You are young so you shouldn’t be that
All pasty, complaisant and fat
With your mouth-ends turned down
And a grumpy-arse frown
From under your middle-aged hat

© jane jago 2017

From ‘The Engineer’ by Darran Handshaw.

“Destroy them, Engineer. I give you my command.”

“Aye aye, and so we will. Remove the aperture.”

One of the attendants pulled free another blackened hide with a circular aperture in it that limited the amount of light that entered the array. There was a bright flash of light in the image of the encampment and Actaeon could see that the tent had ignited instantaneously.

“Excellent! It is alight! Rotate element one to right by one degree. Yes, now up by one half degree. That’s three of them! And one quarter degree to the right.”

As he called out the commands and lit more and more of the enemy tents ablaze, he watched the tribemen awaken in a panic as they moved to wake others and extinguish the flames. He could hear them blowing horns in the far distance to alert the whole camp. The Ruinic tribals emerged from their tents with weapons drawn and readied, but they soon realized that it was fire they were dealing with and they ran to help extinguish the field of blazing tents. The Engineer frowned as he watched several of the tribals spill from one tent, their flailing bodies engulfed in flames. He could see them screaming through the scope, though they were much too far away for their screams to be heard. They struggled in abject horror for but a moment before they lay still, the fire flaring up as their bodies continued to burn.

“Very good, Engineer. He will wait until they are the most preoccupied and disorganized,” said the Prince, his voice snapping Actaeon out of his horror.

He’d just burned those men to death – he hadn’t realized that the tents would catch fire so quickly. It was only supposed to serve as a distraction. Even though he knew many of the tribals far off in the distance were destined for death by sword and spear, it didn’t subtract from the savage fact that he had caused those deaths by fire.

As if on cue, in the bottom left corner of the image arrived the Shieldian troopers, led by Enrion, his sword held high. Adjutant Minovo was at his side, her two swords out and flashing in a blur as she reached the first Ruinic lookout, sending his head spiraling to the side. At their flank were Trench and Wave. The duo was unmistakable with their disparity in height. As they neared the panicked tribals, Wave let loose a bolt from his crossbow and slung it over his shoulder, his own rapier a blur that sent enemies reeling to either side of him as they fell as he dodged and weaved between their spear thrusts. Trench stood behind him with his heavy maul and took care of anyone that the swordsman couldn’t handle, shattering them each in a single blow.

Indros placed a hand on Actaeon’s shoulder and spoke in a low voice that only the Engineer could hear: “Do not fail me now, Engineer. War is Death. If not theirs, then ours. Continue your work. Our countrymen are down there fighting.”

Actaeon shuddered and scratched his right arm before he continued to call his commands to Endira, lighting more and more of the encampment on fire and even using the light to blind enemy troops that turned to face the attacking Shieldians. Many tribals could be seen fleeing toward the distant forest at the foot of the mountains. A group of the tribals had begun to organize at the right side of the camp, their shields held high to block the light that swept over them from the Suntower.

 

You can Follow The Engineer on Facebook it is  is due out in late 2017.

Q1: Your main character Actaeon is something of an inventor as well as an engineer, how much of you is in him – or is there another who was your main inspiration when writing him?

Great question.  There’s definitely a bit of me in Actaeon.  Before he was a character in the novel, he was a character that I played in a game, so it is useful to stick to what you know for certain aspects.  I’m an engineer and inventor in real life, but I work in a very specific field.  Imagining what someone with an engineering mindset – a person that uses empirical evidence, can deduct clues about things around them, and create intuitive solutions to real problems – could do in a world where people only have a rudimentary understanding of things around them and in most cases no desire to learn more, was a very compelling thing to write about.  Some of Actaeon’s shortcomings too, his verbosity, nervous tics and social awkwardness are exaggerations on some of my own qualities.  It is fun to poke fun at some of those quirks through Actaeon as a character.

One big difference between myself and Actaeon is that he has the potential to use his skills for either good or evil at the start of the novel.  I think as the reader progresses into the story they’ll see that he threads his way along some very morally gray areas.  In the end, it is the other characters in the story that inspire him toward the direction he chooses with that.  It is one of the tension points of the story though and you can see how it would be easy for him to turn his back on any morals with the ways some of the people in Redemption threaten him.

Q2: Why did you decide to write The Engineer and what did you need to set in place before you could do so?

I’ve started writing probably a half dozen books before The Engineer, but I’d never finished a novel until this one.  The big difference for me with this story was that it is the true story of how I met my wife on Redemption MUSH, a text-based RPG that she had created with a friend. The fact that the story was so personal to me was certainly encouraging for me to write.

There were a few things that needed to be set in place before I could complete the novel.  One was to set aside a time to write every week to make sure I could slowly but surely finish the book.  Another key item that I wanted to do was to speak with some of my old in-game friends to see if I could include their characters in the story.  It wasn’t necessary to the story, but the inclusion of their characters certainly made the story feel more real and it was great to share the story with so many people. Everyone I spoke to gave me the go ahead and was very excited about reading the final story.  Who knows, maybe there’ll be a few spinoffs if people write their own characters’ stories.

Q3: How do you feel your experiences as a firefighter have come out in your writing?

That’s another fantastic question and one I really hadn’t considered.  They’ve certainly come out in many ways during the story, especially when injuries, explosions and fires occur.  The construction of Act’s workshop too, is designed to be virtually fireproof.

Trench and Wave are the biggest way that I can see my firefighting experiences come out though.  They are two veteran mercenaries that Actaeon hires early in the story to help protect him.  The brotherhood that those two share is quite similar to what we have in the fire service.  The two of them have been through a ton of difficult times together and they’ve learned to get through it with humor, competent teamwork and no small amount of ball-breaking.  There are a lot of traumatic events from their past that haunt them, and we hear shadows from their history as the story progresses, but they never let their experiences stop them from doing the right thing, or just their best in general.  They’ve got a rich backstory that is only hinted at and I hope to write their story one day.

Darran M. Handshaw is the author of The Engineer – his first novel, anticipated for late 2017. In addition to writing, Darran works as an R&D Engineer where he designs and invents new products and holds more than 15 patents. In his spare time, Darran is also a firefighter and EMT with his local fire department where he recently completed a two-year term as Captain. When Darran isn’t writing, inventing things, or responding to emergencies, he enjoys his time with his wife, Stefanie, and baby son, Corwin. You can follow Darran on Twitter.

We tried to catch the wind today
My fickle friend and me
But as the zephyr flew this way
My friend deserted me
We tried to catch a friend today
The winter wind and I
But as my friend came out to play
The breeze did wave goodbye
Oh you may have the wind he sighed
Should that be as you choose
Or you may have me at your side
You win one, one you lose
We tried to catch the wind today
A wind to sail us home
But fickle fate gangs aft agley
And now I cry alone

© jane jago 2017

 

Sunday lunch, and Caroline carefully masticated her roast lamb and over-cooked vegetables whilst attempting to tune out the carefully genteel tones of her mother-in-law, Marjorie, as she treated them to her own version of the Sunday sermon. Today it was immigrants. And the EU, of course. But that was a blessed relief from child care ‘hints’ and open criticism of the way she and her sister-in-law dressed, spoke, and, one very memorable Sunday indeed, even how they smelled.

‘Yaddah, Yaddah’ she thought as she tried to push the two-hour journey home, with its inevitable sugar-induced tantrums and car sickness, to the back of her mind. She must have been doing quite well, because she was dragged back to the world of serviettes and Sunday best china by a derisive snort from her left-hand neighbour. She turned a polite face to her husband’s younger brother, who wagged his head at her. Tuning back into the Sunday homily she realised why even he was pissed off. Marjorie was busily assuring her grandchildren that of course the going rate for the tooth fairy had gone up in line with inflation. About five pounds per tooth would be fair, she thought.

Caroline sighed inwardly and decided she couldn’t face any more lunch. She put her knife and fork down and fished about in her head for something uncontroversial to say.

Before she had a chance to speak, and in an almost unheard of break from the rigidly enforced etiquette which normally prevailed, her husband leaned across from his seat on the other side of the table and whispered in her ear.
‘Never mind the bloody tooth fairy. I’d rather like there to be a Shut up Mother fairy.’
In a rare moment of whimsy Caroline grinned at him. ‘You never know, there might be. But you have to invite her in.’
He grinned back at her, though the lines of tension that bracketed his mouth from the moment they arrived at his mother’s house until the moment they left were still etched into his skin. ‘I do, don’t I? Very well.’ He closed his eyes and spoke softly. ‘Shut up Mother fairy, I most humbly invite you into this house.’
He sat back in his chair, and the air filled with mocking laughter. At the head of the table Marjorie’s mouth kept right on moving, but now she no longer made a sound…

 

I wondered, lonely and so proud
My thoughts so high, oe’r window sills
When all at once I was endowed
With views through neighbours curtain frills.

I glimpsed the barest hint of skin
As through my bedroom blinds I’d peek.
To speculate who was within
The electoral roll didst seek.

I glimpsed again and flesh did see
That lofted oe’r sleek curves and tan
But then Mama did answer me:
“Moons? That new neighbour? It’s a man.”

So yet I peer the blinds between
And linger on the vision there
The secret seer, sight unseen
So it’s a man? I could not care!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

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A flash fiction written especially for us by Jayden Hunter.

Two giant eyes appeared in the sky last Tuesday.  The bright globes seemed alive, and their movements gave me the impression they were watching humanity.

Like a disembodied God.

Or a scientist observing the behavior of ants.

One eye was a dark chocolate brown.

The other green, which was unusual enough, considering it’s not normal for two giant eyes to appear in the sky.  The mismatched eyes only made the whole situation stranger—although why this was—I could never put my finger on.

“Why not three eyes?” an unnamed stranger asked the gathering crowd.

“Huh?”

“You know, like a trinity of eyes?”

“Father, Son, and Spirit?” a frog asked.

“Wait a minute, there’s talking frogs in this story?” a pretty woman wondered–out loud–but to nobody in particular.

“I was a Prince,” the frog said.  “Just last Thursday.”

I contemplated the frog, the giant eyes, and the woman. Sometimes, in life, you have to keep unusual things separated in your mind with reminders (to yourself) that not everything is at it seems.  I was reasonably confident I’d not ingested any mushrooms (or other drugs).  I knew I wasn’t hooked up to any virtual reality gear.  I wasn’t floating in nano-liquid.  The Body-Pod by EvialgorCorp hadn’t been invented yet, although, to be completely honest, I couldn’t swear I hadn’t been in the future yesterday.  I might have jumped into a time travel worm-hole and blacked out.

It happens.

I figured I’d take charge of the situation.  I screamed at the eyes, “What do you want?”

Due to the fact that no mouth appeared in the sky, there was no answer.

Or, possibly, whatever being was behind the eyes refused to speak.  Maybe it was a God, I thought, more than a few times.

Gods tend to be reticent.

Eyeballs.

That was it.

“I’m not sure there are any ears,” the frog observed.

“I noticed that,” I said while eyeing, slyly I thought, the woman.  She’d become, in my mind, more attractive during the period the crowd grew in size.  I’d later find out her name was Fiona.  Whenever we were alone, she seemed quite average, but get her in a crowd and all of a sudden she was a supermodel.  Don’t ask me to explain this, I can’t.  Sorry.

“You don’t appear to have any ears,” Fiona said to the frog.  “But you hear just fine.”

“That I don’t seem to have any ears is correct.  But I have frog ears.  It’s obvious.  I’m talking to you, for instance.”

“I’m not sure that proves anything,” she countered.  “In these situations, nothing is absolute.”

“Everything is subjective,” I stated.  I felt sort of stupid after I said this, but…wait!

Wait, a minute.  I’m remembering this slightly wrong.  Here is what I actually shouted boldly was this: “Nothing in life is certain!”

“True,” Fiona said.

“But, I am certain I like you,” I said.  Perhaps a bit shyly, but I didn’t want to scare her.

I hate it when a woman bolts when all I wanted to do was marry her or something equally foolish, like go for a mint chip ice cream.  Anyway, the day was strange enough without having to deal with tragic loss, so I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.

The frog smiled (don’t ask me how I knew he was smiling–I just did).  “You’d feel a tragic loss if you scared off a woman you only just met?” the frog asked me.

“You’re a mind reader, too?” I asked him.  Or her.  It’s hard to tell with frogs.

“But, of course,” he replied after capturing a fly in his long, sticky tongue.  He ate it in one swallow.

“Well then,” I suggested, “tell us what the mind behind those eyes is thinking.”

“Hmm,” the green, tailless amphibian hummed.  His short, squat body, moist from a recent dip in fresh waters, lurched forward.  His long powerful legs twitched.  He seemed to think for a long time, but I think, in retrospect, it was only for a minute.  Or two.  “There’s nothing there.”

“So, it’s an illusion?” I asked.

“Indeed.”

“Would you care to join me for lunch?” I asked the pretty woman.

“Sure,” she said.

And that was how I met my wife.

More of Jayden’s writing can be found here.

Q1: Would you prefer to spend the evening playing poker, having a gourmet meal or with a vampire and why?

Q2 Which existing MMO would you most want to live in and why?

Q3: Louis or Lestat and why?

A Garden without Flowers

Jonas got to the Hiring Fair just after dawn and headed straight for the place where soldiers’ widows could be found.

He saw her immediately, with the early morning sun setting her hair aflame. She was sitting on her trunk with a small girl child playing some complex game in the dust around her skirts. He strode over, and she came to her feet, albeit somewhat uncertainly. The child hid behind her, becoming all but invisible among the folds of shabby cloth.

“I’m looking for a housekeeper. One who won’t mind hard work and who don’t crave company.”
“Farmer are you?”
He nodded, suddenly feeling that his hands and feet were too big and his boots were too dusty. But she smiled.
“I’m a farmer’s daughter. Three-day ride to the nearest neighbour.”
“I’m not that far out. Just a day from town, so long as the roads aren’t frozen or flooded.” He found himself feeling unaccountably cheered by the idea this woman might consider him.

Before he had the chance to say any more he was roughly shoved aside by two big rough-looking men. They made way for a middle-aged man of the merchant classes, whose clothing proclaimed him as well-to-do and whose small close-set eyes stripped the woman of both her clothes and her dignity.
“You are hired,” he said.
“I’m sorry sir. I have already given my token to this gentleman.”
The man spat on the floor at her feet.
“Your loss,” he snarled before passing along the line of waiting women assessing each with his hard little eyes.

Under the cover of this rude bustle the woman quietly handed a small copper token to Jonas. He smiled ruefully.
“I won’t refuse this, although it isn’t much of a compliment being preferred to him.” He indicated the merchant with a jerk of one thumb.
Her answering smile brought a furtive dimple to one cheek.
“It truly isn’t, but I was going to accept you. If you offered.”
“I’m offering now. Twenty-five silver coins. Bed and board for you and the little girl. Plus fabrics to clothe you both.”
“That is more than generous.”
“Oh. You’ll work for it. The place hasn’t seen a woman’s hand since my sister married her man at Eastertide. Now. How do they call you?”
“I’m Hannah and this is Hepzibah”
The child gave him a gap-toothed grin and he responded with a smile of his own.
“I’m Jonas. Well met Hannah and Hepzibah.”

He bent and shouldered their trunk.
“Buckboard is this way.”

After a night spent on the road, they entered the farm at just before noon on a brisk morning.
“The house is about two miles now.”
Hannah smiled at him and he felt warmed by her smile.

He looked at the log and fieldstone cabin with suddenly critical eyes.
“It ain’t much,” he mumbled, and Hannah actually laughed.
“It looks nice and homely to me. If there were flowers growing in those beds by the door it would be perfect”

When the horses stopped, gratefully scenting their own stable, Jonas jumped down, turning to lift Hannah and Hepzibah onto the grassy bank that fronted the cabin. Hepzibah looked to her mother, and Jonas laughed.
“Let her run, she can come to no harm here.”
The little girl needed no second bidding and set off to explore, accompanied by one of the farm dogs.

Hannah walked into the house and set to work.

***

Three months later, with winter drawing in, the house and garden looked almost the way Jonas remembered it as looking when his mother was alive, and he derived a great deal of quiet pleasure in watching Hannah about her work. Being by nature both shy and taciturn he said little, although anyone with eyes in their head could notice how his face warmed and softened when he looked at his housekeeper and her child.

It was time for his last trip into town before the road became too difficult, and he found himself reluctant to leave the womenfolk behind. Hannah laughed kindly.
“Go on with you. We have the dogs and Jim Shepherd. We will be fine.”

On his way into town, Jonas mused on how much more pleasant was his life with two females in his house, and he remembered his father’s words about womenfolk with an inward smile. And then it was as if he heard his mother whisper in his ear.
“You know what you need to do, son.”

He hurried his business, eager for the comfort of his own fireside, and was home inside four days. Jim Shepherd came to the horses’ heads and the cabin door opened. Hepzibah flew out and he lifted her to his shoulder before grabbing two bags from the back of the buckboard. Jim led the horses away and Jonas carried the little girl into the cabin. Hannah was waiting for him with a smile and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss her smooth brown cheek before sitting in his accustomed chair and drawing off his boots.
“It’s good to be home.”

Little more was said until after supper when Hepzibah was in bed asleep. Jonas took a sheaf of packages out of his inside pocket and handed them to Hannah. She took them, and then coloured with pleasure as she saw they were packets of flower seeds.
“I know my garden is plain and bare, and I know these will be no use until the spring…”
He got no further because Hannah surprised herself by kissing him on the lips.
“Thank you.”
He captured her face in his big hands.
“My father used to say that a house without womenfolk is like a garden without flowers. Will you and Hepzibah plant some flowers in my heart to go with the ones you will plant in the garden?”
Hannah couldn’t speak for the tears that clotted her throat. But she could nod.

And that was enough…

Dear Reader Who Writes,

One somehow cannot bring oneself to address you as ‘Dear RWW’. Mummy has always insisted that one should be punctiliously polite (a skill she herself was taught by the nuns at a frightfully expensive Swiss Finishing School). Thus such a contraction of the words feels too informal for a budding relationship, although please know that is how one thinks of you, one’s little chums, since we have become so much better acquainted. I shall, however, make free use of that reduction in the main body of my text. You will have heard I am known as ‘Ivy’ to those whom I allow close familiarity – but you may call me Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV.

As the author of science fiction and fantasy – “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth” – Amazon’s one millionth on the bestseller charts and a masterclass in ‘how to’ in its own right – I feel I have the perfect credentials to offer you the highest of heuristic insights to release your own inner writer.

For those of you who have been following one’s bon mots, one will continue to offer you the benefit of one’s deep and sympathetic wisdom. And to those who have only just had the inestimable good fortune to discover my erudition and brilliance, I bid you welcome.

How to Start Writing a Book – Lesson 4. The Write Writual – Part II

Tuneful tintinnabulation: Summoning the muse with music has its antecedents in acts of sympathetic magic from across our spinning globe. Like summons like. So with the aid of Eurtepe and Aoede we may bring forth Erato and Calliope. One’s musical accompaniment should be reproduced in the most audiologically pleasing manner that one’s pecuniary resources may obtain.

Oh how one longs for a full orchestra, seated in the shrubbery and serenading as one captures the essence of the Muse! But that is not to be, and, as Mummy genteelly opined when I requested this: ‘Don’t be such a twat, Moony, the bastards would only trample the euphorbia’.

Therefore one has had the inestimable good fortune to become acquainted with a young lady named Alexa, who responds to one’s every whim and command. Sympatico….

Before I even think of adding a single word to my new magnum opus ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth Go Forth’, I must first suffuse the atmosphere with my own especially blended symphony of scent (see the last lesson) and listen to the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth exactly eight times. I follow this with the closing sequence of the 1812 Overture – ensuring that it is a recording with real cannon – to awaken my inner author from his sophoric slumbers deep within. Then either ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ or Handel’s ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’, so as to appease the higher cognitive aspects of my psyche. I am then ready to soothe the sybaritic segregations of my soul with something profound and sensitive and will put on Pure Peruvian Flutes, Whale Songs or Perry Como.

Please, gentle RWW, do not be fooled into thinking I actually write to any of this. No – this is all about preparing the psyche from heights to depths in order that the eventual overlay of choice melodies, selected to match the mood and theme of one’s authorial flow, can wash deeper into the creative mind. It is indeed a ritual akin to religious profundity and it is worth the hour and a half which one gives over to it before one begins to write. Without it, one could not unlock the core of one’s essence and allow the riches within to leach from one’s tender soul onto the polished whiteness of the page.

You are welcome to adopt my musical rites of pre-writing within your own sanctuary to the muses, or develop your own as mine are intended only for a higher mind which is capable of scaling the peaks of literary prowess.

Until next. Adieu estudas. Bon Ecrit!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV