Moon Flowers: Flash Fiction for Today's Reader

By LaVerne Zocco

This is my new book, Moonflowers. It is a compilation of 76 Flash Fiction stories. Flash Fiction stories are limited to 1,000 words and approximately four pages. Each of these stories I call flowers because each is different and its own configuration. The stories begin with a premise which will be of interest to you, a middle that pulls you along, and a quirky, satisfying end making the perfect arc of writing. If you have a Kindle or a Nook reader, this book is for you. These stories are meant for the present-day reader who likes his material ever-changing, applicable to fast reading and simple to understand though you should stop after reading each story and see how profound it is. I hope you will enjoy this book and recommend it to your friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479725588

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by LaVerne Zocco.

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4797-2557-1

Ebook 978-1-4797-2558-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

123331

CONTENTS

An Old Acquaintance

I Was In The Neighborhood

Irene’s Farewell

The Moon Moved!

The Dancer

What An Exit!

Sound, Before Night

XLZ

Green Eyes—Bright Eyes

A Hole In None

The Jinx

The Quarantine Of Delta I

It’s The Simple Things That Get Us

The Hypochondriac

The Melish File

In The Line Of Duty

A Modern Greek Tragedy

A Little Alien Humor

A Spacey Christmas

The World Chef Case

Be A Sport

Perfection

Lemons To Lemonade

Dear Editor Mcgraph

Death By Poison

Déjà Vu

Stranger Than Fiction

Here’s Lookin’ At You, Kid

History Will Not Be On Her Side

Hit The Ground Trance

In Deep Waters

My Guardian Angel

Never To Be Forgotten

No Humphry Here

No Luck At All

Prison Planet #29

Robot-Mania I

The Best Laid Plans

The Dream

The Duo

The Family Business

The First Of Its Kind

The Life Of A Shape-Shifter

The Near Precision Of Heaven

The Gorgon Trees

The Guessing Game

The Innovator

The Last Thing He Saw

The Merton Strangler

The Pierced Veil

The Question

The Secret World

Pray, Prey

The Decorator

The State Funeral Of Zandor

They Just Never Learn

The Vortex

We Can Do It But Should We?

What’s In A Name?

When All Else Fails

Think It!

Never Mind

Passenger 1518

The New Law Of Exeter

Houston, We Have A Problem

The Residue

The Stone Of Agra

The Roaming Rug

The Winds Of The Summit

The Bewildering Club

The Almost Last Man

Reflections On Transition

Rings Of Saturn

Homeostasis

Ninety-Nine Percent Hero

A Curious Mind

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to acknowledge my two sons, Sam and John for helping me put together this book. Sam did the cover and John gave me good suggestions and encouragement.

The author expresses her appreciation to the Editor and staff of Bewildering Stories for their help and encouragement.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, LaVerne Zocco is the author of eleven novels. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Nova University in South Florida. Her Master’s Degree is in Counseling Psychology and she worked at a Mental Health Clinic for twenty years. She has been writing stories for the E-Magazine, Bewildering Stories and they have published her work which is included in Moonflowers. She came to writing Flash Fiction late in life, but has enjoyed the exacting genre. You will find Moonflowers contains many Science Fiction backgrounds with many unique and at times quirky stories.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

An old acquaintance came to call. He wore a mask over his features like the knights of old. Fright squeezed my heart for he blighted my life with his suggestions for a game he wished to play. There was a secret place in the bottom of the garden where he walked me and he mesmerized me and chilled my blood with stories of death, how sweet it was; how releasing it was, how final it was, and always a blood red moon looking down but he never touched me.

He always made me the Queen of Zanzibar, arrayed in a diamond crown and flowing silk robes and he was always my champion dressed all in black on a coal black steed with steam blowing through the two nostrils and a long fiery mane, stomping the ground to be off to the sky. Then he would swoop down over my head coming closer and closer, my champion pulling on the reigns while the steed obeyed. He was always just above my head with its gleaming iron-shod hoofs coming dangerously close. No matter how I fought and screamed I was always lying on the ground crying at the end but my champion always saved me at the end and the wind of the hoofs I felt, but never the horseshoes. My champion always claimed victory so long as he received a red rose from his queen but he never revealed his face.

One day the wind was blowing through emptied halls and here the garden and my hero faded in my memory.

It was then I went on to live my life. And what a life it turned out to be. A husband who adored me and who worked feverishly to give me all in the world I could desire. We roamed the world to every country, the guests of honor at balls given by the crown heads of Europe. He gave me mansions and designer cars and gowns and diamonds. He became a renowned surgeon specializing in anomalies in the brain.

I thrived in my own special world until the day, one autumn he told me I was to be his next patient with a stubborn illness he could not solve by surgery. A malady of the mind that had been there since I was a child that was the cause of the strange things I had told him about: my champion on the black steed and how I was the Queen of Zanzibar and how I gave him a red rose every time he saved me from the horses’ hooves.

And then my husband died suddenly and I was left without friend, without counselor and without a savior. No other surgeon could cure me so I went on by myself.

But yesterday my old acquaintance came to call again and for the first time the hooves scratched me and left me with a blinding headache and my black knight took me in his Arms and his touch allowed me to know how he was still my champion. And he took the proffered red rose and it fell from my hand to his, and the mask gave way to my fingers and I gasped that the face was mine. The old Acquaintance was my brain. And tomorrow he will be back and the hooves will come closer.

I WAS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

It was a hot night even with the small fan blowing onto my neck. I had settled myself down to business in the confessional after finishing my bottled water. I sat back, already a little agitated by the heat and I decided once again to read my little prayer for such occasions.

My dearest Jesus, teach me to be patient when all the day long my heart is troubled by small but annoying crosses. Cardinal Merry Del Val

Then my ears perked up for I heard the distinctive opening of the confessional door on my left side. I waited until the person had fumbled around a little and when there was silence, I slid open the screen that divided me from him or her and gave time to start the confession.

It was a he. He in return started his ritual.

Bless me father for I need the water drops of forgiveness more than anything. My last confession was many Suns ago but my own doing. I was horizons away from the Dali-God and spliced out into the winter of the stars.

I nodded tilting my head to the side and thought that I understood his meaning but he had a rhythm all his own, I thought it was a unique style and I was going to ask for clarification but I decided to give him that one just for his willingness to come in and confess.

It’s not the huge shame-benders that woke me to come Father, I do confess using the Dali’s name in vain with the guys when I’m out in space, I’m not above being attached to worldly things cause I like a little glitter, but I draw the line at messing about or playing robber or blaspheming the Third Dali-God. It’s more the small spurts of vinegar that I spit out that turn me sour.

I must confess I was intrigued with the hints of some words of pleadings and I asked, just to hear more, Give me some examples of these lesser spurts.

Well my temper goes flying in hot spurts and then I’m spraying the oxygen with spurts of poison, you know Father, the daily cleansing of my stuffed head-pan cursing, oh lots of cursing with the world being in the shape it’s in.

I smiled a little to myself recognizing my own temper limitations. And he was making a kind of sense.

And I do get to rattling about my transverse times and climbing on my partner’s errors and moaning loud about the miles and the unfamiliar terrain and getting sharp about the seeds when I go home; makes me want to raise my toes and put them through the uprights. And I get to yelling at the partner and seeds because I’m slunkish, you know, hallowed empty or clanking about the up, up, up of the yapping hands, the seeds that want to be lifted.

I thought I understood the last part. You know the tongue can be a weapon and a little harsh for young ears to hear. But all and all, at least you know what the things are you should work on. Now, what else is there, my son?

I have guilt and shame water drops and get knee-down pleading for more okay-ness, but sometimes I’m dumb-wise, And when I’m traveling out away from my partner and the seeds, I can’t hardly stay clear, Father, of the no-no, but I do. For these small spurts of vinegar I am truly water dropped.

Well, that’s fine. For penance say five Hail Marys and five Our Fathers.

And all was silence again.

"By the way, just curious Son, where are you from?

I was just in the neighborhood and wanted some of the Dali-God.

Yes, I see. But, where are you from?

Rigel. This is my first visit.

Well, welcome to Alpha Centauri.

IRENE’S FAREWELL

I knew why I was walking down that particular road in the dark of the night, but after the interview I would have said it was some mischievous imp who had set the scene. It wasn’t that I wasn’t familiar with the lodgers in that particular country house sans Mrs. Hudson now; I should say I was, but I never dreamt I would ever see him again after our first, and up to then, last meeting.

I was up in years now and I expected he was the same. I had been startled to read he had retired a few years back to a rural setting, where he lived like a hermit amongst his new interests: soil contents and seedlings, his brilliant mind growing rustier with each rainfall. I can also tell you that he was a hidden memory in my mind down through the long march of years, and I always kept him hidden there from others close to me. Some would have been awed that I had ever known him for such was his stunning reputation in crime circles.

I knew who would be coming to answer the bell, and to my amazement, it was not Doctor Watson or Mrs. Hudson, it was a simple-looking maid who curtsied with a huge question mark in her eyes as to who this visitor would be come calling at the God-awful hour.

It also amazed me that the doorbell had stirred up the lodger on the upstairs landing who was peering down and questioning the maid.

Who is it, Emma? Is it for me? Is it a case perhaps for me? I was astounded by the frailness I heard in that once strong voice.

Hello up there, I managed. It’s not a case, but an old friend, at least I think so. May I come up to see you?

Rather late to be calling around wouldn’t you say?

Finally, after a long thought, he said, Yes, come up—not my pleasure to welcome too many old friends for they have all died off. Yes, come ahead and let’s have a look at you.

He led me down the hall and into the apartments that brought back great memories to me with the smell of pipe tobacco, musty books, a thousand I should think, and the smell of resin for his violin bow. I had been a visitor only once before and I was in awe that nothing had changed.

He chucked me inside like a treasure he had secreted to look at when he was alone, and left me standing inside the door while he went over to the fireplace, stoked it a little to make it warm for me, and then took his favorite chair on the right side of the hearth. He waved to me to come over and take the chair across from him, the chair of an old friend who he told me was dead now, poor thing, his Doctor Watson.

There sat the only man I had ever desired to impress, and here sat I the only woman he had ever loved for my brilliance and criminality; he had described me so the last time we met. For my side I can say that the sight of him made me understand how I should have loved him but didn’t. But, now, I understood better my resentment for his fame and my infamy.

Then, then, he looked at me with that old way of drawing softly on his pipe and appraising me with all the sentiments he could garner.

Irene he whispered.

Yes, my dear, it’s Irene.

"You must be gentle with me, Irene, for my heart is not what it used to be and I expect it to go out with the fire in the early morning hours. I thought I was brilliant when I started the little fire in your sitting room and watched as you opened the secret panel alongside the fireplace and took the letter out and I saw you put it back in again. Then in the morning I opened the secret panel the letter was gone and so were you before anyone could stop you. I may not have all the details right, but the only thing I remember is how much I loved you.

Many a night I sat here and bewailed, not the letter, but that I had lost the only woman I ever thought had brains enough to adore. And now you have come and now I am at peace.

My eyes narrowed then, and I said, Yes, I’ve come to say something I have wanted to say to your face—I have come in time to say it He seemed then to succumb to some coma-like state and I sat with him until the fire went out and he died with it.

I watched him come back to reality for one short moment and smile at me.

"Irene Adler, you were the only