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If she’d ever been able to sling written words with passion, building monuments from them, she had lost that ability long ago, given it up, like her salvation, choosing to dumb herself down, mentally and morally, for men not worth a damn.

Though superficially the envy of others, how bad must her upbringing have been to turn her into someone with so little sense of reality, so little that was real about herself, actively choosing a perpetual childhood enslaved to a surrogate father not worth a...

Cold falls upon the world,

And the average person curses it.

Not because it stings their flesh,

Though that is their excuse,

But because it is like their hearts,

Exposing them, their insides reflected back,

Dead, uncaring … cold those parts.

So they wish to run to warmer climes, using arms,

Where the sun, faked feeling, is the guise they hide behind,

Kissing their skin and cloaking their ice.

But the sun asks a price,

A price of damage—spots, deep lines,

Marking their ruse, though they sought...

I still remember you, my little dude,

A friendly greeting every morning,

Absent attitude.

A pleasant purr, a lover of scratches,

A gentle soul, even in rough patches.

And though you were used by a faithless heart who feigned to care,

You were always true—you were always there.

Until cruelly taken out of the blue, as nothing remains permanently,

You were sent away into oblivion, like so many others,

Snatched right from me.

But I remember you.

Soil my name for eons,

Smash my face,

Cut my skin from my bones,

Break my body until there’s nothing left to shatter,

And burn the remains.

I feel none of it.

I am as empty as your honesty, as empty as your love.

Let me escape this drudgery.

I am so tired.

Horror. Horror is the expression of doubts, insecurities, and suspicions, exaggerated to portray the angst that loses its potency, its profundity, in common discourse, to make it understandable, penetrating to shared fears. It is commonalities not readily expressed nor admitted to, the invasive realities we wish would go away. And those who do not experience these doubts, these insecurities, these suspicions or inflict them upon us become the monsters of the stories.

He was supposed to be with fire, those Archers, those Lions, those Rams, but they had never interested him because it didn’t work the way it was said to. No, it was much more complicated than the position of the sun, and those who lived their lives by it were deluding themselves, if it had any truth at all.

He had dated a Taurus once, but the Taurean heart only desired the physical, and, once that waned, there was nothing to pursue. Love for them was lust. As she was plodding in mind, he had...

He looked like another ugly man baby, in his “perpetual teenager” attire, but that’s what she always went for. And he didn’t care if she were a demonstrable liar. In fact, it was her very lies that he sought to use to manipulate her, playing the understanding, protective ‘man,” though he had no idea what she had done and didn’t care. The irony was that he made little more than one she had rejected, and, if he said otherwise, he was a liar … but that was par for course. And she, reveling in...

The world was not made for those like me,

Not for the noticers, the dwellers, or the feelers,

But for the shallow and the petty,

The liars, fakers, and the stealers.

So I take the broken hopes of change,

And turn them into spears,

For no caring lives here anymore,

No connections and no fears.

Only glass as hard as diamonds,

Steel where once was love,

Disdain for the world of users,

Claiming unreal favor from above.

Only a lingering throb of sadness lingers,

And, yes, sometimes it stings,

But...

It’s all over, Grover.

What’cha mean? What’cha mean?

There’s nothing left to be heard or seen,

Just a hole in the ground to bury the scream.

What’cha mean? What’cha, mean?

Illusions are all there are, Char.

Nothing’s real, not close, not far …

No dream, only a watering hole for the rank and obscene.

Did it die? Did it die?

Perished like a flame in a flood,

Born still. Born a dud.

But why? But why?

A smile is not always what it claims, Dane.

There’s no life in a lie,

Don’t look back or wonder why....

It came to her in a dream. There was a golden gate and a saint above her, who spoke the following:

“Hear ye, hear ye! You have risen, but you shall be judged. Let the weighing begin!

We now assay the guilt of Sarah Bischoff. You have been called to stand for a conflict.

The one whom you accused stood for his crimes, paid a heavy toll, inflicted by those you sicced upon him … and by your cruelty. We now judge your crimes. He stood accused of two counts—stalking and harassment—but the second of...

It was a decent affair, much less than he’d made it out to be, but she thought it was something and was happy to have been part of it. He was so handsome, she thought in that moment, and she moved through the crowd to take his arm.

He turned and gave her a half smile and then subtly shrugged her off. “I’ve got to mingle with my fans. Go on back to the table, and I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”

Unhappy at the apparent brush off but in a place in which she knew no one and did not exactly fit...

Before any of the nastier shit went down, she had already invented a whole story of mischaracterized events to sink him with, knowing they would just believe her because she was female … and they did. Nothing that happened nor was discovered after that point justified her concocted, make-believe story. All she had had at that point, was some emails, which were sent in response to HER harassment, and some other emails of which she was suspicious. However, they constituted nothing illegal....

He had the potential to be everything you feigned to fear … as did anyone else, as do those you choose and they are much closer to it, if not there already. No, he had been nice, sincere, had cared for you, only wanted to help you, to get to know you better. But you, you asshole, lied to him, made him think what was not true, a vile false friend with an ulterior agenda, while you were already turning him into what you wanted him to become to allow you to reap the whirlwind of pity for your...

“NEVER TELL

My name is Sarah Bischoff and the confession of my sins is long.

As I will never make it of my own volition, it comes by proxy through this song.

There is much I never told you, o those whom I’ve misled,

So much I did that I’ve omitted, never to be spoken, by me unsaid.

First I must confess I never told him to leave me be or go away,

Although I’ve told you all I did, and reported it that way.

No, instead I let him think that we were friends and talked to him at length,

While...

Words that speak to no one have no meaning.

Unable to stir a single sentiment,

They drift into the world, but their import dies upon the page,

Not seen, not comprehended,

No heart or mind to appreciate them,

Living their short lives in vain,

Seeking to spur … and spurring nothing,

As the transient significance of the thoughts they carry loses its aim,

And blurs into a disarray of future interpretation,

Missing the mark entirely.

(Nota Bene: I have stopped using the star rating system, as I find it highly misleading. References to "stars" refer to platforms that still require them.)

Did you ever see that old movie Eddie and the Cruisers? THE BAND has the same sort of vibe. This book is primarily about, you guessed it, a band, on the road looking for gigs, and the author does a beautiful job of describing the travails, victories, and interpersonal relationships and conflicts experienced by the members. If it were only...

Purists and grammar fascists will likely have an aneurysm with this book, but the prose style, in combination with the dialogue, create a distinct, unified impression of rural Pennsylvania. If it had been a slow-build, it would likely have been anti-climactic, but, instead, it steamrolls the reader from beginning to end. If it were a movie, it'd lie comfortably between The Mist, Dawn if the Dead, and Day of the Animals. The only trouble I had with it was keeping all of the characters...

BIZARRE FATES is a small collection of odd short stories and will be available as an Ebook in the coming weeks.

TWO YEARS IN HELL Ebook will be available free from Friday 5/2 through Sunday 5/4