FFAW – Unwelcome Guest

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Enisa. Thank you Enisa!

“She said he would come at Noon.” My eyes reading my watch carefully. “Naturally, his face is in shadows.”

My pulse quickens. My throat seems instantly dry. Nervousness is my condition. I hesitate to even hesitate. My eyes widen as the dark man flows down my alley, ever closer he comes.

“He has no scythe. He isn’t a large man.” My mind picking apart Death in an effort not to believe. “But no discernable face….”

“Fortune tellers.. I am trusting a lady whom spirits discuss the living. Maybe I’m crazy.” Myself turns on me.

I see his gaze upon me. His eyes the midnight sky. He fades into the shadows.

I look again at the watch. His cold hand touches my right shoulder. I struggle to walk. My body on the floor stares up at me. Never a chance to say goodbye.

The man with no discernable face beckons me away.

151 words

FFAW – Somewhere Under the Rainbow

This week’s photo prompt is provided by @any1mark66

(Hey, that’s me & Big Bend National Park, Texas)

“There it is!! The end of the rainbow! There’s a pot of gold in that trailer!” Mickey screams and flails his left arm toward the aluminum leprechaun.

Dad looks up in the mirror and laughs “There aren’t leprechaun in Texas! You have to catch them to get the gold”

“There’s a green man in the field there! look!” Six year old defiance rings out. “Can we stop?!”

“We can look from the side of the road but no closer. Those fields are full of snakes.” Dad responds

As the car stops, the rain thins. A strange rustling crawls through the tufted grasses.

“See there are no people out here! Just us and some rain. It doesn’t even look occupied over there, Mickey.” Dad turns back to look at his son. A sudden sense of wonder comes as the roadway dries in front of his eyes.

“Daddy! He is waving to us!” Mickey tugs at his dad.

The sound of their car driving off goes unnoticed. Soon they will find out how the leprechaun gets his gold.

181 words

Passing Time

“The Devil’s pocket watch had no hands.” Parson Dubois whispers to the pale breeze.

His eyes look for the passage of time or life…Or anything. His wooden bench testament of a barn no longer in use. Much like the rest of the dozen buildings long abandoned that make up Destiny. His world of three dusty rows mistaken for streets.

His mind places people about the store fronts. Ghosts of days gone by. Horses tied to posts. A wagon left half way between coming and going. Sounds of children ring out. Ladies in long dresses meander past lost in conversation about their neighbors.

The church bell clangs behind him. He jumps up to answer. His hands part the brown faded doors. The empty rows of pews lay sleeping. A simple dias with an open book holds service to a lost cause. Yet behind a partial wall there seems to be life.

His stands fast in the middle to gaze out among his missing flock. He knows no-one should have gone past him. His company creates a mystery. Even the ghosts have departed these parts.

From a corner jumps a ten treat old Reggie Whitener. His Amish hat just about swallows his head. His smile lights up the room.

“I waited till I seen Mr Miller..just like you ask of me!” Reggie stands like he is ready to run and chase the wind.

“Well, that’s a good young man.” He speaks faintly while his eyes look upon someone gone to his reward several years earlier. “Now light us a candle and take your place near your momma.”

He gives into the scene. Voices fill a previously empty church. Parson Dubois wipes his eyes of the flow of tears. He is smiling for first time in a long time. His back remains to the church. His pulse kicks up a notch causing a hot flash.

He turns to hear an angel’s voice calling the assembly toward the light. Standing together six and thirty begin to sing. Each face lights up with a soft glow. They all gently sway side to side in rhythm of the hymn. One last beacon of hope from the ashes blown around for a generation.

“You have all come back to me!” he leaves a careless laugh to his words.

The breezes blow past. Through the windows a world grows dark. The faces smile brighter.

“It’s time you came home with us.” They collectively sing.

Parson Dubois falls sidewise on the bench. His pocket watch no longer needs hands either.

Do You Have Halloween Stories

This is from Spillwords.com… They have been gracious enough to accept my works. Give them a try.

Fill out the form below to submit your literary work for consideration to be published as a part of a series called ‘13 Days of Halloween‘.

The series will run from October 18th through October 31st, and we will be featuring a different literary work everyday for 13 days.

All literary pieces should embrace Halloween, and the spirit of this holiday. It should make reference of Trick or Treating, ghosts and goblins, black cats, superstitions, or any appropriate iconic Halloween character.

We look forward to your literary treats!

dead reckoning – Wordle

dead reckoning: to find yourself bothered by someone’s death more than you would have expected, as if you assumed they would always be part of the landscape, like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by—still able to find your bearings, but feeling all that much more

My life in walls

Always looking to patch

Finding something to hang

The walls separate rooms

Those keeps of secrets

Those keeps of lost ones

Ear to the door

Voices ring hollow

Trapped in past

I hear a moment

Clear, faces come forward

Soft images built on memory

Suddenly, they are there

Like they never left me

Short sided view steeps

It was me that left them

To dwell in netherworld

I reassure myself

it keeps them alive

dead reckoning – Wordle

dead reckoning: to find yourself bothered by someone’s death more than you would have expected, as if you assumed they would always be part of the landscape, like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by—still able to find your bearings, but feeling all that much more

My life in walls

Always looking to patch

Finding something to hang

The walls separate rooms

Those keeps of secrets

Those keeps of lost ones

Ear to the door

Voices ring hollow

Trapped in past

I hear a moment

Clear, faces come forward

Soft images built on memory

Suddenly, they are there

Like they never left me

Short sided view steeps

It was me that left them

To dwell in netherworld

I reassure myself

it keeps them alive

Photo Challenged 177- Clancy’s Ghost

His eyes walked up and down then side to side across the velvet dress. Her face wrapped in a scarf of blue clouds. Still he knew. His troubled mind knew. His nose wrestled to keep the scent from being taken in. His ears could create her voice in the wind. Her presence was’ll disconcerting at best.

“Not all dreams are created equal. You can not ignore men as I am no more than what you made me.” A coarse soft whisper rasps Clancy’s ears.

“Go away! Go away! You’re not real!” Clancy spins in his dark room. Eyes wide searching for her shape. Nerves taut. Chill of icy fingers brushing softly against his back.

“You can’t refuse me. Ha ha, silly Clancy” he voice climbs as falls in laughter of a child. “I’m your every embodied desire and want. You built me in those likenesses you could not possess. My touch is all you’ll care to know. You made me from your cold indifference then added desire.”

“You’re just a nightmare! No, no…..no more. No, no … no less. A bad dream. Charlotte! Be gone!” A frail silhouette waves at the darkness.

“Years that fall through cracks in days fashioned us. You call me by a name.” She reveals her face with the features of all his loves unknown.

Another night in which our monsters return. Clancy’s ghost settles into his mind for another night.

Written as part of a challenge called Photo Challenge, details are available at https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/photo-challenge-177/

The Tree

The wind cuts across the open field. An old oak stubbornly resists. Its yields a deep shaking of its leaves bristling against the change. A darkness curls up from the roots. Bitter tannin flavors the breeze as it passes by.

The foul smell carries upward. Bits of grey rolling into long low clouds. The sky and Sun try to resist. The steady breeze keeps flowing. And darkness fills the air.

A second wind grows steady beneath it’s grey shield. Unseen hands cast rain in fierce waves toward to unsuspecting ground. The other trees curl away fron the onslaught. Flowers bow their heads. Even the dirt dances about trying to hold ground.

Still the oak sways it’s branches. The storm feeds upon the ancient bark. Sinister lightning bolts feast upon its bark. Dark spirals dig into it’s sides. The bark frays. Sparks swirl about the grand oak. Slowly it’s leaves start to join in a willo-wisp. Green leaves change to brown. Leaves rise to form blind in which its source can no longer be seen.

Dampness and mustiness fill a third and final wind. The downdraft spills forth the brown leaves upon the world. They tumble and bounce. Everything they touch pales a little at a time. Their only means is to bring the great change. Scouring the world of color in a final flash before the whiteness resets the Earth for another season.

I look up from Grandpa’s tater-torn book. His Oak tree stands a few hundred feet in the distance. I could allows sense it held more than leaves. For years I believed these words to be true. The origin of storms incarnated into physical beings that never damaged. Even when the pitfalls leaves fell, brown ones filled in the next day.

I make a long journey in my heart to lay the ashes of the very soul who watched over this miracle tree. In my mind, I can see him making the journey 70’s years ago. Someday, it will be me being carried. As long as the tree stands, there will be stories of the magic within.