Timothy Freriks
Three Short Stories
Here are three pretty intense short stories for your enjoyment.
Enjoy!!! visit timothyfreriks.com if you like them.
Below is a REAL short story.
BANANA
A short story by Timothy Freriks © 2016
After all of this time, now I’m trash. No, sorry… I’m garbage. The newspaper I find myself uncomfortably snuggled up to—almost wrapped up in—is trash. He seems proud of that, like it’s an important distinction and somehow better than being garbage. I honestly don’t know the difference, but I respect his right to think that as I try to be proud of being garbage.
The cherry tomato with whom I share this tight, dark space, seemed to agree with me, but of course, he had to identify with garbage. Inanimate objects are trash, he had said. I’m not. He was awfully wrinkled and squishy at the time—old and maybe senile—so I don’t know if I trust his perception. A little later, when I tried to get some clarification, I got no response. I’ll have to assume he has died.
That fate awaits me as well as I feel myself turning darker, inside and out. My meat is… Continue reading
Startup Assembly Manual Nominated for Small Business Book Awards 2016
From Small Business Trends:
“The focus of “Startup Assembly Manual” is squarely on the product in the “startup” process. Most “startup advice” books focus on the marketing and inspiration needed to launch a product, but only a few focus on the product, which drives the whole thing. Without a good product (or service), your startup will not successfully launch. The book, in particular, embraces its own self-developed methodology, “ACE methodology” (Assess, Confirm, Execute), which focuses on analysis validation, and constant feedback to refine marketing and product design. It features one of the simplest and most straightforward formulas for pricing that a reader will ever see.”
Do you have a brilliant idea for a product or a business and you want to start your own company? SAM is a book for aspiring entrepreneurs who have a great idea and no clue how to go about bringing their dream to reality.
It is focused on the foundation of any successful business: proving you have a saleable product first.
SAM is built from Mr. Freriks’ ACE Methodology, which embodies three basic steps: Assessment, Confirmation and Execution. It is a process of Assessing yourself, your customer, your product… Continue reading
Julia – new novel teaser
I’ll be finishing this novel up sometime late summer. I’d love some comments on Chapter One.
Julia is not ‘stunningly’ beautiful as most heroines tend to be. Neither is she ‘striking’ unless of course she happens to be striking you. No, Julia is none of that: she’s ‘odd’, not falling into any category or stereotype easily identifiable. With her round white face, pink-purple lipstick, and dead black hair, you might start with ‘punk’. However, the pink polo shirt screws that perception up pretty good, although the strangely patterned and oddly colored over-sized scarf flung over it might give you pause.
The ragged, torn, and apparently dirty jeans might not bring you back to ‘punk’—more like ‘unkempt’. The black cowboy boots? Well, aside from the fact that they match her hair, your brain might start to frazzle in its attempt to make any sense out of this. Her ‘just a little plump’ body does stretch the denim a little, but ‘it works’, she likes to say. Looking at the 26-year old woman, you might disagree, but on closer examination, you might nod your head and think that maybe it does work. Somehow. Julia thinks her body is a different… Continue reading
DAK first contact teaser
Chapter One
The dull red glow of the space/time coordinate indicator was the first thing Captain Dak saw as he opened his eyes. The terror and confusion of the last two minutes flooded back to him then lifted as he realized that he was alive, still on the bridge of the ship. The pain in his right leg sharpened his awareness, and he tried to sit up. The weight of his fallen work station pressed him against the floor. Wiggling painfully, he struggled out from under the metal and pushed it upright until it snapped into place. He scouted four feet down the slightly angled smooth floor to the wall. Gripping his aching leg, he settled into a more comfortable position as he tried to look around through the darkness and thick haze in the cabin.
“Raj?” he asked cautiously. “This is Dak. Are you alive?”
Only a sharp electronic sound broke the silence as the main control panel blinked to life, then, as if convinced of the futility of the effort, blanked out. There was no sound except for the erratic and soft whining of the gravity regulator trying blindly and faithfully to maintain the G-force required by a… Continue reading
Dak: first contact – novella
DAK: first contact
This novella is a short read (16K works) in the science fiction genre. It is the first contact between two alien cultures and explores the fears and hopes and resourcefulness of individuals who are forced to interact.
Captain Dak is trying to return home from an extended study of the intelligent life-forms on an alien planet when the ship malfunctions. Unable to leave, he is forced to interact with the alien civilization in an uncontrolled environment. Through unexpected plot twists of trust and betrayal, suspicion and respect, Dak learns much about the aliens and himself.
This is a free PDF download. Download.
Enjoy! And if you like this, please look at my other novels and stories at timothyfreriks.com
Billy – a young man on Death Row
I’m posting this again for some of my new readers.
BILLY
August 14, 1974
The screams shattered his peace. He sat up, breathing hard, sweating. He rammed his hands to his temples. Stop! he yelled aloud. Leave me alone! It was the kids, the taunting, jeering, angry kids that came to him when he slept. They were screaming in his head again, their madness engulfing his mind, their hate and laughter echoing.
The young man opened his eyes and looked around to get his bearings; he had drifted off to sleep, but the clock on the painted concrete wall in the hallway had not. It told him that he hadn’t lost much time, enough for the nightmare to visit again, but not enough to put him much closer to the event that would end his pain.
“You OK?” the large guard asked as he poked his head around the corner. The fat black man in the faded blue uniform had become almost compassionate since the final stay request was denied. He grunted and stared at Billy for a moment then tucked his head back to his solitaire at the little table behind the light green wall. His head hit… Continue reading
QuarterShot – a short story
A short story by Timothy Freriks © 2016
The feel of the football in my hand as the center hikes it to me is comfortable and secure and I start to move away from the line. I see the other team’s backfield starting to watch my eyes and the Cornerback trying to figure out how to anticipate what they are saying. The guard can’t see me, of course, since I’m lying behind the low ornate parapet of the dingy, half-destroyed apartment building in this sunbaked, God forsaken city. But I can see him through the scope which is pointed toward the speaker’s platform 631 yards away.
My Wide Receiver is a half-second late in getting off the line toward his lane. It’s a simple hook pattern made to look like a post pattern to confuse the Safety. If everybody else is covered, I’ll hit him in the hook and settle for fifteen yards. The Premier is just starting to enter my field of vision from the right. The guard backs away a step to give him room to climb the steps. Good, that gives me a couple extra inches. But there’s another guard entering from the left… and the Ambassador… Continue reading
Teaser – Roland: of pirates and patriots
Roland: of pirates and patriots – chapter one
September, 1800, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean
The sun was dying again, extinguished by the horizon of water in the distance. The wispy clouds above looked like the eyebrows of an old man. They turned slowly from white to orange to dark gray. Then they were gone, absorbed into the night that was just starting to swallow the remaining day. The ocean was a polished table, flat and still; it was a cause for concern, of course, among the captain and crew of the merchant vessel, but Roland didn’t understand that. His twelve-year-old eyes only saw the beauty of sunset, the purity of nature entering another cycle of wonder. He had come to love the ever-engaging, ever-changing canvas of the water and the movement of the schooner, rocking softly in shallow waves. Conditions had been dead calm for the last twelve days.
Worn and tired and sodden by years of having boards and seas under his feet, sails over his head, and an endless line of worn and tired and sodden men to command, Captain Charles Bigelow watched the boy standing by the rail. Roland’s elbows rested on the wood, his woolen… Continue reading
On Writing 2.0
This is a re-print of a Post I wrote last week. I’ve been asked to re-release it by some new “fans”. (Okay, maybe not fans…maybe followers…okay, maybe not followers… maybe because my sister was out of the country and missed it).
“Writing is a solitary sport”, somebody said. (I like writing better, though: I don’t usually sweat when I write). However, to me, writing is anything but solitary. I have so many characters visiting me in my house-brain that I never seem alone. Sometimes characters are good friends, and sometimes I just wish they’d go away. It’s true: some characters I just don’t like. Some, I love. Some are just there to move the plot along or give the reader insight into a real character. Some come and go and some stick around, continually surprising me.
“Surprising you?” you might ask. “Yes,” I would reply. If your characters don’t surprise you, they don’t grow. If the characters don’t grow, the story doesn’t grow. If your characters don’t twist you and tempt you and keep you guessing and wondering, they won’t intrigue the reader. “But don’t you direct them? Aren’t they your characters?” you ask again. Actually, I think that if… Continue reading
On Writing
“Writing is a solitary sport”, somebody said. (I like writing better, though: I don’t usually sweat when I write). However, to me, writing is anything but solitary. I have so many characters visiting me in my house-brain that I never seem alone. Sometimes characters are good friends, and sometimes I just wish they’d go away. It’s true: some characters I just don’t like. Some, I love. Some are just there to move the plot along or give the reader insight into a real character. Some come and go and some stick around, continually surprising me.
“Surprising you?” you might ask. “Yes,” I would reply. If your characters don’t surprise you, they don’t grow. If the characters don’t grow, the story doesn’t grow. If your characters don’t twist you and tempt you and keep you guessing and wondering, they won’t intrigue the reader. “But aren’t they your characters?” you ask again. Actually, I think that if you consider them to be your characters, the reader won’t take ownership—and isn’t that the ultimate goal of writing? You have to share; you have to bring your readers into your head.
I am continually amazed how much of a third-party I feel when I’m… Continue reading