Category: Fantasy

All Stories, Fantasy

The Cormorant and the Misophonyx: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison

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Prelude 

There are three music Spirits. First you have the Tintintinabulator. Tins were classically trained pianists in life who haunt specific keyboards (pianos, organs, harpsichords, etc.) in death. Tins are generally friendly, but being artists they are hypersensitive to criticism and require reassurance full time. Next we have the Chimespeak. Best described as self-taught travelling minstrels/buskers in life, Chimes are nomadic Spirits who wander from here to there and affect anything from the grandest church bells on down to kazoos fashioned from handkerchiefs and combs. Tastes aside, these two Spirits classes are equally talented even though the Tins tend to look down on the “prolish” Chimes, who in turn wonder how a Tin can look down on anything with “its” head so firmly tucked up its own buttocks.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Mary and the Photobomb Fairy:

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An Epic Season Finale Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison

Mary and the Photobomb Fairy 

Mary was lying on a couch at a psychiatrist’s office, getting her head explored. It was your typical wood panelled and diploma-laden psychiatrist’s office, the kind you see in films, TV and  New Yorker cartoons. There were the already described walls, the couch containing Mary, an occasional table on which lay a box of Kleenex, and a seated shrink, who, if she resembled Dr. Melfi from The Sopranos one atom more, might prompt a lawsuit. No creativity was spent on the presentation of this office, for it was borrowed from the Public Domain Library for use in this story. In fact the sloth in this paragraph alone is so prevalent that your author hasn’t bothered to look up whether Dr. Melfi is a psychiatrist or a psychologist. It’s because all that’s required of this paragraph is for the author to get across the image of a woman named Mary getting her head explored by a professional in that field (from here, “Dr. Morley”) at a place where such explorations normally take place.

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All Stories, Fantasy

The Wee People by Frederick K Foote

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My Family Values – Tess Overland

I love my family.

My family is the most important thing in my life.

My family is the wings that keep me aloft.

My family, sometimes, on rare occasions, can be a bit too much for me.

The accumulative effects of dealing with my family can be exhausting.

My family is getting on my last fucking nerve.

##

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All Stories, Fantasy

Zippy and the Zephyrling:

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A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Miss Renfield Stoker-Belle, Noted Supernaturalist   Featuring an Appearance by Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender And a Futile Forward  by Leila Allison

Futile Foreword

It’s a fallow and disconsolate world in which we live. Even here at this side of reality populated mainly by Pen Names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters, you’ll find more Juggalos per square inch than persons with sustainable IQs contributing to the gene pool. The pain of it all becomes clear on the day you look in the mirror and correctly suspect that the best years have gone by. You gaze into the reflection of your suddenly cautious, peering avatar and wonder what happened to the footloose, laughing face who had been looking back at you every day up through yesterday. It seems impossible that this paradoxically “new” used you has ever had an interesting thought in her life; or that she had even at one time tolerated the Juggalos–as long as they stayed upwind of her location. Continue reading “Zippy and the Zephyrling:” →

All Stories, Fantasy, Horror

Vampires by Paul Blaney

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Jonathan was out on his front porch swing, engrossed in another vampire book, when he gave a shiver and, looking up, caught his neighbor’s dark eye. Willy was across the street, standing on his own front porch. ‘Okay if I come over?’ he called apologetically.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Historical

The Night Game by Jennie Boyes

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Dread comes with darkness. Bar your doors and windows, and keep out the evil spirits. That’s what people say. I hide under my blankets, but Mama says they won’t keep me safe. I’m not even safe in her arms. That’s why the mare took baby Bert when he was sleeping, and the blacksmith’s wife. You never know when she might come, but Mama says no night is safe.

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All Stories, Fantasy

A Fair Amount of Ghosts by Zach Murphy

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He plays the trumpet brilliantly on the corner of Grand and Victoria. He doesn’t look like he’s from this era. He’s impeccably dressed, from his crisply fitting suit to his smooth fedora hat. There aren’t many folks that can pull that off. He’s cooler than the freezer aisle on a sweltering summer day. He performs the type of yearning melodies that give you the goosebumps. I’ve never seen anyone put any money into his basket.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Horror

Bosco by Hugh Cron

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Everyone has played watching games. I’d taken it a step further. I played dead games. I visited cemeteries and I gave five of the dead my thoughts on their life.

I don’t know when my game changed. I wasn’t making up the stories anymore. I’m not exactly sure when the visions changed from imagination.

…They had no input from me.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Peeving Pandora the Pantrydraft: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Miss Renfield Stoker-Belle, noted Supernaturalist (Leila Allison)

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A Learned Introduction

Spirits can’t lie. Still, as it goes in both life and the afterlife, honesty does not mean accuracy. That’s the trouble with telling the truth. In the living world, a great deal of truth telling is dedicated to giving air to erroneous beliefs, mindlessly echoing hidden agendas and giving credence to hallucinations in general. The same holds true at the Otherside. For instance, if you tell a Spirit that the Earth is flat, she might believe otherwise and will tell you so. In this regard, a Spirit is even more stubborn than a mortal when it comes to shedding ignorance. The dumb shit they believe in stays believed in, no matter how much compelling evidence you may present to the contrary.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Why We Haunt by Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender (Leila Allison)

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Versatur Circa Quid!

Once again my four generations removed granddaughter, Miss Leila Allison, has thoughtfully left open a file for me to brilliantly emend. Before I get to today’s subject, however, I believe that I should once again introduce myself to the readership due to what I observe to be a great diminishment in the overall intelligence of the modern day public. It is I, the splendiferous Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender. I died in 1912, but shortly thereafter I returned as a Quillemender Spirit. I am housed in a ceremonial gold gilt gavel presented to me upon my retirement from the bench. I’m allowed to travel ten paces from the gavel, which is plenty close enough to where my ancestor (and current holder of my heirloom gavel), Leila, keeps her Chromebook. Succinctly, we Quillemenders alter text written by the living. In a way my noble kind are the precursor of that mindless autocorrect function that gets so many of you in trouble.

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