Victor Javier Ortiz
Achievements (1)
Stories (11/0)
Going Back in Time to Save the Titanic
It was a massive movie set. A pool of rolling water the size of a football field with a giant fake ship stuck in it. A replica of the Titanic. It was surrounded with tennis-ball-green walls. A fake horizon was to be copied and pasted in post.
By Victor Javier Ortiz2 years ago in Fiction
Pooch and Pocket-Hole
A woodshop, after all, is like a serial killer’s foxhole from an 80s paperback. The table saw holds a knife to my neck and dares me to slip up and send a finger flying. The noise is terrible and industrial and droning, and the noise can gum up the ears and make them buzz. At night, laying in bed, my ears buzz. Handling the machines for so long, the vibrations become part of the hands, and the hands feel tingly and dead. Like gums at the dentist when they’re shot up in anesthetic.
By Victor Javier Ortiz3 years ago in Petlife
A Night of Odd Confession
Rosary beads, with the lacquer rubbed off, the Father’s hands travelling down, the hypnotism of the prayers, over and over the prayers, o Mary, full of grace, please forgive me, for when I reach that final bead, when I’ve said all can be said, I’ll have to go up there myself and kill that man dead.
By Victor Javier Ortiz3 years ago in Fiction
A Secret So Sirius
Fustidia wondered when a child was ready for the family secrets. Her mother, her servants... All tiptoed round the wispy gossip that hung gossamer in the corners of the Foya Family Estate. Family secrets are, after all, less a secret than a willful ignorance.
By Victor Javier Ortiz3 years ago in Fiction
- First Place in Bedtime Stories Challenge
Ashes for AbuelitaFirst Place in Bedtime Stories Challenge
It is Mexican tradition that moral stories and fairy stories for children are more like horror stories. There’s an understanding in the Mexican culture that the child is not interested in the sugar-bubblegum-pop. Rather, it is in the grotesque that has been swept under locked doors that the child finds humanity. They pop the stories in their mouth like a dulce de tamarindo, a tamarind candy, and they savor the sour and spice.
By Victor Javier Ortiz3 years ago in Fiction
Sol Survivor
In the year 2051, Texico’s immigration crisis was eliminated. There were no more immigrants trying to get in. There were no more racists trying to keep them out. This was accomplished by a satellite which turned the sun into a death-beam. The death-beam got rid of all the rotten eggs.
By Victor Javier Ortiz3 years ago in Fiction