Nuance
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About this ebook
A humorously poignant Cinderfella tale about a spooky carnival and a misfit who discovers the truth behind his sorry circumstances.
A young man feels trapped in a family where there is no common ground. He serves them but does not share a sense of belonging with the uncouth clan. His sole friend is a cockroach. Books have provided an escape, sustaining him through a difficult childhood. Can he ever leave this den of thieves and hooligans, or is he doomed to remain one of them yet apart? "Nuance" is a grim fairytalish horror story about wanting to be someone else, wishing for a new identity, a different path in life.
Lori R. Lopez
Lori R. Lopez wears many hats as an Author and Speculative Poet of Horror, Fantasy, Suspense, Humor and more. She illustrates her books and has written songs, while being an Activist for animals and children. Growing up, Lori roamed graveyards and conducted funerals for dead birds, squirrels, insects and spiders. Her offbeat books include The Dark Mister Snark, Leery Lane, An Ill Wind Blows, Darkverse: The Shadow Hours, Odds & Ends, and The Fairy Fly. In 2023 Lori won Third Place in the Long Category for the SFPA Poetry Contest for "Wake Unto Death". Her Poetry Collection Darkverse was nominated for an Elgin Award and a Finalist in the Kindle Book Awards. Her poems "Crop Circles" and "Nocturnal Embers" were nominated for the Rhysling Award in 2020, "Social Graces" and "The Whistle Stop" in 2021, "Biting Sarcasm" in 2022, "The Whippoorwill" and "If Houses Could Talk" in 2023. Poems "The Maw" and "creatures of the macabre" received Editor's Choice Awards among other honors. Stories and verse have appeared in The Sirens Call, The Horror Zine, Space & Time, Spectral Realms, JOURN-E, Weirdbook, Bewildering Stories, Dreams & Nightmares, Impspired, Altered Reality, Aphelion, and anthologies such as California Screamin' (the Foreword Poem), HWA Poetry Showcases II, III, V, VI, and IX, Journals Of Horror, Grey Matter Monsters, Dead Harvest, Fearful Fathoms I, Terror Train I and II, Trickster's Treats #3, Speculations III (Weird Poets Society), and In Darkness We Play. A member of the Horror Writers Association, Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and Lewis Carroll Society Of North America. Visit the Fairy Fly Entertainment Website Lori shares with her two talented sons, and their YouTube Channel @FairyFly. They have a Folk Band called The Fairyflies.
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Nuance - Lori R. Lopez
Nuance
by Lori R. Lopez
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
media without written permission from the author, except
brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles.
This is a work of fiction.
Copyright © 2012 by Lori R. Lopez
Front Cover Illustration by Lori R. Lopez
Smashwords Edition
We’re all in this alone. — Lily Tomlin
THEY WERE FREAKS. They were also his family. Who incidentally thought he was the oddball, the abnormal one. Perhaps due to his lot as the youngest of six brothers. The fact that his noggin had an oval design where the rest were blockheads. His sandy hair was kinked when theirs was straight. His eyes blue-gray, while the others reflected the sapphire-emerald of the sea.
Such differences, these subtle variations as a whole seemed slight, the moderate distinctions within a bloodline. But it was enough to set him apart, to make him feel separate and be treated as if he didn’t belong. Oh, they bullied him, they tormented him like big brothers. Maybe a trifle too often and enthusiastic.
He served as their pawn, their Cinderfella. In seeking acceptance or to placate the mob, the stupe catered and fetched at the whim of tyrants, never appreciated, merely criticized and exploited. Naïve endeavors to order a chaotic unruly environment were primarily in vain, for his brothers trashed and disheveled faster than he could shovel and sort.
Clarence Osman secretly plotted to run away. Go over the wall. Dig for daylight. Bust loose, click heels, whatever it took to escape this dreary colorized version of Hell. He couldn’t tolerate his shiftless clan, the slacker brood he had been forced to abide since he could recall. Clarence’s personal theory of relativity was that genes must break down in every sixth son, alter barbarian glands to ordinary cells and vice versa. He was proof.
It certainly cleared up