(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...
It was offered.
It was proffered.
It was extended with all the realness in the world,
A true heart, so taken that the unforeseen rejection scarred it forever.
And you’d given it hope, before you took it away,
Torn in your mind, torn in your chest,
Your predilection for the worst of men in your way again,
Misjudging so heavily that you finally created what it was you feared,
First in your own mind, then, by betrayal, in an illusion of action by a heart in despair.
But you’ve known it now, just...
Gloom when it’s raining,
Gloom when it’s hot,
When the sun is shining, even more so when it’s not.
Gloom is all I see now,
There are no more rosy hues,
Disillusioned, sprit broken, even though I’ve paid my dues.
All I see now are liars, shallow people everywhere,
Incompetence, corruption, and obsessions without care.
Humanity ended sometime back,
What used to matter is no longer,
Sociopathy wanes black in gloom, and is only getting stronger.
There is no truth left,
Even those who profess it...
Imagine a stray,
Only seeking food, shelter, warmth, love,
Desperate for someone, somewhere to belong,
But kicked off by the world, as if its life has no value,
Striving to live but failing,
Chased away,
Heart broken as it lies down to die alone,
To give up.
My soul aches for that baby, as my heart is just as broken.
The world has kicked me off in like manner.
And it was you who walked by and did nothing,
Withheld your hand, your love, indifferent,
You who chased my hungry, desperate soul away,
...
Silly 80’s movies on the mind,
The flicks that spoke to us when we were young,
Instilling values we were not aware of,
Challenging us to daydream.
Oh you, the one trapped in circumstance,
The slave to social appearance,
Oh you, the Claire who denies she is as vain,
You did not take the lessons of that era to heart,
For I was was your Bender, your Michael Emerson,
You my Claire, my Star.
But you were set on Chet, on Max, on the rich guy that would become a douche like his father.
Taking every...
He would never leave her mind, no matter what else occurred in her life,
He would be there still, as would what she had done.
She was a liar, and she knew she was,
But she was fine with being that, no matter how it haunted her,
Because she was a petulant child.
He was never a threat to her.
Paranoia, imagination, and hyperbole,
Shallow values and trust in monsters,
Slavery to the expectations of others …
Those were the only threats to her,
Those were what plagued her life,
Yet she chose to continue to give them control,
Scapegoating anyone who wanted to replace them.
All you had to you was tell him from the get-go that you weren’t interested …
But you were, or gave him that impression … on purpose,
Up until he called out the untoward behavior of another,
Which he did not realize was calling you out,
And only then did you reject him,
After baiting him into a confession of interest, so you could crush him harder.
But, even then, you did not tell him you didn’t want to talk, as you later claimed in a lie.
Yes, it would have led to hard feelings, but that’s...
Oh the secrets must stay secret,
Lest the guilty in power have to answer for their crimes,
Protected at all costs, even at the expense of justice,
Sacrificing all credibility.
Oh ye who started it all with your lies,
If you were involved, you owe him the truth,
You possess a moral duty to expose their sins,
To aid the one you wronged, even if he wronged you in return.
If you do not, your conscience will slay you,
And you will spend your eternity in the hell fire you have earned.
Make right...
O, the vengeful one,
In lieu of following the word and admitting to sins committed,
Chose to cast herself more deeply into the cult,
Fleeing the truth, fleeing sincerity, fleeing love,
And compounding her heresy exponentially.
This, the cult of the white, privileged patriarch, the cult that was ruining the world with its bile and false Christianity, espousing the will of the devil and calling it gospel,
The desires of base ego, greed, judgment, bigotry, control, and disdain for others not...
As he sat drawing the cancer into himself,
What he had all but quit years before,
Stress of a betrayal and a situation gone awry from his own stupidity as well as the evil heart of another,
He knew it didn’t matter.
He’d lived too long already.
Things he had been through should have ended him moons ago,
And he now believed that he was spared an early graceful exit so he could know a love he would never know again,
One that would crush him for the rest of his days,
Unrequited, spurned, turned...
Choices had been made, and they could not be unmade.
The arrogance and dishonesty of the shield maiden knew know bounds.
She had made peace with the Mad Cleric of the South,
Who had enslaved and betrayed her,
And she had cast her lot in with the Western Horde,
Enemy of all except itself.
She would not make peace with the Grim Man,
Who had striven to bring her an ode of reconciliation,
For a falling out that bore no meaning.
No, he, one whom she had wronged and wronged again,
Raising conflict...
Let me roll my eyes at his words, call him insane,
Anything not to feel again, not to admit the truth of it.
Let me bathe my heart in ice, and plug my ears with cotton,
So they do not penetrate my soul.
Let me reassure those I’ve cried to that I feel nothing,
That his phrases are meaningless to me,
Let me reiterate my intense opposition more virulently,
When I do not feel it.
Let me fall deaf in spite. Let me deny until I am no longer anything but an echo.
I am contrarian for the sake of...
She had been alone so long, she’d forgotten what passion was really like, fantasizing about the past that could never be again. And the trauma she’d experienced at the hands of her past, made her fear it. So she was world-weary, nothing making her heart beat fast any longer, paranoia being her closest friend, and rejection her only reflex. And the men she saw did nothing to ease her doubt, because they were passionless, using, self-interested. But he had made her short of breath, had given...
Though she had excused herself for what she had done,
For the unnecessary antagonism she had created at the silent behest of her co-shit talkers,
For leading him to believe she was his friend and for knowingly sending the nth degree of mixed signals, her heart at war with itself,
For refusing to let him go and making everything worse, when it would have sorted itself out on its own over time, as he just needed to deal with loving her for nothing,
And for the ultimate betrayal, when, clearly...
She had been alone so long, she’d forgotten what passion was really like, fantasizing about the past that could never be again. And the trauma she’d experienced at the hands of her past, made her fear it. So she was world-weary, nothing making her heart beat fast any longer, paranoia being her closest friend, and rejection her only reflex. And the men she saw did nothing to ease her doubt, because they were passionless, using, self-interested. But he had made her short of breath, had given...
The list of individual lies was extensive, not exaggerations but premeditated mistruths, designed to prejudice and incriminate with no evidence to support them, never investigated, for, if they had been, she would have faced his same fate. No proof, only tears, appeals to femininity and childish innocence, the latter non-existent, an act.
Lies told in a way to conjure up what had never happened, what she knew was false, and presented in a way that suggested she’d been coached.
Outright lies...
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...
She had lied with abandon to ruin him out of spite, but she had, ultimately, failed to do so. So now she sentenced him to endless pain, as she would never see her way to making amends. She was cruel, a cruelty borne of having loved, though she denied it. There was no other justification for her vehemence and the hurt she felt. She feigned that she was the bearer of truth, though she lied.
He needed to hate her, but he couldn’t. He knew why she’d done it, and he understood the conflicting...
BIZARRE FATES is a small collection of odd short stories and will be available as an Ebook in the coming weeks.