Helloween 2021 Day 31: Vellichor

 

Image by Denis Doukhan from Pixabay

“Spence, I know what you need,” Uncle Lee said gently. “Put your problem out of your mind for a time and come with me to Every Trick over in Hermival. We’ll bask in the vellichor and not think about anything but finding the very most mysterious long-forgotten books.”

Image by sanjay k j from Pixabay

Happy Halloween/Helloween/Samhain from Ornery Owl

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/weekend-writing-prompt-233-vellichor/

https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2021/10/writers-pantry-94-ends-and-new.html

notes if you want 'em

The paragraph above is doomed to become part of my latest WIP, Cosmically Bonded, a cursed novella or novel that is a not particularly well-disguised nudge and wink with tongue planted firmly in cheek fic written with love for my Wincesty friends. Thus far, the story has been fraught with peril as I had to shelve it for a time to concentrate on writing Silent Scream, my contribution for consideration in The Colour Out of Deathlehem anthology. 

Whenever I have to backburner a story, I end up anxious that I may permanently abandon it. The truth is, I have many more abandoned stories than published ones. Some may eventually get a second chance at life. Most will not. 

Wanting to give all the stories and craft ideas in my mind a chance and wanting to hang around and help my son are the two driving forces behind my nightly dyslexic agnostic existential crisis. I don't really sit up pondering whether or not there's a dog. I sit up wishing that my son and I could be together always, wondering how many of my stories I'll be able to bring to life, and whether I'll ever be anything but a crushing disappointment and an embarrassment to my family.

And that, my fiends and foes, is as real as it gets.

Honestly, I don't want anyone telling me not to think that way, proselytizing (it won't work) or trying to "comfort" me by telling me that I and my ideas will be snuffed out and return to compounds. That one really doesn't work. My body will be, sure, but I'm not convinced that one's consciousness/essence/soul just fucks off for good and all. I prefer to believe in the possibility of the continuation of the soul, so let's just leave it at that.

~Ornery Owl~

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

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Sissy Spacek in Carrie (1978)

A Prank

“Do you believe that a prank can ruin a life?” Ketil inquired of his companions as they walked down the shadowed corridor of the House of Lost Dreams.

“Apologies fer hedgin’ on yer query, old currant bun, but I’ve noticed that this portion of the old Dream Drum continually looks very much the same, although what it branches off to varies in its rotten scariness,” Little John observed as he took a chomp from a rotten hunk of haunch.

“Pranks are an unfamiliar concept to me,” Yitzy imparted telepathically. The gigantic creature held a lantern in one great claw as he slid silently along the floor of the malevolent structure. “My race never engaged in frivolity. I do not mind Robin’s tendency to do so. Do you fellows recall the time when he said: ‘Yitzy, old boy, I’m gonna bury you!’ in a grumbling voice, and as I was wondering what I had done to inspire his wrath, he presented me with a bowl of berries.”

“This is not a prank, Yitzy, it is a jest,” Ketil countered. “While it is true that some pranks are harmless, such as short-sheeting a bed or putting what is knowed as a whoopie cushion on someone’s seat so it sounds as if they has farted loudly, I has finded in my time that many pranks is cruel in their intent and some has dire consequences that lasts a lifetime and beyond. Such a prank was depicted in the story Carrie, which was writed by the author Stephen King.”

“Oi, there was this cinema in Crouch End that used ter have a late showing of movies that had been out fer a spell,” Little John revealed. “Me and Rob went and saw Carrie there one night after we found ten quid just layin’ about on the ground.”

“Did you sneak in your own entrails for a snack, or did you purchase popcorn?” the ghost quipped.

“Well, yer see, the proprietor was one of them fish folk, an’ he was sympathetic ter the dietary needs of ghoul-kind,” Little John said. “Seemed ter ‘ave a limitless supply of molderin’ meat-stuffs in ‘is larder, an’ ‘e gave us a rusty bucketful of stale popcorn smothered in rancid butter and ‘uman fat. Rob and me had a foine time watchin’ the film, but we did feel right sad fer the young twist 'n' twirl what ‘ad a bucket of pig blood poured over ‘er dome by them arseholes who didn’t have nothin’ better to do than behave shite ter a poor lass what had a rough lot in life already.”

“Yah, this is the sort of prank of which I mean,” Ketil acknowledged. “Now, as so often is the case in a story such as Carrie, the arseholes what fucked with her paid for their shite behavior. But the accounting team of the Cosmos does not work so smooth in the real world. There was fuckers what near to got me killed all for a stupid joke because they do not like a fellow who is strange, especially when they is jealous that his father is holded in high regard for his position. I shall tell you of this incident, beginning with a poem which I shall now recite to you.”

cruel jest the match

a spark that leaves life in ruin

joke far from funny

Acknowledgments

This chapter was Written using the October Spooky Writing Challenge prompts from The Writers Handbook.

https://thewritershandbook.tumblr.com/post/630699213481705472/this-years-october-spooky-writing-challenge-is

The piece was also inspired by the November PAD Chapbook Challenge prompt challenging participants to write a Ruin poem.

The form of this piece is a long fictional Haibun. A Haibun is a form of Japanese poetry where a piece of prose is followed by a Haiku or Senryu.

This piece is part of my WIP, The Key of Eidolon. 

The Key of Eidolon is the second book in the Tales from the Dreamlands series. You can pick up the first book, Ketil and Yitzy’s Adventure in the Xura Dream House from Amazon or LBRY.

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Toys in the Attic: Alone: A Modern Fictional Haibun

Alone: A Modern Fictional Haibun

Sabella took her art bag and a cushion and walked into the thicket to the east of Dark Lake. There was a picnic area a little over a mile away. She felt guilty for being relieved that the grounds would, more likely than not, be empty. Thanks to the Trump Virus, tourism was next to non-existent this year.

The thicket was shadowy and smelled of pine and loam. The gloom embraced Sabella like a pair of comforting arms, and she let her darkest thoughts surface. At sixty years old and in less than perfect health, she might not have a lot of time left. She was fat, she was diabetic, she was on medication for high blood pressure, and she had a mitral valve prolapse. She refused to have the valve replaced because she didn’t want to be on blood thinners for the rest of her life.

Sabella knew that she was everything that the youth-oriented culture created by advertising disdained. When her hair started going gray at thirty, she had let it go its way. When the first thing out of a doctor’s mouth was “we need to do something about your weight,” she was quick to fire back that she realized that her size made her a pariah in a culture that embraced nearly skeletal thinness, so the doctor was welcome to think that she was ugly as she had no control over other people’s thoughts, but she wasn’t here for yet another starvation diet.

“Let’s get the labs and see how well my thyroid medication isn’t working because it never really does,” Sabella would tell the doctor. “Let’s see if I behaved myself well enough during the last three months that my A1C is in the single digits. Let’s see if the blood pressure medication is working the way it ought to, which it usually does. Thankfully, the nurse took the reading before you had a chance to piss me off. You’ll find that the EKG looks about the same as it ever does. I’m here about diabetes, hypertension, hypothyroidism, and my mitral valve prolapse, Doc. I couldn’t give a gnat’s fart in a category five hurricane about trying to lose enough weight to squeeze myself into skinny jeans. I prefer to wear my fat pants and be comfortable, thank you very much.”

Sabella hoped that the doctor in Newport would be savvy enough to realize that this tough old bird wasn’t going to change and would prefer to address her conditions rather than her size. She’d run out of patience long ago with the sort of physician who wanted a perfect patient and believed that shame was an appropriate approach for anyone who didn’t measure up to his or her standards.

“Perfect patients would put these idiots out of business,” Sabella speculated with a wicked smirk. “Perfect patients don’t have any need for doctors.”

Sabella emerged into a clearing of lush summer grass and was pleasantly surprised to see that park services still trimmed the area around the picnic table. She sat down with the sun to her back, sending out a wish that she would be allowed to remain alone while she wrote or drew. She didn’t want to feel the touch of anything but the breeze. She wanted to forget her awful argument with Alex, but, as always, the memory of their heated words pushed its way to the forefront of her mind.

A tear flowed down Sabella’s cheek, and she brushed it away angrily. A brusque bite in a blustery draft burst through the soft, summer zephyr, and Sabella noticed dark clouds on the horizon.

“Fine, I’ll make it quick,” she sighed. “Here I am, rushed as always. I thought I moved here to relax, Uriel. Are you ever going to get around to telling me why you wanted me to move here?”

Not hearing a discernible reply from the angel, a directionless Sabella put pen to paper. Her messy cursive painted a heartfelt Senryu for her younger sibling.

 you are my brother

why must our bond be broken

sorrow in my blood

Acknowledgments

This fictional Haibun was created using the words cursive, touch, and forget as directed by the Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge from Go Dog Go Café https://godoggocafe.com/2020/07/28/16154/ and the Baransu challenge from Carpe Diem Haiku. https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2020/07/carpe-diem-exploring-beauty-of-haiku_20.html  

The image is copyright gayleenfroese2 on Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/crow-picnic-table-mountains-park-5405099/

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The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

Copyright 2020 by Naughty Netherworld Press

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