New Story

I just uploaded the short story "Sneezing".  It's available in PDF.  It is a Science Fiction story with some humor in it (I hope).

You can go to my Samples page or directly to the story "Sneezing".

Here is a little something to whet your voracious appetite:

Sneezing

A Disgraceful Sneeze

“Achoo!”

George Dubois hadn’t noticed the sneeze coming on.  He’d had too much to drink and his normal caution had fallen in the gutter two or three pints ago and was now happily snoring, oblivious of the effect its absence was having upon its owner who sat at a table in his favorite corner of the Rose and Crown.

George stared glassy eyed into his beer and sniggered to himself as he recalled an incident as a child when he and two other boys had dared each other to sneeze while hiding out in Mr. Hargrieve’s barn.

That was where George had discovered his natural talent for sneezing.  With just a little concentration he could muster up quite a penetrating sneeze.

He sniggered again as he remembered …

A hint that something was not quite right had managed to work its way through the alcoholic fog that surrounded George.  Through blurry eyes he looked round and noticed that the entire room was staring at him.

George frowned, wondering what they were all looking at.  Dimly he thought that perhaps it was something behind him so he looked, but all he could see was a wall with a poster from the 2020’s of a woman with a funny dress and some words about an old make of beer.

He looked back at the other denizens of the old pub and found that they were still staring in his direction.

“Wha?” he demanded.

Cautiously, Sam Davis, proprietor of the pub, came out from behind the sacred walls of his bar and advanced towards George.  He stopped at a safe distance, folded his thick arms across his barrel of a chest and frowned disapprovingly.

“Wha?” repeated George, truly mystified.

“You’d better leave, George,” said Sam in his deep resounding voice as he tightened the fold of his arms so the muscles bulged with finality.

George had still not quite grasped the gravity of the situation, nor indeed the cause of this demand for his departure.

“Wassa matta Sam?”

“You …,” Sam hesitated before saying the word and when he did, it was in an embarrassed whisper, “you sneezed.”

At last George got it.  The light had penetrated the alcoholic darkness and reality, a cold, threatening reality, was now coming into focus as adrenaline rapidly overcame the effects of alcohol.

“Oh, come on, Sam,” he said, forcing a friendly smile.  “It was an accident.  I forgot myself.  Y’ know how it is after a few pints.”

“Go George, before you make things worse.”

George’s natural caution still seemed to be snoozing by the roadside, for now George became angry.  He rose unsteadily to his feet, almost knocking over the small table he’d been sitting at and his beer with it.

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