A light, boundary-crossing transgressive flash fiction that could cause a reader to squirm, or guffaw. It is a story within a story in which the frame is a critique group discussing the story. At the time of composition, I had other "inappropriate women" ideas. Writing more of these is like ice cream in the freezer when you're on a diet. Eating/writing will occur. It can't be helped as I have a certain personality structure. #absurd #comedic #transgressive #medium https://medium.com/a-dark-wood/inappropriate-a-woman-goes-to-a-movie-fc6d647fe4a5?sk=442c57c6b0dc62d9c66f477fe2306f24

A lighter piece, originally published several years ago, then republished here by yours truly. I hope you are having a good #Wednesday. #FlashFiction #Medium https://medium.com/the-beautiful-story/ladybug-a-boat-captains-widow-3c4a793f6b5a?sk=2434614d6c82bded04e0ccdab816ec16

#SilentSunday

My mother's purse

My son is traveling today from Alabama to North Carolina. Worried re: Isaias.

I'm not watching news these days, but the big puddle in my apartment complex parking lot is explaining what I happened to see in my thread--Hurricane Isaias. It recurs during hurricane season. So yeah, I don't even really want to know about hurricanes, much less government collapse. I'm in a Dwight of The Office relationship with the news--"Shun/Unshun/Reshun."

Today, October 8th, my brother would have been 54.He died when he was 22. I walked the slender bridge back to my father to reach out to him. My mother died a couple of years ago. In our memory, we are bound to each other by the past even if in the present, the bond is tenuous.

One of several of my mini-collections--stories of 50-word-fictions, #published in #Horror Hounds on Medium. I draw work from self-challenges. I have had others join me, in which I provide a #prompt for a #50WordFiction challenge every Friday. People may write in whatever style or genre they wish. Lmk if you're interested. My link is to various types of horror, from unease to more graphic. But they are #micro of course. #microhorror #writingcommunity #October #Halloween
https://medium.com/horror-hounds/horrific-love-a-mini-saga-collection-eae1c9a65540?sk=fe2c80d5a86e8682fc3cf69fbb31d0cf

My story The Thousand Page Book of Grim Facts is set in 2017 in small town Florida, but reads like it could be set earlier. In evidence is that its young protagonists are interested in a book, not an internet search. Anachronistically perhaps, there are no cell phones. Note: This concerns electrocution and capital punishment. Florida is a very active state especially in the latter. This is mainly about friendship, grieving, growing up, and coming to terms with suffering.
https://medium.com/a-dark-wood/the-thousand-page-book-of-grim-facts-f87ce6cfcee4?sharedUserId=seftonmeg45

''The blood maiden slips into windows, asking children to help her. There are to be sacrifices, she says. For now, this means hair from a brush or shower drain, cigarette buts, old lipsticks, broken crayons, unused phones and technology. She perches on the edge of their beds, her feet gripping footboards like claws. She stuffs her mouth with their offerings. She smacks and crunches...She laughs...She doesn’t seem like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.'' #Inktober #smack https://medium.com/a-dark-wood/blood-maiden-ddc56a6ff713?sharedUserId=seftonmeg45

He began noticing how many kinds of small birds there were when he could no longer throw the death switch. This circumstance came about when a murderess, softened by his ministrations on her last day, thanked him profusely. And that’s when he knew: She had seen his true self.

#inktober #capitalpunishment #50WordFiction #deathrow

(Recommend Werner Herzog's Into the Abyss. I have seen it several times. Incredible.)

Journal, Day 3

Our mission is having various effects upon the group, being that we are camped in the valley where so many buildings and ancestral relics were destroyed by the damming of the river. Last night, under a full moon, Mrs. Singh had a dream of her daughter standing in a glowing portal, beckoning her. And yet, she felt some uneasiness about it, as if the portal were a beginning and an end, all at once, for the portal swiftly closed, taking her daughter with it. #inktober #relic

The tallest leaf of my bird of paradise is just within an inch of the ceiling. My last time sharing a picture, I still had a moment to address the issue. Now, forced to face reality, I'll have to come to terms with the fact that big boy isn't going to trim itself.

Silliness

"Lend me your ear," says the young boy to his father.

His father pops the ear off Mr Potato Head and gives it to him.

The child had learned the expression from Charlton Heston's Mark Antony. Pausing on the film, his father had told him that whenever he wants to talk, he should ask for his ear.

His mother, who no long lives with them, hates this game, but she keeps a Ms. Potato Head at her apartment. If her son is going to talk to anyone, it will be a woman. #mastoprompt #loan

A #Monday adventure #fantastical #Florida story. Just for a fun escape because who doesn't need that? Based a little bit on a real character my family used to help as she got older. She was amazing, though not exactly like Leyla. I drew inspiration from her.

"Grieving Mrs. Pompidou needs help with her hair. But will she allow Molly Popkins of The Curly Q to help her? And just what does Molly have to contend with? Does she have what it takes? Get ready for a wild ride…"

https://medium.com/the-beautiful-story/mrs-pompidou-at-the-curly-q-917bc6dca58b?source=friends_link&sk=441d3d17b7d460abca0a9b6ec24780bd

A link to two #flashfiction pieces I published today. The opener: "I’m publishing these flash pieces in The Beautiful Story. The first has been published elsewhere...These pieces are neither light nor dark. A sense of numbness is a theme, an emotional blunting. Maybe they reflect a time of life, a season, or a mood that is an effect of living in our modern world. I also think of early fall--that uncertain in-between, the coming darkness, and yet the comforts too." 🍂 🤎 ☕
https://medium.com/the-beautiful-story/the-wooden-man-and-lethe-two-stories-in-which-very-little-happens-66bb0cda8c37?sk=ce50ea9d463bb65d871f4618c7e10b2f

US Senator Tommy Tuberville on the Senate floor ''warns'' furries are flying commercial airplanes and working as crew members on flights. F'n ridiculous and desperate, yes. But he also segues into an argument, however serious or unserious, that asylums need to be reopened. I have been writing a near future piece in which asylums are indeed widely use to hold any mere inconvenient person, no mental illness need be proven. You know, like in the old days.

Likely, doing it on purpose because end times fascists see it as the anti-Christ, at least according to the authors of the work end times fascism. https://youtu.be/Qe7KB1AqhH4?si=mmoCN6-56yoMgwQt

Is Trump getting us kicked out of the #UN.

Anyway, good morning, nonetheless. Here's a picture of two young adults, quite dear to me, taken on a trip during which we had a lovely visit.

My dear writer/book loving friends, I'm going to stop by here once the Flight of Foundry writers conference is over to share resources--books and authors you should know about, some of which I hope to acquire myself. It is not too late to join the conference--see my posts elsewhere--but for now, I'm preparing to join the "Folk Horror" panel. I do not show up as myself, but as Margaret Moonshadow and even if I take part in events that involve interaction, I use my atavar, not my face. 👻