By Jordan Dane
I am completely slammed on deadline and it’s getting down to the finish line for the first book in my HUNTED series with Harlequin Teen, YA thrillers. But when a friend sent the images below, I was able to take a mini-vacation by imagining any story set in these locations. I wanted to share them with you. I save images like these to trigger settings and these are so spectacular, they could inspire an entire book.
For you writers, tell me a story. Pick any one and share your thoughts or describe how you write settings and the research behind your favorites. I’m a fan of Google Maps and the little yellow man that can give you a 360 degree view of locations in my books. Very cool, but these exotic images took my breath away. I had to share them with my TKZ family.
1. Clear the Tracks
Daddy went to war when I was twelve. He promised the day he left I would see him return on those same tracks one day. I waited. I made sure they stayed clear.
Daddy will be home some day.
2. Sir William Longs for Home
I left my house of stone and cold to fight for glory in a land of sand and fire.
My skin is blistered and raw, Saracen scars now mar my face and arms
And I’ll be damned if I ever think of the sun as an honest friend.
This cursed sun that bakes us in the day, and vanishes at night to let us freeze near to death.
God, I cannot wait to stand on cool grey stone, and be warmed at will by the fire in my hearth, and my wife’s soft skin.
3a. Success
He climbed the corporate ladder
Like a rocket to the top
He had come so far, then turned and saw no friend left behind him, should he fall
3b. The Boarder
Dude!
Best Skateboard Dare Ever!
4a. The Gate
The old man looked him and pointed a bony finger to the large round gate atop the hill
None who’ve climbed all the way have ever returned
The young man stared in awe and asked
It must be like heaven on the other side, that they’d never return
The old nodded and said
That, or a slippery steep drop
4b. Witness Reports
Yeah, officer. Idiot tried it on a skateboard, lasted three seconds then racked his nuts and fell screaming to the valley.
5. Mythbusters On Scene Investigations
Hello? HELLO! Damned elves, always playing invisible.
6. The Escape Route
Moose ate the whole bag of flower seeds meant for my garden. Good thing is he apparently got diarrhea on the way home.
Sorry Jordan…I couldn’t eat just one.
Great flash fiction, Basil.
Omg, Basil. You are AMAZING, my friend. Wow!
I think Basil has blown the competition away…great stuff, Basil! Here’s my effort, based on the first picture:
Jason had a hard time looking her into Serina’s dark eyes. He was a male, after all; her dress was cut just low enough to reveal a hint of cleavage and to distract him from his surroundings. Serena smiled at him, a hint of promise around the edges. “I need for you to get something for me,” she told him, gesturing into the woods. A set of rail tracks cut tunneled through the dense forest. The trees had been cleared, however improbably, to provide a rectangular passage path large enough for an adult, or a kiddie-ride train at an amusement park. Jason in spite of himself looked down the tracks, which seemed to disappear in the distance at the edge of his vision. “It’s not as far as it looks,”Serena said. She felt a tickle and glanced down, seeing two long thin spider legs hooking themselves up and over the edge of her blouse from the inside. She quickly tucked them back down just before Jason cut his eyes back to her. “I’m needing a box from over there, just beyond the trees. Please go get it for me; we’ll be waiting for you,” she said. “Alright,” Jason said,not sounding altogether sure of himself. He looked at her again one more time before turning and walking through the clearing, following the tracks. Serena felt another feather tickle between her breasts. “Soon,” she whispered at his back. “Soon.”
1. Tracks
As I walk along, enjoying the cool afternoon breeze, the sound it makes through the thin layer of moss leaves that outline that weird, rectangular, door-like shape, I swing my ax over my shoulder and looked down at those two parallel lines of cold steel on either side of me, the wooden planks running between and underneath them. “Ayuh. Pacific Starlight used ta’ come down these til ’bout ten years ago,” says Harris behind me, right before I hear him go for his Skoal. He’s always spouting useless facts. Helps pass the time, I guess. Better than my own thoughts, the ones that keep wondering back to Llewellyn plowing my wife like it was his job in our marital bed, the sounds of pleasure fulfilled coming out of her that I’d never heard before. I usually leave all my tools at work, on account of the fact that I don’t have a bedliner in my truck and they’ve scraped the shit out of the paint jostling around back there in the past. Harris is the same way, only he leaves his because, when he goes over to Annie’s after work and gets liquored up, he has a tendency to put a wrench to everything in sight. You Jane, me Tarzan. I big, strong man with beer muscles who can fix anything. You give blowjob as thank you. That sort of crap. Anyway, for some reason, I had my ax with me when I came home that night. Good thing too. I couldn’t take anymore of that screamin’.
2. Castle
They walked up the winding, worn cobblestone path, crossed the bridge. “Daddy,” said Charles’ pig-tailed nine-year-old daughter looking over the side, “there’s a moat. We’re totally crossing a real moat.” Charles was to busy marveling at Ansivuld itself. It was a wonder of ancient architecture. What stories were hidden within those weathered stone walls? He could almost picture Charlemagne entering its enormous wooden gates, followed by a procession of dancing jesters and stately Frankish knights, swords raised in respect to Hildegard’s beautiful Germanic face. Around the time of the enlightenment, the Kaisers had started exiling their illegitimate children to Ansivuld. Away from prying eyes. Royals from other nations around Europe began asking if they could sock their bastards away there as well. And that’s where all the trouble started.
That’s all I got. Don’t have Basil’s staying power. My hat’s off to you, good sir.
OMG Joe H–I got goose bumps. Creepy. Another form of breast augmentation…
Nothing is what it appears…nothing.
Fletch—Amazing voice in both. Man, I’m blown away you guys. I would love to keep reading these. You guys are REAL inspirations.
Basil–I think skateboard dude might need a web redemption from Tosh.0
Just sayin’
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thanks for the kind words guys, that’s what being stuck in a recliner with my bloody foot in the air can do. Especially when I run out of painkillers and really have to focus on something else.
That, and those were some amazing pictures.
Joe: I will never look at cleavage the same again. No, scratch that…I will never look at cleavage again.
Fletch: I can’t wash this mental image of Paul Bunyan with blood dripping off his axe.
Basil–Not buying the cleavage thing. Liar.
Hope you’re doing OK with the foot thing. Thinking of you. Being laid up sux. Write a book, dude.
#5 “The High Price of Fame”
I hate being a TV star.
It’s the fans. I never imagined hordes of stalkers dogging my every step.
“Can I have an autograph?”
” . . . a picture?”
” . . . a hug?”
And so on.
I escaped to the tropical rainforest. I was free to eat granola, look at mountains, and be left alone.
Totally alone. Day after day. Totally and utterly alone. Unrecognized. Alone.
They’re pointing and staring. They’ve obviously recognized me and surely want a photo. I should be nice, go over, and offer to pose.
“You take our picture on skywalk, please?” he said, handing me the camera.
How dare they interrupt my solitude! Don’t they know who I am?
#1 “The Encounter”
It’s not the first time I’ve done this. I have two Purple Hearts.
However, today I feel only dread. It’s difficult to see the hiding places in the dense foliage.
I keep walking. I am the Scout. My unit depends on me.
Is that movement? I give the signal to stop. The men freeze.
There, ahead . . . He spots me! He fires; I fire. He falls. My shoulder burns. All hell breaks loose behind me. Bloody and dizzy, I fall forward. I see my adversary on the path.
I will have my third Purple Heart. His family will have their memories of him.
Terri
Wow, Terri. I snorted my coffee laughing at the end of your first one. Soooo funny. The second gave me a chill. You really can deliver a great, thought provoking last line. Great job!
Jordan, thank you for the compliment. Flash fiction is my version of Karaoke, you can’t keep me off the stage.
Jordan, I have been sooooo very distracted by life that I never got to post on this excellent and creative opportunity.
I have chosen all of them as my favorite. They are amazing. I will conjure a story for you soon. Maybe one for each. . . I’ll keep you posted.