What a strange day. Yesterday we had record-breaking heat. My geraniums are starting to bloom again. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for rain, or possibly even snow. Snow might actually be preferable, as taking little kids trick-or-treating in the rain is a miserable experience for everyone involved.
Quite a few new questions have come in in the past week, but I have a lot to do before tomorrow’s storm hits, so instead of answering them now I’m going to try an experiment. Let’s see how this works.
“The Night Parade” • by Robin Blasberg
The streetlamps cast their eerie glow upon the pavement as the parade marched along the empty street. A small boy beat his drum at the back while the others sang innocently in front of him. Mary Had A Little Lamb rang out from their youthful voices. The drum thumped and the verses grew louder as they turned onto the cul-de-sac. The houses were all dark except for one. The...
“Graveside Dining” • by Angelique Fawns
Alma Smith’s stomach made somersaults as she rolled down the car window for some fresh air. The façade of the centuries-old cathedral cast long and wavery shadows on the driveway into London’s oldest burial grounds. Hopefully, all the ghosts of Nunhead Cemetery stayed quietly underground, where they belonged. She stuck her head out the window and inhaled decomposing leaves...
“A Touch of Silver” • by Robert Walton
I touch my hair, my silver earrings—still in place after my dash across the rain-slick street. They came to me from my grandmother, so I treasure them. Besides, silver is so becoming. Someone is following me, someone who does not mean me well. Footsteps—flat slaps on the pavement made by a big man, no trick-or-treater—pace closer. I touch the ivy-covered fence next to...
“Maria” • by Jason D. Wittman
My husband picks you when he learns your name. As you speak intimately of Rembrandt and Van Gogh, tossing your mane of copper hair, he thinks it no coincidence that we are both named Maria. My husband is a fool. You show samples of your work, saying art restoration is like archaeology, seeking clues to how the work once looked. He says my portrait cannot leave his country...
“Golden Arches” • by Eric Farrell
Look, this all started out innocuously enough. Slim Jim and I were smoking a doobie, I was hungry, and I asked when a certain seasonal rib sandwich was returning. Jim got all excitable, and sent me off. He told me to drive to the golden arches on Nutwood Avenue, way out on the outskirts of town. I needed to bring a pack of grape Swisher Sweets, an eighth of cosmic kush, and...
“The Foulest of Them All” • by Jeff Currier
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the foulest one of all?” Mephistopheles asked yet again. “While normally true, the foulest is you, today it’s Ralph Sittlemeier.” “What! Show me this wretch!” A bland bespectacled man typing computer code appeared. “Has he tortured countless souls? Sought to undermine God’s dominion?” “No, Less Foul One, he’s preparing to test a theory, knowing...
“Because the Night” • by Iseult Murphy
Kathy forgot it was the night of the full moon until a collar of white fur, like an ermine scarf, sprouted from her soft skin. She thought it looked stylish, highlighting the length of her neck rising above, and the angularity of her collarbones peeking below. She slipped into a shapeless shift dress, coiled her hair into a messy chignon, and went out into the night. The...
“Trans-Earth Injection” • by Pauline Barmby
Sabastian’s heart pounded and his breathing echoed in his helmet as he crested the hill beside Matilda. She loved their walks on the Lunar surface, the only place they could be alone together. He intended to use this one to propose a cohabitation agreement, so they could move out of the dorms into a tiny hab all their own. Sab turned his bulky suit to face Matilda’s and nearly...
“The Rustling Leaves of Autumn” • by James C. Bassett
The rustling leaves of autumn always depress me, presaging as they do the coming cold and dark, their last bit of life spent to make the colours that fade too quickly into a dry, drab death. The changes have been coming for a few weeks now, so subtle from day to day as to be almost unnoticeable—trees just slightly less green and more yellow or orange, slightly less full—but...
“Webs and Ampersands” • by Timothy Mudie
Three different villages, three different storyweavers, until I procured the elixir to purge Nana’s spiders. I’ve never felt nervous seeing her before, but as I open her cottage door, I think of the elixir in my satchel and my heart flutters. Nana sits at her spinning table, village history book open in front of her, storyspiders everywhere. Iridescent rainbows shimmer across...
“It’s In His Kiss” • by C. L. Sidell
Lewis stands near the pond, despondent. Ribbit. What could it hurt? Reaching down, he catches the greenish-brown frog by his toes and kisses it. Pale cheeks flush crimson. “You idiot!” He tosses his not-fairytale prince into the water, the offended creature disappearing (lickety-split!) beneath the murky surface. “Uh…?” The dense bed of lily pads at the center of the pond...
“Need Brains” • by Elis Montgomery
The trouble was, I kept mine. Jaw slack, eyes lolling, but still, somehow, there was a brain in this decaying skull. So I wasn’t starving for brains; I was dying for a cheeseburger.My disguise got me in the diner. I smelled my order cooking, grateful the fake beard hid the drool flooding from my chinless mouth.But then my eye popped out. A woman screamed around her...
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