Category Archives: Literature

‘The Recluse and the Runaway’ on Amazon Kindle!

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‘The Recluse and the Runaway’ on Amazon Kindle!

So this is by way of an announcement that The Recluse and the Runaway, formerly titled The Recluse, the Rott, and the Runaway, has been removed from my blog and is now available through Amazon Kindle for $0.99. I’m excited to be able to offer this novella through an e-reading service, since it exists in that gray space between short story and novel, it’s hard to place it anywhere that people are willing to sit down and read on a computer screen.

If you head over there today (April 29, 2014) through Friday (May 2nd), you’ll be able to pick it up for free as part of Amazon’s Kindle Select promotion!

So if you liked the story and just want to be able to read it again, go over and grab it. If you haven’t read it yet, what better way than through a phone or tablet with Kindle? It’s free until the end of Friday for US and UK residents, so the only thing you have to lose is a little drive space to snag it now for free.

The Recluse and the Runaway

The hardest lessons can never be taught.

The Recluse and the Runaway

An Artist’s Legacy [430 words]

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This is in response to a writing prompt over at Reddit, in /r/writingprompts. As of this posting it was the highest rated story for that particular prompt. The prompt was simply “In this world, you can instantaneously teach somebody a new skill and trade or give them a precious memory of yours, but once you give it away, you lose it yourself.”

An Artist’s Legacy

by Rick Cook Jr

I’m old and my time is coming to an end. The Department of Traded Skills has advertisements everywhere, targeted at people like me.

Sell your experience on the DoTS market! Apprentice and Journeyman rates comparable to your experience! Master rates pending evaluation!

Don’t want to wait for those drum lessons? Shred like Neil Peart in a fraction of the time! In the fine print it reads: Results not guaranteed to make you a rock star.

Somewhere out there Mozart still composes. Continue reading →

Lilavati’s Morning Routine [1,070 words]

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This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Literature.

A bit of a departure from my regular genre fiction, but here’s hoping someone out there likes it.

A quick shoutout to K.C. Wise of Writing While Black, from whom I borrowed the last two lines. I’m hopeful she won’t be angry with me (or for changing it a bit), but I did really love this line and wanted to use it.

__________

Her Morning Routine

by Rick Cook Jr

Lilavati did not sleep last night. She lay awake, running her morning routine over and over. Wake before the sun rises, wash her face, brush her teeth, wrap her mundum neriyathum about her body, milk the goat, gather vegetables and herbs from the garden, strike the fire for breakfast, walk along the white sands, pray. Her morning routine never changes, and it cannot change this morning.

The rare drought has come to seaside Kerala, and her morning prayer yesterday should have asked for rain. But she does not wish for rain.

Continue reading →