Eric Eshleman

Grief.

Grief. People deal with grief in different ways. For me, I visualize it as a pool of water, quiet and still, hidden underground. Every now and then when things are nice and quiet, I visit it. I hike up the river, climb behind a waterfall, go into a hidden cave, follow the hidden marks inside the labyrinth, and pull on the torch mount to open the secret door. Then I’m there. I sit, and I dangle my legs into the water. Absorb a little of it, just for a little while.

Then I leave it, hidden and quiet. I go back to my life until I have a quiet, lonely moment to visit it again.

That’s what grief is, for me. A pool that you can drown in. Waters that I indulge in a little at a time, during the quiet times and lonely nights. Every time I touch that pool, I absorb a little of it, and maybe one day, I’ll reach the bottom of it.

Maybe there is no bottom. It doesn’t matter. It isn’t a goal. There’s no achievement to unlock. But as long as the water is there, I need to go there occasionally. Not for me. Not for the water. Just because.

Author’s note: My father died a few weeks ago, and this was written shortly after that. Since then I haven’t written for a while. In the last few days, I’m written several stories. Expect updates to resume.

The Poop Train

Through a series of events, I somehow committed myself to writing a story titled “The Poop Train.”

I leaned against the observation glass and looked down at the bands of Jupiter from low orbit. After a moment, I pointed. “There. Right there. See it? Find that storm, the swirl on the equator; it’s just passing left of it.”

“What . . . that little ripple?” Maya looked disappointed. I’d promised to show her monsters, after all.

“Wait for it. There’s only one reason they come so close to the surface. Any minute now.”

We watched, and we waited. The bands bulged and tore as the gas serpent breached the atmosphere. It twisted and lashed, flinging an enormous crystal from its tail, with a motion like the crack of a whip. Bracing myself into a seat, I pulled a laptop over to me on its swivel mount, programming a drone to intercept the crystal.

“That was … but the storms! They’re supposed to be huge! How big was that thing?”

“That one? There’s no guessing how long, it’s rare to see the whole thing break cover at once. It looked to be a couple of dozen kilometers across, so maybe seven, eight hundred–”

“Eight hundred?!”

“–Kilometers long . . . they get pretty big.”

“But we’re safe up here?”

“Oh, yeah. It can’t breach a thousandth of the distance it’d take to reach us. That’s a lot of gravity down there.” I pushed out of the chair, floating to her, and folded her in my arms. As I caught her, our mismatched momentum started us spinning. I touched a toe to the window briefly, to steady the spin; a lifetime working in space, and such things were natural to me.

Not her, though. She was clumsy in space and had gotten caught floating without a handhold in reach more than once. The first time she had come on board, she leaped into the cockpit like she was diving into a pool, and struck her head on the navigation console. Now she was timid and ready to panic until I steadied us.

“What is that stuff? Why do they throw it like that?”

“It’s fuel for the tunneling drive, purer than any synthetic process can produce. It’s poison to them and can break down violently under pressure, so they get rid of it. They do a better job preserving their habitat than humans do.”

“So . . . it’s poop?”

“It’s Heisenium seven.”

“Yeah, but Heisenium seven is poop.”

“It’s not . . . alright. Yes. It’s poop. I’m the conductor of the poop train, all right?”

She giggled, her hands flattening against my chest. “Sorry I teased you.”

I could never stay angry at her. My eyes softened at her caress, and I was about to make a few interesting suggestions on how to spend our time in orbit when an orange star caught my eye, hardening my expression. I braced my back against the glass, pushed her towards her seat. “Strap in.” Continue reading “The Poop Train”

Gentle Death

A quick little story about dating an agent of death.

I saw her, again. Every day, riding the 45T. I normally got off at the tracks, the last stop inside the city.

Today, I was curious. She never spoke and was always alone. I couldn’t tell why. She was cute, with short black hair, blue eyes, and adorable freckles, a little on the slender side. She might have been in her early thirties, a little on the slim side.

I didn’t care. Today, I didn’t get off on my stop. The bus was almost empty at this point, just me and her. “Do you mind if I sit?”

She didn’t respond, just looked out the window.

“Ah, miss?”

She seemed to start, and looked around, not meeting my eyes. Only after she realized the bus was empty did she look at me. She seemed surprised to find me looking straight at her. “Are you speaking to me?” Continue reading “Gentle Death”

Transition

My last body could see infrared and ultraviolet, but I can’t decide what to get next.

“I have no idea. But I’m going civilian, and I can’t keep the law-enforcement upgrades. They said they’d cover half of the switch to a civilian model.”

Doctor Ferraz was small and always smiling, but her cheer didn’t ring false. She seemed genuinely excited about her job. Of course, she also had pointed ears, naturally shimmering blue hair, and a bone structure entirely too elfin to be a coincidence. It was obvious she had some enthusiasm for body modification, almost beyond the bounds of professionalism. It was easy for me to overlook – I wouldn’t want a tattoo from an artist that had no tattoos, and I wouldn’t want a body mod from a doctor who’d never used one.

“So you just built for the job?”

“Biocapacitors charged one Taser shock a week from bioelectric fields. Muscle mass, tendon strength, and bone density beyond the civilian limits. Infra-red and ultraviolet vision. I can see where people were sitting, if a car was recently driven, people moving in the dark. Continue reading “Transition”

Deadly Wish

Explore a character’s moral dilemma – either he gets a million dollars, and someone he doesn’t know dies, or someone else gets a million dollars, and he dies.

“A million dollars?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. It’s mundane, so I’ll grant it. But . . . let’s make it interesting. I’ll also kill someone.” The genie that had sprung from the antique lamp pointed out my window, and in the window across the way a woman was dusting; she looked like a cleaning lady. “Her. I’ll kill her.”

“What!? No! That is nowhere in the wish I made! I didn’t ask for anything like that!”

To be fair, I had kind of been surprised when a human form billowed out of the lamp. It was like a silly fairy tale. But after I spent half an hour crawling around my kitchen counter as a cockroach, I was ready to believe. It was either that, or risk some new torment.

“Who cares? The terms of your wish are fulfilled.” Continue reading “Deadly Wish”

Geo Rivals

You’re driving home from work late at night when you begin to suspect the car behind you might be following you. You take every right turn until you have made a full circle. The car is still behind you…

Scene from Courtlyn Siepert: You’re driving home from work late at night when you begin to suspect the car behind you might be following you. You take every right turn until you have made a full circle. The car is still behind you…

Why are you so paranoid, and why are they after you?

I had been beaten. Again. This time I had the advantage though; I was intimately familiar with this neighborhood. I glanced in the rearview and made the turn, heading to the hillside that the latest clue had to represent. It would take anybody from outside the region days to do the research needed—

That’s when I noticed headlights in my rearview, making the same turn I had. My instincts twitched. Continue reading “Geo Rivals”

The Stench of the Hunt

What is that smell? And why are you wearing that?

“What is that smell?”

I wrestled the hip-waders off on the step, then peeled my socks off. Maya came to the open door. She was a head shorter than me, and considered plain by some. But the sparkle in her eyes and her questing mind made her shine. She came to the door now, and looked at me, watching me discard the protective gear, the poncho, the rubber gloves.

“And why are you wearing that?” Continue reading “The Stench of the Hunt”

When You Wish Upon a Star

There are more rules to wishing stars than you realize. One is that your wish only comes true years after you make it. Unfortunately for you, your wish has just come true.

I woke from a dream of shaking earth and sirens, and sat up, grumpy. The sirens didn’t stop. Somewhere, there must be a fire. I plodded into the kitchen in my underwear, then turned back to put on my slippers and a bathrobe. Thus armored against cold tile floors, I returned and filled an over-sized coffee mug with coffee. Sugar. Cream.

I looked at the curtained window, wondering what the ruckus was. I sipped my coffee, taking the time to indulge the bleary, half-asleep fog of early waking. Then, with another sip of coffee, I shook off my sleepiness and went to the window. I found myself looking at a red stone wall. Not brick, a kind of glazed stone. It wasn’t flat; the wall curved, and each fitted stone had a curved surface, almost like . . .

“Scales?” Continue reading “When You Wish Upon a Star”

Cursebreaker

Write a story involving a coin, a cat, a watch, and a hat.

I rolled a quarter across my knuckles as I waited. Walked the coin back, flipped it, caught it between my ring and pinky fingers. He was late.

Then, a small house-cat hopped onto my desk. “Are you the client?” The cat meowed.

“Lift your left paw, extend your claws, and meow twice to affirm that you are the client.”

The cat raised its paw, hesitant. He seemed to have difficulty, but he spread his claws and peered up at me, meowing twice.

Continue reading “Cursebreaker”

Young Steel

You’ve decided it’s time you taught your granddaughter to use a sword.

My granddaughter came up the path, as she did every Monday and Thursday. It warmed me, to still have visitors; the hike into town had grown difficult for my old bones, though perhaps it was just the townsfolk. So many bled for them, and they seemed intent on forgetting it. Not my granddaughter, though. She was blooming into womanhood, but still took the time to visit an old man. She always asked for the old war stories.

Today, though, she came up the walk with a new hairstyle. Over her shoulder, hiding one cheek. It was pretty. But the look on her face was shaken, nervous. Familiar. “Amanda. Always a pleasure.” I hugged her, as always, then brushed her hair behind her ear before she knew what I’d done, showing the bruise on her cheek. “Were we going to talk about this?”

“No.” She was direct. She didn’t argue or make excuses. I liked that about her.

“Well then . . . you like the old stories, right?”

She looked up, hesitating. She knew I rarely told her the real stories. I told her about where we went and the things we achieved there, but not the real grit of it. There were war stories, and there were the ‘old stories’. “Will you tell one?” Continue reading “Young Steel”