Thursday! E-Zine for August 9, 2023
V3, I37
This week I flipped the usual lineup I hope you don’t mind. Normally, the longest piece is a prose story, but I wanted to introduce you to a little folk tale in metrical form about an old man who figured he could cheat death with his feet. It’s longer than most poems I’ve, but it tells a story that might fall into legend and poems like that need a little room to run. Take no special notice of the cow’s name, by the way. I needed a name that rhymed with “door” and I figured a little Poe/death avatar reference might work nicely. Mostly, though, it was the rhyme.
It’s funny how happy little accidents like that happen. It seems a small thing — and, really, it is — but it makes me happy that Old MacReady’s cow shares the name of the dead, pined-after love of the narrator of “The Raven”, who had his own little tussle with death.
When you read the stories this week, I’d like you to keep a question in the back of your mind: what if what the things of this world we can sense are not the only things of this world? Most stories you read1 touch on that question in some way or another. I think it’s the best question to ask as a starting point for good, scary fiction. Of course, there are other questions you can ask along with that one — and you should ask them! — but that’s a solid place to start. Also, it helps if you think of the first story as occurring in a fantasy setting, perhaps in a desert that borders a decadent but fading empire.
Anyhow, enjoy the zine and let me know what you liked and what you didn’t. I always hope there’s more of the first than the last. I’m not promising anything, but next week’s Thursday! might just contain an audio version of one of these delicacies. Who can say?2
Oh, and one last thing, Happy Birthday to my brother Robbie, whom I love very much!
Poems
Stories
The Running of Old Man MacReady
Old Cyril MacReady Was a hundred and ten When Death came and knocked on his door. When Mac heard the knocking He hid out in the pen Where stood his best milk cow, Lenore. Lenore got to mooing Because she was no fool. She knew Death would take them both quick. Old Mac jumped right up From his seat on the stool And ran through the field toward the creek. Now Death saw him running And it was quite impressed ‘Cause Cyril, he ran pretty fast. But nothing can move fast As Grim Death when it’s pressed To bring a soul down to its last. It chased him through woodlands To the edge of the town. Old Mac took Death through the Square. They flew past the fountain And they ran up the downs So fast that they hardly seemed there. Death ran him for hours His bones clicked so loud That Mac thought it would fly apart But Death is immortal Unlike Mac, who though proud Could not overcome his old heart. It stopped between steps. But he just wouldn't die. His stubbornness kept him upright. Death watched with surprise As Old Mac motored on From night into day into night. Today he’s still running Old Mac Ready the ghost Or living, sure no one can say. Look for him at twilight But you’d better not boast. For Death also runs in his way.
Something-ous
They said I should act like a numinous lad, Imbued with a spirit like I'd never had. But one day I made a mistake that was prominent By changing a seemingly innocent consonant. The N at the top I flipped to an L And now I light up the world pretty well.
The Tomb in the Desert
Dev the Rat crawled the last horrible foot to the tomb and pressed his hands against the metal door. He smiled through cracked, bleeding lips, whispered a name long-forgotten, and died.
The wind gusted, sending a skirl of sand hissing around the mausoleum and the dead man’s face. Vultures circled silently, but dared not land.
Slowly, the door opened. An desiccated hand reached out, clutched the scruff of his cloak, and dragged it in. There was a rasping, sighing sound, as if an ancient thirst had finally been slaked.
Dev the Rat walked whole from the mausoleum. He was smiling.
The Beasts of Haddon’s Field
The beasts started moving almost the moment Farmer Haddon turned his back and climbed into the cab of his tractor. The smoke from the machine obscured his view or he would have noticed the giant bales of yellow-brown hay lean toward the town edge of his field without benefit or wind nor anything else to move them. If he had noticed, and stayed thirty minutes longer, he might have seen them roll an excruciating inch. But he hadn’t and he didn’t..
Night by night the bales crept like small glaciers inexorably and unnoticed toward the farmer’s house and, beyond that, to the town of neat houses. Occasionally, he would scratch his head and wonder, as he sipped his coffee in the cab of the tractor, if he hadn’t seen the hay bales farther up the field. He would notice a dead animal, small body crushed and punctured as if by a fallen tree with many sharp branches but paid it no heed. Once he even saw a deer, pulped almost beyond recognition not ten feet from the largest bale. He nearly walked up to it, to investigate more, but a breeze redolent with fresh grass swirled about him and reminded him of the work yet to do before sundown.
Thus unbothered, the bales kept moving until, one moonless night, they stopped and began to unfurl. Stalks came together to form thick legs, sharp tusks, and ravenous mouths. They set their hollow eyes on the doomed town and lumbered to the feast.
(Photo Credit: TheDigitalArtist on Pixabay)
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The speculative “genre” stories, at least. I’m not quite sure what powers literary fiction, because most of it bores me to tears. Maybe you’re different?
Well, I can. But I’m not going to. So there. Ha! How’s that for antici—
Ohhh, I really like Something-ous. Better than a never lad, such is the clever lad. Ha!