analysis of the vaporized material.”

Eugene blinked, gulped, looked at the vice president before suggesting quietly, “It’s a mining probe.”

“Mining what?” the man in charge asked, knowing his grandson’s favorite teacher was about to give an answer he really didn’t want to hear.

The scientist eyes unfocused until the fiction writer half of his brain came back with the answer, “Atmosphere.”

“Fuck,” slipped past Dr. Horner’s lips. “Yes, that is why it focused in the area above sea level. It only cares about atmosphere. The hits on the mountains are incidental.”

“Exactly, what is five miles compared to six thousand?”

“Hey, just got a message in.” the telecommunication specialist rocked her phone, “confirmed probe activity on Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Nothing on Mercury or Venus.”

The astrophysicist snorted. “Lazy aliens indeed. Mercury and Venus have the slowest rotation rates. Venus is over 200 days.”

“And Mercury doesn’t have an atmosphere to speak of.” Dr. Bascom nodded to himself. “Solar system wide mining operation or just looking for the right planet to exploit?”

Dr. Horner winced. “Anything needing a planet’s atmosphere is likely just figuring out the right tools for the job. They are going to—”

“strip everything.” Eugene overtalked Dr. Horner and finished her sentence. “Exactly, our world, the entire system.”

“But, but,” the population expert injected, “this is a habitable planet. There are PEOPLE here.”

The professor shook his head at Dr. Cuiver’s naiveite. “Since when have exploiters cared about the indigenous people?”

“If they mine systems, they are a space-going race, likely entirely space-going.” Dr. Horner said, “And they don’t—”

“care about the planet bound at all.” Dr. Bascom interrupted.

The telecommunication specialist slapped her hand down on the table. “Stop that.”

Everyone blinked.

“Look I get it,” the woman set aside her hand-held, her dark black eyes boring in the blue eyes of the professor, “you are the smartest boy in the room in a group of very smart boys. Four to one ratio male to female. But you.will.not.interrupt.this.woman.again.” The non-doctor narrowed her eyes. “Not if you EVER want to have your computers virus free. At least, don’t interrupt Dr. Horner again today.” The tech stared at the professor until he nodded understanding, somehow both glaring in anger and looking contrite in apology at being caught out. The tech, leaned back smiling, and picked back up her phone. “Carry-on.”

The two military officers side by side on the left side of the vice president smiled at each other. “Oh, I want her as a drill sergeant.”

“Don’t patronize.” The specialist muttered, her fingers moving over the screen with her eyebrows scrunching together in concentration, before speaking clearer, louder, addressing the table in general. “Confirmed activity on Uranus, though some of you are going to have to explain to me at some point how a planet rotates vertically from the normal rotational plane. Oh, and the Jupiter probes are confirmed for the 25 parallel north, south, and is starting the 50th parallel north.”

The right-side military officer growled, “So there will be more.”

The vice president looked around the table. “Better move this upstairs where we got better communication. Dr. Horner, I want that backtrack ASAP, on all the probes. Are we dealing with one or several? Ms. Chow help her get all the computer power she needs pronto. I’ll talk to the president, y’all talk to your people, and your aides will tell you where we reconvene after lunch.”

One guy with wings on his shirt who hadn’t reported yet spoke up as people started to stand. “One thing, when you talk to the president. If this continues, the turbulence will get bad. We will need to shut down air travel. India already has done so.”

The civilian in charge grimaced. “I’ll mention that to her.”

(words 1,374, first published 9/15/2022)

Series: Light Spear

  1. Light Spear – link to 11/28/2021
  2. Light Spear Expanded – link to 12/5/2021