Thursday, September 21, 2017

The Good People of Harvey - A couple get out of danger thanks to some good Samaritans and are reunited with their daughter.



 2017 Falsh Fiction Championships - Round 1 Challenge 2
Genre: Historical Fiction
Location: Machine Shop
Item: Turtle


The Good People of Harvey
A couple get out of danger thanks to some good Samaritans and are reunited with their daughter.


We sat in the machine shop, it was dry and we were eating hot dogs again, for the fourth day straight.
“I hate the smell of hot dogs,” I said.
“At least we have food. Good planning, We will go out for some Good Dog Houston as soon as this is done,” my husband replied.

Of course, it wasn’t going to be ‘done’ with, for us,    for months, probably years for the city.
It was Wednesday. Hurricane Harvey had made landfall Friday and tore down on Houston. The entire place was drenched, houses ripped up and flooded, trees and road signs scattered everywhere, no power, no cell phones, people lost and broken, some people dead, the entire city demolished.
Cassie and I were out of town last weekend visiting friends and I left Cassie with them so she was safe and on ‘vacation.’ Tom and I stayed in our house with about two feet of muddy water covering the floors, eating one of the dozen or so packages of hot dogs I had cooked on Thursday, and deciding if we had to leave.

“We can’t save it,” Tom said, gentle, soothing, but still slightly pained. It was Tuesday. “We should head to Austin with Cassie before we get trapped.”
I scowled, but I knew he was right.
“We can wrap some hot dogs and water, take your phone, Cassie’s pet turtle and a few clothes and put it all in the mountain climbing backpacks and head out early,” he said.
So we did, and stepped out into waist deep water outside our front door in the morning.

I walked behind Tom, holding Excalibur the turtle in his plastic case, as we slowly made our way down the front steps, along the sidewalk and down the driveway into the street. It was like sludging through a marsh. There was cold, dark water at least a couple feet deep everywhere. Rain was still coming down steadily and the wind was blowing pretty fierce. We walked down the middle of the road, hoping the footing underneath us would be solid and debris free. I floated Excalibur along in his case, which stayed mostly high and dry. As we neared the first intersection we notice the water rushing faster and then heard a bull horn screech. A young woman was standing in the entryway of an apartment building off to the right and was yelling into the bullhorn. She told us to head toward her and wait, ‘cause there would be a boat soon to pick us up.
My husband and I looked at each other and shrugged then went toward her.

The woman with the bullhorn, Mina, lived on the 3rd floor of the apartment building, her and some friends had thrown a hurricane party, but when the liquor ran out and she started noticing cars trying to make it down the street and getting stuck and swept away at the intersection she grabbed her raincoat, the bullhorn, which someone had brought to the hurricane party, and she started warning cars. She had been doing it for two days. I asked if her place and her family were alright. She told me everything was mostly fine but she had family up north she hadn’t been able to call and update them. I reached into my backpack and took out the satellite phone I had bought when I was working as a freelance journalist in some war zones, and handed it to her.
“You can call anyone you need to with this,” I said. “The battery charge only has a few hours tho and I don’t know what I’ll need it for so try and keep the calls short.”

Tom and I stood beside her as she called her family to let them know she was alive. We were waiting for some guys from the neighborhood who had stayed with their dogs and now were using their fishing boat to help people get around, using the machine shop as their base of operations.

The guys and their boat pulled up, we all exchanged greetings and they gave Mina a package of food, then Tom followed me into the boat and they started to move us toward the edge of Houston, then pulled up the boat outside Big Jim’s Tools machine shop. Jim had apparently stayed home and been safe during the hurricane, but came back to check on his shop on Sunday, then opened it up to volunteers and those in the neighborhood who needed a fairly dry place and some coffee and help.
Jim had a backup generator in the machine shop, which put out a bit of power, enough to keep on the lights and have heat and run the Coffeematic in the break room. I let him and everyone else coming through use the satellite phone to contact loved ones and eat some of our hotdogs while Tom and I made a plan to move to a dry area to catch a bus to Austin or have Cassie and the crew some pick us up when they could. Tom and Cassie and I would have to stay in Austin for a while anyway.

As a small group of volunteers gathered, and we ate hot dogs, I asked Jim where the closet shelter/police command center was so that Tom and I could have our friends pick us up there in a few hours. Jim said he would take us to his house, let us rest and wait for our ride there. I hugged him way too long after he said that, and probably made him think twice about making the offer.


Although, when Cassie ran to the door of Jim’s house and pounded on it, later that night, I saw her and hugged her about five times as long. I also smelled hot dogs on her and decided hot dogs weren’t really that bad after all.

Monday, September 4, 2017

FAMILY ALBUM - Ohio Poetry Day 2017, Family Ties contest, Honorable Mention



Family album

My sister takes old fashioned
black and white photographs
with a hi-tech SLR camera.
She puts shoes in graves
because she can't find any models.
She's always about an F stop away
from suicide.

My brother hopes to go to South America.
He has to get shots
for his safety,
wear a big brimmed yellow hat,
and carry his degree around.

My father washes dishes
but never dries them.

My mother cries
something terrible.
whenever I leave.

I've got a drinking problem,
I don't drink enough.





Wednesday, July 19, 2017

RBR (Romance Between Robots)


2017 FFC Round 1
Group 25 - Romance, A strawberry field, A golf ball

RBR (Romance Between Robots)
Sparks fly between two strawberry picking robots.
Can they figure out what it all means and will it matter?



Robot #5 heard a tight flurry of drums with a roaring saxophone darting in and out. After accessing an internal music database, #5 determined the music was “Tenor Madness” by Sonny Rollins. The music appeared to be targeted at #5 from across the strawberry field by Robot #2001. There was no other thing in or in proximity to the field.

#5 was puzzled. The song was a blistering heartbreak but it was full of beauty. What message did it deliver?

The fragile arms of #5 trembled for just a nanosecond while gripping the next strawberry as it hung beautifully, fully ripe at the end of the stem, and tugging it off lovingly. Never had there been music in the field before, never had #5 done anything but work in the field before, but now #5 felt the need to approach #2001.

#2001 had watched #5 for a month. The field was huge, rows and rows of green bushes with bright red strawberries sunning and sweetening on the ends of the stems, getting the 8 hours of sunlight they needed each day. The sparkle of the sunlight hitting #5 was the only difference in the landscape, the only escape from the monotony of caressing the fruit - the only other thing to be caressed. The sparkle of #5 was warm and alluring and interesting. #2001 wondered what it was like to be alluring and interesting and sparkly, not just a semi intelligent service robot, another gray rule follower among millions.

Music piped to #5 was a thing #2001 thought might get #5 to look and determine if there was allure, interest and sparkle to #2001. Both robots were fragile. Both were second generation limited artificial intelligence devices designed to break easily. Previous robots had been too strong and damage resistant and humans worried that those robots could not be stopped if they attacked, so technology was used to manufacture more fragile robots that could easily be broken if they went beserk on, or near, a human. #5 and #2001 were big silvery hunks of easily bent alloy overtop of an upright, short rolling metal cabinet with arms and a personal assistant-type technology, that was constantly connected with the cloud of robots.

Suddenly a song, determined to be an electronic and instrumental, remix version of “Creep” by Radiohead, filled #2001. A definite anomaly was occurring. The music had to be beamed over from #5. Nothing else was in range to target and project music. The song was melancholy and angsty, and talked a bit about escape. Did #5 want to escape the strawberry field? To escape with #2001?
It was lunch time, both robots would power down and recharge completely in the sunlight now, rolling into an open field nearby with nothing in the area to block the sun from the solar panels on the robots.

Today #5 took the lead, another anomaly, and led #2001 out to a wide open, shadeless spot, about a mile south of the strawberry field. The two fragile robots rolled there slowly, conserving the little energy they had left after a long morning of work. Another week and the robots would be done picking strawberries in the strawberry field and they would be separated for a future project. It was impossible to know if the two robots would ever cross paths again.
Right now the robots were stationed side-by-side in the open field. #2001 shut down after setting an internal clock for 24 minutes, so returning on time to the field would be possible. #5 shut down, after setting an internal clock for 23 minutes.

As #2001 shut down there was a flash of light off #5, the artificial intelligence systems in #2001 said there was a dazzle and a chance for humans to feel touched and have desire, in that intimate, breathtaking moment. A moment later #5 registered a slight shine off #2001 and sensors said that conditions were adequate to ripe for romance. Then both robots were asleep.

After 23 minutes the head of #5 rose, the eyes opened and memories flickered of nice moments between #5 and #2001. There was, phantom, music again within #5. It had to be coming from #2001, still sleeping in the same spot adjacent to #5. In a millisecond #5 was directly in from of #2001 and reached out an arm to awaken #2001 to talk about the shine of #2001, the pleasing, mysteriously messaged, music and the conditions for romance. #2001 felt an alien pressure on the humany shell of the fragile artificial intelligence unit it controlled and shot out both arms, pushing with great might against the alien presence. #5 was struck in the chest and rolled back a foot, before rolling over a golf ball, tipping backward and landing on its back. Sparks flew from the eyes of #5.

#2001 registered that #5 had fallen on a rock and had internal damage and the hard drive in the unit was failing. It did not register why there was physical contact between the two units. Physical contact was forbidden and always bad, wasn’t it?

A robot always woke up by an internal clock, #2001 had never been disturbed in sleeping mode by something outside. It was a reaction to a new thing, to danger, #2001 had not meant to kill #5. As the fallen robot lay motionless #2001’s artificial intelligence metrics went in directions of sadness, remorse and great loss.

The mouth area of #5 was lit up and a staticy sound came out.
“I have an affinity for the way #2001 shines in the light, in the light… of the strawberry field” came out like white noise and struck #2001 in the middle of the operating system.
“#5, you have a lovely sparkle and I enjoy your anomalies,” beeped out of #2001. “I shall return to the strawberry field now and tell the field hands of your unfortunate mishap.”

#2001 rolled back toward the field and wondered how to forget.