short story

24-Hour News Cycle of Violence

/ Scott Waldyn / Leave a comment

Note: This short fiction piece was originally published in Behemoth Magazine. No AI was used in the writing of this short story.

Monday, 10:04 AM
Bob rearranged the foil candy wrappers into a neat stack on his desk for the second time. On his computer monitor, an AI chatbot wrote an email response that Bob would copy and paste into a draft saved in his inbox. When the script finished, Bob quickly scanned the text for any glaring errors, then pasted it into an email draft with the subject line: Please upload this to CMS. When Bob clicked send, the email fired off halfway around the world to an ever-expanding part-time office in the Philippines. 

After confirming that the email was sent, Bob pulled out his smartphone and scrolled social media. A sweating man with a bulging vein ranted about a kids movie at the top of his feed. Beneath that, Bob’s aunt posted an awkward photo of her standing in front of a mirror at the gym. This was followed by an inflammatory article about the potential risks tortilla chips pose for dental health. Bob opened his camera, switched to selfie mode, and rooted around in his mouth with an unwashed index finger. His yellow, coffee-stained teeth looked the same as they did six months ago, and his gums also appeared unchanged since he last rubbed a grimy finger over them. 

Satisfied, Bob opened the drawer on his office desk and rummaged through a sea of empty chip bags. His hand returned empty. Looking to the left, then the right, Bob stood up from his worn office chair. The smell of ass sweat wafted from the seat, and Bob carefully slid his legs out in order to air out. On the TV across the room, a ticker tape ran below the newsfeed that read: Both candidates call for cooler political rhetoric and national unity. 

Bob stretched his arms over his head, gave his bulbous-eyed, blonde colleague with the gopher teeth a nod, and then followed the sewer brown carpet toward the front of the office. Most of the cubes stood empty, faded memories of coworkers whose jobs had been shipped overseas. A crinkled agenda lingered here. A pink motivational post-it note still stood firmly there. 

“I want a donut,” Bob announced to no one in particular. 

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Short Story: “16-Bit Heroism

/ Scott Waldyn / 1 Comment

Please Note: This short story first appeared in Literary Orphans. It’s being uploaded here as a way to preserve its presence on the web.

Image by Mariya Petrova-Existencia

“Feet-all-Al-Coal-Hall-Sin-Drum,” Alan sounded out. “That’s what my mom and dad said you have.”  He jabbed his finger into the cool spring air to emphasize the point, just in case his furrowed brows and trembling lips failed to convey anger.

“What does that EVEN MEAN?” Markie fired back. His voice was raspy. He smelled like stale cereal. The tangled fluff of red hair atop his head was lopsided and bunched up to one side, and his freckles were gross. And Markie swore. The fear of God hadn’t touched him the way it had the others, hadn’t stirred in him the wrathful revelation, rendering him free to utter syllables no one else dare speak. One time, in front of the teacher, he even blurted out, “Shit!”

“It means you’re a jerk. That’s what it means!”

It was true. Markie was a jerk. He was the meanest jerk on the playground, and he’d bully kids on a whim. Everybody used to shy away from him at recess, so he’d have to conscript his “friends,” demanding to join their games in lieu of school-wide humiliation. And he wasn’t afraid of hitting to get his way. This was why the boys were afraid of him; it was why the girls hid from Markie.

Oh, the girls, Alan mused. Just entertaining the thought of ladies filled his mind with daydreams teeming with wet kisses and bony fingers wrapped tightly around his midsection. He imagined soft chins gently nuzzling a single hair taped to his smooth chest. It didn’t matter from which girl or for how long or if she had milk or peanut butter breath. Alan just wanted kisses. He wanted to be the lip-smeared hero from all of his videogames, defying all odds and manner of foes to collect puckered smooches from the fairer sex.

“You want to take that to your grave?” Markie loomed over the would-be hero like a ruby-freckled goliath, his broad shoulders rippling with visible muscles under that Van Halen T-shirt. His Neanderthal forehead creased as he drilled his right fist into his left palm. The resulting sound reminded Alan of a handsaw chewing through lumber. Slowly. Painfully.

When a tree is sawn in half in a forest, and nobody is around…

“I’m a meat-eater, chicken shit, and you’re the meat,” the barbarian growled. An inhuman growl. The kind of throaty growl that reminded Alan of the second boss in that Sega Genesis game he unwrapped last Christmas – Joe & Mac. It’s true; Markie lacked the flailing vines and the leafy mouth of the gargantuan, man-eating plant, but their bellows were nearly identical – ominous and pitched in the wrathful, revelatory octaves of Hell.

It took Alan and his brother, Greg, three tries before they cleared the second level, three tries before they discovered the perfect combination of stone boulders and boomerangs that would pummel that prehistoric flora back into the dirt. And when they finally mashed their fingers to victory, mugs of eggnog, the Christmas elixir of 16-bit champions, never tasted so sweet.

But even sweeter were the kisses. The spoils of war. The prizes of valor. With each boss slain, a voluptuous cavewoman would jog onto the screen, seeking out the hero who dealt the most damage. She’d kiss this loincloth-wearing champion – long and hard – for half a second. His life meter at the top of the screen refilled, he’d raise his arms in victory, standing next to his untouched brother, whose head bowed in shame. For only one could unlock the sensation of puffy-lip smooches. Only one could boast the lecherous treasures of courageous conquests at the caveman bar.

And each time he shamed his brother, Alan would watch in awe. His gleeful voyeurism lapped up the adventures of his digital Casanova, scribbling mental notes. There must have been damsels everywhere, inexplicably thrust into wanton captivity.

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New Short Story: Night Sky

/ Scott Waldyn / Leave a comment

It’s been a minute since my last update. I’ve had a busy couple of months over at TheBatmanUniverse.net and at work. As always, I’m continuously carving out time to work on my comic series and that next novel.

That said, a new short story of mine was just published this past month over at Drunk Monkeys. It’s called “Night Sky,” and it’s one of my personal favorite sci-fi pieces that I’ve written. I won’t gab too much, but I hope it is enjoyable and means as much to you as it does to me. In some ways, I feel like it’s something we can all relate to.

Read “Night Sky” here.

And don’t forget to check out the rest of the June Drunk Monkeys issue here. There’s a stellar lineup of writers, poets, and artists.

In other news, I’ve been busy with TheBatmanUniverse podcast. A couple of months ago, I interviewed The Carver Twins about their roles in The Batman, and this past month, I invited Pat Grimes of Wires Don’t Talk on to talk about the music of The Batman. As always, I continue to cohost the regular podcast, but these two featured episodes are part of a larger initiative to branch out and interview more creators involved with creating Batman comics, movies, etc.

As always, if you want to hear more of what I’m about to, I do have a monthly newsletter, and the new issue should be dropping in the next couple of days. Check out the last issue, and consider subscribing (it’s free).