flash fiction

Aloha writers,
Flash fiction from my novel, "The Outpost," inspires today. Enjoy!


Nature at night smells different. It's a helpless thrill, deep where no one can find you. No awards when the battle is over--just the right to continue

Tigress appears from the shadows. A renewed encounter, the worthy huntress. Forgotten magic responding as if to evoke religion. Beauty's pure natural motion, a ritual dance of sweet hate-- reassuring killer instinct.

Cooper checks his weapon and thinks,"Crosshairs optical instruments used for astronomy and surveying."
He locks on the tigress, intersecting lines in the shape of a cross. "... who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge..."
He pulls the trigger.

Her ferocity is a deep contrast to the darkness of the jungle. She wasn't complete without this. Her eyes held his. So young, yet ancient in her moves, holding her youth as a clever disguise.

Cooper pulls the weapon up again to aim. The inscriptions faint and subtle in raised lettering near the end of the stock number. He feels the glow of tritium, that radioactive form of hydrogen creating the light that helps. ...."let light shine out of darkness,' ... give us the light of the knowledge of the glory"...
He shoots again.

Cooper's mind wanders. Telescopic sights in the shape of a cross, a device associated with crosshairs. Cooper thinks of motion pictures and the media, crosshairs as a dramatic device. His memory floods back now--telescopes of polar alignment, reticles that indicate Polaris position relative to the north celestial pole. He flicks his scanner...." for precise measurements with filar micrometer as reticle; adjusted by the operator to measure angular distances between stars....my goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me."

Cooper's scanners click in automatically once more... "for aiming telescopes, reflex sights are used in conjunction with a telescope with a crosshair reticle. Reflex sights make aiming the telescope on astronomical object or a region of the sky instant. Constellation Reticulum is designated in recognition of the reticle and its importance to astronomy."
..."blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight."

Tigress lives in this jungle. Cooper was part of it now, coaxed on by her dominance, a finalist in a contest, the final battle.
A face-off with nature herself. This one moment in time, no oppressors or victors yet. Raw power the way it was intended to be. Her teeth, her only jewelry, her smell pure, as if the jungle floor itself.

Cooper locks his weapon in again for discharge. "...blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.

Evolutionary companions don't want to be any stronger or less strong than they are at this moment. He was here for the same reason she was. ..."be not that far from me, for trouble is near; haste Thee to help me.
..I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me."

Her ferocity was a deep contrast to the darkness of the jungle. She wouldn't have been complete without this. Her eyes held his. So young, yet ancient in her moves, holding her youth as a clever disguise.
..."whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Recognition emerges. Something in her eyes. She has the primitive wild gene, the one lost in a century of cloning. The xEVEo project.
Cooper locks his weapon in for one final shot. "Every living substance that I have made will I destroy,,,"