June 2010
1 post
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTER: CHAPTER 1: THE...
I’ve seen everything. Everyone. Every type. More than once. Yet, until she sat down on the other side of the counter: sneaks, trench and suspicion all proudly displayed, I’d never seen her.
It wasn’t a good day. No, you don’t fall in love on the good days. You fall in love on the bad days. The off days. The vulnerable days. The wrong moments.
I had too much...
April 2010
2 posts
CHAPTER 8: SOMEONE SWEEPS A LOT OF FLOOR, MAYBE...
The labyrinth shook — yep, let’s call it by its official name not the twisty turning corners o’ death fun ride. Labyrinth. With monster. Him.
He was surprised to see me. I wasn’t surprised to see him. Mace just glowered, at both of us pretty equally. Like this was all our fault. When, of course, it was his. I’m never at fault. That would imply attempts at doing the...
CHAPTER 7: I THINK THIS MIGHT HURT
And there she was, Mace, shimmering ahead of me, thread twisted into a ball in her hands, a smile, welcoming arms…That’s where I paused. Mace would certainly be having some other mood than open arms, if I knew her at all. And I did.
Shapechangers, illusions and witches/wizards playing mind games always mess up the little things. They give you a pretty, perfect fantasy picture, a warm...
March 2010
3 posts
CHAPTER 6: WE WHET OUR WHISTLE or A BREAK IN THE...
I didn’t know I was feverish until the cool splash of the green swallowed me. Mist, steam or fog, will o’ whispery white surged wherever skin met splash. I no longer recognized my surroundings. Nothing unusual there. But there were shadows masked by fog and a strange silence that echoed. Yep… you didn’t hear that and neither did I, over and over and over again, silence...
CHAPTER FIVE: WHY I SHOULD HAVE TRIED SILENT...
Tonight’s lesson: Be very straightforward with people who don’t want their establishments destroyed and miraculous things may happen. And why do I mention that? Well, instead of walking and whistling, what I should have tried was ducking and covering or maybe screaming and sprinting. Have you ever seen a Minotaur on a Jetski? Well, I have and no one has designed the swim shorts that...
CHAPTER FOUR: EVERYTHING GOES BLUE
The infinity of colors must have included the golden depths of tequila, the twinkly veridian wink of absinthe and the variety blend that is hootch, because I came back with exactly that kind of a headache. First step: pick self off pier. Second step: sit down on something solid. Third step: blink. Fourth step: well, that would involve language you really don’t want to see transcribed for...
February 2010
3 posts
3 tags
CHAPTER 3: RUNNING INTO THAT CORNER
Ever have one of those dreams where you just run and run and your heart pounds and you know, just know that if you stop, if you falter, the footsteps behind you get closer, the dark trips you up and the laughing, well, you’ll never know if the laughing ever stops because all you hear is nothing…
Then you wake up. That’s why I have a cat, really, so I know it’s not the...
"The Lady Lost" or "Turning That Corner Wasn't The...
Mace was missing and The Minotaur was in town. I could smell him; they had that much in common and a little more history behind them than she ever really got around to telling me. Mace had never really been much of a talker. That was the great thing — you sit at the counter, you drink your coffee, you watch her knit…occasionally, the ameythst gleam softened a little and you got the feeling she...
6 tags
CHAPTER 2: THE LADY LOST
The need for coffee and the pound of rain were the twin rhythms running my heart at the moment…throbbing, pounding rhythms of ruin. Ruin, rain, lost, lace, Mace, pace, make, race, trace, place…my place, word association game over, draw conclusions at will, but my place was the only solution to the coffee dilemma…I had some stashed in case of a dark night like this, somewhere, I...
January 2010
1 post
Howdy…starting up again…not sure if I’m going to keep the title but we’ll call this one “Bull Horns Aren’t Just For Shouting”
December 2009
5 posts
CHAPTER 5
The whistle whipped through the tension like a hurricane wind and filled the clearing like egg whites being beaten into meringue. The car shuddered; I had forgotten I was standing, half out of the car. I remembered when I fell over the side as the car rose, altering itself, panels sliding as my hands hung desperately to the ridge of the window; it lurched downward. I used that opportunity to roll...
CHAPTER 4
I almost woke up, oddly warm and yet there was a seeping cold at the same time…the movement had stopped. I pushed into the warmth but was startled by a cold, wet spray on my face. Eyes snapped open while I stayed very still, trying to orient myself…green above me, green leaning in toward me, weighted with the lightness of snow, darkened by the brightness of piled grey clouds reflecting...
CHAPTER 3
We talked until the sun untucked itself from a blanket of darkness, slush and sleet…no light really came in through my window, just a grey blushing slightly at being so incapable of generating any warmth. I left my office before he did; the herd of details had tucked themselves into my desk drawers, their fluted snoring vibrating the empty cider bottle across the desk. I heard it hit the...
WHICH LIST FOR THE MRS?
Cold caught me in the side like an amateur pickpocket who’d rather be boxing for living. Nothing on these cold streets could really be making a living. Just living was difficult enough, keeping a little warmth inside to shore up against the cold and bitter wind and the bite of disdain. Sure there was the holiday spirit, a smile, a strain of a jingled jangled carol, someone stepping aside with a...
CHAPTER 2
The details poured through the door before it finished the futile bounce up, a flood of fine pointed print with sharp hats and pointed shoes. The wood splintered beneath their onslaught proving that doors are only a social contract and you should always check the fine print before agreeing to anything. My desk was the next casualty; they left my chair only so the collected weight of tiny, pointed...
November 2009
54 posts
Next up? Well, this time I’m hoping for holiday noir spoof possibly titled, well not sure yet but “Which List for the Mrs?” is up there
And thank you for following my first Twitter/Tumblr short, The Tale of The Telltale Guitar — hope it gave you a few pleasant shivers.
TTTTTHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMM
The door closed on all that…splintered night echoing with music and memories; leaving me behind it, here, alone, behind the door, about to
to be filled with tap knock thUmp ThrUM StruM tAP KNock THrum THUMP strum Filled quiet echoing sleep splinters memory night music murder
Silence with echoes of darkness, wood sliding under skin, splinters of memory, the only rhythm, the only door, the empty sleep
of my heart. A door closed. On an empty hall. And opened into silence.
wood drive deeper and deeper and deeper, felt the itching in my arms as the wood worked its way under, through, down to the beating constant
And in the silence of the eternity of after, an itch, a finger flick, I reached down to scratch, felt the splinter of burnished sunset
…
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
head…couch, silence, heart beating, knocking thuMPING, THUDDING
Nothing in the room, no noise, no echoes, even the guitar had fled, another nightmare; had the neighbor even been real or just a song in my
or floor solid, stepping inside, shutting the door, silently, creeping to my window, silently, shutting the curtains, silently…
no neighbor…only in the night, only in the echoes…only in a distant hall? I stood, almost lightheaded, nearly falling, unsure if feet
Echoing everywhere…with silence. I sat, suddenly weak, in the brightness of the day and the emptiness of the area, no head, no shattered,
Door still shaking, hand still shaking, heart still shaking the room, I opened the door again and stepped out. Dry…empty…echoing
A slam?!?
Door slammed shut, slammed so hard it reverberated, heart slammed so hard against my chest it reverberated…was there a scream? a knock?
Hall empty…
Door open…
If noon, then the night would be fully gone…and the neighbor. I hesitated, checked again, door closed, door locked, door silent…
might be around me, in shards, my bare feet felt something…door was closed, good, curtains open, blinding…noon?
especially memory…stretching, fingers tensed from clutching, the guitar neck I remembered driving into me melted by the dawn,although wood
but pain from the sun or the cramped position I’d passed out in, tossing to and fro in the winds of nightmare visions…everything slippery
there on the floor, nightmares splintered by sunlight, crunched under my elbow as I levered myself up, hand to push, sharp…pain, slicing
full of images, sound, visions, fears…but what to fear? Not the dark; light splintered around me, guitar and memory mixing in shreds there
another knock, another moan, another breath besides mine to tell me if the night had been nightmare or terror…my arms were empty, my head
Was it fear that kept me in bed, covering me like a weighty blanket and yet letting in something that caused the shivers? I listened for
And then a knock.
Morning…was it morning or only a light behind my eyes, forcing its way out of my head. I moved, maybe turned, heard wood straining
…
dark
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