My FB feed is flooded with ads where authors (or maybe it's their publishers) are giving away books for free. Nada. Nothing. After writing several books worth over the past three years, all I can think is this.
The phone rang four times before I was able to grope the handset out of the cradle. Groggy and hoarse, a muffled “Lo?” was as much as I could offer, my head still on the pillow. “Is Kitty there?” I heard the door of a phonebooth screech a few inches and thud shut. I needed to hear his voice again. Immediately. “Who did you want?” “Kitty. I don't know her last name. We met at the Hi-Lo the other night.” “Hmmm. The Hi-Lo, huh? She gave you my number?” “914-232-5646?” He was off by one. Close. So close. The acoustics of the phonebooth was intimate. His voice was like melted butter and dark syrup swirled together. Salty, sweet, smoothly overwhelming. “No. No kitty here. Just me.” I yawned. If I could purr, I would have. “So what number is this?” “And why would I give you my number if you weren't looking for me in the first place? I snuggled deeper into the warmth of my nest. “Hmmn?” “Solid point but can I have some slack cause I’m gla
There is little to know. It’s dark and I’m thirsty. It’s quiet. A soft, steady wind coming and going from different points of my compass. I’m floating on my back in water as warm as the air. It moves like the sea, lifting me closer to stars I don’t recognize. Lowering me down like it’s a living, breathing thing I’m inside of. Pain comes with those fake stars, stays too long, and wears out its welcome. If I think about place, position, or perspective, I get dizzy-sick, so I try not to think ‘there’ or ‘where’. At least pain is an anchor. There’s touch and smell. Kind, caring strangers peck at me, busy but gentle, all sharp with antiseptic over sweat. A woman who smelled like fresh dirt and green things held her hands to my face and bargained with strange gods. Another touched my hands, my hair over and over. She smelled like a party. I’m washed, dried, stabbed, dressed, undressed, stabbed. Repeat and again. Then he comes, holds my hand. A life force, a dragon. Steel, flesh, and fi
Alone the next morning with her coffee and tarot cards, Anna was adrift in the ocean of sensations and emotions she’d been steeping in since the shooting and imagined that she glowed in the dark. Anyone who looked at her could see it. She pulled one card from the deck - the ten of Swords. Her soul pinched her hard on the heart. The dead man lay prone under a black sky, ten swords staking him to the ground, his cloak and the earth under him bloodied. She remembered the day Tam caught her trying to duck the same card back into the deck. She was eight or nine and it had frightened her. Tam pinned the card to the kitchen table with a strong finger. “ No, no, little girl. There can’t be no light without darkness.” Her aunt bent down beside her at the table and put an arm around her. “ See this card? All them swords? All that blood? This is bad as it gets. Yes, that body is dead, but the spirit goes on, you know that. See his hand? Even dead, he blesses his killers, jes lik
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