Erl Johnston
Bio
I am a chartered architect but write stories to amuse myself and, hopefully, others too.
Stories (6/0)
The Iron Key
Tom contemplated the crumpled five-dollar bill in his hand, weighing its true Saturday-afternoon value carefully. It wasn’t much to make his trip to the Westsider used-bookstore a great one, but he figured that an hour looking through the shelves should get him something worth reading. With the school holidays not yet over, and the New York weather managing to be not too hot, it was a perfect day for sitting in Central Park with a good adventure novel, or maybe a travel-book. Either way it was going to be fun finding out, and the five-dollar limit seemed more of an interesting challenge than a limitation.
By Erl Johnston3 years ago in Humans
The Ring of Fire
It is the 20th April 2021. Tom Hanks, for it is he, is sitting at his typewriter composing a Pulitzer Prize winning treatise on the meaning of symbols on typewriter keyboards. The stack of completed pages sits on his fine wooden desk, taller only than his bouffant hair which has not been cut in two months due to social distancing measures. Suddenly the telephone on Tom Hanks’ desk rings ominously. He lifts the receiver with the feeling that this call will be anything but ordinary, and is greeted by a mysterious voice in an accent that he cannot quite place. ‘Is this... Tom Hanks,’ the voice asks, seeming both near and far away at the same time. “Mister Hanks - Do you know of Dante’s ‘Ring of Fire’?”
By Erl Johnston3 years ago in Geeks
The Wind-blown Letter
Elise zipped up her coat against the chill wind that was blowing through central Paris that afternoon, but it didn’t make her feel any warmer or happier. She normally didn’t mind the cold of late autumn because it made her mother’s little stationery shop on Rue du Pont Louis-Philippe seem even more cosy and inviting. But the shop wouldn’t be there for much longer, and the thought made her feel cold inside. Their landlord was apologetic, but said that he had to sell the building and the new owner would be tearing it down to build apartments. If they could find twenty thousand Euros he would sell it to them, but they didn’t have anything near that amount of money.
By Erl Johnston3 years ago in Wander
Tin Mystery
Tom Hanks (for it is he) is sitting in his study writing the greatest book on symbology ever (since his last one) when the phone unexpectedly rings. Tom Hanks will not finish his greatest book on Symbology (ever) this evening, for the caller on the line is le Comte du Pastille de la Bon-Bon, a reclusive and mysterious collector of arcane and occult Sweetie-tins who live in a mysterious secret hidden underground mansion in the heart of Paris.
By Erl Johnston3 years ago in Geeks
