Ben Paddon
Joined May 2009 and calls BenPaddon.com home.
50 stories, 64 challenges, 64 comments, and 23 friends
I’m a career writer (or, rather, a writer who’d like to one day be able to make a career out of it). I was born in Milton Keynes, England back in 1986, moved to Luton when I was 3, and then moved to Los Angeles shortly after my 21st birthday purely because I could.
I’m the creator and Head Writer for Jump Leads, a Scifi-comedy webcomic which can be found at www.jump-leads.com. I’m also the Editor-in-Chief of SoulGeek Webcomics (www.soulgeek.com/comics/). A while back, I helped Kill9 Studios as a Script Consultant for ./shutdown, and we later worked together on a “Left 4 Dead” inspired miniseries called Boomer’s Day Off, which can be found at kill9studios.com.
I’m also a former columnist and Editor-in-Chief at GamePartisan.com, and columnist and co-founder of RealVG.org.
You can find my old ficlets here – http://ficlets.ficly.com/authors/benpaddon
Stories
-
A Load of Crap
-
Who's There
-
The Magician
They say that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So when Lland was confronted by a man who claimed to be a magician… well, he made the only conclusion he could. “I’m definitely a magician,” insiste...
-
Accidents in the Workplace
-
A Conversation About Writer's Block
Darren looked at his typewriter. The blank sheet of paper set in the machine stared back at him tauntingly. No, accusingly. This was angry paper, but its anger couldn’t match Darren’s frustration. His eyes flitted across the desk to his wri...
-
Car Trouble
It was a long dirt road. It was the middle of the night. The moon hung ominously against the blue tapestry of the night sky. The air tasted stale, and not without a hint of dust and sand. I was standing at the front of the car, hood popped, staring int...
-
Upon Reflection
-
This Blouse Had Better Not Be Dry Clean Only
So when I tell you what it was that made me jump… well, promise you won’t laugh, okay? My ego is fragile. I’ve already made it clear that I’m mistrusting and a little paranoid. It shouldn’t shock you to learn that I’...
-
Body of Evidence
Some people like to start the day with a jog, but Leonard Dickens had decided to mix things up that morning by exploding instead. A Response Unit was there when I arrived, collecting what they could find of his body and putting them into little plastic...
-
Summer Wedding
“When will you pop the question?” he asks me. We’re sitting around a table in the bar nearest the office, celebrating what must be the fifth engagement of the year. Nearly every other man at the table is married, engaged, or divorced ...
-
Unfortunately He'd Left His Benadryl At Home
Lawrence would often tell people he was allergic to being harpooned through the chest with a spear, but noone believed him until that night.
-
DOOM!
I knocked on the door. Nothing. I knocked again, and the nothing continued, uninterrupted. “Hello?” called. Only silence answered. I turned the handle and walked in. The room was dark – the lights were off, the curtains were pulled, i...
-
Wise Man Seeks Similar
Bill was distracted from the rolling of his joint by a strange sight off in the sky. “Hey fellas,” he said, a look of shock and fret upon his face. “D’you see that?” “See what?” asked Eddies. “That! There...
-
On Self-Doubt
Sitting in the dark. Occasionally they ask, “Have we shown our worth?” But no answer ever comes. And no answer ever will.
-
The Doom That Came To Dinner
“I’ve been reading the Necronomicon,” said Mark, examining with great curiosity the sushi dish that had been placed on the table in front of him. He’d never seen sushi before, and he wasn’t sure whether to eat it or dissec...
-
Might As Well Face It
It happened when I was 15. It happened because she happened. Her name was Heather, and she was everything. She was smart, pretty, playful, fun… she was incredible. In a school filled with kids all trying to fit in and Be Popular she somehow manag...
-
We All Fall Down
Most of the staff, content with the Godly coffee available in the kitchen, had long since abandoned Starbucks and had forgotten what their coffee tasted like (for the record, it tastes like the charred remains of the concept of what coffee might have b...
-
The Masks We Wear
I have never hidden myself from her. Not once. That is, above all things, pretty damned impressive. I usually do all I can to hide the Real Me from view around anyone. I always worry that if people see the Real Me for just one moment, they will be repu...
-
In A Hurry To Stay Young
In his dreams he pushes back. He is eleven years old. His world has changed so much, his understanding of his place within it crumbling away. A few weeks ago he would have been playing games on the playground. Now, because of some understanding between...
-
Spheres
He climbed atop his Quantum Glider, pushed the key into the ignition, and turned it. The sound could be heard for miles, echoing, distorting the landscape around it. And then, with a twist of the throttle, he was away, bound for new worlds full of new ...
-
Where Would You Like To Go Today?
I’ve used any number of internal computer systems before, all with silly acronym names. Names like SABS, or SMS, or SAP, and so on. This system had a similar name: LCARS, although Kat says that the person who designed it had long ago left the com...
-
Welcome to The Company
The memo was jocular, friendly, coherent, pleasant. It outlined my importance, my value within the company. It had jokes in it that made fun of my immediate supervisor, the CEO of the company, the company itself and stockholders. It had the warmth of a...
-
The Elephant Man
“Right, so, let me get this straight,” said Annabelle. “You want me to go and live in the mansion on the hill.” “Yeah,” said her Father. “You want me to go up there and live with… some guy?” “...
-
You've Got Mail
There was something untrustworthy about him. I didn’t like it. I hadn’t liked any of it so far, in fairness, but this little man rubbed me the wrong way. He was smiling, oh, he was smiling, but I was certain that underneath that smile lay t...
-
Nobody Here Has Ever Seen The Message "PC LOAD LETTER"
Perhaps even more alarming than all of these things was the photocopier. One of the unbreakable laws of Office Physics is that the photocopier cannot, under any circumstances, copy any amount of paper for any great length of time. It’s just not d...
-
An Invitation
My mind is a mess, but I think that I’d like to let you peek inside.
-
Over My Head
-
Today's The Day...
There comes a time in everyone’s life where you have to retrace your steps and work out exactly how things went so horribly, terribly, irreparably wrong. Dylan knew exactly where this had occurred. It had started with the words, “Let’...
-
Haiku
Sometimes I feel trapped. Oh, but then I realise this is what I want.
-
A Metaphysical Dichotomy
“Any messages?” “Yes. Ralph from Marketing called to say that the new One-Sheets are in, God descended from the Heavens in all his splendor and toured the building, and Richard Glassblower called to ask if he could push your meeting b...
