LaVerne Zocco, Moon Flowers

excerpt

Moon Flowers

Author: LaVerne Zocco
Publisher: Xlibris Corp.
ISBN: 9781479725588
1479725579

This is my new book. Moon Flowers is a compilation of 76 flash fiction stories. They are limited to 1,000 words each and are approximately four pages long. I call the stories “flowers” because each is different and has its own configuration. The stories begin with a premise which will be of interest to you, a middle that pulls you along, and a quirky satisfying end making the perfect arc of writing. These stories are meant for the present-day reader who likes his material ever-changing, applicable to fast reading and simple to understand though you should stop after reading each story and see how profound it is. I hope you will enjoy this book and recommend it to family and friends.

If you have a Kindle or a Nook reader this book is for you for only $3.99 on Amazon.

A Curious Mind

My joke was working well. In the center of my colleague Jim’s Telescope Reports there was a long paragraph about a pulsating light that could not be accounted for. It was my doing, as a practical joke and it was maddening for Jim. It was a steady on and off of the light, a characteristic that gave my colleague a firm conviction that the time in-between the blinks were man-made and a code of some sort. He hadn’t figured out yet that the blinking was caused by me and that it was a light I was reflecting from right here on earth. I was wondering how long it would take Jim to figure out it was an artificial light and the code had been taken out of a World War II Encryption Scan. I had no intention of allowing the joke to go on for any length of time, but as fate would have it I was assigned on a Temporary Mission that had lasted the better part of three months. I forgot all about the joke in the interim,

Unbeknownst to me his superiors had stepped in and told Jim they were very interested in the blinking light and that if a code was being sent from that isolated area of the quadrant, he should try to break it in hopes that it was a sign of life.

After another few days I went to visit my friend and to come clean. My friend was not at home and had not been home for several months. When I asked for him at work, his superiors told me that he had broken the code of sorts, and that it came from an old World War II Encryption Scan that was Top Secret, but Jim had broken it. He adjusted the code and made contact and communication with an Alien Scientist who invited Jim to make an in-person visit to the Alien Planet. Such an in-person visit had been months ago and last they heard Jim was working well with his Scientific Friend and they had had no contact with Jim who promised to communicate the time he would be ready to come back. It was all very secret and I was not to open my mouth about the project on pain of Executive Action which could have meant my dismissal.

The first thing I did was stop the blinking light. Then I went to his Superiors and made a clean breast of the joke from beginning to end. I protested in feverish desperation and that was when they told me Jim had landed on that part of the Quadrant and had established the code with a group of scientific aliens. From my agitation and anxiety they agreed to allow me to communicate with the Head Scientist and it was with great relief that I established a message with the Alien asking it to send Jim home for we needed his curious mind back on Earth for a very important project. The Head Scientist was very cooperative and personally made special arrangements for the return voyage.

We were all there on the tarmac to welcome Jim and his curious mind back home. What was delivered was a square, cardboard carton, and when opened there was Jim’s Curious Mind.