This week’s Free Fiction Friday story from UnWrecked Press is “Orc in the Family.”

UPDATE: Now that the free week is over, you can read the rest of this story by downloading a copy from Smashwords or Amazon. Then you can read it on your laptop, desktop, Kindle, iPad, Nook, iPhone, or whatever device you use to read ebooks

I wrote this humorous little story about an elderly critter for my students at a Young Writers Workshop, which was a blast to teach.

Orc in the Family

It always rains here in the heart of the Sludge Mountains.

All my life I’ve worked hard, chasing after elves in their stinking forests, cracking them over the heads with my club whenever they got too close to our mountains and caves. So you’d think my boy Graggenglub, a soldier from the High Command, of all places, would remember that, and keep his monstrous children from falling on me like foul drops of unpolluted rain.

Is it so wrong for someone of my advanced years to take a little nap — without interruption — after a good lunch of hobbit-toe soup?

Some days I wish I’d never moved in with my son and his horrendous family after I retired from the Orkish Army.

It all started when we were building a wall at the base of the mountains in case the rumors about the dwarves spotted in the area had been true. I threw out my back lifting my hundredth rock of the day, just after lunch.

“I’m fine, Ribbleguts!” I shouted at my commanding orc, who was standing over me and glaring, drool sliding down off his fangs. Orcs never talked. We shouted. “These rocks are heavy, that’s all! Didn’t lift with my legs that time! Just hurt my back a little! It’s nothing! I’m fine!”

By the time we were done moving rocks that day and the wall blocking off the pass was ten feet high, I could barely grunt or cuss without my back screaming bloody murder. The next day, before I could even clock in, the commanders demanded I retire.

My career in the Orkish Army was over.

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Read the rest of this story by downloading a copy from Smashwords or Amazon. Then you can read it on your laptop, desktop, Kindle, iPad, Nook, iPhone, or whatever device you use to read ebooks.