Stovohobo
Joined May 2009 and calls My Old Ficlets home.
60 stories, 114 challenges, 523 comments, and 34 friends
I’ve been unfortunately dormant for the last few weeks (or months), so it’s your responsibility to yell at me and make me write. Yours, not mine. I’ll do the best I can, but really, it’s up to you.
If you comment my stuff, please be as nit-picky as necessary. I crave constructive criticism. Also alliteration.
If you want to start a series with me, drop a note! Remember to comment on everything, rate, and use the Random Story button at the bottom of the page.
Warning: Shameless Plug Ahead Had around 570 ficlets on the old site—you can read ’em through the link above if you like.
Stories
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The Impartial Governor
A supernova murdered a star several million years before the event was seen from Earth. As it happened, Homo habilis gazed at the host above but saw nothing different. A particle at the center of the late star had been morphed and stretched, its interi...
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Papers, Please
Mr. Beaver kicked at a pile of leaves and took a puff from his cigar. “Foreman!” he cried. A harried-looking beaver in the distance looked up quickly and jogged over. “Mr. Beaver, sir, good you came down. The rat’s over here, we just got him ou...
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Left the Brandy...
Mr. Beaver lit a fresh cigar and walked with Chris Hare through the hubbub of the forest floor, amid packs of rodents hurrying to and fro, beams hauled overhead, and trees moaning at the edge of collapse. As Hare talked, Mr. Beaver silently mourned the...
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Aloof, Aloft
Mr. Beaver stood at his penthouse window and stirred his brandy with a lonely claw, watching the animals below mingle like ants among the fallen trees. He sighed to himself, whiskers twitching to the beat of Carmina Burana on the gramophone, a mashed c...
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Seen
“The Unseen, are, in fact, seen. Every day. Every place. They are special…in no way.” The eyes of his mask glew brighter for a second. There was a deadly atmosphere. Suddenly she sprang up with a dagger and plunged it into his throat. She gasped,...
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The Unseen's Arrival
There was a quiet pall about the street. The Unseen strode in silence, surrounded by a small army of guards, all clanking armor and softly jangling chains, and bated breath. Spears knocked at the cobblestone, and boots crunched in monotone unison. At l...
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Fake Estate
It was September fourteenth, two days after the encounter. Zack sat motionless in his car, parked by a curb, a quarter of a mile away from the property. Whatever had finally drawn him out to sate his curiosity on the twelfth now held a magnetic repulsi...
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Mana
July the Twentieth The Year of Our Lord 1533 It is done. After months of tribulations and slow victories, we have finally drawn out the secret of the Incan emperor Atahualpa. Soon he will be executed, and the arduous journey we have taken for Spain and...
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Asp
Warmth floods in and I start to seize Muscle quakes and tremors cease My eyelids shoot about, trapeze For a second I don’t even pant. For this, made from the strangest trees Can take away the hours to please My deepest, dark infirmities And all t...
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Concerto No. 2, Overture: Flight of the Filing Cabinet
Reams of paper fly under his hands, ballpoint gliding across them in half-aimless trails. A cough rises from his throat, brushed by a tinge of cigarette smoke the employee next door isn’t supposed to be enjoying. A mental image of a revolver floa...
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291HR
In front of me, a long hall winds laboriously on with glass security doors stretching across every twenty feet. In between each one are four vault doors, guarding their respective high-level secrets—secrets the powerful and very wealthy pay good ...
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Silent Eye
People think I’m indifferent. That I’m faceless, and therefore unprejudiced. But this isn’t true. Just because you see only your pretty little face in me doesn’t mean I don’t see it too. And I judge you by every stain you&...
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Empty-Headed Exploration
My eyes are not my property; They’re not mine to control. They build massive earthen towers Out of pebbles set by moles. They judge without a jury, Follow no established laws, They wander and decide alone With no apparent cause. There is no brain...
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The Watering Hole
Narrowed eyes, In grass, disguised, The lion licks his lips. Aware, alert, Gazelles tap dirt As they take cautious sips. The lion, crouched, Awaits the pounce That brings him to his prey. With muscles tense, In thickets dense, He dawdles, daring fate. ...
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Dirge
The air is stiff, as stiff as my spine against naked wooden pews. Solemn murmurs glide from pillar to pillar as crackling fabric gnaws at my skin. Bursts of color— draping bouquets, lonely rose on Grandma’s lapel; filtered light and dust sp...
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Tired Providences
It was raining outside, a cold and heavy rain marching in offbeat steps. Lura rubbed at her wrinkles in the mirror, making sure they were all deep and prominent. Lines like mazes, winding, proud… Sandren’s voice pulled her out of her rapture. &...
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Closeness Through Distance
Stare at the walls. There are no words. Why do I feel my eyes wet with tears that weren’t shed for my grandfather? Why do my fingers shake for someone whose face I’ve never seen, whose voice I’ve never heard? Sentences. I’ve rea...
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The Marionette's Revenge
She twiddled fingers and rasped her voice to rid his brain of thought of choice. Her throat, the womb that knit her lies; amniocentesis to drain disguise— Dipping line, downward spin— She made him careless, drowned in gin. Still, he hid the...
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Auspice
Translated from Voice Log 101513 However much time we spend watching this species, it seems they quadruple it in the effort of watching us. We have seen foreign objects circle around our craft, attaching and feeling like fingers. We feel disturbances r...
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Fulcrum
Notated from Voice Log 101113 The shock of what I have found cannot be expressed in words. I’m linking back to tell you that our world community will simply never be the same—our people, the animals—everything. We have found a planet ...
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The Gladiator's Confinement
Suddenly a hot, wrenching pain in my thigh—like an arrow, but more forceful, and when I look down there is no shaft. I collapse to the ground, try to scramble back up even with this blindingly painful wound, knives twisting inside my flesh. I was...
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Medicine
It used to be a good thing. My favorite thing. Now it rakes at my eardrums, dull aching in my belly, snakes in my skull licking at my brain. It is harsh and shrill most of the time, but it has its other disguises—low, soft but teasing, tinny, spo...
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The Gladiator's Deal
“And you would give up your soul, eternally, to me—give up your place in the heavens—just to go back into this wretched time?” “I would.” I could feel a vein pulsing by my temple. “What could there possibly be ...
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Old Enemies
I called Fear seven days ago. I thought I had punched in Hannah’s number, but I must have misdialed—when the phone came off its cradle with a static crunch, She answered in her broken glass voice, straight into my stomach. I hung up. I saw ...
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Death's Memoir: Details About the Job
The first thing you need to understand is that Death changes. I mean, the occupation of Death—the Grim Reaper, if you want—shifts every Earth century. Otherwise, Death might cling to the past and not account for population growth, new techn...
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The Copyright Page to Death's Memoir
Copyright © Eternity (Published 2017 on Earth) by Death, Geoffrey H. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or supernatural, including photocopies, mediums, crystal balls, or “...
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Author's Foreword
Dear Reader, I’ve never really gone about writing a book before, but I figure that the stars are in the right place and the substantial difference between the two ends of the time-and-space wormhole separating us should now be crossed. I hope I d...
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An Uneducated Wager (The Meteor Challenge)
August 1, 2009 Dr. Lionel directed a smarmy glance at Dr. Dunder. “Okay, okay, you did it. Two million wired it is,” Dunder sighed. Lionel raised his eyebrows. “…And?” Dunder sighed again. “And you’re the real ...
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Proof Enough
There was a three-second silence that tasted bitter in Suzie’s mouth. In the next few, the line was cut, the computers shut down, and the two other men in the room bolted up out of their seats. She shook her head in a sudden moment of clarity, sk...
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0 for 1
Cassandra gazed dispassionately down at him with flickering eyes. “Jack, you know I can’t run a search on Kinetico without raising every birdie they’ve got.” Jack inserted a flavor-stick into his cigarette and flicked the igniti...
