Spinning

Slam! A woman with graying hair forcefully sets a dirty, empty glass on top of an old, scuffed-up dryer. She wipes a dribble of sherry from her chin. Only mid-morning, she is already drinking. The laundry room has a strong musty smell due to mounds of dirty laundry strewn about the washroom. It also houses…

Cold Voice

On the banks of the Yukon River, around one hundred-fifty miles Northeast of Fairbanks, a man claws his way from the water onto dry land. Tired, he slowly pulls himself and a backpack onto shore one arm at a time. Finally getting out of the water, he turns, lays with his back on the gravel,…

The Detached

“There are no such things as ghosts,” said Aunt Isabel in a straightforward, definitive statement. “Do you understand, Celestina?” asked the aunt. Celestina, a girl of ten, nodded her head. “But what about Daldal’s story about the Detached?” she asked. Daldal is Aunt Isabel’s lady’s maid, and lives in a bungalow outside of Isabel’s plantation…

Clouds

It was blue. Like most sunny days, the sky gleamed its blue refracted light. The only mar in the sea of blue was a cloud, small, puffy, and unassuming. Dolly looked worried. After the brief distraction, she put the car in park, got out, and grabbed a satchel from the passenger seat. It slipped from…

Below Ground

In a small cave lit by a warm fire, several people were laughing, eating, and generally enjoying the moment. Around the fire sat a man wearing a dingy green, wool uniform. Another in dark, tattered cotton shirt and pants, and a woman and her young daughter in traveling clothes. Ulrich, the man in the uniform,…

Poker Face

“I want to give this back to you,” said Nick. In a dark room, and sitting at a card table lit only from above, Nick plunked down a red sack with a round-ish object inside. “Here you go,” said Nick as he pulled out a skull and carefully placed it in front of the other…