The world stops. Lincoln no longer hears the sounds of recess through the open kitchen window facing the grade school playground. In the living room, his wife holds fast, motionless, her words clipped as quickly as shears snip a stem. The silence rushes over him the way water envelops a diver. It’s startling and complete.
It has been a strange week for me this week folks. I met a guy I went through secondary school with. I reckon I hadn’t seen him for around thirty years. I was very surprised when he asked about my writing. He had seen an article regarding the anthology over a year ago and had remembered. It was nice to be asked. Not many people ask, but to be truthful, not many people know or realise what this all means to me.
I mentioned last week about me writing poetry and I’ll admit, I am the most un-poetic person ever! I’m even surprised that I do it! I have always kept all my writing a bit hidden. I am not as guarded now as I once was and if anyone asks what I do in my spare time, I champion this site and all our stories.
Continue reading “Week 104 – Interest, Promotion And Mrs Claus’s Disappointment.”
”I used to live up there, in the red house. My window was just behind the oak tree and I stared out during the night, over this graveyard. I guess you can imagine how I’d fantasized. Wandering ghouls and vampires. Back then only this lamppost existed. Not that one or the one after. This lamppost was like a lantern, a lonely lantern in the dark, and during damp autumn nights when it was dead silent I snuck down here and stood next to it. Heard only the flickering sound of the lightbulb. The hedges were walls all around me. And when a wind flew through the branches and when someone visited the graveyard, I hid in the bushes.”
Erica pressed out a mint from the candy tube and ate it. “Time to go?”
Over millions of years ago Breakheart Woods, between Saugus and Wakefield in Massachusetts, had been bookmarked by boulders and blow-offs and earthly cataclysm, and to this day, somewhere in its innards from those first struggles of granite and earth fire, from violent fractures and upheavals to be known again only at the end of it all, was a cave, a cave as dark as a heart, a cave that once, I believed, pulsed with a heart. Now we were searching for that cave, in earnest.
Continue reading “The Hermit of Breakheart Woods by Tom Sheehan”
Sam held the squirming green legs with both hands while Nick held the long scissors, trying to get the blades in the proper position. He prodded the tip of one blade into its mouth, the other blade hanging above the smooth skin behind its raised eyes. With one quick squeeze the steel sliced cleanly through the frog’s skin and the head flew into the air. The squirming had stopped. Sticky red fluid flowed out of the opening and onto Sam’s pink palm. Sam set the body on the lab counter and both boys’ mouths hung open as the frog crouched into its normal sitting position. It didn’t even seem to miss its head. Nick touched the frog with the moist tip of the scissors. The boys jerked back quickly as the headless frog jumped off the table onto the cold gray floor. Not knowing what to expect next, they kept their eyes on the frog, which was now motionless. Their eyes darted from the floor to each other as they stood in silence. A sudden burst of laughter broke through their bewildered expressions and echoed through the empty classroom.
How were they to know?
Ah sir, you come upon me just as I am closing for the night. No no, it is not a problem to remain open whilst you make your purchase. Come in, I insist! I would not have you come out all this way on a night such as this and leave empty handed. Commutes are soulless enough endeavours, without being denied sustenance for the sake of an old man closing his establishment five minutes early.
In the name of the wee man! I thought the number 102 was boring and then I looked up 103. If you ever want a reason to kill yourself, access that piece of amazement.
Continue reading “Week 103 – Paris Buns, Titles And Holidays”
I’ve been fairly happy since I re-animated Wendy. She wanted to leave me to get back to her bad boys after the first time I brought her back to life. I still believe that because she owed me her life, it was OK to conk her with my baseball bat for a second re-animation. Her first death was in an accident of her own making. It’s all turned out for the best, at least for me. I had to make some sacrifices to keep the relationship going, like getting those ugly tattoos and settling for sex once a week on Wednesdays, but if you could see me, you would know that it is the best deal I could make.
“Hi, I’m Stacey!”
Oh wow, hiya! It’s been ages since I had somebody cool to talk to in person. You’re cool, right? Yeah, ‘course you are. New to the whole ‘undead’ gig, I take it? Just last month? Yeah, I’ve got a couple of years on you but it’s really not that much. I remember all the changes, it’s super crazy. I guess your master has you covered on the basics and the mouldy old traditions… uh huh, they totally leave out the important stuff! No worries, I’ll fill you in. Oh, and you can call me Stace for short. Anyway, where was I?
People have asked just how it was that Sandra and me got together in the first place. I mean, it seems a bit unlikely, if you know what I mean. After all, there’s Sandra, small, educated, a right stunner that makes men choke on their beers at first sight, a snappy dresser that causes men’s eyes to wander rapidly southwards in the hope of even better stuff below, and a helpless looking nature which she uses to good effect when she wants somebody to do something for her. Not that she needs it, as she is quite capable of looking after herself whenever there is nobody else around.
literally stories 