fiction

Challenging Cock (part one)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 6 Comments

In the barn-city of Minimil, small creatures from all across the literary canon live as one people, from Lilliputians and Shakespearean fairies to myrmidons, homunculi, and Wonderlanders.  Their lives are tenuous, valuable as they are as pieces in the proxy game of Little Wars, where conscripting countries can use them to spill thimbles of blood rather than buckets.

Worse still, someone has petrified their goddess, Hestia, and it falls to her nephew Vesperos, the god of love reduced to a mere bumblebee, to find out how and why.  He’s joined by a ragtag group of woodland critters who have heard the wind in the willows, and wish to help him rescue the reputation of their good friend Mrs. Toad, who is somehow caught up in the hatching of a cock’s grand scheme.

This is the beginning of The Challenge Obscene, the second novella trilogy of the Challenging universe.  It’s best to start with the first, which can be found here: The Challenging Handful, The Left Challenging Handful, and Challenging Applause.

(estimated reading time: 24 minutes)

(estimated reading time for entire novella: 3 hours, 11 minutes)

The Challenge Obscene

Challenging Cock

by

Blaine Arcade

Tease the Cock

Only one creature found themselves caught out in the rain, but it should have been zero, scheduled and announced thoroughly as the precipitation was, the notice posted all over the city and found in the weather & events section of the Minimil Minutes: the only newspaper circulating in the entire barn.

Just under an advertisement for the concert of Fadfid Paganinny, the world’s smallest violinist, itself just under, and in fact cutting off, a complaint letter to the editor, the announcement was printed thusly:

On Monday the 18th of October 1926, on the hour of seven until one in the morning, there will be rejuvenating rainfall over the neighborhoods of Banker’s Dozen, Hopalong, and Tin Junction, graciously provided by the cloud, water, and wind nymphs of Bonsai Park. The cost of enjoying the rain and its spiritual benefits is nothing, afforded to us once again by our lady and master Hestia of the hearth-throne. Continue reading →

Giftysit & Rulover

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

Giftysit & Rulover

Designation: the GIF TZU & WRAPPING PAPER cillimorphs

Group: MAMMALISH

Native Biomes: PLANET URBANIAC

Size: SMALL

Interesting Facts: An ornamental breed that loves the suburbs, Giftysit sometimes appears in piles of presents during the holidays, and there’s no way of knowing if people actually got you one, because they always take the credit anyway. Rulover enjoys rolling around in shredded paper, and sometimes its coat will change to match. Always brush a Rulover; you never know how long a shred of the holidays has been stuck under their topcoat.

Previous Cillimorphs

Cillimorphs Basics

Next Cillimorphs

Mysterious American Catalog: ‘Literally Figurative Lightning Rod’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (25): ‘Literally Figurative Lightning Rod’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: October 29th, 1995

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Massachusetts

Collection Report: Reported and logged by its current collector, this MAC is an antique lightning rod with a thick patina. Its midsection bears an oddly shaped bulge that, when viewed from certain angles, resembles a fist deploying the middle finger. It was installed where it currently stands, on the roof of the collector’s compound, where it serves both its intended function and its anomalous one. Continue reading →

Blaine Arcade Works Genre/Vibes Guide

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

All of the blurbs for my work are already available, but maybe what you’re after is not the hook, but a bag of tropes, or a feel, or an aesthetic.  That’s what this is for.  So here are most of my works followed by their genre/subgenre/inspirations/influences/aesthetics.  As a reminder, all of my works are completely free to read, please check any out that interest you.

Book Series

Captain Rob Series – (Pirates of the Caribbean, Army of Darkness, Lord of the Rings, Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Planet in Theory Series – (electro swing music, space opera, southern gothic, murder mystery)

Declaration Series – (American revolution, The Dark Crystal, Finnegan’s Wake)

Confabulo Series – (Wizard-of-Ozian science fantasy, dieselpunk, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow)
Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Bindlestiff Call’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (24): ‘Bindlestiff Call’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: N/A

Collection Location: N/A

Collection Report: This rumored MAC has only secondhand accounts, many from those who are known abusers of the Horseshit Protocol: anglers of the one that got away. According to these rumors, the MAC is a gift shop wooden train whistle, little more than a tan rectangular prism.

Blowing on it summons various bindlestiffs, hitchhikers, hobos, and vagrants out of the woodwork, none of whom claim to have heard the whistle, and were merely ‘passing through’. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Saw Bank’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (23): ‘Saw Bank’

Category: doohickey

Collection Date: April 1st, 1967

Collection Location: Wall Street, New York

Collection Report: After a bank raid, and just prior to thirteen suicides from the roof of the (REDACTED) building, in which all those who died had not a single bill or coin on their person, this item was found tipped over on the sidewalk.

M-A-C (23) is a cast iron mechanical bank depicting two lumber workers sawing at a log. The coin slit is positioned just behind the blade, and the lever is the ‘falling’ round of wood on the front. When a coin is deposited and the lever pressed, the figures saw back and forth briefly. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Sore Spotter’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (22): ‘Sore Spotter’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: September 13th, 2001

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Wisconsin

Collection Report: Teenager D.C. Wingfire was testing out a newly purchased (via her father) dartboard from a yard sale. (Take note that the item was previously flagged under the Horseshit Protocol, but was not collected.) The two engaged in a friendly game.

Through foolishly jumping in front of his daughter’s shot, the father wound up with a dart embedded in his thigh. The wound was judged minor after its removal; the dart was washed and play resumed. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Dust Pail’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (21): ‘Dust Pail’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1980

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Missouri

Collection Report: Self-proclaimed ‘cityfolk’ (REDACTED) and (REDACTED) entered the dilapidated barn on the rural property they had just purchased, finding nothing unexpected. While cleaning it out a chalky metal milk pail was knocked onto its side. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Alcaboozit’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (20): ‘Alcaboozit’

Category: doohickey

Collection Date: March 11th, 1968

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Alabama

Collection Report: This MAC was technically collected well before the existence of the catalog, sometime during prohibition. It consists of a man-sized dented copper still connected to various tangled lengths of hosing. Taken before modern evidence preservation standards, it sat abandoned in a basement for decades.

Harmless unless used, the moonshine produced by the still conjures up a specific repeatable hallucination entity that refers to itself as ‘Alcaboozit’: a lanky emaciated man in full star-patterned pajamas with ‘too wide a grin too full of too yellow teeth’. He is reported to ‘drift like a bubble and pop in your ear’. Continue reading →