I.

After the final curtain, Malpais, the liverish critic from the Morning Herald, sequestered himself in a Tribeca bar where he drank a pinot noir the color of garnets. From his coat pocket he drew a disheveled notebook in which he’d written his thoughts during the play. His handwriting in the darkened theater was, after many years of practice, indecipherable to anyone else – a precaution in case he…

Daddy, I remember when you got me my first rifle for my birthday the year I turned 8.  It was always my favorite, and we sure had fun those Saturdays in the woods by ourselves, didn't we?  But then I heard about that thing over in Burkesville and, Daddy, I just started feeling real bad.  

So yesterday I went and fired off all my rounds at that old…

It surely doesn’t get old; in fact it gets better with time, the music I mean. And they can still pull it off, still groove solid on that makeshift stage. There’s Weir, Lesh and Hart of the Dead weaving something hypnotic, old Fogerty growling out the lyrics like they’re brand new and Pete and Roger still winding it up like little boys gone wild. I could watch Carlos seduce and devour that guitar all night long. Even Neil…

Sonny, the boy, transformed into a traveling ventriloquist, away from boyhood abuse, beatings, particularly on and around the head terrorized and traumatized his thought process so he could think of little else other than what blows or humiliating punishments were to descend upon him for no reasons other than his existence, the child of another woman, deceased. 

Five years of age, two years after the death of his mother, a particular transformation, an enchantment, began to…

There were monsters in the trailer park, hiding in the shadows of the double wides.

 My cousin and I took it upon ourselves to seek them out and destroy them.

We carved sticks into points, emptied unfinished schoolwork from our Jansports, and filled them up with our makeshift weaponry, cloves of…

Pollyanna became an archeologist, did you know that?

Her speciality was looking for hidden treasures in the Big Rock Candy Mountains; she figured that’s where she’d find the most super nice artifacts.

On one of her digs she found what her research said she’d find, buried deep in the amazing earth, the famed rose-colored glasses from a forgotten age, an age of optimism, so we’re talking many, many, many, many, many, many years ago.

Her crew gawked and applauded their…

“Hello, darling, how was work,” she asked.

“It was wonderful, my boss gave me a raise, and my coworkers loved all of my ideas.”

“That’s fantastic, husband, love of my life. It was good here too, the kids are sleeping, there’s prime rib and asparagus on the table, and I have been dying to fellate you all day.”

“That’s just aces, and I have a gift for you as well, this wad of money, three grand, so…

"It's just a little different down here in Mississippi," said Mom on the car ride back to her house in Horn Lake, where my brother and I were visiting for Christmas, the first time since she pulled up stakes in California and plopped down in Dixie. 

"I want you to remember to say hello to my tree, Miss Magnolia," she said, ignoring the look my brother and I exchanged.

We arrived at the house, a little place surrounded by a lot of land, and mom grabbed us both by the hand and…

In the dream, Denny sat in the dinghy, the cold aluminum seat biting into his bare legs. His father stood on the deck of the Sea Giant. He was reeling and yelling at Carol, screaming for her to get into the dinghy, screaming at Denny to get back on board. Carol sat terrified, unmovable. The dingy swayed as the boat rumbled, pushed away. A deep breaking sound from below the water shook the vessel, rolled it quickly,…

The open sea frightened him and what lurked along its vast bottom, in deep trenches scared him more. His sixth grade History book was full of imaginative stories and drawings, depictions of creatures grappling long cable-thick tentacles over wooden boats as terrified sailors looked to the skies… ocean-wide whirlpools boiling beneath calm seas… flat-headed serpents coiling to the surface, maws open wide. He had no…

The boy woke, eyes half-glued shut, cracked lips sealed in brine, his throat a painful parchment rattle. Above, the high rise pitch of gulls. The boy’s sun-baked face pillowed against a naked forearm and his eyes rested on the slow undulation of the distant dark line. Through the sleepy blur, blue met deeper blue along a horizon’s straight edge. The easy sway of the empty dinghy closed his mind down again, rocked him,…

Another small tidbit from Shadow Play. Hope you enjoy.

Kyra shook herself and examined the Shade standing in front of her. She wore a long white night dress, which meant she could be lingering from one hundred years ago, or one of the latest victims. Shades seldom shared why they lingered in the mortal plane, whether they knew they were dead or not. They differed from ghosts, which held memories of people and how they had died. Shades, on the other hand had substance, knew they no…

He was a piano of a man, his six foot six frame suffocating the rail-thin bike that creaked and wobbled under him. A plastic garbage bag bloomed over his wide shoulders – a poor man’s raincoat; it whipped and popped like snapping fingers against the wind. Gray beard gathered like wool along the upper ridge of his cheekbones, infringed heavily, swept down his moon face and bottomed out in a heavy hornet’s nest tangle ten…

I woke up today before I really woke up.

When I did wake up, I was pleased to see I had grown, quite tall.

I also had spectacular balance to go along with my newfound long legs, and a joyful spirit.

What a beautiful way to wake up, with grace, long legs and joy.

So I spent the morning hopping from telephone pole to telephone pole, happily showing off for the birds.

I so enjoyed this new vantage point, this different…

To look upon her face would have brought tears to your eyes. Dressed in grey rags she stands, head bowed, besides a tree in the midst of its fall. One lonely finger points down from her clenched hand towards the ground, where wet grass and decaying leaves barely cover her bare feet. She looks up towards you with cold grey eyes drowned in sorrow. Lifeless eyes that tears once flowed, but even tears…

My post for today is the blurb to my novel entitled 'The Creationist's Chalice' which is in its proofing stage. At the moment I don't have a release date but the earliest it will be released is September 2010.

The blurb reads (as it stands at the moment)

Do you remember being told fairy tales as a child? What would you do if you found out they weren't just tales, they were about a real world?

This is what Lindsay discovers, long after she has left the age…