J. Otis Haas
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Achievements (24)
Stories (120)
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The Gen. XVII Update. Honorable Mention in A Knock at the Door Challenge.
It was just after midnight when a heavy pounding on the front door roused Jack from a deep slumber. He had taken a Xerostress tablet before bed, and his consciousness struggled its way through the layers of medicated sleep, drawn to wakefulness by the mechanical percussion echoing throughout the house. “Front door camera,” are the words he spoke into the darkness to the Household Assistant, but the lasting effects of the drug slurred his pronunciation.
By J. Otis Haas3 months ago in Fiction
Dirty Dick. Runner-Up in The Shape of the Thing Challenge.
My parents hated Dirty Dick, but they were bred of that sort of liberal pedigree that eschews correction. They believed that things like this must run their course and resolve naturally, that intervention risks harming a child. Decades after her own schooling, my mother blamed many of her anxieties on how teachers had wrested pencils from her left hand, insisting she write with her right. She didn’t want to damage me in the same way by forcing consensus reality into my developing mind. My father, likely due to his lack of imagination, seemed both afraid of and impressed by Dick, whose presence haunted our house for two years or so.
By J. Otis Haas4 months ago in Fiction
The Canyon. Runner-Up in Everything Looks Better From Far Away Challenge.
Jack looked out off the suite’s balcony, admiring the view. Inevitably, his memory compared the sight with a vista from his youth, the same place, just a different vantage point. The Grand Canyon stretched out before him, testament to the indefatigable constance of Mother Nature. As a child, he’d stood on the rim of the canyon with his father during the penultimate stop on their family road trip across America. Jack’s dad had explained to him that the magnificent gash in the earth’s crust, which exposed the strata of millions of years of geologic history, had been created merely by the movement of water. He told his son that it stood as a testament to what was possible, given enough time and energy.
By J. Otis Haas5 months ago in Fiction
The Lamp
“Are you a currier?” asked the man in the doorway as I delivered his curry. “I didn’t make it, I just deliver for DoorDart,” I said, misunderstanding, or pretending to. The large man’s pupils were huge and he was sniffling. He clutched what appeared to be a very old bottle of wine in a meaty paw. The name on his order read “Mario.”
By J. Otis Haas5 months ago in Fiction
