In Arcadiam Imus

Photo by Amanda Lim on Unsplash

by James C. Clar

The planet had been catalogued Arcadia-5. Mission Center declared it to have a breathable atmosphere, liquid water and chlorophyl. “No biosignatures beyond flora,” the director quipped just before the mission launched, “it’s a garden waiting for a gardener.”

When the Caravel finally set down on the surface, Captain Lara Cinelli felt the tremor through the hull like a long-held breath exhaled.

“Welcome to our new home,” she announced to the crew as they stepped on blue grass that rang faintly underfoot. It sounded, more than a few reported, like crystal being tapped with a fingernail. The sky was pale gold and a fragrant breeze moved through the nearby trees in slow, almost deliberate waves.

“Captain,” Dr. Ionescu spoke from the ship over their comm link, “I’m picking up a structured sound … something with language-like complexity.”

From the tree line ahead of the landing party, figures emerged. They were tall with skin like polished obsidian veined with light. Their large eyes reflected the crew like mirrors. One raised a vaguely humanoid hand, its palm open.

Cinelli swallowed hard. “We were told …”

“I know,” Ionescu replied. “They were wrong, or we were lied to.”

First contact protocols were initiated in a flurry of excitement and fear. The beings, who called themselves the Azul, communicated via a series of tonal chords and gestures. There was something almost telepathic about it and, quickly, a basic understanding developed between the two species. The Azul welcomed the colonists with curiosity edged with caution. Within hours, the data streams back to Mission Center pulsed with the news.

Five days later, the coughing began. It started with one Azul child, a shudder through its luminous veins. Shortly thereafter, dozens were ill. Captain Cinelli watched as the Azul elders, what remained of them, gathered around the dying, light fading beneath their stone-like skin.

“We brought it with us,” she gestured, “We didn’t know.”

One Azul reached out and touched Cinelli’s hand, “Would it have mattered?”

“It’s a simple rhinovirus variant,” Dr. Ionescu reported, eyes hollow from lack of sleep. “Harmless to us, of course, but to them … The one simple infection we didn’t consider. They have no immunity. Their biology has no analogue.”

The captain stared at the medical readouts. “Can we stop it?”

The ship’s doctor shook his head in resignation and walked away.

It took only a month before the Azul were gone. The blue grass dulled and, already, their cities were being overgrown with forests and vegetation.

Back on Earth, the official narrative was authoritative: “Complete compatibility between the expeditionary team and local fauna. Initial scans confirmed, no sign of sentient life.”

Captain Cinelli argued but to no avail.

“You’re asking me to participate in a hideous lie,” she said during one time-lapsed debriefing session.

“We can’t halt expansion every time we encounter an unforeseen outcome … no matter how regrettable,” the director replied calmly.

"’Regrettable’? We erased a people.”

“Captain, as you are well aware, the work of colonization comes with risks. Besides, we’ll learn from this tragic mistake.”

Human settlers eventually arrived on Arcadia-5. They built cities where the Azul once sang to the wind. Their children ran through the fields.

Lara Cinelli lived out the remainder of her life on the planet. She seldom slept. When she did, she dreamt of dead and dying civilizations. At night, she walked out beyond the lights of the city. When the wind was just right, the grass rang again like crystal. Sometimes she heard voices, beckoning. One night, she followed. Next day, a search party found only her footprints.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar is a writer and retired teacher. Most recently his work has appeared in Flash Digest, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bright Flash Literary Magazine, Spank the Carp, Flash Phantoms, 365-Tomorrows, Antipodean-SF, The Yard Crime Blog, Freedom Fiction Journal and, of course, Sudden Flash Magazine.

 

Cold Calculus

Photo by Roland Schumann on Unsplash

by James C. Clar

The sea did not finish him, not then. He came ashore clinging to a barrel stave, hauled onto a gray New England beach by men who argued over whether he would last the night. Fever burned away his pain and his memory. When he woke, he knew knots but not faces, tides but not years. He could measure rope by the span of his hands. He slept fitfully, always with one eye open.

They asked him his name.

He tried to say something aloud, failed, and said nothing.

“We’ll call you Elijah,” they declared … unaware of that name’s irony.

Along the coast, silence was considered more an asset than a handicap. A ship’s chandler on Water Street hired Elijah because the man needed help and Elijah, despite his age and bad leg, seemed quite capable.

“You ever kept accounts?” the chandler asked.

Elijah studied the ledgers. “Your sums are off,” he said simply.

The chandler frowned. Grudgingly, he rechecked his books. Elijah was right.

Elijah was exacting, obsessive even. Coils aligned, nails were counted twice and barrels were tapped and re-tapped. He corrected customers without recrimination, out of experience he still could not recall.

“No,” he would say, finger firm on the counter, “you’ll want thicker line and more oakum. You think you won’t now, but you will.” Men listened. He could inventory a ship’s hold with just a glance.

Most evenings at dusk, he’d prop his leg against the pier and watch the tide as though it somehow owned him an explanation, or a past. Peace thereby found him in small doses. The days passed, each closing like an account balanced at last.

I met him by purely accident, in the doorway of the shop, on a morning when fog rolled down the street in waves. I recognized him at once, though I said nothing.

“Lamp oil?” he asked, as though reading my mind. “Take extra wicks. It’s the little things that make or break a voyage.”

I came back, often. We spoke of the weather, of prices, of ships that left port but never returned.

“You’ve been to sea,” I said once, probing carefully.

“I must have been,” he said vacantly. “Sometimes at night, I almost remember.”

If Elijah had a fault, it was that he was too meticulous. It was as though he were correcting some larger error, one he could no longer fathom. Ships with white hulls unsettled him. The word whale closed his mouth like a snapped rigging.

The end, when it came, came suddenly. Fire started on a moored brig; tar, canvas and decking erupted. A boy slipped on the slick planks and fell between hull and pier. The crowd shouted.

Only Elijah, alone among us, dared move.

He flung off his coat and, struggling mightily with only one usable leg, he seized a line, and swung. “Hold fast!” he cried. His tone now was commanding, imperious. He reached the boy and shoved him toward waiting hands. Heat roared. A spar fell.

He looked up once, as if checking the sums on a final column. In that instant, a curious expression crossed his face. Was it resignation or recognition?

The sea, at last, finished what it had started.

I stood long after the smoke thinned, silently mouthing a name I had not spoken aloud in years. Now, I truly do remain alone to tell his tale. Some nights I lay awake and wonder, in that last instant, did memory return and drive his sacrifice as atonement? Or did the cold calculus of the universe finally exact payment of a debt long overdue?

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar is a writer and retired teacher. Most recently, his work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Flash Digest, Bright Flash Literary Review, After/Thought Literary Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Antipodean-SF, The Magazine of Literary Fantasy and, of course, Sudden Flash Magazine, 

Fiscal Constraints

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

by James C. Clar

Storen, Director of the Institute for Advanced Biological Studies, feared that an already difficult faculty meeting was about to become even more contentious. Around the conference chamber, eyes watched him with predatory alertness.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “we now come to item number five on today’s agenda: an announcement of the board’s decision regarding the practices of vivisection and dissection.”

A ripple of unease shimmered through the room. This was what they had all been awaiting. For weeks the board had deliberated behind closed doors.

Konstan, the chair of the Anatomy Department, began the assault. “Storen, this is such a sham. We all know the decision was made before the board even began its so-called ‘debate’.”

Heads bobbed in agreement.

The director drew in a deep breath, adjusting his tone.

“It goes without saying,” he began, “that given the technology available to us today, physical dissection of lower life-forms – not to mention experimentation on living creatures – has been rendered obsolete.”

There was a brief, brittle silence.

Then Palanquin rose. A zoologist notorious for melodramatic displays, he lifted his hands theatrically before lowering them to the table.

“With all due respect, Director,” he said, “that is simply because you have been out of the lab and the classroom for so long. You have perhaps forgotten how vital hands-on experience is in our fields.”

Storen felt irritation prick along his spine. He swallowed it. He would not be baited, not today.

“Colleagues. I assure you the board considered all arguments. Their decision was neither as predetermined nor as one-sided as you assume.”

Konstan scoffed loudly, but Storen pressed on.

“In the end,” he continued, pausing to make sure every eye was fixed on him, “fiscal constraints overrode all other concerns.”

Storen exhaled, deciding to rip the bandage off with a single tear.

“Given the current state of our economy,” he said, “continued trips to the third planet to obtain specimens have become too expensive.”

There was a stunned beat of silence.

Then the room erupted.

“What?” Konstan was half-standing. “You can’t be serious. The third planet, off limits? We need a continuing supply for longitudinal …” The old anatomist was beside himself. “Does the Planetary Council ...”

Storen held up a hand. Reluctantly, the voices quieted.

“Yes,” he said. “Their projections show that even one more retrieval mission would exceed our annual operations budget.”

Konstan slammed a palm on the table. “We can’t teach proper anatomy without fresh specimens!”

“We have decades of archived data,” Storen replied.

Konstan snapped. “You can’t replace the tactile understanding of musculature or neural pathways with a hologram!”

“There is no choice.”

No one spoke.

Eventually, Palanquin asked, “What of the specimens we already possess?

Storen sank back into his chair.

“That,” he said, “is to be determined. At our meeting next week, the board has requested that we consider the disposition of our remaining specimens. Especially the bipedal ones.”

Konstan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Disposition? What do you mean?”

Storen spread his hands. “That’s all I have been told.”

Several of the scientists looked shaken. The thought of releasing the specimens back to their distant blue-white sphere was unthinkable. But the alternative?

“Before we adjourn,” Storen continued, firmly changing the subject, “We need to review the proposed reorganization of the Genetics faculty.

The researchers’ eyes glazed slightly as their neural ports activated.

Storen exhaled. The worst was over. The issue of the specimens was not to remain academic for long. Somewhere below in the Institute’s holding vaults, the board’s irrevocable decision was being carried out. Next week, he’d present the faculty with a fait accompli.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, work by James C. Clar has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, The Yard Crime Blog, 365 Tomorrows, Antipodean SF, The Magazine of Literary Fantasy, The Blotter Magazine, Flash Digest and Freedom Fiction Journal.

 

A Question of the Truth

Photo by Matthew Ansley on Unsplash

by James C. Clar

The truth was that as soon as he heard Demorovic had seized power, Mokrzan knew he’d be arrested. In his country, a new broom swept clean, and there was no such thing as “retirement.”

They came for him on January 2nd, at 3:30 A.M., four men – three burly soldiers and a militia colonel he didn’t recognize. Strange, he thought; after thirty years in the capital’s bureaucracy, he knew almost every government functionary by sight. They must have imported these men from another district, fearful that locals would be inclined to treat him with the accustomed deference.

They even let him get dressed. That violation of protocol chilled him more than rough handling might have.

“Should I bring anything?” Mokrzan asked quietly.

“No,” the colonel said. “You won’t need it.”

He wondered if that meant they’d shoot him before sunrise.

Instead, after five and a half hours in a cell, he was taken to a courtroom in the Ministry of Justice. His “trial” started at ten. The huge portrait of the new president glared down over the judge’s bench. But what truly jarred him was seeing his son seated with the state prosecutors.

Their eyes met only once. The young man’s expression seemed to say, you taught me how the system works. You taught me how to survive. Neither spoke. Afterward, they avoided looking at one another.

The evidence came in crisp, damning waves. Transcripts of conversations with officials in several Western nations. Vouchers showing indulgent meals and foreign travel. A prosecutor waved the documents about like an orchestra conductor working his way through a particularly difficult symphony.

“Comrade Mokrzan’s appetites grew as his loyalty shrank,” the man stated matter-of-factly.

They produced surveillance photos of him meeting men suspected of having CIA ties.

Mokrzan said nothing. He could have explained that he’d been acting under orders from the Ministry of State Security, that two of his judges had approved those very missions. To reveal the truth would doom them now, and worse, his son.

At one point a young prosecutor asked coldly, “Do you deny consorting with agents of the West?”

Mokrzan’s voice was nearly a whisper. “I deny nothing. What would be the point?”

Reality in his country had always been malleable, truth a tool wielded by whomever held power. Thousands had perished over the years in shifting interpretations, variable exegesis. Now, inevitably, it was his turn.

At 12:30 P.M., the sentence was delivered: death by firing squad on January 16th at 9:00 A.M. The delay, he knew, was meant for interrogation. Fabricated evidence required a full and fabricated confession.

But days passed. No interrogators came. On March 10th he was trembling with dread. It wasn’t the execution that frightened him, that would be quick. It was the anticipation of torture, the hours or days that would precede it. He slept hardly at all. Meals remained untouched. By the 14th he was feverish. He understood that events seldom conformed to one’s anticipation of them. He thus allowed his mind to run wild, imagining horrors that surpassed even those he had witnessed over the decades.

On the morning of January 15th, at 1:45 A.M., he lay on his bunk, eyes closed but mind racing through a botched interrogation he’d once seen. Keys rattled in the door. He sat up sharply. Two guards entered.

“Time,” one said.

As their hands reached for him, Mokrzan felt his heart surge. He was dead before they could lift him from his bed.

On January 17th, the state newspaper reported succinctly: The traitor, Minister Mokrzan, was executed as scheduled.

The truth had never been in question.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, work by James C. Clar has appeared in Antipodean SF, Altered Reality Magazine, Freedom Fiction Journal, 365 Tomorrows, Bright Flash Literary Review and MetaStellar Magazine.

 

The Companions

by James C. Clar

The island was little more than a sandbar. Hemsworth had walked its perimeter so many times he could trace its contours with his eyes closed. He had washed ashore weeks before, the only one to crawl out of the burning water when his fishing vessel split apart in a storm.

Now, the relentless sun was his only companion. He drank rainwater that caught in the trunks of palms. It kept him alive, but just barely. Fever burned through him most nights in the middle watch. He’d lie on the cooling sand looking up at the stars muttering to himself about past voyages and dreaming about the ocean-like geometry of space.

At some point, he saw them. Three figures on the shore. They were tall and pale in the liminal light of early morning. Momentarily, Hemsworth thought his eyes had tricked him yet again, but the figures remained in place as he drew nearer. He laughed. “You’re real.” He stumbled forward with arms outstretched.

“I’m Hemsworth,” he sobbed. “My ship went down three weeks ago. I thought I was alone.” His companions said nothing. The nearest was a woman in a tattered dress. Her features were sharp, serene and unreadable.

“Where are you from?” Hemsworth continued unfazed. “Another wreck? I’ve searched everywhere. I can’t believe I missed you.”

Hemsworth turned to look at the others. He thought he heard one of them, a shirtless man in duck trousers, whisper … “We’re here now.”

Hemsworth grinned through blistered lips. “Yes. We’re here together.”

He sat with them until night fell, speaking quickly and, at times, incoherently. They didn’t seem to mind. He told them about Newcastle, about his family. His voice faltered as he described the storm that had destroyed his vessel.

The woman in the dress shifted slightly. Hemsworth could have sworn he heard her assure him with sympathy, “We’re listening.”

“Thank you,” Hemsworth replied with genuine emotion. “It’s nice to finally have someone to talk to.”

The next day, he built a crude shelter to shade their pale bodies. He scrounged for what little food he could find, overjoyed to share whatever he discovered. He was certain he saw looks of approval on their inscrutable faces.

“I’ll look after you,” Hemsworth vowed, febrile sweat glistening on his brow. “We’ll be rescued soon. Together.”

Time passed. Hemsworth was even weaker now from sharing his meager food and water. It was worth it. He spent his hours talking to them, waiting for the faint syllables that sometimes floated back to him.

One bright morning, he heard loud voices carrying over the water. Hemsworth staggered from the palms just as a sea boat slid onto the beach. Two sailors leapt ashore, staring at him with astonishment.

“Christ,” one shouted. “A survivor!”

They lifted Hemsworth under the arms. As they did so, he pointed frantically back toward the palms. “There are others!”

***

Later, having been reluctantly removed from the otherwise empty island, Hemsworth lay in the sick bay of the Australian warship, Exeter. He was sedated and hooked up to an I.V. The ship’s XO spoke to the medic. “Name’s Hemsworth. He’s the sole survivor of that fishing vessel that went missing six weeks ago.”

“He’s dehydrated. Has an infection,” the medic reported, “That’s about it. I reckon it’s a miracle.”

“Good,” the XO responded. “We’ve got work to do before heading to port. A cargo ship bound for Sydney went down around here too. One of the containers must have been for a department store. The sector’s loaded with mannequins. They’re hazards to navigation and Fleet wants us to clear the area.”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar is a writer and retired teacher who divides his time between the wilds of Upstate New York and the more congenial climes of Honolulu, Hawaii. Most recently, his work has appeared in The Magazine of Literary Fantasy, Bright Flash Literary Review, Freedom Fiction Journal, The Blotter Magazine MetaStellar Magazine and Antipodean SF.

 

One For the Ages

by James C. Clar

November 22, 1963

Elm Street shimmered under the Texas sun as municipal workers hung red, white, and blue bunting across Dealey Plaza. Crowds already lined the sidewalks waiting for the President’s motorcade. At 11:12 a.m., Officer Bill Sprinkle squinted up at the brick facade of the Texas School Book Depository.

“You see that?” he asked his rookie partner, Carl Fernandez.

Fernandez raised a hand to block the glare. “Where?”

“Fourth floor. Window to the right.” Sprinkle pointed. “Flash of light.”

“Maybe a scope,” Fernandez said, narrowing his eyes.

“Exactly.”

“Should we call it in?” Fernandez asked.

“We’ll check it out ourselves. Probably nothing.”

Moments later, they were climbing the echoing stairwell of the Depository. Sprinkle’s hand hovered over his revolver as they reached the fourth floor. The hallway was quiet. They found the door to an office ajar. Inside, a man stood by the window, mounting a camera on a tripod.

“Sir!” Sprinkle barked. “Step away from the window!”

The man startled, nearly dropping his Nikon-F.

“I’m a photographer,” he said, raising both hands. “Bob Bletcher, Lone Star Gazette. I got cleared two weeks ago. I’m covering the President’s visit.”

Fernandez scanned the room. No weapons in sight. Just camera gear.

“There was a flash from that window,” Sprinkle said, still wary.

Bletcher pointed to the tripod. “Probably light on the lens. I was lining up my shot.”

“Got ID?” Fernandez asked.

Bletcher opened his wallet and took out a laminated press card.

Sprinkle exhaled. “Alright. High alert today as you can imagine.”

“No problem,” Bletcher said, smiling now. “I’ve been waiting weeks for this. The president and the governor. A shot for the ages maybe?”

Sprinkle and Fernandez left the office.

“Look around some more?” Fernandez suggested.

“Nah. Let’s get back down to the street.”

They descended the stairs just as a new shift of officers took up positions around the plaza.

“You were right,” Fernandez said. “It was nothing. Glad we didn’t call it in.”

Meanwhile, back in the Depository, a thin, young man sat nestled behind a wall of textbook boxes on the sixth floor. His Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5mm, rested on the windowsill. He watched the police and, as they approached the building, he had gone still. Now he relaxed and readjusted his line of sight down Elm Street.

At 12:24 p.m., a glint of light came again, this time from the sixth floor.

“Looks like our guy moved,” Fernandez said.

Sprinkle nodded. “Bletcher, trying to get a better angle. Photographers! They’ll do anything to ‘get the shot’. Saw a guy one time dangle from an overpass to get a picture of an accident.”

The two policemen turned away.

Inside the Book Depository, Bletcher hadn’t budged. He checked his viewfinder.

A cheer went up as the motorcade turned the corner.

Bletcher leaned and depressed the shutter.

Simultaneously, the man on the sixth floor exhaled slowly, finger tightening on the trigger …

Shots rang out against the blue Texas sky.

Bletcher gasped, nearly dropping his camera again.

On the street below, chaos erupted.

Sprinkle and Fernandez turned and looked back at the building they had so recently exited.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Sprinkle said as comprehension hit him like a sledge hammer.

“Let’s go,” Fernandez shouted as he turned to run back to the Book Depository.

Sprinkle grabbed him by the arm. Shook his head.

Fernandez looked his partner in the eye. He understood. There’d be hell to pay if they went back.

“No need to get hung out to dry by an honest mistake, son.”

Sprinkle and Fernandez were soon lost in the frenzied swarm of uniforms converging on the scene.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, work by James C. Clar has appeared recently in The Magazine of Literary Fantasy, MetaStellar Magazine, Freedom Fiction Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Antipodean SF, The Blotter Magazine and 365 Tommorows.

 

The Assistant

by James C. Clar

For years I had been unable to find an assistant capable of maintaining order in my shop. Applicants came and went, leaving behind only more misplaced volumes and unfilled orders. Admittedly, my bookstore—Aleph Books – was a labyrinth of paper and dust. I reconciled myself to the idea that chaos was forever to be my natural element. One fog-shrouded morning, however, I opened a crate of rare Hebrew manuscripts acquired from the estate of a rabbi in the Czech Republic. Among them was a slim volume bound in calfskin: Sefer Yetzirah. The text bore the unmistakable annotations of Rabbi Eleazar of Worms.

One marginal note, penned in almost indecipherable Aramaic, seemed to describe a formula for forming life from inanimate matter. I copied down what I could make of it, more out of curiosity than actual belief. One dark autumn evening, under a dim bulb in my storeroom, I followed the text’s obscure instructions as closely as I could. My materials consisted of freshly dug soil plus the resin and clay used to restore old bindings and book covers.

To say that the results exceeded my wildest expectations would be an understatement.

The following morning, my new assistant, Lem, got to work. Within hours, my shop possessed a new coherence. Long lost books were stacked neatly on the tables. My inventory had been alphabetized, cataloged and cross-referenced by subject and author.

When customers asked for obscure works such as The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim by Bahadur, for example, Lem’s pale hand reached unerringly to the exact shelf. My clientele, a mix of mystics, dilettantes, and eccentrics, took to him at once. One elderly collector whispered that the boy’s eyes reflected letters when the light struck them a certain way.

His appearance did not phase them. I had fitted him out in some of my old clothes. They hung on him in a rather shapeless and somewhat disturbing way. Nor did the fact that he spoke only in inarticulate grunts precipitate complaints. I explained his sudden arrival as a favor to a cousin in the “old country” who wanted their boy to see a bit of the world.

Business flourished. Orders arrived from London, Buenos Aires, Paris. Lem stood silently behind the counter, committing each transaction to infallible memory. It was inevitable that others would covet him. A bookseller visiting from Helsinki offered to “borrow” him for six months. Another collector hinted at a buy-out. I refused both. But envy moves in far more insidious ways. I began finding notes for Lem tucked in volumes throughout the store. The idea of allowing him to work for someone else was, as you can imagine, out of the question.

I knew then what I must regrettably do. The formula’s reversal was mercifully brief: a mystical letter erased from his forehead; a mere breath released. Lem dissolved into dust finer than that which had at one time coated my bookshelves.

Predictably, in time, the order of the shop decayed. Customers grew impatient; I could no longer locate the most mundane texts. I tried to reconstruct my catalog, but the handwriting blurred, the pages defied sequence. I had promised to set aside a first edition of Runeberg’s Kristus och Judas for a collector from Trieste. When he arrived, I couldn’t find it.

That very evening, I reopened the Sefer Yetzirah. I gathered my materials and began again, this time telling myself it was for the sake of scholarship, not profit. Still, if I worked quickly, perhaps my new assistant – who would henceforth remain behind the scenes – could locate the Runeberg before the buyer left the country!

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Author's note: Apart from the Sefer Yetzirah, the names of the other texts in this story are the invention of the incomparable Argentinean fabulist, Jorge Luis Borges.

James C. Clar is a writer and retired teacher who divides his time between Upstate New York and Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, his short fiction, essays, book reviews and author interviews have appeared in print and online.

 

The Control Room

by James C. Clar

The dunes had shifted, exposing a jagged line of concrete and twisted steel. Henderson adjusted his goggles against the glare. “Moscow,” he said. “The old maps place it around here.”

Feldman laughed as he slid down the slope. “Every ruin, the first thing you say … ‘could be Moscow’. Always turns out to be someplace else. Moscow is further northeast. Kiev is a better bet.”

“I’m not sure this is even a city,” Anya remarked as she crouched at the edge of the breach. “It looks more like an industrial site.”

They widened the opening. Finally. Feldman hauled out a pane of glass fused into a blistered sheet. He held it up to the sun; light refracted strangely through the pocks and ripples.

“Rapid heating and cooling,” he observed.

By dusk they had unearthed a stairwell. The metal steps were misshapen, as though sculpted to conform to an otherworldly aesthetic. There was a dry, metallic taste in the air.

Henderson spat into the sand. “The priests are right. Some of these places are cursed.”

That night they huddled around a fire. Sparks drifted upward into a pewter sky. Demirovic shivered though the air was warm. “Call it what you want,” he whispered. “These places give me the creeps. I wonder if it’s worth it.”

Feldman coughed into his sleeve, surprised at the flecks of red. “If it’s Moscow, it’ll be worth it. Think of the artifacts buried there.”

Anya poked the fire absently with a stick. In her other hand she held a small shard taken from the pit they had unearthed earlier. The object was cold to the touch but it seemed to glow faintly as though it possessed some inner warmth.

“No fire did this,” she said passing the shard to Feldman.

Feldman’s eyes were fever-bright. “Imagine the power. It may still be here waiting for us to claim.”

They awoke at dawn. Overnight, the wind had deposited a fine ash across their blankets. Henderson’s skin had begun to itch and blister. The others were unaccountably weak and dehydrated. Still, they moved back to the stairwell, drawn by dreams of riches and inexhaustible power.

For five days, fighting an illness that they all assumed was the result of an ancient curse, they excavated an underground vault. Its heavy metal doors lay twisted outward. Beyond lay an inner chamber.

Demirovic spoke softly thorough blistered lips and teeth that were coming loose. “I’ve heard of places like this. They’re called ‘control rooms’.”

Anya shambled weakly forward. She traced her hand over a warped metal plaque affixed to one of the door frames. Its stamped symbol was barely visible. She took it for an ancient hieroglyph. The symbol was a trefoil consisting of three equally spaced blades radiating from a small central circle. The blades increased in width as they moved away from the middle.

They stood at the entrance to the chamber. Henderson, with the last of his strength, activated a glow stick and went through the doorway first. The others followed. They edged sideways, backs to the nearest wall. Together, they slid down and sat, exhausted.

Henderson brushed fallen hair from his shoulder. He raised his arm, illuminating their surroundings. On the wall across from them, the treasure hunters beheld what, at first, they took to be reflections of themselves. It was Feldman who understood first. They weren’t reflections. The strange figures on the wall were silhouettes of people … people dead for centuries. Somehow their images had been absorbed by the paint and plaster of the wall. The curse was real. They’d never leave the control room alive.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar divides his time between the wilds of Upstate New York and the more congenial climes of Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, his work has also appeared in The Magazine of Literary Fantasy, Antipodean SF, Bright Flash Literary Review, Freedom Fiction Journal, MetaStellar Magazine and 365 Tomorrows.

Claustrophobia

by James C. Clar

It was Danielle who mentioned it first. “Is it me, or does the hallway seem narrower to you?” she asked one evening as she paused on her way into the kitchen.

David laughed. “We’ve lived here a month now and it seems the same to me.” Danielle made a face and kept walking. Still the impression clung to her like a burdock.

A few days later, she broached the topic again. They were having wine before dinner. “I can’t explain it, but the rooms seem… smaller to me somehow.”

“Listen, honey,” David said with characteristic patience, “you’ve been under a lot of stress. Moving, getting acclimated to a new job. You’re tired and on edge.” David swirled the wine in his glass. He enjoyed watching the ‘legs’ cling to the sides and dissipate.

“I’m not imagining it!” Her voice had a plaintive quality, as though she wanted to be reassured further.

By the following week, David swore he had to turn sideways to walk between their sofa and the coffee table. He never had to do that before. He made a mental note to ask Danielle if she had moved the furniture.

A couple of days later, he was brushing his teeth. He saw Danielle in the mirror. “The bathroom seems cramped,” she remarked as she put a clean towel on the rack.

David dried his hands. “The bathroom is small. We knew that when we bought the place.”

From then on, the thought seemed to haunt them. Danielle noticed things she felt certain had moved. The rug under the dining table seemed to take up more space. A framed picture on the wall appeared closer to the mantle.

David began to suspect Danielle was surreptitiously rearranging things to prove her suspicions. He found her once in the middle of the night in the living room, standing with her palm flat against the wall.

“Danielle, what are you doing?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied.

A few nights later, they argued about the whole thing. David accused her of becoming obsessed. Danielle said she felt ‘dismissed’. Once peace was restored, David noticed he could no longer stand between his dresser and the window as he often did when dressing.

Next day, David bought a tape measure. He measured the living room. Danielle watched from the doorway. The numbers matched the listing the realtor had given them.

Danielle stared at the tape measure, then at the paper in David’s hand. “I don’t believe it,” she said, turning away.

Soon, the couple remarked on how often they bumped into each other in the kitchen. Drawers seemed to take up more space when opened. Ceiling fans looked lower.

Eventually, they stopped inviting people over. They worked from home whenever possible. The thought of leaving the house for long seemed too ‘risky’.

A month later, they had enough. They checked into an extended-stay hotel. Neither went back to the house except to get clothes or necessities.

Finally, they put the house on the market. In a few weeks it sold. David and Danielle began searching for a new home. The hotel was an expense, but they enjoyed its open, airy floor plan; a feature they asked their realtor to look for.

One evening, after getting a call that their offer on a house had been accepted, they celebrated with a second bottle of wine.

This time it was David who brought it up first.

As he was drying the dishes, he said, “Danielle, did you do something to the light over the sink? It seems lower than it was. I almost bumped my head…”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar divides his time between Upstate New York and Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, his work has also appeared in The Blotter Magazine, MetaStellar Magazine, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Magazine of Literary Fantasy and Freedom Fiction Journal.

 

Finding Clarisse

by James C. Clar

Thunderstorms are somewhat rare on Oahu. The temperature seldom varies enough or quickly enough to goad the air into that particular form of violence. When they do come, they arrive with a kind of magnificence – loud, electric, otherworldly. Visitors often miss the magic. They grumble about the rain, about the loss of beach time. “Hey,” they say, “we get this at home.” Who can blame them? They came for sun and warm, gentle breezes, not Iowa weather disguised in a grass skirt and a lei.

Residents, on the other hand, know better. They grudgingly welcome the storm and the sharp crack of thunder riding the trade winds; the “liquid sunshine” and the jagged bolt of lightning ripping its way through a sky gone unaccountably black. It’s a reminder as well; the islands aren’t always soft.

Late one afternoon, during just such a storm, I felt something – something strange, something portentous – pull me outside. Living alone and with no real obligations to speak of, I was free to indulge such impulses. The usually bustling streets of Waikiki were awash and all-but deserted. Rain hammered the Ala Wai Canal, now invisible behind a curtain of water. Palm trees flailed like tortured animals. The usual dry susurration of their fronds had become a rasping chorus, insectile and urgent. The distant lights of Moiliili and St. Louis Heights on the mountainside to the north shimmered like a dream half-forgotten, distorted and surreal.

I was soaked within seconds, wandering without direction up and down the grid of streets that ran between Ala Wai Boulevard and Kuhio Avenue. Thunder cracked overhead as I trod the faded heart of Waikiki. Then, in the flash of a particularly vicious bolt of lightning, I had the proverbial epiphany. I knew what I had to do.

I began entering condo buildings, dripping pools of water in the foyers as I pressed intercom buttons more-or-less at random. In the old days, you’d need a doorman’s permission to enter. I wondered how I would have managed back then.

“Clarisse, is that you?” I’d ask in a disembodied voice.

“Wrong unit, brah. No ‘Clarisse’ here.”

Not everyone was so polite.

“Get lost, asshole. You gotta try harder than that!”

So much for Polynesian hospitality. I pressed on, literally and figuratively.

Eventually, I came to a mid-century building with windswept palms, a coral walkway, a porte-cochere like something out of a vintage postcard or travel brochure. I chose a button. I was more deliberate this time. The name below the intercom had faded and was illegible.

“Aloha, Clarisse, are you home?”

There was a pause. Then a voice. It was tinny and uncertain.

“Yes. Who’s there?”

“It’s me. Eddie.”

“Eddie? I don’t know anyone named Eddie.”

“That’s all right,” I replied. “I really don’t know anyone named Clarisse. But I’ve been looking for you a long time.”

A drop of water ran from my forehead and down my nose.

Silence. Then, after a moment or two …

“I guess I’ve been looking for you, too. Come on up.”

I heard the click of the lock releasing. Before stepping inside, I turned around and looked back. The rain had stopped. The sky was clearing. The tang of iodine hung thick in the air, along with the scent of ginger and plumeria. People were beginning to reappear. The streets gleamed, swept clean by the storm. The run-off flowed into the drains and, inevitably, merged with the warm, amniotic waters of the Pacific.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar is a teacher and writer who divides his time between the wilds of Upstate New York and the more congenial climes of Honolulu, Hawaii. Most recently, his work has appeared in The Sci-Phi Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Antipodean Sci-Fi, The Literary Fantasy Magazine, The Blotter Magazine and Freedom Fiction Journal.

 

On Being Phil Marlowe

by James C. Clar

Detective Spangler moved behind my chair. Breeze, his partner, stood in front and said, “We’ve got two stiffs connected to the Matthews dame you’re working for. It’s time to spill what you know.”

“Sure. And to hell with detective-client confidentiality, right? Go pound salt!”

Spangler’s sap hit just behind my ear. From the floor I watched the dust motes dance gaily in the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the window of my office.

Marlowe, I thought, you’re an ass. It’s like you’re always playing out a scene in some cheap dime novel. You really need to mature as a character!

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar is a teacher and writer who divides his time between Upstate New York and the mean streets of Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

Behind Every Man

by James C. Clar

Isabelle had never been prouder of Edward. He looked magnificent in his elegant suit. Everyone commented as well on his magisterial bearing. He was, finally, the center of attention; attention that, in Isabelle’s opinion, was his due. Nor was Isabelle being ignored since the goal of everyone who entered was to be seen with her.

Edward was, of course, in the limelight because of her and the three drops of colorless liquid she had placed in his martini last week. As the mourners passed, Isabelle basked in the glow. It was true. Behind every successful man, there was a woman.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar is a teacher and writer who divides his time between the wilds of Upstate New York and the more congenial climes of Honolulu, Hawaii. Most recently his work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Sci-Phi Journal, Antipodean Sci-Fi, Freedom Fiction Journal and The Literary Fantasy magazine.