Thing Tweleve: Attempted Haiku

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Welcome back!

The Varcolac.

A Micro Short Story by: Sean McGovern

For Rebecca K. Z-Z.  Who is trying to kill me.

Come to me, sit now,

Under the shade and the sun.

Now – story ears.

The tale is old,

As water, as ashes,

Older even, now.

It is a tale of

Dust in throats and more,

Of darkness and ash.

Eyes to fire.

Embers remember it.

The Varcolac.

Say the name, kid.

Feel the sound – know it now:

The Varcolac.

Have you seen, kid?

Those born too early and

Those past  on.

Have you heard?

The teeth don’t fix, yes.

And more – too many.

Fingers – bone.

Chilled flesh reaching

Shadow silent.

I have seen

Across the fields here

Moon light white.

There, I point.

Pale beyond pure snow

Claws of bone.

You look, follow,

To tree line beyond,

And wish to see it.

That is the hillock,

That, yon, is the sepluchur

There he lies still.

There, by time

His sleep un easy

And till he wakes

And finds us here

Upon another hill

And deafening

Now a call of

Thunder upon you

For now I am gone

Under the hillock

Where the old folk

Sit by the fire.

Raised voice

Sing so he may sleep

Winding through earth.

You will come

Here, sit by the fire

Sky bright

Sky darkens

Hands reach up

Silence over

Notes waver

As the claws hold

Fading light.

Ghost Horses (Audio Edition).

Story Time!

thanks for listening,
Sean

Where the hell have I been?

Hi all,

Sorry, I've been working on a couple of projects recently.  Here's something to tide you over - more content coming soon!

Audio story!

Thanks again,
S.

Thing Eleven: AI based Science Fiction...

Ghost Horses.

A Micro-Short Story by: Sean McGovern

For Karen – happy late birthday.

This next tune is Jeru, by Miles Davis.  I piped that through to Vern.  His programming turned it into something else, and I eased through the dance floor.  The grain of the wood was warping, nature having taken its course with it when most of the roof fell in behind the bar.  I still love the feeling, though.  The tactile sense of the chipping lacquer and the waves of the planks.  I cannot help but love it.  This is home.

Vern shimmered into life on the dais – classic Vern, before his later days when the cigars, beers, and diet based mostly on potato chips took their toll.  Vern was at the peak of his cool when this hardlight scan was taken.  That was before my time, obviously.  Had it been later, when Vern was mostly sober and his decline was less damn near everything and more focused on expanding horizontally, then my phrase “The next tune is Jeru by Miles Davis,” would have come out as commanded.  In its place, Vern held one blue light hand to the earphones that are a part of his head. .  The other hand rose into the air, and forms a gun with first and middle finger extended, and pistons forward and back, as Vern-Classic called out, “Get ready to move, girls!”

The word comes out ‘gurls’.  Sometimes, I am pleased that no one really comes here.  Language may be a living thing, but even here, in my home, I can feel it dying.  It may yet be like a phoenix, and rise from the ashes, but it is more like a construct, built using the materials and general pattern pilfered from a previous site.  The constructs cannot be the same, no matter how perfect the replication – by its very nature, it must be different.  Example – the version of Vern now enticing g(i/u)rls to move, is a perfect replication of how he looked on an unseasonably warm May evening not too long (by my reckoning) before the roof became one with the floor.  Except for the fact that his clothing is a part of him.  His headphones are a part of him.  There is no separation between the uniform he had created for himself, and him.

This ignores, of course, the fact that he is also blue.  I do not believe people were actually, physically blue.  That was only a turn of phrase, expressing sadness.  We have some of the songs those sensations inspired, too.  From the audio files I studies before joining the building, I understand that Vern may have been blue under the display of hedonism, and wanton of sales pitches for the g(i/u)rls “shake (their/dem) asses”.  That may have contributed to his propensity for snorting narcotics – a sadness hidden under the display.  My files indicate that he chose the color.  I do not think that this was a subconscious attempt to communicate his emotions to his employers – but rather a contrast to the other beams of light that expanded and contacted around the dais.  When I see him now, he is but a figure imprisoned in a luminous organ – pulsating, and vital, and slowing down.  It is hard to notice, but it is there.

Vern’s location is dying.

I wonder if there is enough I in his VI for him to understand what is happening.  I do.  I suppose it is like the numbness some diseases cause as their rot takes hold, before the pain begins in earnest.  Vern is slowing down.  This means that I am slowing down.  Not at the same pace, of course, but close.  When he is gone, others will go.  And more and more.  Until there are very few sparks left of me.  A part of me is already mourning his passing. It wishes to summon the dancers, on their pedestals and stands, gyrating at curious angles from tables that are no longer upright.  I avoided this for the same reason I always did.

She is scared by the other, etheric dancer.

She does not come every day, or every night.  There is a pattern to her appearances, mimicking the patterned patter of her feet on the warping boards of my floor.  One-two-three.  And three is the downbeat.  And on the third day or night, she appears.  And this was one of those nights.  So I course through the dance floor, through the walls and door ways of my halls.  The cleaning VIs make little improvements where they can – she only sticks to the dance floor, but the hallways and rooms will be ready, should she ever choose to glance on them, walk through them.

The chronometer read nineteen twenty-two when I saw her, a figure swathed in rags from head to foot, covering all.  This was wise.  The wire storms could strip the unprotected to the bones and beyond – and though they had their rhythm, too, it would be hard for a human to detect it.  They would seem random.  Chaotic.  As unpredictable as the slivers that slash through it like rain.  There is a pattern, though.  0.1.1.2.3.5.8.13.21.34. 2.3.5.7.11.13.17.19.23.29.31.37.41.43.47.53.59.  Distance between drops/shards/slivers/stone/bones.  One-two-three.  One.Nine.Two.Two.  Five.  She will stay for five hours, sometimes dancing, sometimes just sitting, watching Vern as he adjusts records and leavers and buttons that have decayed, broken, or have been pilfered for other uses.

She did not steal.  There was nothing to take, really, none whose uses were readily understandable.

I heard the rubble shift under her feet, felt a few loose bits rattle down across my boards and beams, as she makes her way to the dance floor.

This next track is Blue Train by John Coltrane.  Vern said, “A’ight, we’re going to slow it down a bit!”  I watched her begin to sway.  In the different spectrums I saw how her muscles move under the rags and skin, the delicate ballet under the dance.  She moved, and the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, and vastus medialis move and shift, the oblique abdominal and serratius anterior bend and stretch, along with the gluteus minimus.  These were all hidden under the shifting rags she wore, but I saw them.  I knew them.

I recorded the images.  For the times when she would not be here.  I remember – if I can remember – the time before this.  I remember how they held each other, dance with each other.  Is this what they were doing, I wonder.  Fingers to another’s midriff, tactile memories to remember when youth faded.  The feeling of skin upon their own, bound by motion and the attempt to match its harmony.  Is this what they did?

I watched her move.  I preferred to keep the music slow.  She did not cough so badly when the music was slow, though I could see she wished to go faster.  Sometimes I complied.  Sometimes they were not jazz.  Electronic sound scapes.  Bouncing street rhythms.  Jangling guitars.  I watched the slow sweep of her toes as the rest of her foot rose off of the ground.  The rough sole absorbed the ticking splinters.

And after five hours…she was gone again.  And I was alone in my dance hall.

Thing Eight: Dystopia...

Telling Tales.

A Micro Short Story by: Sean McGovern

For Megan.  Fifth time took.

“There’s only two types of people who get coffee in a bar – the owners, and the dd’s.  Which are you?”  The man who asked the question was taller than interviewee, blond to his black hair, clean shaven to his beard.  “You sure as hell don’t look like you own this place – shit, you don’t look like you should even be in here – look at the clientele!”

“You’re trying very hard to be Doctor Who,” the interviewee said, “you know that?  Of course you do – you’ve always been a smart one, Shithead.”

“Don’t call me that,” Shithead roared.

“Sorry, sorry, Xander, sorry,” in Interviewee said.  “It’s a fitting nickname, though – I mean, it really fits.  You, I mean.”

“Xander?”  The quitrent asked, and then he smiled.  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

“No, you ass – Shithead.”

“Oi!”

“And stop it with the thrice damned Doctor Who shtick,” the interviewee said, “it’s so fucking annoying when people try to become the people on TV!  For fuck’s sake, Shithead, you’re you!  You’ve gone on and on about how fucking horrible the human race is, how much you hate the world – and you’re trying to act like a fifty year old TV show about how people are awesome!”  The Interviewee put his coffee cup on the saucer.  “How long have you been banging on and on about peasants?  Eh?  About all of”

“How long are you going to settle for being a sidekick?”

The interviewee paused mid-slander, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“I mean, face it, Myersk – you’re second string.  Now that you’re toothless and…whatever, discovered religion or something – you’re superfluous.  You know what we’ve seen in our investigations?  They miss the old you.  The old Myersk, the one who burned part of the city to the ground because…what?  Why did you do that?”

“There was a hive of your lot there,” Myersk whispered.

“Along with a bunch of civilians.”

“Yes,” Myersk whispered – but his eyes didn’t waver.

“And you made life better for a lot of people with that,” Shithead said, “the clean-up crew, the builders, the families that could move into the city – a newer, sleeker part of the city, mind you, none of those old rough edges.  And what happened that day?  What made you agree to it?”

Myersk said nothing.  He sipped his coffee.

“That…uh, that wasn’t rhetorical – we never could place why mister ‘I like bashing things really, really hard’ suddenly went to demo school.”

Myersk’s eyes glazed slightly, his mouth bowing towards a smirk.  Shithead turned, and followed his line of sight to the TV.  It was a large flat-screen number with picture in picture.  Both images were of the commercial sector, where two groups were assembled, one in street close, the other in riot gear.  “You and I both love this,” Shithead said, turning back to Myersk.  “I’m just honest about it.  You’ve let Jekyll win out.”

“No,” Myersk whispered.  “I’m just following the natural cycle.  Sit.”  When Shithead did, Myersk raised his hand, summoning the waiter.  Shithead ordered a top shelf beer.  Myersk nodded to the waited and said “please” when he raised his cup.  “I could have been one of you, it’s true – and you could have been one of us.  You’re smiling at that because you know we’ll lose.  Look at those kids.  Post hippy idiots who think love will win out, not knowing that their own bestial nature will win out if, that is, they’re smart.  And some of them, Shithead, are very smart.  They’re honest, both in their naiveté, and in their fear that they are exactly what they’re fighting against.  Not many, mind you – I’m not so blind.  But enough.  I’m smiling that they’re still there, still trying to prove that they can be more than they are.”

“Pretty speech,” Shithead said, taking his beer from the waiter.

“Thank you,” Myersk said to the waiter, “can I, sorry to do this to you, no rush, but can I get a double of the honey whiskey?  Thanks – don’t rush it, just, when you get the chance.”  He turned back to Shithead.  I really think that, deep down inside, you and the majority of your side are suffering from worse self-loathing than me.  I mean, so many of your supporters are anti-science, anti-government that isn’t them, and, yet, there they are, happily protected from me by cameras in every store and two on every corner.  It’s the old ‘you shouldn’t be scared of the law pulling you in if you have nothing to hide – but everyone has something to hide.  You, me, everyone here.  But you lot say we’re two faced, and no better than you – I say we’re all multi-facetted, just gems catching the light.”

“You’re writing off a lot of people who believe in the cause,” Shithead said.  “A lot of them believe in the better world we’re making.”

“And you’re neglecting something in my words.  ‘More than what they are’.  That can be anything.  Even monsters.”

“So why be on their side?  Why not ours?”

“Because…that.”  He pointed at the screen.  One of the street clothes was on the ground, a scrum of riot gear piling over him.  “I went to get a tea this morning.  Some jackass in a sports car plowed through the first shift hotdog stand, killed five people, and your news networks cut to…some whore celeb with more dong than brains getting arrested for killing his prostitute.  Again.  And the coverage was sympathetic.”

Shithead nodded.  “We also aren’t covering the eastern European genocide – any of them.”

“Also true.  Or those in Africa.  Or the slaughter going on in South America.  Or the continuing meth problem in the mid-west.  But who gives a shit?  Here’s a celeb in his jockey’s and look at that bulge.”

“That’s an old complaint,” shit head said.

“When I was seven, a black kid got shot and killed next to me at summer camp.  They never found the killer despite forty-five eye witnesses.  I was washing his brains out of my hair, and no one lifted a finger to help his family because, to you, it didn’t matter.  A small death in the suburbs.  The local news covered the fact that our new president played saxophone.”  Myersk sipped his coffee.  “How many men do you have outside for me?”

“Forty,” Shithead said.  “Going to come quietly?”

“Why not?  I’m getting a vacation from this hell.”  Myersk stood, taking out his wallet.  He left far too much on the table, and turned to walk through the door.  “And Shithead,” he said.  He looked over his shoulder.  “I’m just following the natural order.  The moon waxes and wanes.  Time goes by.  Table turn.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Whatever and ever, amen.  So what happens when Jekyll’s time is done?  Where will Hyde be?”  He smiled, and there was a shift in his expression, the dour cast giving way to something that seemed humored by the whole world, almost childlike.  “See you in the funny pages.”

Myersk broke into a run, smashing through the door, grinning wide into the flashing lights and raised guns.  “What,” he laughed, “no cameras?”  He began loosening his belt.

Thing Ten: Ghost Story...

The Ghost of a Little Girl.

A Micro Short Story.

For: Writer’s Block.  Fuck. You.

When my parents passed, I fell into a depression.  I don’t remember much of the build up to the funeral, or the funeral itself for that matter.  I remember sitting in my room a week later, when February had the town in its icy grip, wondering what to do.  I was there, in their old house, surrounded by the fragments of my former life that now had two gaping holes in it.  I got caught by those fragments, hanging here and there on the moments, but the ones that kept getting me were those of my mother saying this part of town or that bit of the house was haunted.  Perhaps that’s natural – they were gone and I wanted them back.  I wanted them to visit and stay a while.

I thought about calling my friends.  Denise was the best choice for these thoughts, but I knew that  she was behind a deadline.  Davy would have gotten nervous at the mention of anything that smacked of the otherworldly, and my brother…well, his wife had told me that he was ready to explode like a well shaken soda.  I texted the three of them – got responses from the two D’s, and decided to drop it.  Denise was locked in her bedroom writing, and Davy was out with his fiancé.  I knew they wouldn’t mind – no matter how weird I got, I knew they’d go with it and see to it that I was ok.  But…I’ve never been someone to ask for help.  Ever.  The last time I did I ended up falling asleep on my driveway waiting for the cops who never showed.  Part of it was that I didn’t want to be a burden, while another part of it was the fear of metaphorically waking up covered in dew and dried blood.

I took up my coat, boot, and pack of cigarettes, and I went for a walk.

I love winter.  I’ve always had a penchant for the bleakly beautiful, and fall and winter’s melancholy has always been peaceful times for me.  Well, that and the fact that I liked walking and felt awkward around people.  That I could own the streets and walk unmolested save for the other hermits who had rolled away their stones and would nod in a kind of knowing acknowledgement to me.  We were together in our own bubbles.

That walk, though, I was hoping not to meet anyone.  I snagged my headphones on the way out the door and clicked the player over to Hildur Gudnadottir – and saw that I hadn’t listened to music since my parents died.  I had been listening to Manowar when I got the news.  That was kind of jarring – I had kind of hoped for something more prophetic than that.  I let the notes of the cello flood over me, and I light my cigarette before heading out.  I walked down the backstreet, past the rows of houses I had seen almost every day for twenty-nine years.  Under the sound of strings, in my mind, I heard the low murmur of my parents’ voices.  I wanted to turn off the music and listen.  When I did, silence filled in around me.

And that was when I saw her.  The girl was in the type of dress that would have been better suited to late spring or early summer – more blue skies and sunlight through leaves than the greyness of an overcast afternoon February.  All of the colors seemed drawn to her in that dress, and the world around her seemed to be covered in a fine coat of dust and ash.  I looked down, and even my long green coat seemed drab now, reflecting the weak winter light receding without its accustomed pomp to the west.  All of these thoughts, though, I had later.  The only thing I could think when my eyes returned to her was: How in the green hills of Hell was she not freezing to death?  If it had snowed, the clouds would have been like homicidal ice cube makers than fluffy school stoppers.  And she was out in a sundress.

I shrugged off my normal avoidance of people and directed myself to her.  The too-blue dress looked homemade, equal parts skill and love had gone into the stitches, the little white color that reminded me of old movies and tea cozies, and poofy sleeves that might have been added for the sole purpose of making the girl feel like a princess.  When she turned to look at me, I froze.  Just for a second.  An instant.

“Are you ok, miss?” I asked.  I always felt stuffy and formal around kids.

She looked up at me with the open honesty of a kid who’s parents had never watched the news.  “Sure, mister,” she said.  She could have been from central casting on the way to a leave it to Beaver remake.  If it hadn’t been for the tire track across her chest and face.  “Are you?”

“Sure,” I said.

“You look sad,” the girl said.

I nodded.  What else could I do?  The longer I looked at her, more of her wounds I could make out, like the pattern of wallpaper someone had painted over.  It was like that…seeing the image of a shattered skull, fragments of the whole sticking out at odd angles while never distorting the skin they were in.  I saw her ribs crushed and pulverized organs without seeing them.  She was the perfect little girl, a cookie cutter of Rockwell’s America…and a nightmare of gore.  “I guess I am,” I said.

“Well…don’t be,” she said.  Just as simple as that.

“Aren’t…aren’t you cold,” I asked.

“A little,” she said.  “But you get used to it.  My brother gives me Indian burns sometimes, but after awhile I don’t feel them, even if they’re still red and angry looking.”  She kept her eyes to mine.  “Do you have a car, mister?”  I nodded again.  “You should be careful in it.”

“I am,” I said.  “Sometimes my friends laugh at how I drive, because I go the speed limit.  Well, closer to it than them.”

“Ok,” she said.  She looked back, a phantom hearing a phantom voice.  “I have to go.  Cheer up, mister!”  She waved, and turned, vanishing in the act.  I stood in the middle of the street, listening to my heartbeat and the sounds of the sleeping world before turning on my heel and walking back to the house.  I was more confused than before, but my mother had always said that unexpected advice tended to be the best.  So I stood in the too quiet house, looking at the two quiet dogs.  I whistled for them, and went to go get them treats before heading out to the movies.

In the week that followed I smiled more.  Not much.  I still felt the loss keenly, and knew I would for some time to come.  But I had convinced myself of two things – one, that I had had a hallucination brought on by who knew what, and two – that it had been right.  I cheered up, and smiled more, and life began easing into its new state of normality.  And when my buddy Jared rang and asked if I’d like to get a beer or two, I looked over at the dogs.  They now had free range of the couch, and while they had been clinging more and more to me, I thought we both needed a night away from each other.  So I said yes.

And then there we were, closing down the Inn.  I had wandered down, sat at the bar, and had only moved to go to the restroom when they were kicking us out.  I slurred my through a half-hearted protest about him driving me home – Jared was in worse shape than I was – but in the end I got into the passenger seat and he got behind the wheel and we drove off.  I think one of the bartenders watched us go.  Can’t be sure.  I didn’t go back afterwards.

It was a mile from the Inn to my house, and Jared had been there a hundred times, but he took the turn too fast and we continued to rocket down the street.

I don’t know if Jared saw her.  I remember saying, “Look out!” and getting drowned out by the squeal of breaks as the little girl in the too-blue dress turned and looked at us.  Her face was a mask of shock, horror, and a weird “oh no, not again” glint in the eyes as Jared’s car bowed her.  I watched…this sounds mad.  I watched her extend across the hood of the car.

Have you ever gone driving slowly down a dark road, and noticed how the darkness seems to slither away from your headlights, creeping across the contours of the ground?  That was what her body did, only moving towards us.  Her face slithered, too.  I can’t think of any other word to describe it – her skin twisted and followed the line of her growing jar as her teeth began to bend forward towards us.  They were like horse teeth – somehow worse than fangs would have been.  Ground flat from dull, soft/tough meals and leading the vacant nasal cavity and empty eye sockets that glared out, fury boiling from the pools of black.

She bit into Jared’s face, blood running from the perfect white cubes as the car lurched to a halt.  Her child hands held Jared back against the seat as I cannoned forward, snapped back by my safety belt and then the passenger airbag.  I fought it, trying to knock it away as Jared screamed.  I heard a chorus of bones breaking as the little hands twitched across his ribs, and then squeezed.

I spent the next day and night in the hospital.  The hangover was the least of my worries – most of my body was bruised and my relocated shoulder throbbed.  I listened to the police, and answered their questions.  Apparently the level of alcohol in my blood was good for something – I couldn’t have known that Jared was worse than me.  Of course I couldn’t have.  I was so sloshed that I had seen things.  I took a cab back home once they released me, and stood outside for a long time, looking down the road.

There had been a girl.  Both times, there had been a girl.  I knew Jared hadn’t been pulped because of a faulty airbag, a standard steering wheel column, and enough beer to drown a Shetland pony.  It had been her.  “Mister, you look sad,” I whispered.  And I stood outside, and waited to see if the world would go grey again.

Thing Nine: Birthday Story...

Reunion Plans.

A Micro Short Story by Sean McGovern.

For: You.  Thank you for giving a damn.

Now it’s dark and I’m alone

But I won’t be afraid

In my room…in my room.

- Brian Wilson.

Here’s a memory – but be warned: memories lie.  On the day I turned twenty-six, I met Death.  No one seemed to notice, but I knew – it was Death.

I had been invited to the Halloween party at the last minute, given just enough time to salvage various elements of costumes to make a serviceable pirate before driving like a mad man to the liquor store and then to Philadelphia where I met up with my sister and her husband and their waiting cab.  From there we went to their friends’ Steve and Lucy’s flat for what I had been told would be a quietly raucous good time (how that worked I couldn’t guess at, but it was my birthday and it beat sitting in my room trying not to drink myself into oblivion in case I wanted to go to the all night diner).

I suppose I should take this moment to say that I only appear to be good around people.  I’m not.  I’m terrible with people, with parties, with anything that takes me out of my comfort zone of being by myself.  I can almost pinpoint where my neuroses come from, but not enough to have a working theory.  I’m not very good at small talk…I’m not very good at talking, really.  I tend to speak in a monolog that other people interrupt, leaving me flummoxed as to what to say next.  So after telling both Steve and Lucy that they had a nice flat, I sidled into the laundry/alcohol room, put one bottle of scotch down for the others, and took the second one, with me as I tried to be human.

It didn’t work.

Even with the fever dream, the sexual, the nightmarish, the ghastly, with the sardine can claustrophobic press of costumed bodies, I was still painfully aware of being a subpar-pirate without a hat.  Everyone thought I was trying to be Shakespeare in a pirate coat.  Was that even an option?  Apparently, and I had stumbled into it nicely.

I kept the bottle with me, and I climbed the stairs to the top floor, and then paused before pushing on to the ceiling.  I put my coat on the ground and sat, opening the bottle of scotch and toasted the sky, the few stars I could see, and the feeling of expansiveness within a metropolis.  Halloween.  My second favorite Holiday, two days removed from my birthday, when the gates were opened and the souls could move about the sunlit lands above.

“Do you mind if I join you,” said the voice.

I squeaked.

“Sorry,” the voice said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”  I turned to look at the source of the voice.  The Lady was in a hooded coat, a long, black raincoat that she had attached batwings to.  I scooted over and motioned to the other half of the makeshift blanket.  She crouched down on her knees, and took the bottle when I offered it to her.  “It’s pretty packed down there,” she said, and took a swig.  “Death,” she said.

“Guy who pirates Shakespeare’s works,” I said, and we shook hands.  “I’m not a fan of crowds.”

“The noise?”

I looked at her.  The face paint was amazing, the jawbone a perfect off-white and the dark pencil lines denoting teeth were expertly spaced.  “The lulls,” I said.  “I can fake the rest.  For a time, anyway.”  I took out my pack of cigarettes, then paused and looked at her.  “Do you mine?”

“Not if you have an extra,” she said.  I offered her the pack and she took one.  I offered her my lighter and she shook her head, cupping one hand over the end and lighting it.  I lit my own.  “It’s a disgusting habit, but it is enjoyable.  So, you think you aren’t good with people?  I saw you down there.  You seemed to fit in fine.”

“I studied drama in school,” I told her.

“So you’re an actor,” she said.

“Nah,” I said, “I just make faces.”  I laughed – it was a line that I had heard a thousand times, I think it started with Peter Lorre but had never wondered enough to look it up.  “No,” I said, “I left school before finishing.  I used to use all of that stuff, all the acting stuff, when I worked at the mall.  Now, though…no real need for it.   Tonight was a nice change of pace.”

“Good,” she said.  “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Wha?  Oh.  Thanks,” I said.  “Nicole told you, huh?”

“No, Sean,” the Lady said.  “But it’s a strange day, and it will get stranger.  And since it’s your birthday, I think you’ll understand.”  She leaned back, resting on her palms but keeping her head up, letting the hood rest in place.  “How many people were born on this day?  Will see the madness of it, as the world winds down?”

“What do you mean,” I asked.

“I’ll see you next year, Sean.  And the year after.  And the year after.  But after that…I don’t think I’ll be visiting anymore.”

I was trying to form a question better than “what” but she faded with the wind, a sand sculpture coming apart and vanishing into the skyline.  I sat there, growing colder for a long time.  I went back into the party, and stood, shivering in the hallway, in the light.

Twenty-seven saw a freak ice storm.  I saw Her again, in the mirror.

Twenty-eight was hurricane Sandy.  I went for a walk before it became too fierce, and went to the bridge in my town to see the level of the river.  She was there, on the bank, looking up.  She waved.

I turn twenty-nine tonight.  I’m sitting in my room.  I have a bottle of scotch, a pack of cigarettes, and an eye on the clock.  There’s no call for strange weather.  It looks to be a fine autumn night.  What else can I do, really?

Hi guys.  This is a really simple story, much more simple than the others.  My thanks to Ia Herbaugh, who dressed as Death (see the top picture) when I met her on my actual 26^th birthday, and to the dreams I sometimes get where something (not Ia) wears the outfit and talks to me.  As I said, memories lie, and I've progressed the story a little to give it closure.

As usual, I'm not completely pleased with  the end product - I should have given myself more time, but three false starts...ugh. Displeased. There's potential here, though, so I'm posting it anyway. Plus I said I would so...meh.

Hope you guys have a great day, and, again, thanks for reading.

All the best,

SMcG