James Daigler
Bio
Perfecting my craft and inspiring young readers and writers every day through teaching secondary language arts. I enjoy creating speculative fiction, sci-fi, and stories inspired by folklore.
Stories (6)
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Owl Dust
I don’t think anyone has gone into the attic since we inherited Grandma’s house. Certainly no one has taken on the colossal task of sorting through the mountains of junk. There are cobwebs stretching from one rafter to the other, like the world’s grandest spider trapeze. Boxes upon boxes of old books and vinyl records—the covers all faded and illegible—line the walls. Garbage bags of hand-me-down clothes are ripped and threatening to scatter their contents in a deluge of mothball-scented fabric. (I’m pretty sure these have since become the super-hotels of visiting mice.)
By James Daigler4 years ago in Fiction
The Green Light at the End of the Tunnel
Stoplights have always scared me, even before I started driving. Eventually, a stoplight will kill me. When I was young—I can’t say when for certain, but probably during elementary school—I had a vision, or a dream, about my own death. It was so vivid to me then. I kept my premonition hidden for a couple days; however, like any kid, the fact I knew something so special had me giddy, so I broke and let my parents in on the secret. When I ran home from school, out of breath and bearing the largest grin, they expected something childish, maybe someone brought their puppy to school, or that I had a new crush. Instead, I went on for an hour and a half, describing every detail of the surroundings and how it felt to die.
By James Daigler4 years ago in Fiction
Bulmanethyltryptamine
Take a jab of Bull, give a jab of Bull. That’s the beauty of it: the community. I won’t bore you with the science—frankly, I don’t give a damn how it works if it feels this good. You shouldn’t either. But to give it to you quick, you take the drug—Bulmanethyltryptamine; BMT; or, you know, Bull—and it changes you, fiddles with your body chemistry until, for a few minutes, you become Bull yourself. That’s when the magic happens. You can use the same needle. Ain’t no risk of spreading something: Bull is pure. Taking it out feels just as good as putting it in because you know that you’re passing it on. That’s what they’ve taught us our whole lives. Sharing is caring, after all. It’s like a wave in a football stadium. It just keeps going around and around and around. And the party never stops.
By James Daigler5 years ago in Fiction
Nelson and Me
Grandpa talked to his shark. I lived with him for three years after my parents separated and could not decide which one loved me enough to house and feed me. It didn’t help my debilitating anxiety when I woke up in the middle of the night to hear grandpa calling, “Elsie, Elsie.” Except he wasn’t calling me. No, he was speaking with ‘Nelson,’ the shark. That’s Nelson as in Admiral Nelson, as in the admiral who got shot right before he actually achieved something. Fitting. Sometimes, they would talk for hours, but only when grandpa thought he was alone. Grandpa wasn’t flat out crazy. It’s not like he would chat with Nelson about what Nelson was doing or what Nelson wanted. Grandpa would reminisce about happier days: stories about grandma, or his old buddies from the Navy, or mom when she was young. Nelson would just hang there—for a shark, he was an excellent listener. But I think, after years of struggle, grandpa forgot how to have those conversations with actual people. He certainly never had them with me.
By James Daigler5 years ago in Fiction
Source Material
These bodies, superficially human, had never witnessed a harmful bacterium. Those few that had become “sick”—a profane word amongst Pigi and the greatest shame on their Doxei keepers—had been reprocessed years ago, the economic loss recovered. What remained of the superior class’ stock now bumbled about in the low-lit holding chamber. Amid a sanitized haze, each Pigi was a shadow. A few silhouettes resembled standard homo sapiens, but most were deformed with bulging guts or over-broad torsos. Some of the Pigi spoke in half-whispers to any ear that cared to listen so near to the end. The rest simply stared at the tides of bodies, rocking to and fro as if they rode a Doxei ocean liner. All were naked, except for the scrap of folded steel surgically implanted to the base of each neck.
By James Daigler5 years ago in Fiction
