Evermore

By K. Ascher

What do writer's do between novels or when needing to take a quick break from all that plot device and character arc? Why, they side-track into short stories and flash fiction for inspiration and a divergence from "the norm," of course! Oh, but when "writer's block" hits, that's when the real "trouble" begins, so be wary of that when Muse comes out to play. A writer's mind is never quiet, from moonbeams and ghost stories, to the terrors of the Cursades and WWI, to the simplest of things, like brushing the cat, there's no rest for the wicked, or an author's cluttered mind. "Writer's prompts" take on a whole new meaning when the writer in question insists on spinning each on their head and taking a hard-left into "alternate meanings," but even a volcano can be beautilful under just the "right" lighting conditions.So grab your "cuppa of choice," your favorite wooly socks, and a few candles, snuggle in, and enjoy the treck through the margin notes, you're sure to find something decadent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascher
• Release date: Nov 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223200093

Book preview

Abandoned

Iwoke in the dark , looking up at the night sky, stars glittering. I couldn’t blink, couldn’t speak, I wondered where you had gone; surely you would not have left me alone? I waited in silence as the stars shifted overhead, a lone tree my only friend. I was only thirty-three.

Daybreak came, and the unrelenting sun, dappled my body with shadow, and then none. I looked, but could not see, a house, a road, or even another tree. So that’s where I stayed, even as my body began to waste away.

The days came and went. The nights were long and lonely, except for that lone coyote. I ventured from my tree a little more each day, but I found only more of the same. A vast expanse of open plain. I was only thirty-three.

Sometimes I was strong and rational, other times I reverted to a child, crying for my mother and hoping my daddy would pull up in his old, rickety Caddy and take me home. Home. A concept with which I was becoming rapidly unfamiliar. Comforts lost. Alone. In the dark, in the light. I wondered where you’d gone. Home was now my tree. Even when my hair began to fray and fall away. I didn’t even care anymore, not really.

I tried to remember what had happened, how I’d even gotten here, where here even might have been. I thought of you, and of family, and of friends. Sometimes I talked to my tree, since it was my only company. I thought we had been happy, you and me. How you made me shine on our wedding day, our parents were so proud. You lavished me with attention and gifts and dinners out and made me laugh at every opportunity. I thought we were happy.

Then it seemed like all our friends started having kids, making families of their own, you’d merely laugh or smile, as if it didn’t really matter and say we were too young or that it wasn’t the right time or maybe next year. You said you wanted to give me all your attention, that we should take advantage of our youth, that there was plenty of time for making babies another day. I believed you. I thought we were happy.

Discussions turned to arguments; arguments turned to raised voices and heated tempers. I began to realize it was not me you wanted to lavish with attention, but perhaps it was you who wanted all of mine. I was only thirty-three. I should not have mentioned divorce, I was angry, and hurt, and you gave me that look. I should have known better. That look, the one you only ever got when the discussion was over, the one that warned to push you no further. I remember I went to bed alone that night.

That night. That look. It all comes back to haunt me now, as I stare up at the stars, ever shifting overhead. I don’t blink, I don’t speak, I don’t even cry. I remember every word you said, hovering over me on the bed. I was scared; I’d never seen you that way, teeth gritted and lips in a snarl. I told you I would never leave, I heard every word you said, as you ranted into the night, and in our bed. I heard you, even when the darkness overtook my head.

I was only thirty-three, the night you killed me. Now I’m just a memory, a ghost who haunts this tree. My body long decayed. The nights are long, and my heart dismayed. Maybe one day, I’ll just blow away.

And The Earth Will Swallow Too

Iheard a shot like breaking glass-shattered though my head and the pain of opened flesh and snake-skin shed in the blood and sheets and everything was spinning in the alcohol-shot-glass spattered with saliva and lipstick-prints you said would all make sense in the end...

I heard the shot before it shattered my head, opened like overripe cantaloupe in the summer-sunshine-desert-heat of my burnt and crumpled soul of dried leaves from another time, crumpled, rumpled, dumped, like so-much-laundry, dirty, from years of not running though the grass, but through thickets-thick thorn and brambles where the little demons roam and I chased them though nightmare-black years of insufficiencies...

It was a crack like lightening-strike hits a plane at thirty-thousand-feet and a free-fall belly-flop into a mountainside, and I lay like a broken doll in the wreckage of another impact-site and you whispered though the burnt-out leaves: baby... come back to me... You hold my hand tenderly, but I need the strength of your pull, bicep-curl, knight in tarnished armor, I’m bleeding; can’t you see? The maiden was always in distress though she never sang it from her tower keep: save me, can’t you please? I was broken before I could stand, so my knees are weak, and these strings are the only thing that make me stand!

It was a bang and a crack that shattered me like broken glass, a million-billion-pieces you can’t gather like lilies or flies from the funeral procession, I was never meant to be like this: a kaleidoscope of colored glass re-worked into some stained-glass... masterpiece...? No. Never me... I was never meant to be beautiful just obscene. A cracked-glass mirror-image of the hard-way won. You blow... and the tiny shards of my skin and soul, they scatter and fall, from the bower wall of stone and moss. I claw for the sky, out the throat a scream that disappears in the wind, cause I was never meant to be seen, not really, naked and afraid, there is no comfort here, I built this place not of stones, but ragged glass shards that cut both ways, but only my bones.

I wonder if my heart looks the same under glass, displayed, like some specimen of unique heritage, pinned, formaldehyde-glazed, frozen in time and preserved for... ( ? )

I ponder as I descend into the moat of mud and moss, gazing up as the sun grows old and away, I’m falling still, but slower now, wondering if the armor holds you down this way? It’s getting dark now... I say, as liquid drags my lungs down... and down...

You plant your shield: It was always this way, I hear you say. Gauntlet to my chest, you hold me down, as my tendrils sink away, and I’m covered in clay at last, and your lilies float overhead.

Ashes To Ashes

Something old, something new, all my bones are black and blue. I paint on skins in greens and golds, a shimmer in my clever disguise. Don’t dare look me in the eye; deep, dark, pools that only lead to demise of drowning in the pleasure of my venomous lips and poisoned tongue. Too far gone along the lonesome road, where tombstone doves mock and moan.

Something old and something new, my darling dearest, it’s much, much too late for you. Sliding along the Freudian slip of a cadaver’s robe, down the highways of your lover’s cove. Your headlights, much, much too dim. Railways run away in the slim of dusk and dawn and travel-worn whims. Vagabond boots scuffed clean of debris and shims that make you appear larger than life as the sun goes down behind your eyes.

Something new and something old, wormwood’s rot and absinthe’s hold, the green fairy wants your soul. Oh, no, not this time, because this time, dear, your heart is mine. Grandmother’s lace curtains shift in the dark and alone, a ghost’s walk on a moonless night where the raven’s wing is near alight and I... I’m the one who dares be the bump within your night.

Wind shifts through the door wide open, all my bones are cracked and broken. Bruised behind my pointed smile are teeth sublime and