#rituals

The old wooden floorboards didn't just creak; they groaned like dying men. It was 3:17 AM when I woke to the sound of my bedroom door clicking open. I didn't move. I didn't breathe. From the doorway, the heavy, dragging footsteps of my grandmother shuffled toward the bed. She had been dead for three weeks, but there she was, pulling the cold air of the hallway behind her.

You've seen her. You know you have. Try to deny it all you want, it happened. It happened a lot actually. Never fully, always out of the corner of your eye, just out of sight. That's where she stays. She does not like to be seen, but she loves it when people try. You try to tell yourself it was nothing, just your mind playing tricks. She likes that too. She likes making you feel like that. You tell yourself there is nothing there, yet you feel her. You feel her gaze. You feel her breath on the…

When I was a little kid my idols were always those who dared to delve into the unknown, to uncover and conquer far away corners of the world despite apocalyptic storms, deadly jungles, strange and hostile peoples and beasts. To illuminate the darkness with the light of the human mind. To make a trophy of the dangerous and exotic. Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Marco Polo - these were the names that rushed through my head nearly every night while falling asleep, while dreaming that one day I…

Almost everyone who has lived, or once been a tourist, in Cleveland, Ohio, has probably visited the West Side Market, an old-fashioned marketplace of generations-old stands selling fresh produce, meat, and spices. Do you ever wonder how the West Side Market was founded, or how the original West Side Market still operates? Officially, the market opened in 1840. A long time ago, but nothing compared to when it truly started.

The game was almost over, but things didn't get easier. I knew that the Rot wouldn’t let me win this. I had to plan ahead. I could tell that judging from the last 2, the final candles would both be in one of the main areas of the park: the circus, and the rides in the center of the grounds.

The unrelenting dirt road twisted and turned in front of James, small rocks popped under the tires and a cloud of dust billowed behind him as he drove on through the forest. He was visiting his brother over a long weekend of three days. A trickle of sweat fell over his brow and into the rims of his glasses. He was a city person, he had never been in the country for a day in his life, and, although the hot Italian sun and rough terrain was bothersome, he found a sort of peace in it that was…

NOTE: This story involves the racism encountered by African Americans in the rural United States, particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries. As such, this story may be offensive to some. Please proceed with discretion.

There is a village somewhere in England that has not been inhabited for over twenty years. It has long since been forgotten off of most maps, and only has one road in and out of it. If you manage to find it, it will seem a peaceful enough place, the derelict buildings being overgrown and nature taking back the land for herself.

Since around 1999, I’ve lived across the street from an old sawmill. It’s sort of assumed that the family who still own and operate the mill have owned the hundred or so acres it sits on since the beginning of time. The owner’s sons, now into their 30’s, have always sort of been “wild” boys. They like old muscle cars, dirt bikes, fireworks, things like that. They even built part of the largely-unused land behind the sawmill proper into a motocross track, just building up the dirt to make ramps,…

The chairs were the old school folding kind, brown metal with tan cushions that were almost comfortable. They were usually folded and stacked neatly against the wall in the basement of the church on Dionin street. Three times a week they were unfolded and made into a circle: once for bible book club on Monday afternoons, another time for prayer group on Tuesday mornings, and then every Friday night for meetings.

Some are inherently blessed with the ability to spin words into tales, as a glass spinner creates iridescent globes and faerie wings from the thinnest strands of molten sand. They can take the small components and, with ease and finesse, lay them over one another time and time again until the moment that the masterpiece is complete. At this point the light catches on a single aspect, and sets the whole thing shining and sparkling to all who receive it. All in all, it is a beautiful thing.

There is a fresh, blank page sitting in front of me, and as I stare at it it seems to stare back.

Dear Diary, I do not know how long it has been since I've experienced my last surge of brilliance. You see, I'm an established author. Albeit a published one - renowned to most for my fictional writings in dystopian novels.