Tag: short-story

Ricky & I (short story – beginnings / revisit for Halloween week)

by Stephen J Frankenberry3 Comments on Ricky & I (short story – beginnings / revisit for Halloween week)

And another, my second to last one, for this week and me revisiting some creepy or creepy adjacent things of mine on a daily for this Halloween week.

Back to April of last year.

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April 27, 2024

Ricky & I

We watched them warily, Ricky and I, and held back at a safe distance eventually going the other direction down the other side of the street so as to be even safer still as the older high school kids toilet papered and egged houses ahead of us as some sort of shit rolls downhill repayment for what we couldn’t possibly understand or imagine might be going on behind closed doors for them at home (I would learn years later, of some of them, in the news). We just knew that we had a short window now where we hadn’t quite aged out of our trick or treating, something evidenced in the fact that we were already starting to get lazy in our costuming, always just hobo’s now, something that wouldn’t get more creative again until my college years but on those nights the “candy” was usually cheap beer and girls, another thing that couldn’t possibly be understood or imagined or even cared about then, we just still had our sweet teeth and some lazily costumed possible final attempts, this year, maybe next, to satisfy them for free and we didn’t need any of these toilet papering egging assholes seeing us and ruining it.

Ricky and I had become pretty adept at avoiding these guys in our neighborhood after school and on the weekends, thankfully we didn’t have to figure out any extra avoidance techniques during the school day just yet – we still had this one more year before we shared the halls with them, well at least the ones who hadn’t graduated yet, though Ricky and I were afraid that the ones that were supposed to graduate out might be held back and still be around for our first year of High School, a would be hell if they had anything to do with it.

No, it was just after school and the weekends and oh, the school bus that we all rode together though at least that interminable time was relatively short as interminable goes (ok, that was kinda interminable all of the time, daily) but we could always depend on our driver, Missus D, to have our backs and put the fear of Missus D in them if need be, sitting up front and telling her that Moms said Hi with their latest batch of sugar cookies and never forgetting her at Christmas time with cards from each of us and small finely, meticulously wrapped in wax paper offerings were definitely to our advantage.

But on this Halloween night, though we did our best to measure wary fear with still being able to hit up the neighborhood candy houses, our usually successful avoidance attempts weren’t good enough. Seems Tommy Whitmore, who had also taken to calling himself “Jax” around that time, don’t know why, maybe he just needed another name that wasn’t the “Tommy!!!” he heard yelled, screamed, slapped, surrendered to at home, must have seen us behind he and his boy’s mean spirits under the Dowling’s porch light and came down and across the street to wait just outside the light’s reach, that hard circle line of light on one side and dark on the other right before their garage, and, with hands on his hips and a stupid grin, Tommy said,

“Hey boys, how ya doin’, and how ya doin’ in those candy bags of yours tonight?”

“We’re good Tommy, just leave us be, we’re not bothering you.”

“Hey, it’s “Jax”, but you ARE bothering me, bothering US” Tommy said with a hint of malice “just by being you, and you haven’t even offered me anything from your bags of goodies” as he did a grab while his boys hung just outside that light’s ring in the Dowling’s driveway giggling vacantly and even more stupidly than Tommy’s dumb ass grin.

“Hey, those are ours!!’ Ricky yelled, straight backed but for only an instant.

“Oh, he speaks, on his own, the redhaired one” as Ricky’s spine shrunk. “No, these are ours now and we’re also going to take you two on a ride.”

“No Tommy …” and a glare with a raised hand’s intent “No … Jax … we have to get home, we’re not getting in any cars with you. We were done anyway, take our bags and just leave us be.”

“Well that just ain’t gonna happen you two …”

Then came a rush of wind sweeping past and around our heads … something usually reserved for family stories at backyard get togethers or at funerals when Ricky’s extended family would arrive, and the strangest of strange things would happen, in a surreal happiness, it was fast, a blur, made the ground shake just enough to unsettle your feet, make you feel a little askew. We knew what, who this was, Me and Ricky, but Tommy and his boys didn’t.

I told you that Ricky and I had become pretty adept at avoiding these guys and we had, but it was more, sometimes a not just protecting ourselves, but protecting them.

“No Tommy …”

“It’s Jax!”

“No Jax, not tonight”

“You gonna defy me, you useless pieces of shit, no that ain’t happenin’. Right boys?”

But the ground shook some more, the air trembled again, whooshed past and around us again, as air shouldn’t tremble like that and I stood my now shaky ground.

“Not now”

“And it’s Jax!!!” he yelled

“I wasn’t talking to you Tommy”

I said to Ricky “Not now” but his shrunk spine grew, not a one of simple stand up defiance, but just grew.

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I met Ricky through Mom get togethers in new neighborhood get togethers. Let’s introduce ourselves with kids to break the ice but really kids being just an excuse for Moms to drink wine on an early Saturday. I had seen Ricky on the ballfield in my new digs, after having moved from Baltimore to now Pittsburgh, he was a monster. His throws from his shortstop spot practically took the first baseman’s glove off and we weren’t even in high school yet.

“Do you play?” he asked me.

“I pitch”

“We could use one of those on our team. You any good?”

And that was it, I confounded him with my off the table curve that I shouldn’t have been throwing at that age and he tried to take the glove off of anyone who had the misfortune of playing first base. Instant friends.

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Friendships can be curious things. They might start with Moms using you as pawns for a glass of wine, or two, on a Saturday afternoon, they can be responses to what you don’t know yet of the evils of the world behind closed doors and you group, join forces, even if it’s only in a force of two or they can be things that were just supposed to happen, like Ricky with a rifle of an arm that make first basemen regret they play the game and you note, Ricky. He and I became a pair of buds linked through and through until, well, we just weren’t.

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“Not now”

“What not now you little prick?!”

“Ricky is my friend”

“And?”

“You don’t want to do this, he’s not liking you right now”

“What? Little redhead here?”

“Please just let it go Tommy” 

“It’s Jax!!” (and there was that raised hand again)

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The other curious thing about friendships is that there are those that are just cursory things, friendships you recall for just being a “friendship”, where you might call each other, out of the blue, to check in years later, heard you had a kid, how is the better half, what’s her name again but then there was Ricky and his secrets, his family’s secrets, our secrets then.

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His spine grew instead of a backing away shrink, unnaturally so, to four times his height and his red hair fired until it rivaled the sun right on that hard line of light and dark in the Dowling’s driveway and he shone, glowed and towered Tommy and his voice changed making any Tommy attempt at inspiring fear seem weak and puny “YOU WILL NOT MESS WITH MY FRIEND!” followed by a simple backhand slap.

And that was it, Tommy, not Jax, that new name nonsense ended that night I figured (though all these years later I hope not, that was his one, lone attempt at a “me” thing in his so lonely, pained world – Hey Jax, heard you had some kids, how is that better half of yours I don’t know, I’m sure she is beautiful, how have you all fared?) slunk away from out of the dust bins across the street and amid the scattering of idiots he called pals.

“You’re done aren’t you Ricky?

“Yeah, gotta go now”

“Dammit Ricky, I have no one else and I don’t even want anyone else as my friend.”

“I know, me neither, but I gotta go”

“I know”

And then, there was that rush of wind again, picking up leaves and dust and moving earth and all it’s leavings around in a small twister.

“Hey Missus D, thought that might be you”

“You good?”

“Yeah, I’m ok I guess, thank you for keeping an eye but …”

“Don’t worry, you’ll see him again, Ricky’s got a good heart, you know that, but he and my sister need to find another place now, to be safe, try and start again, heard in the wind that there might be a good spot in the mountains near the coast, some small towns of like kind, until Ricky learns how to control things. Plus, you’ll see him again ‘cause he always hated that he couldn’t hit your curveball, he’ll be practicing … Sugar cookies tomorrow?”

“Maybe the next day Missus D, gotta give Mom the head’s up”

“Ok, and maybe an offering wrapped finely in wax paper? At Christmas?”

“Of course, as always”

The Scrapbook And The Man In The Black Fedora (Flash Fiction revisit for this Halloween Week)

by Stephen J Frankenberry4 Comments on The Scrapbook And The Man In The Black Fedora (Flash Fiction revisit for this Halloween Week)

And continuing with revisiting a poem or a story every day this week that fit a creepy theme as we approach Halloween. This one from a Flash Fiction prompt, August of last year.

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August 12, 2024

It’s Monday and, at the dVerse Poets Pub, we are writing Prosery, the very short piece of prose or flash fiction . It can be in any genre of your choice, but it does have a limit of 144 words; an additional challenge is to hit 144 exactly. The special thing about Prosery is that we give you a complete line or two from a poem, which must be included somewhere in your story, within the 144-word limit.

The complete line or two in this case are from Leonard Cohen and his poem “Take this Waltz” with the lines being …

And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss

.

The Scrapbook And The Man In The Black Fedora

“Hey Jaimie, check this out, just found this covered in moss behind a tree”

Presents a tattered book with dead flowers pinned to it and a warning “DO NOT OPEN”

“Well, let’s see what’s in it”

“It says not to open Billy”

“C’mon, probably just a note left by the 11 year old girl who lost it. It looks like a scrapbook”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t feel right”

Billy opening the scrapbook finds it filled with photo’s of people and notations of the date/time of their deaths and scribbled inside the cover …

And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss

At that moment a man in a black fedora appeared.

The air stilled.

Then Billy was gone and all Jaimie caught as the fedora’d man closed the scrapbook was a quick glimpse of Billy’s picture.

The Wind and the “Epistle” (revisit a Six Sentence Story for this Halloween Week)

by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments on The Wind and the “Epistle” (revisit a Six Sentence Story for this Halloween Week)

And another revisit of something for the season this last week of Halloween.

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February 21, 2025

Earlier in the week I came across someone new to me through Sadje, a friend at dVerse Poets.

She is GirlieOnTheEdge and offers prompts for Six Sentence Stories, an idea I liked, like some of the 144 word Flash Fiction prompts you can find at dVerse, though with six sentences allowed that gives me a bit more room. I also knew I liked Girlie from the get go as this particular prompt mentioned “The Alarm” as part of her inspiration, an old fave band reminded from my undergrad and then graduate school days (in the current season and for other reasons I suddenly longed for “Rain in the Summertime”).

The Prompt?

PROMPT WORD:  WIND

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The Wind and the “Epistle”

Coming up from below deck after a lengthy search, top to bottom, of what appeared an abandoned fourth-rate named “Epistle”, Martins declared across bows to his Captain that she was indeed abandoned though he marveled that he had never seen anything quite like this ornate fitted construction, with nary a nail, nor some of the letters he had found in the captain’s empty quarters.

Captain Richard, with a curious though determined look, turned and directed the crew of “The Resolution” to board and see what could possibly be salvaged, if anything, just as Martins heard a voice from behind him saying “but I am here” though, on a turn’s look inspection, he saw not a soul.

Just then a sudden unexpected and fierce wind picked up and roiled what had, only moments before, been serene, placid seas below blue white speckled skies but those skies came to a sudden dark clouded anger, the sails filled flush, puffed out like the deep breath chest of an unnaturally sized, large winged vengeful bird to rival those of ancient sea beasts beneath the waves that seemed to stir with this wind’s dark cries of anguish and fear telling of stories warned.

Lightning crashed and stung about the tops of the sail masts, torrential rains drowned cries and pleadings of God, water beast tails as large as their own ship’s sails rose from above the waves only to dive out of fear, the heavens blackened loud and bellowed louder.

Captain Richard lost footing on deck, fearing his grip, slipping confused and disoriented, as did his crew, but, regaining his balance for a moment he turned to warn Martins to return only to find that he and the “Epistle” were no longer there and that the seas and skies, only seconds earlier filled with a storm’s rage, such as he had never witnessed in all his years at sea, came to a sudden calm again almost as if they hadn’t been changed at all, as if they hadn’t ever been anything other than what they were before in their calm, with skies returned to the blue of white floating speckles, as if in a languid painting, the sea flat again, but Richard swore, to his end of days spent in the throes of madness, that he saw the waters of the ocean drop off the edge of the world in the distance, off of a flat earth, and the Epistle be carried off into the heavens inside the belly of a great glowing flying sea beast and just as he heard Martins, faintly, in the wind implore “but I am here”.

Standing in uneasy stunned silence Richard took measure … before then realizing that they should turn back, quickly, pointing “The Resolution” towards home but also before the knowing of the court martial and subsequent murder trial he would face of a missing crewman, Ross Ignatius P Martins, upon his return.

Mr Spidey Pants (post post)

by Stephen J Frankenberry4 Comments on Mr Spidey Pants (post post)

So a number of nights ago I noticed, as I sat at my desk workin’ stuff in my basement Attic, that I had some company scurrying next to my lamp and possibly sizing up whether he could lift and then beat me to death with it.

Now, possible ill intentions aside, I left him to whatever those intentions were, ill or otherwise and then, well, I forgot about him and them there possible intentions. And, after a few nights of making sure to sleep with my mouth closed, I forgot about him even more until he practically ceased to exist, like, sadly, a lot of things in the world these days.

That was almost two weeks ago.

Then tonight, as I was straightening up Bella and Cricket’s room, the one they let me share, while I did a load of laundry (because it’s a FRANKEN-PAR-TAY FRIDAY!!) I went to grab the garbage out of the small can I have next to my desk.

I opened the lid (with my foot on a lever at the bottom of it … I know, cool huh? – simple mechanical shit is still like magic) and on top of a paper towel napkin in said garbage?

“Dude!? Jesus!!”

Seems Mr Spidey Pants is still with me, just hiding on used paper towel napkins at the top of my garbage.

One: I don’t want to know how he got in there and if he was strong enough to open the lid on his own OR worse, strong AND smart enough to ACTUALLY step on the still cool ass lever first and then be fast enough to scurry to the top of the can and jump in. Well, he may, indeed, be strong enough to wield my lamp like a blunt instrument but now he’s added speed and smarts which becomes an additional, worrisome issue entirely.

Two: Is he somehow surveilling me and is part of the surveillance to go through my trash? And if so, who does he work for?

Three: What’s been on his mind lately, possibly something troubling him as he obviously has been letting himself go. “Seriously Man, your legs could use a bit of a shave” and could any of these troubles boil over to the point where my lamp becomes the murder weapon discovered in the early parts of a police procedural?

Four: There isn’t a four, three was plenty enough and well … whatever. I just know the many legged fella is “back” AND back from wherever he has been hiding, which is something I am definitely not going to think about, his possible lair, though we all do need some place to rest while devising dastardly plans I guess, but I will now be sleeping with my mouth closed again, at least for a few extra nights.

Note: I did make my Sister aware of Mr Spidey Pants just in case, ya know, in case his “lair” is somewhere above the stairs here and her cats have been as lax as mine in their supposed years told spidey-hunt catness … unless there is something even more dire at paw.

Note Twice: I have a friend who lives in Australia, the famed land of bugs and critters that all start, nominally, at the size of small dog and can carry away children to raise them as their own and take advantage of their opposable thumbs and that all could kill you, not with some possible super bug strength and a heavy lamp but with a mere glance who might read this and just say “Pshawwww! That ain’t no spider! Hell brother, our spiders all have leashes and are taken for walks.”

I know, freakin’ overly dramatic Americans.

Headstone & The Walk (short fictions)

by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments on Headstone & The Walk (short fictions)

Well, with it being that time of year for these types of stories I thought to revisit a short bit from last year, one I have posted before in a couple of spots and one that started with a dVerse Poets “prosery” prompt from June of 2024 and also to liberally revise the second part to it that, truthfully, I had forgotten I had written …

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June 4, 2024

A prosery challenge at dVerse Poets

A very short piece of poetry or flash fiction that tells a story, just one with a limit of 144 words, but, somewhere within your story, includes a line from a poem

Here?

From Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Sleeper”

I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye

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Headstone

In a graveyard nearing dusk the groundskeeper came upon Death, leaning heavily upon his knot gnarl anguish handled scythe as he knelt at an almost hidden, fallen stone, shunned, just outside the cemetery, alone, at the edge of a large forest. He wept quietly.

“Are you alright old man?”

Death was startled

“What?!” as he tried to stand

“No need. Pay your respects”

“Why don’t you shudder, cold, at the sight of me, cringe, run to escape who I am, maybe to you?”

“I know death. I have been here as long as you have searched … for your mother right? How did you know?”

“I had this inscribed in her stone, I pray to God that she may lie forever with unopened eye hoping she would never see my shame and what I had become and wrought”

The groundskeeper said “Let’s walk my friend” …

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Then I thought to continue the story …

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October 19, 2024 (revised) October 3, 2025

The Walk

The groundskeeper walked his headstone common with Death alongside.

“I knew her, I was there, she begged me not to, not just yet

I knew him too, he was an ass, he was having an affair and was found out with a jealous bullet … I assisted the trigger

This one wanted to experience the sadness of flying, I gave her a bit of a nudge while the crowd scattered below

He here? He was a case of life unexpectedly cut short … on a Tuesday I think, an unusually busy Tuesday if I remember too

Pointing “That one over there was an unfortunate result of small minds but …

This one was a way back where they marked doors and wore masks… some of those scared even me, I really had my bones full then

And whole sections in the distance there the result of religious fervor …”

“STOP!” as the groundskeeper came to a halt looking directly at and through Death with a chill

“What?” Death paused, shrunk a little, actually, finally frightened

“We’re just walking here, so stop.”

“But? …”

“You know all of them, of course, I, we all are well aware of that. Jobs are jobs. You have yours, though your glibness is wearing me very thin, and you don’t want that, you REALLY do not want that, but I have mine … look to the distance, the Lily fields that surround us here? This is my keep and all that lay in it away from you, at last, but also for all those who come now or have in the past, their memories just wisps scattered to the Lilies, to pay respects or seek absolution, to mourn or even rejoice in some cases, to just be seen or wish to only blend into and under the grass as well or to apologize for being late for someone’s birthday.

To come here, for most of them, is just to sit and wonder and talk to the wind as if their words can be carried, wisped away to other places by it to be heard somewhere in it

That is Angie, talking to her dad

Those are flowers left by Peter who feels better now even though he was an awful son and knows he hastened his father’s death

That is Bart, off to the left, who comes here only because he feels if he doesn’t he will lose whatever semblance of sanity he has left

That’s Michelle, after years away, who feels that wiping off the dust and grime and dirt of time will somehow make everything alright

Then there is Thomas, who I truly feel for, his loss that just destroyed him as that headstone is the last, only, thing he has left in whatever it was that tied him in this, his world. She was, under that stone, the only person that kept him safe in his differences.

Know that your job has consequences”

“But what are we to do?”

“Nothing, we can do nothing, but we can have a little respect. I take comfort in some genuine words spoke at knelt stone, when there are some, when loss is so profound that it brings a tear to even this old groundskeeper’s eye”

“This is what you do?”

“It is, but I don’t fault you for doing what YOU do. Now stand …”

“But I don’t even remember having knelt”

“… use that scythe for balance and stand up from your creaky knees and bony fingers and let’s go over to that corner and to Maribel”

“Maribel? Who … Maribel … is she?”

“No, leave her be, she has time, still has a daughter to come, but she sings, she even extols YOUR virtues”

“Me? MY virtues?”

“She sings of what is done and understands, as do I, though in a lesser chord, as I am no singer, and in such a glorious voice”

“Her loss?”

“It is of no matter, she just comes here, twice a week, sometimes more, to sing of all our losses, just sings along with the trees and the breezes and wisps of what was once of seas and suns and moons that drown and pass and of short lived birds sung in pretty flights above us all through the stones underneath her feet that look out over the hills at this place, all of these places, that are as one as they always have been, are here as intended to be stretching to the Lily’s”

“Oh my, is that heaven?’

“Could be, I don’t know, not sure”

“You said she still has a daughter to come?” Death remarked with a glint.

“STOP!! Were tears for your Mother back there even real?

“Moment of weakness I guess”

“ENOUGH!! You know, my expanse can include you, death can die, if I will it and then cover it in grass and Lily fields in the all encompassing distance, but for you? the Lily’s will wilt. There will be another to fill your shoes, if need be, it just won’t be you, gone at your own bones arrogance”.

A New Captain’s Chair To Cardan Four (simple post about a chair)

by Stephen J Frankenberry7 Comments on A New Captain’s Chair To Cardan Four (simple post about a chair)

Finally got myself the new PC chair I’ve been wanting. The old one, though of sentimental value, really needed to be retired, not completely, but at least to a different corner of this room, a sort of studio apartment in my sister’s basement, it has a small fridge an air fryer and a microwave so studio apartment enough … and it is still cat worthy with a plush blanket on it. It was Shoes the Big Orange’s fave spot that we occasionally had to fight over, like cats and humans.

But this chair is 20 years old, bought at Staples with an old friend in tow back then, a new radio show partner and a way to christen my new solo apartment and our new gig, but it was eventually like sitting on a slab of patio stone, just with arm rests and minus patio stone parties and the smells of grilling but, more importantly, a slab of patio stone, just with arm rests and minus patio stone parties and the smells of grilling AND no head support.

You see, I have an old man card now and one of the stipulations with being a card carrying old dude is that you fall asleep in chairs. You are even graded on it by outside observers (Beck, my Sis, or Nephew Matt or even some cats though their marker card is a bit of a disdainful mystery) and my grades were pretty top notch according to them, though I just have to trust that they are being honest with me. I mean, I’m reporting this back to the old man guild so …

But in this meeting of old fella requirements I was finding myself with cricks in my neck and sore shoulders as my lolling head had no aforementioned support.

“Beck, my neck is killing me”

“You fell asleep in your chair”

“No I didn’t”

“Yes you did”

Another stipulation for holding onto to your old man card, the sleeping in chairs part at least, there are many other stipulations some of which include suddenly becoming enamored of particular grocery stores, or gingerly sliding your legs together outside your car to get out (hey, I got back issues!) and making breathy grunts every time you stand up, like EVERY time, but another stipulation to falling asleep in chairs is that you don’t actually admit that you fall asleep in chairs.

“No I didn’t”

“Yes you did” with picture proof “and this is one of the reasons that you always have a crick in your neck”

“Damn … ” you whisper to yourself “Ok fine, but what about sharing a pillow with a blind cat who has a totally different definition of “sharing” than you, and you have to contort your head to fit in the small pillow window afforded you by said blind cat, who also happens to be very stretchy?”

“Ok, grant you that but still …”

So a new PC chair it needed to be, plus no one seemed to be inviting me to the patio stone parties with the smells of grilling anyway.

I went online and did an exhaustive search, researched office chairs, checked google reviews, looked for the most stars …”

“Hey, old man, you fell asleep again …”

“Oh, son of a bitch, fucking stars …”

But I eschewed the research and just decided to go on foot/car, sliding my legs together gingerly out of the car at every stop with breathy grunts, and came across nothing but places that had chairs in big boxes with pictures of how they would look when I did, maybe, get them into a basement room in front of a PC for new more comfortable stories in the Attic.

They all sucked.

Then I thought “wait, how about Staples? I’d been there before for just this sort of thing, where I got this old chair in the first place as I mentioned up top right?”

Heavenly horns, invites to patio stone parties but instead with cushioned summer patio furniture and chairs here, a shitload of chairs. No boxes with just pictures on the side of them, but actual chairs layed out in a corner of the store, a free range land of fully assembled chairs exampling, whinnying, imploring you come grab the reigns, in front of boxes, of what I could expect when I rolled in them, and leaned back in them, and possibly fell asleep in them.

Employee: “Sir, are you awake?”

I was a kid a in a chair candy store and I assed in all of them, every last one of them with a little butt wiggle, some bearing too soft, some too hard, some maybe just right and without spilling any porridge on any of them or anything until?

So, I have a new computer chair now and, as a friend said in response to a text pic I sent “That’s FANCY!”

“I know huh?”

And to another who I also sent a text pic I remarked that I feel very “Spaceshippy” now

“This is ready for the bridge, Captain!” she said

Indeed, now I just need a good take off command to throw at my pilot like all the best captains of Star Trek, like I saw in an episode of Strange New Worlds.

“Tally-Ho!” or

“And umm … Start!” or

“Let’s all go to dinner on Cardan Four!”

Ok, works in progress but I can tell ya that “Let’s all go to dinner on Cardan Four!” could really work, could be a thing.

Man, the food on that moon!

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“Steve, you are asleep in your chair again”

“I know, please tell the guild”

The Wind And The “Epistle” (six sentence story)

by Stephen J Frankenberry12 Comments on The Wind And The “Epistle” (six sentence story)

Earlier in the week I came across someone new to me through Sadje, a friend at dVerse Poets.

She is GirlieOnTheEdge and offers prompts for Six Sentence Stories, an idea I liked, like some of the 144 word Flash Fiction prompts you can find at dVerse, though with six sentences allowed that gives me a bit more room. I also knew I liked Girlie from the get go as this particular prompt mentioned “The Alarm” as part of her inspiration, an old fave band reminded from my undergrad and then graduate school days (in the current season and for other reasons I suddenly longed for “Rain in the Summertime”).

The Prompt?

PROMPT WORD:  WIND

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The Wind and the “Epistle”

Coming up from below deck after a lengthy search, top to bottom, of what appeared an abandoned fourth-rate named “Epistle”, Martins declared across bows to his Captain that she was indeed abandoned though he marveled that he had never seen anything quite like this ornate fitted construction, with nary a nail, nor some of the letters he had found in the captain’s empty quarters.

Captain Richard, with a curious though determined look, turned and directed the crew of “The Resolution” to board and see what could possibly be salvaged, if anything, just as Martins heard a voice from behind him saying “but I am here” though, on a turn’s look inspection, he saw not a soul.

Just then a sudden unexpected and fierce wind picked up and roiled what had, only moments before, been serene, placid seas below blue white speckled skies but those skies came to a sudden dark clouded anger, the sails filled flush, puffed out like the deep breath chest of an unnaturally sized, large winged vengeful bird to rival those of ancient sea beasts beneath the waves that seemed to stir with this wind’s dark cries of anguish and fear telling of stories warned.

Lightning crashed and stung about the tops of the sail masts, torrential rains drowned cries and pleadings of God, water beast tails as large as their own ship’s sails rose from above the waves only to dive out of fear, the heavens blackened loud and bellowed louder.

Captain Richard lost footing on deck, fearing his grip, slipping confused and disoriented, as did his crew, but, regaining his balance for a moment he turned to warn Martins to return only to find that he and the “Epistle” were no longer there and that the seas and skies, only seconds earlier filled with a storm’s rage, such as he had never witnessed in all his years at sea, came to a sudden calm again almost as if they hadn’t been changed at all, as if they hadn’t ever been anything other than what they were before in their calm, with skies returned to the blue of white floating speckles, as if in a languid painting, the sea flat again, but Richard swore, to his end of days spent in the throes of madness, that he saw the waters of the ocean drop off the edge of the world in the distance, off of a flat earth, just as he heard Martins, faintly, in the wind implore “but I am here”.

Standing in uneasy stunned silence Richard took measure … before then realizing that they should turn back, quickly, pointing “The Resolution” towards home but also before the knowing of the court martial and subsequent murder trial he would face of a missing crewman, Ross P Martins, upon his return.

Loud or Not

by Stephen J FrankenberryLeave a Comment on Loud or Not

Been a bit of a, I won’t say weird, but weird week (Jesus, those pipes doing pipe things in old houses sound like someone was just finishing up a shower upstairs) though I’ve surely heard weirder in other times, the usual solitary ones, in other old houses, but I have been in this one alone since Tuesday (and who the fuck is in the shower? Beck didn’t warn me of any old haunts like someone died in this place but just wants to stay clean in the limbo life and thus the great deal she got) just me and the cats, mine and hers “No Arthur you are not going out, I don’t care which door you sit at, that shit is not happenin’. You ain’t goin’ out. I will NOT be accomplice to you being an Arthur that is no longer an Arthur before Beck comes home! I already announced to you, days ago, that while I’m the new Momma cat guy ’round here you are a house cat!”

My sis, Beck, took off on Tuesday earlier this week, along with nephew Matt and Beck’s guy Buck whose last name is Rogers, he was a pilot, and they called him “Buck”, Buck Rogers, get it? that’s just cool, to see my other nephew, Jake, graduate from basic in the Navy and be all Mom proud amid coughs and sniffles and frog throats like the devil had found a voice and trips to the Walgreens cold and flu aisle before she left, damned if she wasn’t going to be allowed to cough anything up on him other than tears of that said pride. “No Jake, my tears of joy are just a little gloopy, sticky green is the color of love, you’ve made me so proud!”

And he did and he does.

But the weird was the silence. I’ve grown so accustomed now, new, over the last six months or so, to the loud of the garage door announcing me when I come home to Beck in the kitchen doing a Beck kitchen with pots and pans and loud smells, to the loud of Ricki, aka chunky pants, if a bowling ball were covered in tortoise cat fur and had a head, meowing at me in her smoker sounding kinda way when I open the door to the house from out the garage hoping for a treat from this guy, while Beck reminds that Cricket the Blind was doing her loud Cricket meowls from downstairs earlier, calling for me, to the loud jingle of collars of Sephira running away from me and Arthur just staring at the interloper, who might or might not let him out whatever door he keeps sitting at with an equally loud jingly collar, but there was a kind of silence the last few days and it was a bit jarring.

I mean, the loud of jingly collars and smoker cats was still loud around the place but it was a bit muted, subdued, minus that Momma human cat or a nephew to hold Arthur like a sack of beans until a squirm’s gleeful angry meow says “enough”

There is also that this coming week is the one where we lay my mom to rest “Oh, bloody hell Stephen will you all just get on with it already!” after she passed away a couple of weeks ago now with us on hand, almost, Matt, Buck and I, but Beck? She was the true witness of time passed with an Ok allowed thankful exhale.

And I don’t even know what to wear, well, I do, but I really need to bring that suit out of a storage bin and air it out or maybe even buy something new, fresh. Now that is a daunting thought as I don’t really do clothes, not well anyway.

But Jake looked fantastic and picture proud in a text from Beck of him having survived to get to shiny shoes and a tie perfect Navy collar and hat you could roll a cat ball around for some fun. I sent a dearest of friend a pic of him in the midst of our radio show prep together in his blues … is that what they call them in the Navy, blues? I’m just guessing as I have no clue, but she said it made her want to cry as she saw that he was the “IT” in his proud and his shiny shoe’s cat ball spin hat stance.

But this silence of a Beck home, it is hers, I just live here at her pleasure, with of course some managed litter boxes and feedings of her gang in her absence, cracked cans under cat noses, a thing I do with Bella and Cricket, that seems to have ingratiated me a bit as a new, to assure that they are cat seafood stinky enough to pass muster for cat consumption and also a couple of bucks to pay my way, but this silence? This particular silence? It was new and I didn’t like it.

I have spent so many recent years receding from sight and sound and something about furies that I forgot how much I like loud, even though I did do loud at my most recent spot before here, sometimes even a howling combine of multiple dogs that would just make me laugh at their off key song to the hills and perk a Bella ear but I played that off with headphones or just a bit of volume on the tube, but this loud that has been lacking here? It’s different. Even Arthur agrees as he has found himself at my feet while Mom is away to grab a belly at the washer/dryer for fresh sundries and even brave a Bella nose while just wanting to hear me talk to him.  

Beck will be home tomorrow, Arthur will forget that he looked for me, though I hope not, Sephira will skitter and zoom under or on top of beds away (though she does mind me and gladly’ll take a quick pet when she is not zooming if she wishes … she is a bit of a Diva) Ricki will always sound like she wants me to run to the convenience store for a pack of Reds and I will get back to true loud silence. With company. I WILL like that.

Mom will get laid to earth for that true silence and I will cry quietly, again “Oh Hell’s Bells Stephen, enough with the drama. We had a good run, this Mom and Son thing right?”

“Now, just go tend to those cats of yours, yours and Becks, and grandsons, just get back to being loud in your quiet way along with your sister”

“Gotcha Ma”

The Portal in the Dryer at Hammond’s Laundry and Juice Bar (part two)

by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments on The Portal in the Dryer at Hammond’s Laundry and Juice Bar (part two)

“The Portal in the Dryer at Hammond’s Laundry & Juice Bar” (part One)

A Haibun Monday at dVerse Poets, with a Sci-Fi theme and haiku.

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“Hello? … Hello?” Jenn said meekly.

She took an almost step and then held back, “Oh, you two are going to be in sooooo much troub …”

“You mean Ralph and Ant?”

It was in that imperceptible but perfectly clear sound of that initial pindrop you could distinctly hear through the laundromat noise, right before the blinding light and the temporary stunning and the disappearing knock-off magazines and other assorted items … including herself.

But it was deep and heavy, filled with bass or was it wispy and floating like an angel’s falsetto dropped from a cloud into a void, she wasn’t sure, and her head sat static apart from her body as it walked away and walked back and walked away and walked back again looking for a wall to possibly bounce off, a door jam to bruise a nose on, or maybe a set of stairs to fall down like some headless ghost or an almost there drunk.

And she was missing a shoe.

Her voice just almost wouldn’t come again but then it echoed, loudly, and startled her.

“Hello? Whooaa that’s loud!! … Where am I?”

“Exactly”

“Oh great, cryptic (she sighed to herself) … fucking fantastic.”

“You know you weren’t supposed to find us, none of you were but your friends, the smart one and the fat one, just wouldn’t let it go …”

With a bit more bearing, Jenn then said into the void.

“Ok, hold on, but we weren’t supposed to find you?! Seriously?! You left one of your portals to wherever the hell this place is, in a dryer, in a laundromat that also happens to be a pretty popular juice bar, in the middle of a fairly big town, what did you expect?”

Silence now … profound silence.

“Hello?!!? Jenn said again but with a definite note of annoyed impatience now.

“Sorry, we were conferring”

“Conferring?! Conferring about what? And who is WE?!?”

“WE were conferring about what we expected leaving one of our portals behind in this place you describe and WE is, are … well, WE”

“Oh, I see”

“We were hoping you would”

“Jesus!! No, I don’t see!!! I was in a laundromat with my friends, who had found what they thought was a portal of some type in a dryer to some wherever or whenever and we were testing it and then I sat in it, thinking what the hell and why not, and Ant put in some extra quarters just in case, and then I ended up here, in some void, talking to a disembodied voice who is actually the spokes something or other for a bunch of creepy otherworldly voyeurs who apparently leave portals just lying around in other worlds’ laundromats they don’t intend for anyone to find. No, I DON’T fucking see!!!”

Silence again …

“Let me guess, you’re conferring”

“Yes” ……..

We know not behind

Doors left ajar

With intent?

‘Tis the Creepy Season (some posts for such)

by Stephen J Frankenberry1 Comment on ‘Tis the Creepy Season (some posts for such)

Not that you asked for it (I mean, who would?) but a handy dandy all in one spot, easy reference, to some things of mine for the Halloween season, oh, and watching some albino looking spider with a seeming translucent head scurry about the walls behind the PC who, I swear, is the same spider that was doing quick spidery translucent head scurry things at my desk at the Latham office yesterday and I think may have hitched a ride on something of mine because, well, I don’t know, he is here now and considers us pals?

“What’s up fleshbag?”

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From a creepy old Halloween pic meme a college friend posted …

… and a Dad looking for a costume for his kid at a Spirit Halloween store

Costumes Are Hard

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From a “Haunted Harvest” prompt at dVerse Poets and to write something of such, a Haunted Harvest, a poem in this case for me

Third Eye Harvest Moon

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A Frankenberry lost toenail story with blood and forgetting

If A Forgetful Serial Killer Lost A Toenail And Got Postcards

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A poem of a dead motel and truck stop I pass on my now thruway drive

Exit 21B

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A flash fiction prompt response with madness

Of Moms, Sons & Assorted Friends

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Another flash fiction response with a man in a black hat story

The Scrapbook And The Man In The Black Fedora

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And one more flash fiction prompt, this one of Death and the Groundskeeper

Headstone

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Scurry, scurry, scurry

“Really?”

“What? I’m a spider, it’s what I do. I scurry, plus, I have to figure my new surrounds here and people will, hopefully, be so engrossed with your stories of the season to not notice time spent on my part to prepare you”

“Prepare me?”

“Things ta do, webs ta spin, d’ya feel stuck yet? You’re just an extra large, blood filled, fly”