Mixed Bag Read online

Mixed Bag

  A Short Story Anthology

  by Marva Dasef

  Copyright © Marva Dasef 2011-2016

  https://tiny.url/DasefAuthor

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgments

  All stories contained herein were slaved over by my minions. Said minions did such a good job correcting my errors and pointing out my failures as a writer, all these stories were published here and there around the web and in print. For that, I am eternally grateful.

  * * *

  Fish Story

  Science Fiction

  Previously published in The Fifth Di... and

  “Wondrous Web Worlds #7” from Sam’s Dot Publishing

  Brian Mathers sat dozing on the porch of the white frame house, while the young folk continued the struggle that he, and others, had begun seventy-five years before.

  The door slammed behind him as Elsie rushed outside in a hurry like she always was. Elsie was his great granddaughter (or was that great-great?) and his closest friend these days. He was very old and couldn’t work anymore. Elsie was very young and didn’t have to work yet.

  “Hullo, Grampa,” Elsie whispered as she gently shook him. She had to make sure he was awake before she bothered him. Elsie was a considerate friend.

  “How’re you, Elsie?” Old man Mathers struggled to sit up taller in his chair. He liked Elsie’s visits partly because she was a smart little girl, but mostly because she had time to listen to his stories.

  “I’m fine, Grampa. How are you today?” she asked formally. At school, they were learning proper manners. “My teacher told us about the colony ship, and she said you were the only one left who was on it. Is that true, Grampa?”

  “That’s right. I came here on the Calypso when I was only seventeen. Matter of fact, I was born on the Calypso. I’ve outlived everyone else who was on it.”

  Elsie knew all this, but it was her way to get the old man started. She had heard most of the stories, but not all, and she wanted to hear every one. She knew that Grampa would die soon–death was commonplace on a colony world–and he was very, very old. She intended to hear them all.

  Most grownups didn’t have the time for stories. Elsie went to school to learn how to live on this planet, not for entertainment. Even after seventy-five years, life was not an easy thing and practical matters still took precedence over fun, even for the children.

  “Grampa, the Biwigglies Festival is next week. Tell me how it got started.”

  The old man shuffled his bony backside on the chair’s rough seat. He gazed out across the dusty road to the fields beyond. Figures moved wavering in the dusty heat. He squinted his eyes in the bright sun trying to bring back the images.

  “Well, you know what the biwigglies are, of course.”

  “Sure, Grampa. They’re the fish that swim up Green River every year. I know that part. They’re like, uh, those earth fish.”

  “Salmon.”

  “Yeah, salmon.”

  “Then you also know how important those fish are to us.”

  “They’re food, but we have other food. We have wheat and rice and veggibles.”

  “Vegetables,” he corrected her. “That’s true. What’s the difference between all those things and the biwigglies?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because they’re animals and veggibles, I mean vegetables aren’t?”

  “That’s exactly right, Elsie. You’re a very smart little girl. When we first came here, we’d brought animal zygotes. But the animals did poorly and died off before they even grew up. We needed protein since we hadn’t gotten the right crops going yet and losing the animals was really hard on us. We almost starved after the ship’s food ran out.”

  The old man paused, staring across the fields, seeing the story that played out in his mind.

  “This planet had no native animals. Plenty of vegetation, but nothing in the sky, the earth, or the water that was animal. Fauna, they call that. Except bugs. We have plenty of them.” He always added a little education to the story.

  “When the biwigglies came up the river, it was a wonderful thing for us.”

  “Tell me about how it happened,” Elsie said as she wriggled her small body into the chair next to the old man. Now, she’d get to hear the story.

  * * *

  Brian and Barry Mathers were brothers, both ship-born. Dirt and sun were alien to them; however, they were both willing workers and had developed strong bodies from the chores they did.

  Everyone had to work, but it was harder for the old folks–the ones who left Earth to come here. The journey had taken twenty-two years and most of the original colonists were in their forties and fifties, if they were alive at all. The brothers’ father had died shortly after Barry was born. He was on an EVR–Extra-vehicular Repair–when the second meteor hit the ship and he became a statistic. Their mother took too many sleeping pills a few weeks later.

  Brian and Barry were left alone. A childless couple wanted to adopt them, and the boys had stayed with them for a few years. When Brian was sixteen and Barry eight, they had moved their belongings back into their family cabin. Brian told Barry he should stay with the Parkers, but the brothers were close and nobody objected to them living on their own. After all, the ship was a closed system, where could they go?

  Finally, the ship arrived at its destination–the fourth planet of Alpha Centauri-A. Like Earth’s Sol, Alpha Centauri-A was a G2 star, although quite a bit larger. The fourth planet was farther out than Earth was from Sol, so it almost matched the earth’s climate. It was a big yellow sun and its sister, Alpha Centauri-B, came close enough every few years to see it as an orange disk. It was supposed to be a perfect place for colonization and matched all the criteria for earth-like life.

  The planet they had named Chiron was a little warmer than earth, so they situated the colony close to the planet’s north pole. The planetary tilt was practically perpendicular to the plane of orbit and the orbit was very nearly circular. This left the colonists with virtually no distinguishable seasons and equal length nights and days all year long.

  This might have been the reason animals could not survive on this planet. Why humans and plants could live was open to argument–and there was a great deal of argument between the biologists, geneticists, and other scientists throwing in their two cents worth as well.

  Old George Cassner was not a scientist, but probably came closest to the right answer when he insisted that earth animals required some evidence of the cycling of long-term time: seasons, in other words. This planet simply had not developed animal life for whatever reasons God might have had (there were some very hot arguments over that assertion, too). The old man told anybody and everybody that humans weren’t meant to live here. After a few months, he quit talking about it because they wouldn’t listen to him anymore. He finally wandered off, muttering to himself, and nobody ever saw him again.

  The rest of the colonists continued as best they could–plowing, planting, and finally, harvesting the first crop. The mild weather and good rainfall with sunny days made the crops grow quickly and lushly. The colonists got the proper nutritional requirements through carefully planned combinations of grains and legumes. Since the colonists had spent twenty-two years eating soy-based proteins, a vegetarian diet bothered nobody. The older ones–those born on earth–were the most disappointed. A standing joke on the ship involved consumption of whole cows as soon as the animal stock thawed. That was not meant to be.

  The colonists had to accept the situation, since their journey was, by necessity, one way. They did not design their ship for a return trip and no
other planet in this system was suitable for supporting earthly life at all. They planted their crops and harvested within weeks. However, they did have to spend a great deal of time with farming, which required all adults to donate half their time to agriculture.

  Barry was taking his cherished day off swimming. The Green River was rocky with deep pools seemingly designed for a young boy to swim in. Trees shaded his favorite pool; it made the perfect swimming hole. He swam in the pool, diving occasionally to search the bottom for interesting rocks. When he was tired, he climbed to a rocky overhang and lay, lizard slothful, in the sun.

  As he basked on the overhang, he thought about his brother. He wished Brian had time to come with him, but work took most of the older boy’s daytime hours. Back on the ship, they used to have fun together. Barry loved to play tricks on his brother. Brian always just laughed and never got mad at him, even when he should have. Barry was the fun-loving kid, while Brian was the serious adult. Barry had some idea of the responsibility that Brian took on raising him when their parents died, and he loved his brother for it. Still, he wished Brian could come swimming and join him in some games like he used to do.

  Barry dove off the overhang once more, knifing to the bottom. Just as he touched and turned to push back up to the stippled surface, he smacked head first into the first biwiggly ever seen by a human.

  The fish was nearly a meter long with graceful catfish whiskers sweeping back almost to its horizontal tail. Its body was silvery except for red stripes stretching from gills to its orange dorsal fin.

  This startled Barry so much, he almost forgot to push off from the bottom. He finally realized he needed to breathe and stroked rapidly to the top. Taking a few deep breaths, he dived again and spotted three of the fish placidly swimming near the bottom of the pool. Quickly, he surfaced again, climbed ashore, and raced back to the settlement.

  “Brian, Brian,” he shouted when he spotted his brother in the field. “Come quick. I saw a fish!”

  Brian stood up straight and shaded his eyes from the sun when he heard his brother call him. He was surprised his brother was running barefoot and naked through the village. There were no rules against nudity, but Barry was usually shy about displaying his hairless, boyish body.

  Barry rushed up to Brian and babbled at him excitedly. “A fish! This long,” he said stretching his arms full length. “I saw three at the pool. Come with me.” He grabbed Brian’s arm and started pulling at him. “Come on, come on.”

  “Slow down, Barry. What are you talking about?”

  “A fish. I saw a big fish. Three of them. Brian, please come on!”

  Brian suspected his brother was playing another one of his games. However, he loved his little brother, so laid down his hoe and followed the excited boy. Barry kept grabbing his arm and pulling him, urging him to move faster than his sedate, adult saunter.

  When they reached the pool, there was no doubt that Barry was telling the truth. They could easily see the silvery shapes at the bottom of the clear pool and, for that matter, all along the river for as far as they could see.

  Now, Brian was as excited as Barry. Forgetting his recently found adult calm, he rushed back to the village. Barry was left behind as Brian’s long legs quickly outdistanced the younger boy’s short strides.

  Brian’s loud announcement brought everyone to the river. He didn’t forget to credit Barry for the discovery and the little boy beamed with pride. When they reached the river, it was filled, bank to bank, with the huge silver fish. Everyone rushed either onto the bank or into the river shallows and started to grab the fish and throw them on the bank.

  Bob Capbarger, the mayor, shouted at them to stop and finally, by prevailing on the cooler heads, managed to stop the slaughter of the fish.

  “Look, we don’t even know if they’re good to eat. Maybe they’re poison to us. Let’s leave them alone until we’ve tested them.” The people grumbled a bit, but gave in to the mayor’s request. They trooped back with a couple dozen of the fish. The chief biologist, Fred Littner, and his staff began the examination while the whole village milled around outside the Biology Quonset. Obviously, no more farming would be done that day.

  Two hours later, Fred emerged with a grin on his face. “Let’s go get ‘em!” he exclaimed.

  Everyone turned toward the river and raced off, grabbing whatever they could find to haul the fish in. The colonists harvested the silvery fish the rest of the day and into the night. The flood of fish kept coming, but they were afraid to stop the fishing. The people formed a bucket brigade to haul the fish out of the water and up to the level area on the bank. Several older colonists knew how to clean fish so they began doing that. Others ran back to the village to start fires for smoking the fish. It was the only way they’d have to preserve them. Everyone agreed the fish looked a lot like salmon and smoked salmon was pretty good eating. A few of the braver souls tried the fish raw and found it passable sashimi.

  As the sky was just beginning to lighten the next morning, the flood of fish abated. The numbers were so vast that many of the fish had continued up the river. The colonists were almost relieved since they were exhausted from a long night’s labor. Somebody suggested maybe they had enough. They should all go home to finish putting up the fish for smoking and then get some rest. The children, including Barry, had already been sent to bed hours before.

  Suddenly, one of the men started to moan softly, then began to turn slowly with his arms outstretched. “What’s with Bob?” some asked as everyone stepped back from the man. “Must be exhausted.” Bob started to spin faster. “Someone better take him back to the village.”

  Then another man started to spin with arms outstretched, then another and another. Soon, every adult was gyrating and moaning. Brian was one of the last to begin, so he had some time to become very, very scared. He noticed the few remaining fish in the water were flopping and turning like the colonists.

  Chiron’s sun was high in the sky when the first colonist regained consciousness. Bodies were strewn around the river bank, looking like the aftermath of a bloody battle. The children stood on the edge of the bank, some whimpering. What was wrong? Barry had found Brian and was shaking him. Other of the older children were attempting to wake their parents.

  Brian groaned and shook his head, which he immediately regretted. When he could see without double vision, he realized that his trousers were off and that he was lying across Janet Carter, who happened to be completely nude.

  “Barry, get the kids back to the village.”

  “But, Brian, what happened?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think it would be better to take the kids away from here until the grownups wake up. Get Sally and Georgie to help you, but get the kids away from here.”

  “Okay, Brian. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Just do what I say.”

  Barry rounded up the children and herded them away from the scene. More of the adults were waking, all looking as if they’d been on the mother of all benders.

  Bob Capbarger shuffled over to Brian holding his head and gripping his pants in front of him. Brian was busy mumbling apologies to Janet, while he helped her find her shirt. Janet didn’t say a word, but had a beet-red face.

  “Well, Brian, what the heck happened?” Bob asked.

  Brian pondered for a moment before answering. “I think that these fish are a lot like salmon, all right. They were swimming upstream to spawn and we got caught in the middle of the mating season.”

  “Maybe they’re like telepathic or something. They started to spawn and somehow we were all affected the same way.”

  Brian grinned, then winced a little at his headache. “Well, we’ll surely have one hell of a party every year. That is, if the fish migrate annually.”

  * * *

  “So, Elsie, that’s why we have the Biwiggly Festival every year. We have to. Since there ain’t nothing we can do about it, we decided just to enjoy it. Anyway, that’s how I got together with your grea
t gramma. Since she was expecting...”

  “What’s ‘specting, Grampa?”

  “Why, going to have a little baby. That was your Gramma–or was it great Gramma?”

  “That’s a neat story, Grampa. I can hardly wait til I’m big enough for the Festival,” Elsie said precociously.

  “Old Fred, he was the biologist, found out that the fish are–what’s that word?–hermaphrodites. That is, any one fish could be both a boy and a girl. So, they mated with any fish they’d run into and all of ‘em had baby fish. Do you understand that?”

  “Sure, Grampa, we studied that in biology. I know the biwigglies are bi...oh, I see, that’s the ‘bi’ part of the name. How about the ‘wiggly?’”

  “That’s from the way the move when they’re mating.”

  “What a funny name, Grampa.”

  “Well, Barry found them, so he got to name them. He always was a funny kid.”

  The Vision

  Paranormal/Horror

  Previously published in “Weirdly, Volume 2” from WildChild Publishing.

  Charlie just had his first real vision, and it couldn’t have surprised him more. He glanced out at Mary Beth in the audience giving him frantic, although subtle, signals. He shook his head and almost heard Mary Beth gasp. Charlie shouldn’t move his head more than a centimeter, and he’d clearly moved it at least ten. Ten left, ten right, and ten left again.

  He saw Mary Beth register his confusion. “Charles the Great is tiring, so that’s all the answers for this evening, folks. Next up, Gale and Her Magic Chickens!” she said.

  Charlie took Mary Beth’s hint for a way out. He bowed to the audience a couple of times to a light smatter of applause, exiting stage left as fast as he could. Charlie collapsed on the folding chair sitting off stage as the startled Gale trooped by him with her colorful box full of chickens.

  “Just what is wrong with you?” Mary Beth hissed the instant she arrived behind the curtains.

  “I don’t know. I just got dizzy for a second,” Charlie said, bending his head down between his knees to emphasize his statement. He didn’t feel dizzy at all, but he wasn’t ready to tell Mary Beth about the vision. He had to sort it out himself first.