The First Day of the Rest of My Life. Louis Shalako.

From quiet contemplation comes Chaos.

Louis Shalako 

My first novel has been accepted for the new Independent and Self-Published local author section in the Sarnia Public Library. Heaven is Too Far Away is my WW I Royal Flying Corps memoir, ladies and gentlemen.

(It took 2 ½ years to write. I cried when my old Pentium II computer blew up and took over 80,000 words with it…I published that in 2010 in ebook format and that’s where the learning curve really began.)

(Louis was so poor, he had to write his own books, although things are a little better now. – ed.)

A couple of days later, I submitted Core Values, science fiction and horror with autobiographical elements, and it too has been accepted.

It’s a fairly simple task. All you need is an ISBN number, and then you need a cover image to attach. You need a name, a phone number and an address.

Oh—don’t forget to write a few books first.

I also have an estimated 33 books including short story collections, a poetry book and five pen names. Two of those pen names have standalone books of their own, and four of them have a collection of their own short stories, while poor old Louis Shalako has four collections. These are book-length projects, although I have dozens, possibly hundreds of short stories and novellas which are just too short to put in print form—hence the aforesaid collections. My last couple of books are not in print. Amazon’s publishing site has absolutely baffled me insofar as getting a paperback cover on the books. The old Createspace was far easier to use, once I’d learned it.

Anyhow.

It doesn’t seem like a real good idea to just dump all those books in some poor over-worked librarian’s lap, so I have promised myself not to go too crazy all at once.

Let’s hope I can restrain myself…

The thing to do is to get as many books as possible into the library, and then when I get renovicted, which confers the popular ‘mental-health/addictions’ tags as a matter of course, I will be able to hold up my head with pride as I pitch my little pup tent down at Sarnia’s Rainbow Park. Rainbow Park is not gay or anything, ladies and gentlemen. It’s just named after the rainbow, which only the sickest of #basterds could ever hate.

Okay, so you get your book into the library. One, they have to purchase the book from somewhere, and there will be royalties. Also, there is such a thing as lending rights. No professional publisher neglects such rights, and the really big guys and gals have their books in libraries all over Canada and probably the world. This can add up to significant additional income, although in my case it will be rather small. I have no idea of what to expect, having become rather used to rejection over the last fifteen years.

Link to Lending Rights source.

If nothing else, it is a learning experience, and that’s what keeps us young and hopeful.

At some point, I will cleverly disguise myself as a scruffy old man and make the pilgrimage down there and have a look.

Let’s hope I don’t poop my pants in sheer joy.

***

In other important news, my story The Trophy, science-fiction, flash fiction of 1,000 words or less, has been translated into German. No pay, but then it doesn’t cost anything either, and it’s a good feeling. A far, distant editor liked the story well enough to do the work of translation, and that really is a shot in the arm in psychological terms.

They know nothing about you, and care nothing either way.

What matters to them is the story—

Here’s your chance to brush up on the high school Deutsch.

Waking up at 3:40 a.m., I leaped out of bed and ran out to check my bank account online.

All of the proper benefits had been deposited. Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, Guaranteed Income Supplement, and the Guaranteed Annual Income Supplement.

It’s quite a chunk of money, compared to the $1,400.00 approximately, from the dingbats over at the Ontario Disability Support Program.

Also, coming up in October are the HST rebate, Carbon Tax rebate, the Trillium Benefit, and the Canada Workers Benefit. There’s an easy five hundred that I don’t have to work for.

In spite of anything that drooling idiot Monsieur Pierre Poilievre says, this is the greatest country in the world.

Don’t you ever doubt that, ladies and gentlemen—

So, the first day of the rest of my life begins with black coffee and pain pills, crushed up so they don’t stick in my craw.

The cheap-ass champagne is slated for a bit later on.

Assuming my fucking shitty old car starts, and stuff like that.

 

END

 

Here’s the story in the Sarnia Observer.

Here’s the link to the actual form.

Here’s a bonus story, replete with links to 28 fantasy and science-fiction markets, which pay in actual money.

Pro tip: at the end of each writing session, email your story to yourself. That way, when your computer blows up, just go buy another one. Hack back into all of your accounts, and there it is, your story, not all blown up, in other words. And get yourself a really good chair. You will thank me for this later on.

 

Thank you for reading.

The Trophy.

Louis Shalako


This story originally appeared in New Myths.

The ancient cyborg soldier had patrolled for a millennium. It came right at him. Its chin was up and the visual sensors were fixed on a point way beyond him.

Rane used open sights to avoid flash from the setting sun and optical-detection systems the ‘borgs were known to be equipped with…he was lucky to see this. ‘Borgs were getting scarce in these parts. The fliers were almost extinct. He had a hunch this one could still have contact judging by the rotating antenna on its backpack.

Chest pounding, he forced himself to exhale fully, to wait, to breathe in, and again…

Taking a smaller breath, he relaxed. Just a little longer.

The sweet-spot, he thought. He lined up and concentrated on the vulnerable jugular cables, lying exposed just under the side of the jaw. He waited until it was within the one-hundred-fifty metre mark, penetration range for the old fifty-cal’s armor-piercing rounds. He was convinced the thing would walk right past him if left alone.

In which case why in the hell was he here?

It would almost too late.

Squeezing the trigger brought the crack of powder, an ugly puff of dust from under the muzzle and a discernable twitch from the ‘borg.

It wavered there, frozen in the heat haze and the dull background, its own highlights muted by dust and time.

Its knees buckled and the head swiveled to gaze directly at him. It remained standing in a half-crouch.

He rolled up out of the sand, the cool shadows masking his lower body temperature, silently cursing the sting of sweat in his eyes. The rug over him was rolled quickly and tied securely over his shoulder. Clutching the gun, Rane broke into a dead run from the back of his hide under the brush.

The brutal heat on his face was a shock, as were the aching lungs and the dry tack of a man’s mouth when the temperature was fifty-plus in the shade.

Now the thing would see his cool silhouette, no longer masked by the rug and an inch of sand. He was out in the open, running full tilt, zig-zagging constantly.

The shot never came.

There wasn’t a peep out of the thing and his breath rattled in his throat as he thought of the half-litre of water in his bag.

A line of brush a hundred fifty metres from his shooting position was bare seconds away.

The shot never came.

#

As soon as he hit the shadows again, he pulled off the rug. Shaking it out, he wrapped it around himself, its long train dragging. Under the cycads and cactus-trees, deadly with their barbs but offering cool in their midst, he turned right, staying just inside the edge, listening intently.

Bumble-drones could be here in minutes. They hunted by infrared just like the ‘borgs.

Going as quickly as he could, but staying out of bright open areas, he stopped and listened.

When he got three hundred metres from his point of entry, he turned left and plunged into the thicket. Avoiding open areas, he began zig-zagging in earnest again.

Looking at his watch, his heart lurched. Almost ten minutes had elapsed.

Seeking the deepest shadows, he used the rug to obscure his tracks, and backed himself into a corner that had only one approach, under the thick branches of the local flora, with a sturdy stump beside him and many spreading branches. He was lucky to find a metre-high ledge of red sandstone behind it. It would protect his rear.

Rane carefully parted the sand, for the under-layer was cooler still, and he so he spread it evenly over his widespread rug, always behind the shooting position so he could pull it up and then roll over.

He snagged his bag of water from out of his side pouch and had a drink.

He put it back from conscientious habit. The one thing he could not leave behind was the water bottle and its integral filtration pump.

#

There was a distant buzzing sound.

He tracked it with fearful ears over his left shoulder somewhere.

They had found the site. There were two of them…they went around and around over there.

The buzzing got closer to him, much louder now.  The two motors running close together went into a kind of harmony and then they were going in the opposite direction.

His heart and his muscles calmed. The noise rose and sounded higher in pitch. He caught a brief glimpse of a pair of familiar teardrop shapes going past, down low on the horizon, going from left to right at a range of about six hundred metres.

The streamlined but wingless pods kept low to the ground, their sensors looking for heat anomalies, although they could pick up obvious tracks.

Why did they go in that direction? As he recalled, the ‘borg had been fixated on that vector…and then on his shooting position. They might be following its line of sight.

The bumble-drones came back. He watched over the sights through the small tunnel he had created with the rug. They were still a couple of kilometres off to the southwest.

Risking some small movement, he took out the water bag and had another sip. Putting it away, he considered his position.

There were nine or ten hours of daylight left and then his heat signature would give him away, but only within the range of their sensors, and only if they came back around here.

He took a deep breath, gave his head a little shake, and allowed a kind of calm to ebb and flow. After a time, his eyelids grew heavy.

Deep down inside, he was pretty sure he had gotten away with it.

In a month or so, he could come back during the dual-moon period, and make a proper job of it.

The head, with its sleek occipitals and pugnacious jaws, would make quite a trophy over his fireplace.

###

Louis is on Scribd.