The hunt began at dawn, like most hunts. Mother’s first warning was a shotgun blast over the water. The enemy were coming. They came in droves. She whirled gathering her children, feet muddy from the moment of peace by the water where she had brought them for their daily chores. They ran together, the youngest in her arms. Her oldest pulled the middle child, firmly determined that they would not face the sorrow, the useless sacrifice again. This family had suffered too much in earlier hunts.

There was a platform standing on the top of the hill. It filled slowly, giving the prey time to lose their way, to blunder.

It was time for older prey to gather as many of the young they could find and shepherd them to places of safety dug into the ground, tunnels thirty and forty feet long. These tunnels were destroyed by rangers when found, but new ones replaced old, and here was kept the center of their society. Here oral histories were passed down. Here grandmothers prevailed still, preaching love, and understanding. Preaching hopes needing to be fulfilled. They couldn’t believe how many years they’d been hiding. According to their mothers, it had been 200 or more.

“Sometime these others must come to their senses. We pray for it to happen, to end this senseless butchery. They promised us sanctuary.”

The men of the clan scoffed, and left the mothers and young. They felt themselves too valuable to be killed in a run. They were small in number, after all. If they died, the hiders would die out.”

Homo sapiens sapiens, of the greatest God-fearing country on Earth, rushed to the platforms. It was Winter Hunt Time, time which shouldn’t be lost. They arrived laughing: armed with their picnic baskets, bottles of beer, soda, water and milk bottles for the babies. They brought cameras, cell phones, electronic tablets and recording devices. Adults, their parents and preachers turned out for this mid-winter hunt. Family time.

They brought drums to be beaten, trumpets to shout, and the fine town’s leaders all hung in finery warm. They were waiting for the first victims to run, for then they would cheer. They brought out their shotguns, their rifles, their bows, with ammo designed for one purpose below. Something would die today. More than one would die. They would celebrate that night with presents and dinner with toasts. The excitement grew, and so did the boasts.

Laughing with joy at a kill shot, they took turns turning the soil to red. They were a powerful people, opening their arms to refugees worldwide, giving homes to some while others disappeared, or were labeled terrorists so they would not be missed. Glorious leaders of this strong nation kept it all in check, using mass rallies of their glory, and corrupt political policies, too. Their godlike speeches belied their intentions.

During the growing time of Summer, the prey were joined by runaway natives who tried to learn languages, record stories and take them back where they were labeled fiction and unprintable. The journalists, teachers, advocates and writers were vanquished to the kill zones. The government thought that a rat trap was a good place to hide all of the rats.

Mother ran, her heart beating so loudly she was afraid it would be heard. Her eldest murmured words of encouragement, taking the lead away from her mother and trying to turn them all deeper into the woods. That’s when the closest gunshot became loud and real.

The baby exploded in Mother’s arms. She had time to gasp “no” as the bullet continued through the child and into the mother’s heart.

Eldest child threw her brother into the underbrush with a whisper.

“It’s under the rock. Find it,” she whispered. She had a plan.

He wiggled and dug in the earth pulling an old plastic bag from beneath him. She snatched it from his fingers and whispered again.

“Stay here, in the ground, until they have gone home to celebrate. I have something to do.”

Aged six, her brother understood the action that was needed. He wiggled under the leaves, into the mud, out of sight and mindful of the killers as Eldest bolted away toward the platform. As the trees thinned, she stood tall. She opened the bag. The gun in her hand had been dropped from the platform as an insult when the killers had killed her grandmother and her father. She had taken it.

She moved through the bush and gathered her cold sense of honor. Her actions gathered the attention she sought.

“Look, a small one begs for more attention from you, Hunter. It’s only fair you should end her. She won’t survive without her breeding mother and is almost old enough to start breeding herself. Just an animal.” They laughed the hunter back to a spot on the wall.

The hunter was smartly dressed for this celebration day. She lifted her rifle, focusing her sights on the child, and then abruptly brought the gun down.

The crowd jeered her as she succumbed to the first thought in her life involving compassion. It didn’t last.

She raised her rifle again. Two shots rang out in unison. One shot from above, and one from below. The bullet struck the hunter in the forehead spreading brains, blood and skin bits everywhere. The platform emptied screaming.

Eldest child staggered to her brother and dropped the gun. “Hide it,” she murmured.

Middle child tried to stop the blood. He was too small to treat such an injury.

Eldest child’s name was called in the moonlight by a search party of old women. They found her brother shivering and in shock. They found the bodies. They heard the child’s story. Life changed that night. They learned a lesson.

They could fight back.


(I wrote this after watching the news about the fears we should have in giving shelter to those in need. I thought about what might be the outcome if the Tea Party took over the government and watched the ideas being flown as flags about what Americans are and who we are. This is a last possible case senerio, aside from war. “Bring me your tired, your hungry, your oppressed…” and thinking of what use the immigrants would be to such a government. Things like this have happened in history before, hunts based on religion, cruelty, mocking the ideals of “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Do I believe us on a one way course? No, that’s why even with a corrupt government I had people trying to help these prey, even at the cost of their own freedom and life. I’m hoping for a good hopeful topic to be selected by my flash fiction group. I don’t like this place in the shadows.) Placed 5th in Linked In Writer’s Hangout Flash Fiction Contest.

The Ship and The Aliens

The stars gleamed with the power of light and fire. Gas giants beamed at their younger cousins and the universe smelled of raspberries and tasted of rum. It was into this that the ship Pluto’s Ghost ventured looking for treasure, excitement and a new place to hide from the planetary government. The captain knew he would miss the good life with brandy, scotch and whiskey no longer available, but if the colony he wanted to build succeeded, there just might be new treats in his future.

“Captain, we have bead on a class four planet. It seems to have earth like qualities and will only take us a year to arrive there.”

“That’s a positive start. I hadn’t thought there would be any planets for years. One year from here is a good place to begin. Start scanning for any sign of life or communications and make sure your relief continues to do so. I want to be informed of any possible higher life form we might meet. Use the SETI protocol Earth researchers set up. Make sure we have a linguist on standby. Check with engineering to make sure all is well if we head in that direction.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Setting SETI protocols and notifying engineering. Should we wake any of our sleepers yet?’

“No, the longer we can conserve our resources the better off we’ll be.You have the com, Smithy.”

The captain walked to the mess. He picked up a meatloaf protein pack and microwaved it. Pluto had her own propulsion system. She was able to fold space. Her design was that of a rectangular box. The idea had been supplemented with solar power and had provided a safe and easily renewable fuel. The food tasted the way it always did, in need of ketchup or salt. He sat at the table eating quickly when a shadow passed in front of him. He crossed his eyes and uncrossed them. There was a figure at the table with him, a shadow but clearly defined as a living being.

“Are you really here?” he said, questioning his sanity and his senses. “I can barely see you. Can you understand me?”

The figure nodded, then pointed to the captain’s insignia. A voice filled the room unlike anything he had ever heard. “You are the captain? Your crew is in the long sleep?”

“I am. How do you know about us?”

“We have met many of your space probes, they tell a story of horror and destruction. They try to hide it under music and pictures. We have been waiting for you.”

“Are we safe? Or do you mean us harm?”

“We mean to teach you the way of peace. Your entire crew, except for one, must go to sleep now. We will take care of everything. You have no choice. If you do not comply, you will cease to exist.”

“I will need two crew to maintain the systems as they must sleep and alternate with each other.”

“That is tolerable. You, however, must sleep the long sleep. Your insignia marks you as a trouble for us. A jury will give you the chance for an explanation. Go, do what you must. Keep your heading.”

The intercom went off with its usual cracking. “Captain to the bridge.”

He ran to the bridge. There was a spaceship three times the size of the Pluto on the front screen. “Where did that come from?”

“Sir, I have no idea. We’ve been scanned and some kind of communication was attempted. They don’t seem to have weapons facing us, but we are being held in a stasis field.”

“You won’t understand, Smithy, but they gave me instructions that we must follow or we’ll be exterminated. You and Jones will alternate shifts, the rest of us will remain in sleep mode. Do as they say or we lose all 500 of us and the cryo eggs for our colony. Use good judgement, please.”

The captain caught his eyes and nodded. Orders were given in that look, trust was acknowledged. The captain moved toward the captain’s quarters and filled in the log. He entered his sleep container and closed his eyes. His dreams filled him with hope.

Smithy sat at the console. “We can do this. Maybe we’ll survive this.” His eyes closed with a memory from earth. He remembered giving his grandmother flowers. He smiled and his thoughts were of telling her about this adventure. He knew it. Trusting the aliens to do what they must, he moved to the galley for coffee. It would be a long year.



Unlike most, my nemesis is not an evil company or disease that takes your life and turns it upside down. No, my nemesis is my son, my beautiful golden son. He was a good boy as a toddler, picking up his toys and going to bed in the evenings when I declared it was bedtime for him. He would snuggle under his blanket with his stuffed bear and close his eyes tightly declaring he was already asleep. He ate everything on his plate, new foods included. He was perfect.

That perfection led to school, where he knew everything without being told. That led to not doing the daily work the teacher’s required. That led to failure on his report card, although all of his tests were As. I taught youngsters in the fifth grade and watched over them like a mother hen. No one watched over my son’s work, although I tried.

I caught him in the garage when he was in high school building a time machine. That’s what he called it anyway. When confronted about why he was building a time machine, he did respond to me.

“I’m making it just in case I need to go back in time and correct my mistakes.”

He worked on the machine to the exclusion of every thing else. He stopped eating, going to school, and doing his own laundry. His face grew gaunt. The luster fell out of his golden hair, turning it to a dish water blond. But his eyes grew in excitement with every new turn of his project. I was called to the school for conferences, but I went to seek answers. They told me that I would be jailed if I couldn’t get him to school on time. The conversation was not pleasant.

“Son, you have to go back to school. They are threatening me with jail time.”

“Mom, I’m so close to finishing this. I’ll make it right soon, I promise.”

I was arrested a week later. The judge sentenced me to two weeks in county jail with a fine of $25,000.00. When I told him I had no way of paying the fine, he said I could stay in jail until I came up with the money. Of course, I appealed his decision. I was allowed to go home until the jury trial.

“Son, I have to pay $25,000 now. Why won’t you go to school? They are incarcerating me!”

“Mom, I’m almost done.”

The morning of the retrial, I was fidgeting and worried. I had no lawyer, none would touch the case.

“Keep your kid in line and you won’t need a lawyer,” was the response I had been given.

We rose as the judge and jury came into the courtroom.

There was a door slammed shut as a handsome blond man came in with a pile of paperwork. He stepped into the bar and presented himself as my attorney. After being acknowledged, he waited for his turn to speak.

“Your honor, this woman has been a good parent and there has been a gross injustice here in accusing her of any of these charges. I have here the school records of her son, from elementary school through high school. The record keeping has been atrocious. I would like to present these records to show her son’s consistent attendance in school. The school records had him enrolled in one set of courses when he had been assigned to a completely different set.”

I couldn’t even speak. I was confused. I was also exonerated.

At the trials end, he gathered his materials, winked at me and left. I went home, the garage was empty but my son was sitting on the step with a cup of tea for me.

“I finished it, mom.”