Home Is Where The Heart Is
Inspired By The Soul Food Cafe Writing Prompt
Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle
Back along on Deception Road is a little farmhouse that no one lives in.
After the house was built and then put up for sale the orchard out back died, the little vegetable garden died and all of the pumpkins and squashes and tomatoes rotted right on their vines.
Even the flowers in the window boxes shriveled up and turned to dust within a day or so after they were set out and all the little farmhouse could do was slam its doors open and shut and make the clock in its kitchen strike twelve over and over again.
The man who built the farmhouse, Travis Janosik, use to stand out at the road and wonder what the hell was going on in there, why was it that nothing could live near that place without giving up the ghost.
There was nothing about Travis that would make you say, ‘you know that killer house? The one on Deception Road? It was built by Travis Janosik” and the person you would be talking to wouldn’t reply, “ Well of course it was a strange house. Look who built it.”
No, the house turned bad all by itself and this bothered no one more then Travis. What bothered him most of all happened when the house was two years old.
That’s when someone actually bought it and moved in.
The ‘someones’ who bought the farmhouse were the Korbar Family.
Travis use to drive out to Deception Road and park across the way from the Farmhouse and watch it. He’d see Darius Korbar working the vegetable garden or see him sitting on the porch with one of the many children he and Mrs. Korbar had and they acted like any other family living in those hills.
Unless of course you really watched them the way Travis did.
At first he had no interest in the Korbar family. His interest was in that house and what it was up to now. It didn’t have to settle for killing plants and the odd field animal that got to close to its walls. Now it had the Korbar children who scuttled around the property in their ill-fitting clothes.
At least that’s how it looked but then Travis realized it wasn’t the clothes that didn’t fit right, it was the bodies inside the clothes that weren’t right.
The children’s heads were to large for their small bodies and their hands and feet didn’t seem to be the same size and when they talked Travis felt the hair rising up on his arms and the back of his neck and that’s when he’d cut his daily vigil off.
Once Travis saw Mrs. Korbar come down the front steps with a tall glass in her hand and make her way to the garden to where Mr Korbar was working. She handed him the glass and he kissed her cheek and then she made her way back up the steps and Travis watched her but didn’t notice that as she climbed the steps her head was tilted slightly backwards and her back was straight as a pole and she never bent her knees.
It was like she was gliding up the steps and not walking up them at all.
Towards the end of the summer the gardens were dead and rotten and Mr Korbar was out there working it like it as if it were alive and thriving. The ground was water logged and moldy with green slime. The vegtables were rotting and decayed and you could actually smell it when the wind shifted.
On top of the fact that Travis was watching a man harvest from a garden full of rotten vegetables he was also sure that some of that smell was coming from Mr Korbar too.
Travis promised himself after that visit he wouldn’t go near the Farmhouse on Deception Road. Something was wrong with it, something was wrong with the people living inside of it and Travis was certain if he didn’t stop going over there something would be wrong with him too.
Of course, it was too late because that something had already happened to Travis and he found himself standing at the end of the drive leading right up to the Farmhouse the next day.
He was in plain view and Mrs. Korbar must have seen him from one of her windows because he wasn’t there for long before she came down the steps and met him with a basket of rotting carrots and maggot filled tomatoes on her arm.
“ We never got the chance to thank you for building this wonderful house Mr Janosik. Its perfect and we love it so.”
Travis was looking into the basket of dead and decaying vegetables and he said, “ How could you love it so? Nothing can live inside of that thing…”
And Mrs. Korbar said, “ Well, Mr Janosik nothing does…”
Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle
Reflection Of My Love
Inspired by the SFC Prompt:: Ceremony Of The Mirror
” What are you looking at Jingle? “ Milo Hungerford asked his wife.
Jingle was standing in front of their bathroom mirror with her hairbrush in her hand and she turned slowly towards him and said, ” I don’t know. “
He came up behind her and stared into glass and shook his head.
” That’s not right Jingle. “
She put her hand to her face and looked into the mirror again and when she turned back towards Milo she started to cry. ” Milo what’s happening to me? “
Milo pulled Jingle to his chest and turned her away from the looking glass.
” Is it still there Milo? “
Milo held Jingle tighter and said, ” yes. “
” The one in the foyer- let’s try that one too. “
” Jingle- it won’t…” he started to say and then when he saw the look on her face he nodded. “okay, we’ll try that one too.”
Milo held his wife’s hand and they walked down the dark halls to the entrance to their home and together they looked into the mirror there and Jingle burst into tears and grabbed her face.
” Oh Milo- oh Milo what’s happening to me? ” she cried.
Milo looked into the mirror and there in the glass he saw his wife holding her hairbrush, her dark hair framing her face- all alone except for the darkness that was their home and he turned her gently towards him and said,
” I don’t know how it happened Jingle…but I think you’re alive. “
Sand
Inspried By The SFC Prompt:
If I could walk
to the end of the world
I would find a hill to stand on
and I would
watch the sunset.
I wonder.
Would the sky look the same
at the end of the world?
Would the air smell the same?
If I put my hands to my face and screamed would I sound the same?
If I could walk to
the end of the world
I would walk upon the dead ocean floor
and touch rocks full of bones
tombs
for creatures I knew
when they were covered with flesh
a long time ago
when the Sun was Yellow
and not red.
If I could walk to the end of the world
I’d walk in circles for miles and miles
I’d leave my footprints there in the dusty remains
of my world
and
hope
that maybe someday, somebody
would know I once was.
Corners
Inspired by the Soul Food Cafe Story Starter:
Blaze Godfredo lives out on Old Creek Road- most of the Godfredo Family have lived out on Old Creek Road long before Washington became a state and if you want to hear any stories about the infamous ghost town called Fallen you can ask Blaze.
His Great Grandmother, Tanis Blaze won the town in a card game back in the 1920’s but that’s another story.
So when he was a kid Blaze used to play on the grounds of an abandoned insane asylum haunted by the Black Monk of Fallen and to add along with that interesting bit of family history you might be interested to learn that Blaze’s Great Great Grandmother had the dubious honor of being the one and only woman on the West Coast too be hung for Witchcraft.
” That’s a rotten shame Blaze ” some people would say when he would tell that story.
” Oh heck, what can I say? It was true..Bartsia wasn’t one of those poor creatures that they burned at the stake on trumped up charges….no Sir. Bartsia was an honest to goodn-well, Bartsia was the real thing. She was a fire and brimstone demon conjuring type of gal and she’d just as soon cut your heart out and feed it to her cat as look at you.”
Old Creek Road was where they hung Bartsia from the infamous Devil’s Tree. The tree is where Bartsia was supposed to have done her deals with the Devil herself
The people of Fallen hung her there ….twice.
In order to rid themselves Bartsia some of the people who lived in Fallen had to do some deals themselves at that tree and it was about another 100 years before they got that mess with Bartsia worked out.
Afterwords Fallen was a ghost town and no one in Snohomish County will go near it let alone admit it’s still up there.
Of course you can find it if you want.
There’s this town called Cascade Ridge that you have to drive through to get to Fallen and that’s where Blaze lives out on Old Creek Road where he runs his business right out of his home.
Whenever someone in Cascade sees cars pull up to Blaze’s house where a sign says, ” Blaze Godfredo’s Haunted Washington Tours ” they just stand there and cry and wonder how much longer that old man is going to live for.
That’s how Blaze makes a living and no one has ever considered telling him to stop the flood of people in black clothes and show up in droves during Halloween. On a practical note it goes without saying that no one really wants to mess with a man who has a genuine Witch buried out on his property
Anway, that’s what Blaze does.
He takes little groups of people up to Fallen and to Old Creek who are ghost hunters and people who fancy themselves to be Vampires and Witches and he tells them all about Fallen.
Some of them just get angry at his stories and the rest just get scared but nobody walks away feeling like they’d been had.
One year this writer from Seattle took the tour and as Blaze walked her back to her car she stopped and asked, ” You know Blaze, these stories of yours are top drawer- but I’m curious. All these stories about The Creek, they’re about other people. You’ve lived out here your entire life and except for that trip to Hawaii you told us about on the way up to Fallen it doesn’t sound like you’ve been much more the 100 miles away from here. You must have seen or been through something yourself. Come on Blaze, where do you fit into this story? “
Blaze shrugged, ” Well, it’s my family’s history you know and I’m not the adventurous type and on the whole I’d have to say my uneventful life would affirm that sad fact.”
” Yeah, sure Blaze…come one what’s your story? “
Blaze held his arm out and the writer, a woman named Honor took it and they walked up to Blaze’s porch and he told her about what happened to him 40 years ago out on Old Creek Road.
” No doubt about it, my family has a dark history- and the one thing I know about darkness, it creeps from the corners. Think about it there, nothing bothers people more then the things they see from the corners of their eyes. It’s because the things you see there have creeped up on you.
And then they either creep away or just disapear and then you get that trickle of sweat running down your spine…You know what mean don’t you.”
Honor nodded.
” Back in the 1960’s there wasn’t any lights out on the highway that hooks Old Creek up to Snohomish County and the rest of the world. But that didn’t stop people from driving their cars like the Devil was chasing them…well, you know sometimes….but for the most part people were just careless and stupid or drunk and stupid and they’d miss the road that leads to bridge over the Creek and they would end up smashed to pieces in the ravine.”
“So one winter we hear about this car full of college kids that disapeared on their way back from Seattle- they were headed up to Everett and they never made it.”
” Well that year my wife gets it in her head that she wants a fresh cut tree for Christmas and I’m the good guy right? I actually do it, I take an ax out into 30 degrees of ice and snow and go and cut her a tree. But that wasn’t so much to do for a woman who was willing to live out here just to be with me. She was a good Gal ” Blaze said with a smile ” Really Good…and kind. Anyway I go out and find her a nice blue spruce and I’m on my way home when just before I get to the bridge I hit a dog and it bounces off my hood and takes a dive right over the bridge into the ravine.”
” Wouldn’t you kno it? Just as I get out of my car that dog comes flying up the bank and with a busted leg it’s got it’s tail between it’s legs and Honor…that dog is screaming, not howling- it’s screaming. “
” So I go over to the railing and look down and I see this black patch- it’s perfectly square and black and I realize what I’m looking at his the undercarriage of a car and I figure out the screaming I’m hearing didn’t come from the dog- it was coming from the car.”
” I slide and crawl down into that Ravine the best I can and just as I come up on the car I start seeing what look like body parts scattered all of the place and I figure the animals have been visiting the car for a snack or two and then I see this hand come from the window on the passenger side and I’m about to pass out when I hear someone say, ” please get me out they’re getting closer….please get me out.”
” Sure enough there was a lady still alive in that car and I figure she’d been down there for almost four days with those dead bodies.”
” God ” Honor whispered.
Blaze looked up from his memories and the look on his face was confused. ” Oh no, no, no God was down in that Ravine, wasn’t nothing down in there but death and if you know Death you know how it doesn’t like to share space with anybody or anything….”
Honor shrugged. ” I’ll give you that. “
” Anyway, I reach down and grab the hand and that woman just slides out on a trail of blood and ice and I’m pretty sure she cut herself up pretty good when she came out. But before I could help her up she turned over and got up on her knees and was holding herself up with one arm and she was holding her other arm to her chest. Then she jumps up grabs my hand and says, ” come on, we have to get out of here. I can hear them….let’s go!”
” Who? ” I ask her ” who is coming? “
” Those animals!” she screams at me and then she starts running and she was one sure footed Gal because she didn’t slide or slow down as she drags me all the way up the bank to the road.
When we get up to the road we both look down into the Ravine and I can hear something all right. I can see something too. Only it wasn’t animals, it was little lights and and the sounds were voices and they were saying something about “picking up tracks here…”
That’s when I can see, right there out of the corner of my eye that woman spit something out onto the snow and what lands there are four little red and white lumps and I know those things are teeth.
Then she looks down at her hands and I hear her whistle and say something like, ” I guess I won’t be playing the piano for awhile.”
After she gets done talking I see her from the corner of my eye pull a long blond hair from the corner of her mouth and no it wasn’t her’s because the woman standing next to me had long black hair. It was so black it almost looked blue.
It was just seconds later that she walks away down that road like she wasn’t cut up and bleeding and hurt- I’m not sure but I think she may have been whistling.
Well, a few minutes later a bunch of people come up over the bank and they’ve got dogs and guns.
” Hey there ” says this man ” are you alright?”
” Course. What’s up? ” I asked.
” There’s a wolf on the loose, it tore apart a bunch of dogs and horses and even a cow at on Maltby a few days ago and we tracked it out here- looks like it was spending some time down in that car. I’m not sure but it looks like it went through the windshield and got itself stuck. Then it got itself unstuck.”
” How? ” I ask.
One of the men dropped something at my feet and there it was…this wolf’s paw with fur so black it shined blue.
I don’t know who that woman was or where she went - but she should be easy to spot . After all, she only has one hand.”
Honor sat back and smiled, ” that was a good one Blaze…you really should- ” and then Honor’s smile sort of froze and faded and she turned her head a little and she said to Blaze ” I thought I saw something from the corner of my eye…sorry where was I?”
From A Wicked Garden
from the Soul Food Cafe Prompt
Plant a Wicked Garden Here:
Insert images of wicked plants
The Wicked Manzanillo Tree-so deadly so poisonous that legend says its shadow could kill you!
Deadly Nightshade, tended by the Devil himself…so the story goes.
List Twenty Wicked Words:
Grave, Apparition, Ghoul, Shadow, Tomb, Demonic, Phantasm, Specter, Revenant, Rot
Curse, Hex, Demon, Shiver, Malice, Fiend, Infernal, Abandon, Desolate, Demented
Make some notes about a plant.
The berries from the Belladonna plant are sweet.
I read about some cases where children ate them with tragic results. I never thought about deadly fruit tasting sweet, I assumed poison berries would be bitter. Its like the Belladonna plant wants to hurt you.
A plant that murders on purpose. Its a cold blooded killer. I’ll bet there’s a story there.
Sketch the voiceless woman and the midnight garden
Just Kidding..I can’t draw.
Someone replies and explains why the plants are not working. Record their words:
” The plants from the Wicked Garden aren’t plants. Not exactly.”
On The Third Day
by
It started snowing here , just north of Seattle, Washington on Friday so when I sat down to write today I thought maybe I’d revisit a story I wrote back in December.
It fits.
Enjoy!
amm
On the Third Day
We Toss Out The Left Overs
A few years ago my bus got caught in a snow storm and the going was slow.
S-L-O-W
So me and my friends told jokes, we told stories, we ate the Christmas Candy and food some of us had brought home from work parties that day.
Somebody busted into the wine bottle I had in my backpack (a gift from an oh-so generous Secret Santa) and someone else made a game out of the five of us drinking it without the other passengers catching on.
Oh Sure.
Nobody did.
Anyway.
Seeing that the other passengers were nervous about being stranded on the freeway and were openly worried about having to walk home or other such real and uncomfortable options me and my friends decided to cheer everybody up by telling stories at the top of our lungs
- about -
THAT TIME WE GOT STUCK ON THE BUS
The worst time was when there was a shooting, the gunman was loose on I-5 or was near it ( I forget the particulars ) so law enforcement shut the freeway down.
It was warm that day.
One of my bus friends decided after an hour or so to start talking about lakes and oceans and water fountains and Italian Sodas.
By the time he was done- (we remembered with hysterics) half the bus had to go to the bathroom, and we bet that the other half would have drank it.
AND THEN THERE WAS THAT OTHER TIME
The bus broke down and they promised that another bus was going to stop and get us…of course it didn’t and we watched it speed on by- but hurray! There was a second bus that came right up behind it about 15 minutes later and we thought it was going to pull in front of us so we could all get on.
Instead it stopped right along side of our bus.
I could see what was happening.
My brain locked.
” No.” I started to pound on the window like that kid in the horror film” Audrey Rose ” and I start yelling over and over ” No! For the love of God No!”
What is it? Everyone is asking me.
” It’s broken down…our rescue bus is BROKEN DOWN!”
AND WHAT ABOUT THAT TIME
We were stuck on the freeway because the Driver had called in and requested that someone come out and put chains on the bus because when the pavement is black and twinkling and big fluffy flakes are starting to fall, it’s safe to say that unless you’re a Polar Bear you probably shouldn’t be out there driving around without a little traction.
So thinking that no one was really listening except for my usual bus pals I told the story about that time me my friends and sneaked into this graveyard and built a massive snow fort and snow-people all around the grounds and how we even decorated one of the trees and how we later called the Funeral Home and blamed the entire mess on the college students who thought it was cool to hold seances and burn black candles on the headstones and things like that.
” Wow, you and your friends were evil little kids ” someone told me
and I said
” You know, like we did that two weeks ago. “
The Regrettable Lunch Box
by
Once somebody asked me why do I always eat alone?
ONCE
Inspired By
Here’s a little something that represents
all that I find good in fine dining-
music, chocolates and gorillas that can play the drums.
This is a one-pound beefburger fried, topped with
cheese and bacon and sandwiched between two
Krispy Kreme doughnuts
Would I really eat one of those you might ask.
Yes.
Yes I would.
And then I’d have to reply
how could you eat just one?
Guess What This Is
It’s a Fruity Pebble.
You eat them for breakfast.
Yum.
So there you have it in three…the reasons why I eat alone.
amm
A Fishy Tale
Session One
It is a beautiful summer day and you decide that you cannot stay in this classroom any longer. You slip away quietly and find yourself beside a stony creek. The creek is quiet today and the water is crystal clear. As you sit watching the water scamper over the rocks you see a school of rainbow fish swimming by. They swim gracefully, in formation and you realise that their are words on their colourful bodies. They are telling you something. Stunned, you quickly write down their message…
And what I thought I heard that afternoon was singing:
” Anita Marie! Anita Marie!” says this little fish with a slight edge to his fishy voice, “ Did you hear a word we said?”
” Huh? “
“ Tell us Anita Marie, why did you chose to come here to the Kingdom of Imagination? What does a woman who writes about ghosts and demons and monsters want from a creek full of clear water on such a beautiful sunny day? “
” Words fail me.” I say.
” Well, you’re a writer, can’t you come up with a thought or two? “
” I don’t feel like it right now. ” I say up into the pale blue sky.
” Why not? ” they ask swimming closer to the shore.
I lean down cup my hands and plunge them into the cool clear water.
” Because it’s lunch time “
Doorways
Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle
story by
It was me and two of my friends and we were going into a room that’s hidden behind a false wall.
We were back there because I promised to show them a workroom I found after an earthquake hit Seattle in 2001 and after going into it that one time I never went back into it again.
Until today.
We took a flashlight and forced the door open and standing as close together as we could inside of that small doorway we looked inside.
It was the same as when I looked into it just over seven years ago- the same coffee cup was still on the little shelf right by the door-
the same cup in the same place where someone left it in the 1970’s.
And then I said, ” there’s a light switch here” …and I felt along the door frame and my friend reached over my shoulder and hit the switch and nothing happened.
” No here.” I said.
I hit the switch and a row of lights went on for few seconds and then went off and the little room was dark and my other friend said, ” Come on let’s go.”
I looked to where my friend was shining his light on the light switch.
From the pale stream of light from his flashlight you could see where the wires from the light switch had been corroded and completely pulled out of the wall.
And then the lights went out.
We backed up and out of the room and then my friend pulled the door shut and kicked it back into it’s frame. He tried to open it and it was jammed shut and my other friend said.
” We did NOT see that.”
But as we left the building the feeling I had the feeling that maybe we had let something out…and then tonight I saw this news article:
GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption — except there are no volcanoes in the area.
Scientists don’t know exactly what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of molten rock rumbling away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said Robert Dziak, a geophysicist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University.
A Conversation At Riversleigh
one could find in a Garden Shed I created this story for the Riversleigh Adventure.
Enjoy.
There’s something buried in the Gardener’s Shed and why would someone bury something that wasn’t dead yet?
The thing in the shed isn’t buried very deep, so if you were to crawl over the dead fall in front of the door and were able to push your way through he matted cobwebs and you didn’t mind the smell of rotting leaves and small unburied creatures you’d find there under the window a slightly raised mound of earth.
Were you to look at the raised mound long enough and the light somehow managed to find it’s way through the little panes of glass covered with dust and dirt you’d think someone was lying there on their side with one arm cradling their cheek and the other laying comfortably on their side.
Wouldn’t you?
If you brought a flashlight and the beam was bright you might think you could see something wrong with the entire left side of the sleeping figure’s face. You might think that maybe that the face was gone, smashed in by something like that shovel in the corner.
Isn’t that right?
They might wonder what you were doing back there in a rotting shed behind the Manor House in the dead of Night, they might see you take the shovel and try to smooth and pound that little raised mound of Earth flat.
That’s what they’d see wouldn’t they?
So I must ask you again, why would you bury something that is not dead yet?
Go ahead you can tell me.
Just keep your hands were I can see them.
amm
Ghost Of A River
( poem )
The Garden of Proserpine
by A. C. Swinburne, 1866
( historical )
Photos of The Duwamish River, Washington State
Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep,
Of what may came hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
Today will die tomorrow;
Time stoops to no man’s lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no man lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light;
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight;
Nor wintry nor vernal,
Nor days, nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.
for more information on the Duwamish River visit
She Will Never Give You Up
from The Headlines in Washington State
Once I was sitting on a beach late at night when a man walked by me and said, “It’s dark down there ” and as he walked away from me I realized he had been looking to his left as he spoke…and from his left I thought I heard an answer
only
nobody was to his left.
Except for the Ocean.
All these years later I’m glad for one thing…that I never got a good look at his face.
Strange things happen at Sea.
This true story is one of them.
Crewman’s disappearance during rescue in Alaska unexplained
Snapshot
Inspired by The Soul Food Cafe Story Prompt
” Somebody will find out, won’t they? “
” Not a chance ” he told her.
” What we did was awful, wasn’t it?” she asked.
” I’ll say.”
” We can never go back. You know that don’t you? “
” I figured as much.”
” Are you sure, are you positive nobody will ever find them? No one will ever find out what we’ve done? “
The man told her, ” Nobody is as sick as we are, no one will ever figure out what we did to them.”
“ I can promise you that.” He said. ” I can promise you that.”
” That’s a weird picture ” Livia’ s niece said as she handed the small tinted photograph to her Aunt.
They were rummaging through a box of old pictures and postcards at the Curiosity Emporium where Tia sold the antique books she collected on her travels.
It was a nice shop- it was quiet and a little messy and even though the air was dry it there was always the smell of mold and freshly turned earth coming from the backroom.
Livia took the picture from Akela and as she did their fingertips touched and Akela tried to not yank her hand away.
Tia Livia killed a man in a poker game once- it was a story that floated around at picnics and barbeques the occasional baby shower and other family events.
Akela wasn’t sure if she was hearing the same story with different variations on the theme, but it seemed like there were lots and lots of stories involving Tia Livia creating lots and lots of dead bodies.
Once Tia Livia heard her brother telling the poker story to some of his friends as they were roasting hamburgers and Tia came up from behind them and practically screamed that was a lie.
” Tell the story right Leo or don’t tell it at all “
She had killed two men and a woman, Livia said between bites of cheeseburger ” Trust a man to underestimate the power of a woman “
” She B.S’s all the time. ” Leo told his friends ” don’t believe her. Sure Liv. Two men AND a woman. At the same time. God, you are such a fibber.”
Tia spat a chunk of her burger out onto the ground and Leo smirked and went back to his barbaque.
Akela doubted Livia would ever hurt any of her own family but sometimes when Akela looked at Livia’s scared and slightly mashed hands she always felt a little trickle of sweat run down her shoulder blades.
Livia looked down at the faded picture and said with a laugh ” Well don’t those two look like they know where the bodies were chopped up and buried? “
And as Livia let the picture fall from her fingers back into the box of photos the sound it made as it rustled into place almost sounded like someone whispering,
” You promised.”
Has The Cat Got Your Tongue?
a somewhat autobiographical
tongue in cheek tale
Inspired By The Soul Food Cafe Writing Prompt
Daisy Cutting was not normal- her parents knew it, her brothers and sisters knew it and her dog knew it too.
That’s why Tarzan lived under the porch instead of above it and if they could have the rest of Daisy Cutting’s family would have followed Tarzan under the porch too- but there wasn’t enough room for all of them.
So the rest of the family was forced to deal with their world with Daisy in it in their own way. The Cutting Family learned to be invisible- which was easy when all anyone really noticed was Daisy.
She was very hard to ignore no matter how much you tried.
On the day her parents found out they were expecting a baby their house burned down, on the day Daisy was born the sky above the hospital turned black.
Not from thunderclouds- from birds.
The noise they made was deafening and the smell was bad and then while they were in mid-flight they died and fell with soft wet thuds for miles around.
Mrs Cutting saw the rain of dead birds from her hospital window and she raised her baby to her lips and whispered into Daisy’s ear, “what have you done Daisy? “
Of course Daisy couldn’t answer because she wasn’t even an hour old but she did laugh and that’s when Mrs. Cutting saw Daisy already had teeth.
” Well, ” Mrs. Cutting said ” at least you don’t have horns too.”
Then Daisy laughed some more.
The funny thing about Daisy is that she never really laughed again after that day- she just smiled.
A lot.
Daisy Cutting had a normal life- she had her own room, she had her own toys and she got two full grown black cats from her family on her 12th birthday.
Her cats, Potato and Chips didn’t hide under the porch when they saw her. Everyone including Daisy figured they hung around just to see what sort of odd thing she would come up with next but that was in the nature of cats and the Cutting Family understood that.
That’s why they got them for her.
So at least now Daisy had a couple of friends- which is what her family wanted. Daisy, if they had asked, would have told them she busy for a social life because Daisy was always busy working on her collections.
-like her Bug Collection.
To be specific Daisy had a Bug Zoo in her bedroom.
Her bugs were in jars and plastic containers and in front of each little cage was a card with their proper scientific names and dietary habits.
Daisy also collected yo-yos that she displayed on her bookshelf and under her bed was Daisy’s Grave Collection- it wasn’t as organized as her bug zoo or her yo-yo collection.
Daisy collected those little candy boxes- the ones that 6 different pieces of chocolate come in. She’d buy a box or two a month, toss the pieces to Tarzan under the porch ( he buried them ) and then she’d take the empty boxes to her bedroom.
What Daisy liked about the boxes were the little pictures of smiling cherubs on the lids.
It worked for what Daisy put in them.
At least once a month Daisy took the bus to Morning Ridge Cemetery in Duwamish Bay and she’d go from grave to grave snapping petals and leaves from the Grave Flowers.
She always did it in a way that didn’t disturb the arrangements- then she’d take the flowers home, dry them and put them in the little boxes.
Each box was numbered- Daisy had a map of the cemetery in her desk and when she got home she took the numbers and not the names from the Cemetery Map and copied them onto the inside lid of the boxes.
Daisy’s room was full of her collections.
One Summer Mrs Cutting was in her kitchen reading the paper and drinking some juice when she looked down into her glass and saw two drowning flies in her lemonade
She took a deep breath because she was about to yell for Daisy- and how fair was that? There were two black blowflies in her juice and the first words out of Mrs. Cutting’s mouth weren’t going to be “yuck”.
She was about to scream, ” Daisy!”
Instead she took the glass outside and threw the entire mess into the garbage can.
The next day Mrs Cutting found four blowflies in the refrigerator, two in the toilet and instead of yelling ” Daisy” she went to the store and bought some No Pest Traps.
It didn’t work.
In fact, it got worse.
Much worse.
By the third day there was family meeting in the Cutting home that didn’t include Daisy or her cats but did include Tarzan the Dog.
The result of that meeting was Mrs Cutting was sent up to Daisy’s room to see if the newest members of the Cutting Family had something to do with Daisy’s Collections.
Mrs Cutting took a deep breath and before she knocked she her her daughter-sounding flustered and a little angry- which was something Daisy never did. Daisy never got rattled- so Instead of knocking she put her ear to the door.
” Hey you guys…give those back this minute…I’ve got you …let go of that Potato! Chips you’re next hand it over….come out from under there you two- I mean it.
You guys are in so much trouble”
Mrs. Cutting looked back down the hall and almost called for somebody- anybody to go with her into Daisy’s room.
But this was her daughter- and Mrs Cutting wasn’t about to forget that. To be honest, Daisy wasn’t the type of person you could forget even if you wanted to.
So Mrs Cutting took a deep breath and knocked on Daisy’s door.
From inside of the room came a meow, a couple of hisses and a lot of growling and then she heard a door slam.
Daisy called, ” come on in Mom.”
Daisy’s room didn’t have a few flies buzzing around the way they were in the rest of the house.
There were hundreds of them and when one landed on Daisy’s face and crawled around and flew off without Daisy flinching even once or trying to brush it away Mrs Cutting lost her temper.
” Flies Daisy? You’re collecting flies now? That’s…that’s… Daisy that’s not interesting, that’s just stupid. What were you thinking? Look at your room…look at the rest of the house. Young lady you are in so much trouble!”
Daisy was standing next to her closet door and from the inside Potato and Chips had started to shove their paws out from under the door and were trying to pull it open.
” Let them out Daisy…and answer me, what were you thinking?”
Daisy bit her lip and shrugged.
” What were you thinking Daisy? Answer me or did your cats get your tongue?
” No Mommy, ” Daisy said ” they don’t have my tongue…”
Family Ties
by a.m. moscoso
Inspired By The Soul Food Cafe Prompt
Orcella Moss sat at his kitchen table with a small box of bones in front of him. Every once and awhile he’d reach out and jiggle the box around and then he’d look down into the top of it and sometimes he’d start to reach into it and then he’d stop.
Then he moved the box back to the center of the table and he wondered.
He wondered where his 13-year-old daughter could have found a human jawbone and other broken little pieces of bone and how it all ended up in an old fashion hatbox mixed up with the bits and pieces of her day-to-day life.
Orcella could hear her up in her room; a little while ago he had heard her TV go on, then he heard a beep and whine and then a hum as her computer came to life and he wondered how that little monster could do anything as normal as hit on and off switches when she’d been living in the same room with a busted human jaw bone, a mummified finger and little bits of bone in a hatbox she had left on her desk top.
Earlier that morning Orcella had gone up to Kirsten’s room to liberate the batteries from the remote control for the TV in the living room that somehow always found their way upstairs to Kirsten’s room and into her remote control.
That’s when he saw the old box with the faded candy pink stripes sitting on her desk and almost as an after thought looked down into it.
The box was right next to her California Cutie doll and her makeup (cotton candy flavored lipstick and some blush-on) and her hairbrush and a little bottle of perfume she’d mixed herself at Scent By You at the Mall.
And in the middle of all of that junk was the hatbox with the jawbone that was on the table in front of him now. He looked into the box one more time and that’s when he noticed the nail on the finger was manicured and polished and had a tiny rainbow decal near it’s tip.
“ Kirsten,” he called up to her “ come on down here for a second, would you?”
He heard the sound go down on the TV and she called back, “ What?”
“ I want to talk to you.”
“ Busy.” She called back in her best little girl in the world voice.
Then not only did the TV go back on it went up.
“ Kirsten get down here.”
“ This better be important Dad,” she snapped back from over the racket “ cause I’m…”
“ Missing something from off your desk. So get down here NOW.”
The TV clicked off and the computer hummed and shut down. He could hear Kirsten walking across her bedroom floor. He heard the door open and then close and then the sound of her footsteps at the top of the stairs.
“ This is very serious Dad.” He heard her walking down the steps “ You need to respect me and my privacy.”
She was standing in the kitchen now. Her mouth was a hard straight line and her chin was tilted up and she looked down her nose at him, “ That box is mine and what’s in it is mine and I want it back.”
“ I want to know where you found this Kirsten, for heaven’s sake Kid, this is a human jaw bone and what are these? “ he held the box up and shook it at her.
“ Finger bones, “ she held her hand up ‘ fingertip bones, I don’t know exactly but they’re mine Daddy and I want them back.”
“ Just answer me, where did you find this stuff?’ she was looking at him with a dull flat expression and he knew very well by the look on her face she hadn’t ‘found’ anything. Not in this condition anyway.
He tried another tact.
“ Kirsten these are human remains and you had them mixed in with your makeup, some CD’s and a half eaten candy bar and a stale bagel. Do you know how abnormal that is?”
It was very clear by the way she was still looking down her nose that she did know and that she also didn’t care.
“ Give me back my things Daddy.” She said in her best schoolmarm voice. “ Or else.”
“ Or what Kirsten? Am I going to end up in a box on your desk with candy bar wrappers and a half eaten bagel?”
“ No, but you know that thing you have hidden in the basement? If you want it back Daddy you’ll hand that box over right now.”
“ You didn’t…”
“ I mean it Daddy, hand the box over right now.”
He practically threw it at her and as she bent over to pick up some of the little bones that had fallen out she said, “ you’re gross Daddy “ she said with disgust “ I can’t believe you brought that into our house and hid it in a trunk with the Christmas ornaments. That’s twisted.”
She was looking into the box and then she looked around on the floor and came back up with the finger with the nail still attached and she dropped it into the box. “ You’re sick Daddy, you need help.”
Orcella watched Kirsten stomp up the stairs, he heard the door slam shut and the music go on full blast. It was loud; loud enough to shake the pictures on the wall, loud enough to attract attention, loud enough to maybe force the neighbors to call the police and complain.
Orcella didn’t go up the stairs, he went back into his kitchen and down the steps to the basement…and then he started to clear the Christmas ornaments out of the trunk.
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