April 1st, 2024
Corpses lay silent in their own blood, red pools washing the stone floor clean as they spread. Nothing barred Casimire from the Doorway now and he stepped toward it. He felt dazed suddenly, and detached, as if looking at himself from far away. As if his former self had reclaimed this body, and now appraised the dead behind him and the temptation ahead.
What did you do? this man asked. You shouldn’t be here.
For a moment, Casimire remembered what it was like to be horrified, and to hesitate, but the feeling lasted only a second, the voice of the man he used to be only whispers, easily ignored. This is what the Doorway was for—to save his people, his nation, his husband. So Casimire took another step, then another, and halted, taken aback by surprise.
The Doorway wasn’t one but three—how did he not know this? Did they each lead to a different place? He peered into one and it hit him, that this was a basic question, about something he thought he’d understood his entire life, and he didn’t know the answer. It terrified him. What else didn’t he know? The fear grabbed at his shoulders, pulling him back.
News & Other WIPs
The biggest news I have at the moment is that my short story, “What You Wish For,” will be published in “Colored Lens,” a speculative fiction literary magazine, this spring. The story is about a co-dependent supernatural being who tries to help a 30-something hypochondriac. It’s quite vulgar, but touching. In my opinion. The main character, Kirby, is an upstate New York boy who moved to a big city.
I’m writing another short story that intend to get published, called “Big Wild World,” about a house cat who finds herself far from home and indulging her most violent fantasies. She meets a wise raccoon and an aloof fox along the way, and learns about independence and believing in yourself. I intended it as a weird little fairy tale, and it was actually inspired by a real-life bizarre thing that happened to me when I was 23 and working for the local newspaper. To explain would mean spoilers.
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