Thursday! The E-Zine for August 23, 2023
V3, I39
BrewBuddy!!
Sorry. Sorry. Don’t know what came over me. I had a really good cup of iced coffee this morning and, while drinking it, a certain jingle came to mind for a certain brand that most certainly exists in some dimension or another. Perhaps it’s the same dimension in which a man awakes one overcast, dangerous morning in front of a strange lighthouse and has a brief conversation with a skeleton.
Who can say? Well, I suppose I could say, but I won’t. Not yet.
We’ve hit a nice rhythm with Thursday!, don’t you think? We alternate stories and poems with creative ruminations, explanations, and narration. I think we’ll stick to that for a little while, at least until I’m ready to bring some new storytelling tomfoolery into the week. Honestly, I’ve a lot of ideas bouncing around in my noggin, some of which I’ve mentioned and a couple that are new enough that I’m excited by them but not at all sure what they are, exactly. Let me give you a brief example.
I’ve wanted to write a serial story for a couple of years, much in the way Stephen King wrote the first of his Gunslinger novels in pieces1. I took a run as some small pieces of the story on my website, but ran into a bunch of creative problems that kept me from taking it past four very short “chapters”2. I want to write that story whatever the heck story it is, but I’m not sure how to share it with you My best idea is to start a limited-edition newsletter where I’ll tell the story at regular intervals and if you want it, you could subscribe to it. Maybe I try it out as a paid subscription kind of thing and maybe not. I’ve no idea. But that’s a thing I’d like to do. Along with other things3.
My point is that Thursday! has mostly settled into a good thing, a thing I like to make and (so far) you like to read. Now, I can look toward making something else. When that gets settled, something else. Until I’m all out of ideas or God decides it’s time to go to my Eternal Home.
Speaking of ideas! Here’s a cool collaboration I did with my friend Wendy Leaumont, who does Tim Burton way better than Tim Burton, don’t you think? Anyhow, meet Philomena Featherstone.
How cool is that? See you next week. Let me know what you think and, please, enjoy the reading!
Poems
Stories
The Blanket that Ate Some People
She started knitting the blanket On a lovely September day It was supposed to be a project To keep the stress far away. She casted and perl’d and whatnot For hours on hours on end The blanket grew longer by inches Then feet then yards and then She simply could not stop knitting The needles threw sparks in the dark Their clacking became the beating Of a woolen grey, fuzzy heart. By winter the blanket had covered The greater part of three states. Her neighbors were grateful for warmness But not of how many it ate. Yes, the blanket consumed a few people I guess we had reason to gripe But the missing, at first, were annoying. You know, the nosy, loud type. All winter the blanket expanded Over mountains and forest and town It swallowed the whole of Chicago Before she managed to slow down. She finally finished in April And rains caused the blanket to shrink It receded back to her basket Where it lives now, today, I think. The authorities questioned her briskly But left without any arrest We kind of miss all the eaten But agree it was all for the best. We heard she had picked up the needles For a summer project this time I asked her to make me some gloves Preferably ones that won’t commit crimes.
I Dreamed of Ogre
When I was a kid, I used to wonder what it would be like to be an ogre. I’d live in a cave somewhere, Probably far away, Because my town didn’t have any caves And my bedroom would be too small. My cave would be nice, though. Roomy. No spiders. No neighbors to yell at me. My family could visit me every day Except Sunday. We go to church on Sunday Except I wouldn’t be able to. An ogre wouldn’t fit in Sunday School I’d be big, for sure. Eight feet tall with big wide shoulders And hands like Christmas hams And horns on my head. Big ones. Silver white and gnarly. They’d make it tough for me to wear a hat But you can’t have everything. I’d miss hats. But I’d be able to smash bricks. That seemed like a good trade. I’d have a mighty club, too. Not a tawdry, ragged tree branch. We didn’t have any really big trees anyhow. And a proper ogre wouldn’t swing a baseball bat. Unless he was on the team. But they wouldn’t let me play, I’m sure. They never wanted me on their team. Being an ogre wouldn’t change their minds. They’d say I was too slow Even though I’d hit only homers. Anyhow, that was a dream I had. A dream of being an ogre With gnarly horns and a mighty club. No hat, of course, but like I said You can’t have everything. I grew up and got big. Not tall, really. But big. Too much snacking. Too much sitting. Night work and shift work and not caring About myself very much. I forgot about being an ogre for a while But sometimes now I remember. It took a while. Maybe too long. But there are times I close my eyes And when I open them I’m a mighty ogre with horns and a club And I even figured out how to wear a hat. Ha. I mean, grrrrrr.
My dream is to support my family with my art. Can such a thing be done? Yes! But I need your help. How? I’m glad you asked!
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The Last Man
Benny Thompson, the last man on Earth and, until recently the President of the United States, roared west down the quiet Missouri road in his stolen 1966 Ford Mustang. The gas tank was nearly empty, but Benny didn’t care. Why should he? He could steal another car. The pastoral countryside flew past him on either side, sounds of lowing cows and singing birds obscured by the predator growl of the eight-cylinder gas hog under the hood.
He topped a small hill and saw something small and red in the distance. A stop sign. The last stop sign on Earth, so far as Benny was concerned. He had blown 42 of them since he started driving west from the corpse-choked, ruined city of Washington, DC. He could have stayed on the highways, but he had seen just how quickly they had filled with…debris. His nose wrinkled at the memory of burning metal and flesh, his shoulders hunched slightly as he remembered the screams of the mobs as they died under the invader’s heat rays.
Benny had been safe in the bunker of the White House when the invaders landed. His security detail died quickly as the invaders breached the thick doors but somehow Benny survived. But then…the aliens had simply died. He didn’t know why but when he stepped outside, it was all over. That’s when he ran. He took the ‘Stang’s keys from the pocket of some flunky, loaded up some gas cans from an abandoned Hummer, and took to the side roads.
The stop sign was closer. He mashed the pedal to the floor and the speedometer jumped from 85 toward 100. No way was he going to stop. There was no law now, no responsibility, and certainly no more nightmares about a dying country he couldn’t save. No. Only the open road, this beautiful machine, and nothing mo–
The truck driven by the fleeing Governor of California, who also thought himself the last man on Earth, broadsided the President’s car at 95 miles per hour, killing them both before exploding and burning out in an adjacent pasture. The cows stood by impassively and chewed their cud.
(Photo Credit: SwidaAlba on Pixabay)
The Company of a Tree
Every day, the woman sat and read under the gnarled old oak. It stood on the edge of a great autumnal wood and she sat there with it, from the early afternoon on to sundown, when she would close her book, rise, and thank the old tree for keeping her such wonderful and quiet company. The other trees of the wood envied the old oak. They wanted company as well, better than the chattering squirrels, grumpy old know-it-owl, or paranoid deer that usually inhabited their woods.
Every night, the trees would whisper to each other and to the old oak. What scents do you smell on her? Where has she been? Is she kind and wonderful? Does she know us or is she just here because it is quiet? The oak rumbled to the others in tones like the creaking of branches in the wind. She is kind. Her voice sounded like a bright stream. She smells of newly-turned soil and fresh-spring air. She loves the trees. She runs her fingers through the low grass and breaks up hard clods of dirt. She is my friend.
One day, though, the woman did not come. She did not come the next day either. Nor several days. The trees grew restless, like they would before a storm. The old oak turned down his leaves, darkened his face to the sun. He knew.
In time, others came carrying a fine, large box. They dug a deep hole next to the old oak and placed the box in it. A small child who smelled like good soil and clean air laid a book on the box and looked up at the old oak. Then, they filled the hole and sang a sweet, sad song. The trees sang as well, in their whooshing, cracking voices. The old oak sent out a root to touch the box, deep in the Earth.
Welcome back, my friend, the old oak said. I have missed you.
Briefly, The Gunslinger began as five separate short stories published between 1978 and 1981 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
I won’t call them stories because half of them weren’t anywhere close to entire narratives. They were chapters of a longer work that I couldn’t finish because I had no idea where they story needed to go. Except “down”. Down seemed like a good direction, at least physically. IYKYK.
Like an illustrated book of poetry, which I think will happen as soon as I gather the courage to collect and illustrate it.
I may have laughed a little too hard at the ending of “The Last Man”!