He considers the darkened screen’s question without any signs of shame or remorse.
“Are you still watching?”
“Yes,” he replies to no one, with irritation in his tone, and no awareness that his escape has long since become a prison.
Sometimes I think maybe the American Amish were onto something, with respect to deciding when and how some technology is too much. But then I think about churning my own butter and press the button to continue watching.
The electricity has been off for nearly two and a half weeks and I must either join and likely die in the food riots outside or starve alone.
Someday my nameless forgotten skeleton will be discovered in a house filled with gold, silver, and jewels, or I must resign myself to being killed and having my house looted when someone finds out.
I never imagined, when blowing out the birthday candles, that having the most money in the world might have these unintended consequences.
I always like the idea of there being unintended consequences for self-gratification. I mean, if you had all of the money in the world, that would mean someone else doesn’t have it anymore, right? Society would fall apart pretty quickly. There’s something inherently “ill-gotten” about wished for riches, fame, etc. They weren’t earned so someone, somewhere, must pay a price for them.
As the gif might indicate, this story idea exists already and was done very well in a short horror story called “The Monkey’s Paw.”
I tried to think through what I might do if I found my house flooded with treasure. I’d be afraid to tell anyone. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to immediately tell the authorities… but that would absolutely bring in the media and the attention of those who were robbed via magic. You’d be afraid to turn on your car engine for the rest of your life. Society can’t have someone who has wishes like that granted, ever making similar wishes again.
If you tried to give it away, even covertly, it would eventually get traced back to you and the same thing would happen.
Your best bet might be to take a small amount of the treasure, change your name and effectively disappear. When your house and the loot is eventually discovered, hopefully you’re well hidden enough by then to stay that way. But that would be hard to pull off. So far, my best case scenario is that the granted wish would send one into something akin to a self-imposed witness protection.
Maybe wealth like that is limited to banks and dragons for a reason.
Despite the late hour, but just as he expected, Josh hears a light knock on his front door. When he opens the door, he sees a strikingly beautiful woman who smiles familiarly, before asking if she can come inside.
Months of preparation and training had not prepared him for the unnatural pounding of his heart in his chest, as he invites the vampire inside.
____________________________________
When I was a kid, old people (the old people of those days, anyway) used to say that “nothing good happens after midnight.” Now that I am an old person of this present era, I think the phrase is more accurate than not.
One of the things that I like about writing in the super-short story format is that it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Is this woman a literal vampire? Does she just look like one? Is this a metaphor for inviting trouble into your house? What did he mean by training? Is the POV character an insane person about to do harm to someone? Is he a sane person about to try doing harm to someone supernatural? Does he mean no harm at all and he in fact trained for, uh, something else. You can kind of choose your own adventure.
The culture had a big vampire phase, a few years back. I still see it in some of the book smut (no offense) that some of my fellow bloggers review, but it does feel as though we hit peak vampire around the time that Twilight had them glittering in sunlight and it’s been a return to the blood-drinking mean since.
The vampire lore always seems to evolve to meet the needs or demands of the present-day culture. Depending on when you lived, throughout history, they were ugly and terrifying, or they were attractive and seductive. Sometimes male, sometimes female. It’s a very versatile baddie, to tell you the truth. One bit of lore that usually transfers and holds, with the changing of the times, is that you have to invite a vampire inside your home before it will enter. There’s something metaphorical or spiritual about that. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, though, unless some even higher power is allowing the vampire to roam, but limiting their terror to that condition.
There does seem to be a permanent anxiety in humanity toward this type of supernatural enemy – as if we have some kind of shared ancestral memory giving us warnings. Or maybe it’s just practical wisdom, collected over eons of human behavior. You probably don’t have to find out if vampires are real things to worry abut, though, provided that you don’t go looking for trouble, and you don’t invite it in.
After waking up, Brian immediately notices the breakfast scents wafting through his apartment and into his bedroom. In addition to taking in the aroma of bacon and eggs, he hears his pot of drip coffee make a gurgling sound as it finishes brewing.
The trouble is… Brian lives alone.
____________________________
Are there any circumstances wherein someone quietly breaking into your apartment to feed you is a good thing in the long run? On the other hand… breakfast food is delicious.
― William Faulkner
Kaitlyn has never cared much for Halloween, but she dutifully leads her son – dressed as “the Hulk” this year – from door to door so that he can collect candy and see his friends in their costumes. As they pass by an eerie-looking scarecrow, set out in front of an expensively decorated yard, she decides that she has had enough candy and creepiness for one night and tells the boy that they are going home.
Watching them set off down the street in the direction of their house, the scarecrow steps down onto the sidewalk and begins to follow.
______________________________________
When I was a kid, people decorated for Christmas. You’d usually have a couple of houses in the neighborhood that really went all out, but most of it was pretty modest. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was funny in part because of how over the top the Griswold family decorations were. What was once insane now seems not far from normal. Almost nobody decorated for Halloween.
Now I have neighbors with fake cemeteries in their front yards, giant inflatable ghosts and spiders in and around their house, and I occasionally run into yards that are just a little bit too realistic with their ghoulish decor.
In the event that you walk past one of those “that’s too realistic” houses while you and your offspring are questing for candy, keep your head on a swivel.
Hardly breathing, for fear that the sound might give away her location, Amanda hides as still as a stone behind a long-hanging shirt deep inside her bedroom closet. After a few long moments, her pursuer opens the door, his eyes racing over the small space, finally coming to a triumphant rest in her direction.
“I found you!” shouts the boy, before explaining to his sister that he noticed the toe of her shoe sticking out from beneath the shirt.
_______________________
Children’s games like Hide and Seek, or Tag, can feel a lot more intense when described from the child’s perspective. From the perspective of an 8 year old, her 9 year old brother’s pursuit might *feel* like this.
Dusty Writes 