Where Comfort Can Be Found: Published in 2019 by Prometheus Dreaming

Prometheus Dreaming, the original publisher of this short story, seems to have moved their online presence to an Instagram account but there don’t seem to be links to complete stories. I am making Where Comfort Can Be Found available here on my website. Happy reading!

Where Comfort Can be Found 

by David H Weinberger

After I buried Victor, I filled his hiking boots with potting soil and Creeping Baby’s Breath, and created a sort of memorial in my garden. The faded black and gray boots, spotted with moss, sit beside a wood bench and a dusty blue watering can filled with sprightly, yellow sunflowers. The flowers have responded to my meticulous care and still flourish five years after I planted them. They are radiant and cascade over the rim of his boots. A perfect still life, worthy of any painter’s attention. But an attempt to capture it on canvas would miss the essence of the setting: the spirit of Victor.

I caress the delicate white flowers, feel the moist, succulent stems and leaves, smell the damp, musty earth in each boot. Time slips by as they comfort me, like my forty years of marriage to a vibrant, friendly, and loving man. Those years remain the most important ones of my life, so different from the slow and monotonous dragging of these days.

 I lost Victor twice to the Rheinsteig hiking trail: he was constantly on it. As a child, he lived with his mother and father in the small village of Braubach beside the Rhein River, where I still live today. He hiked the steep terrain above the river with his father every weekend. His legs grew stronger, his breath more controlled, with each ascent and descent. Although he spent most of his time on the trails around the village, over his 60-years he covered all of the 320 kilometer Rheinsteig. Sometimes, he would spend hours on the train to reach one of the twenty stages. It was not until we married, that he hiked continuously from beginning to end, Bonn to Wiesbaden. From that time on he completed the entire trail once a year. The rest of the time, he returned to local parts of the trail to enjoy the sun, and even the rain. Hiking the trail was when Victor was most alive.

The first time I lost Victor I was young, silly, and newly married. I selfishly begrudged him his time on the trail. He always invited me to join him, but it was useless.

“I got you these Lowa boots.” he told me one Christmas. “So you can walk with me. Experience the trail.”

They were stiff and smelled of good leather but not really a gift I wanted. I saw them more as a gift to himself, to feel less guilty about leaving me at home.

“You know how I feel about it,” I whined back. “The exposure on the trail scares me, and besides, I don’t like walking in the woods as much as you do.”

I stored the boots in our closet: they never carried me alongside Victor on his hikes.

As the years passed, I realized he was truly a son of the trail and it brought him a pleasure I could never provide. At first, I was saddened by this realization, but slowly became resigned to it and came to accept his Rheinsteig. I took up gardening to stay busy while Victor was away. I relished tilling the damp and peaty soil in preparation for so many interesting flowers. Occasionally, I sold a few at the market, but mostly I kept them throughout the house and yard for my own pleasure.

I lost Victor the second time when he fell hiking on a section of the trail I imagined he hiked dozens of times before. His friend Karl was with him on that day and he told me with tears in his eyes what happened.

“We could barely see through the rain and fog,” he told me. “The ground was nearly invisible. We slowed down to navigate a particularly steep and rocky descent. Victor lost his footing, his grasp on the handrail, and slipped.”

“I don’t understand, he knows that trail so well.”

“It was slick and, like I said, difficult, even in good weather. He fell a long way into a ravine. I could only watch as his head kept hitting rock on the way down. He was dead by the time I reached him. Nothing I could do.”

I get nauseous when I think of his body helplessly plummeting, being abused by something he cherished so much. And not able to help him in some way.

When I collected his blood-soaked belongings, I laid them out on the bed. They were his usual hiking clothes: quick-dry shorts and t-shirt, wool socks, day pack, and the hiking boots that now sit in the garden holding the Creeping Baby’s Breath. I kept only the boots because they remind me of Victor and his passion for the Rheinsteig.

Most days, I don’t dedicate the time and energy the garden requires: with what I have, I tend the Baby’s Breath and keep fresh flowers in the watering can. Aside from that, I do nothing but sit on the bench. If I didn’t have to work in the restaurant, I would probably never leave. But, it’s time for work, so I go through the motions of cleaning myself, in a pointless attempt to become presentable. Although the shower rinses away the soil, it does nothing for my melancholy. I see this as I walk past the mirror. Thinning, lifeless hair. Dark bags under cloudy, pale green eyes. Soft, drooping jowls, and wrinkles from a constant frown. Fat arms and legs surrounding a sulking frame. Sagging breasts barely concealed by the gossamer of a thin t-shirt and a threadbare smock. No makeup or jewelry to hide any of this.

I used to look better than this sleepwalker, used to attract men. But no matter:

I lost interest in men and women years ago. Not that others haven’t approached me.

“You spend so much time alone,” a male friend told me, not long ago. “Join me for a movie, or dinner out.”

He meant well, and he lost his wife a few years back, so he knows what it is like to be lonely. All the same, I have no room in my heart for another human being.

“Thank you,” I told him. “I’m happy in my garden. I have no need for companionship.”

“You don’t seem very happy. I’m sorry to be blunt, but you seem rather gloomy. Some time away from your garden would do you well.”

I insisted, he left me in peace, and no longer visits me. What he said though, makes sense: I should leave the garden, talk to people, have a good time. Fill the endless days and empty nights with something other than sadness. But my mourning is more salient than any healing thought and I find myself trapped in my closed world.

My walk to work is usually as uneventful as my mornings at home. The flowers, the well-tended yards and houses lining Hermann Street, present an empty, gray palette. There used to be more inspiration like the Baby’s Breath and the sunflowers at home. Victor was better than I was at finding hidden gems in Braubach: the kitten hiding under a maidenhair fern, the newly painted shutters on a neighbor’s house, the scent of freshly cut pine. Without him, these things are elusive and mundane as my shower. Nothing but a dirty mess washing down the drain.

But today, outside the Kraus home, I notice something I have never seen before. At the foot of their silly gnome is an erupting patch of Creeping Baby’s Breath. The flowers are a soft pink, an unexpected splash of color. Strange that they should appear out of nowhere displaying such a vibrant pink. Surprising myself, I kneel to take a closer look and experience a joy I have not known for some time.

The feeling dissipates as soon as I leave and reach the restaurant where I will spend six hours serving schnitzel, goulash, and endless beer. The friendly customer banter, attempts at speaking to me in German, and their praise of the hearty food, falls on deaf ears and I only provide perfunctory replies. A young woman I have not seen before stands out in tonight’s crowd. She doesn’t engage me in conversation but I am drawn to her because of her gentle laughter, the gleam in her eyes, and the way she occasionally touches the others at her table, as if to confirm that she is listening and intrigued with the conversation. I think I was like her when I was younger: innocent yet vivacious, ready to ride over any bumps along the road. I don’t remember losing those qualities but I have. Somewhere in my sorrow, I became less of myself and the memory of Victor a fragile thread holding me to the little that remains.

On the way home, after my shift, the realization continues to nag leaving me exhausted. The bed that awaits me is cold and too big, so I avoid it and go to the kitchen, and look out the window at the boots, the Creeping Baby’s Breath, and the sunflowers. I have come to see this still life as Victor himself, as the power that enables me to meet the challenges of each day. But tonight, after the pink Baby’s Breath and the young woman, I am wondering how long a bunch of flowers in a pair of boots can sustain my life, can be a sufficient reason to live: their usefulness is fading.

I hardly sleep at all that night anticipating a new morning, a strange feeling after tending my grief for so long. I am greeted by abundant clutter as I rummage through the closet, but I eventually locate my unused Lowa boots, Victor’s thankless gift. The leather is dry and cracked in places, the rubber soles hardened. I struggle into them and my feet immediately feel constricted, my stomach queasy as I imagine touching trail for the first time. I ignore my growing anxiety as I search for the Rheinsteig maps. Flipping through them, I find the one with Braubach trails on it, folded from years ago so the local trails are visible.

Before leaving the house, I have a strange impulse to open the curtains: except for last night’s peering outside, they have remained closed for some time. The sunlight illuminates the rooms and exposes my lack of cleaning. The dust and confusion will have to wait.

The trailhead is well marked, next to the pharmacy. I leave the pavement and my feet land on the path that Victor knew so well. I am frightened of moving forward. I wonder how far I can walk alone, if I will avoid getting lost, if I will be overcome by the sadness that has been my only companion. But I take the first hesitant steps, small pebbles and soft pine needles beneath me. Braubach fades as I advance into a dense wood with rocky outcroppings. The air is clean, and with each breath, I feel something like life seep into me.

End

A LITTLE PARCEL OF THINGS: A NEW STORY BY DAVID H WEINBERGER

My newest story is now available in Still Points Arts Quarterly. Links on my Publications page. It’s available as a free pdf download and a purchased print edition.

Solar Bones: Mike McCormack

This is the first I have read Mike McCormack and I am quite happy I learned about this exceptional one sentence novel. The story involves the civil engineer Marcus Conway as he waits for hours in his kitchen for his wife to return home. His reflections on his family, his community and his entire life unfold in a tidy stream of consciousness narrative which he envisions as a “memorial arc which curves from childhood to the present moment.” I enjoyed the way Conway’s engineering worldview allows him to deconstruct his world to ultimately discover the “harmonic order which underlay everyone and everything.”

The novel opens with the noontime ringing of the local Angelus Bell and introduces the entry of the wider world into Conway’s ruminations. The scene immediately put me in mind of the ringing bells throughout Krasznahorkai’s novel Satantango and mirrors a similar apocalyptic vision, though much more hopeful in the present novel. It did, however, set my mood for the reading and I could hear the Angelus Bell ringing on every page, perhaps calling folks to take stock of their lives and the values we choose to uphold.

I will read more McCormack based on how good this novel is, starting with his two short story collections. Such a pleasure becoming aware of this Irish author.

Jeferson Tenório: The Dark Side of Skin

This incredible novel, translated by Bruno Dantas Lobato and published by Charco Press, explores racial relations in Brazil. Though the black experience in Brazil is distinct from that in America I often found it uncanny how similar the situation seemed: the story could easily have unfolded in any-city USA.

The second person narrative is the ‘invented truth’ or the invented ‘memory of you’ as the narrator grieves the death of his father. Along the way the story deals primarily with systemic racism but also with family dynamics, hurt people and their search for happiness, and the daily struggle of walking out the door each morning. The characters attempt to love and be loved, some seriously challenged by their shortcomings, but for me they remained sympathetic.

Though a bleak and sobering story, I found it engaging and challenging, compassionate and frustrated. A wonderful depiction of the often damaging patterns we encounter in ourselves and in society. Highly recommended.

Rebecca Goldstein: Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel

I will state right from the start that this book and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem are far from my full comprehension: I’m glad I read it but confess to not fully understanding most of it. I ran across the theory while reading Mircea Cartarescu’s Solenoid and was intrigued with his application of the theory and its philosophical implications. In a nutshell and in my less than mathematical thinking, I understand incompleteness to state that there are objective truths that cannot be proven within that system and that if one fails to reach an objective truth there is a fault in one’s thinking, not in the truth itself. Goldstein’s example is the statement 5 +7 = 12. If one were to add 5 and 7 and arrive at 13, one can assume there is a problem with counting and not with the statement. Clear enough, but I got lost in Chapter 3 where Goldstein lays out the proof for this. Sill, there is something inherently attractive in the theorem and in its application to daily life and it is the reason I slowly worked my way through the book.

One useful application is in evaluating the current mess of constant lies, false ‘facts,’ and the rewriting of objective truths dominant in politics and social life. Its as if we now reject the existence of objective truths in favor of anything we want to create or manufacture to justify our behaviour. People have some bizarre beliefs and opinions and create new ‘truths’ to support those beliefs and opinions, rather than the other way around. Goldstein quotes Gödel in her epigraph: “But every error is due to extraneous factors (such as emotion and education); reason itself does not err.” It seems as if reason is today’s casualty in favor of subjective truths and errors.

I may be making a mistake in trying to apply Incompleteness to daily living, and granted my understanding is tenuous, but it seems like a worthy goal. A challenging book and enlightening reading about Gödel’s life outside of mathematics, especially his relationship with Einstein. A good brain teaser.

Tom Drury: The End of Vandalism

There is a scene near the conclusion of ‘The End of Vandalism’ where a character who owns a campground is explaining to an engineer about the meandering path to the lake. He had complained that it should have been built straight. She claimed she thought it was straight. That is an apt metaphor for how I see this engaging novel unfolding. Short on plot but abounding in stories of the people living in the fictional rural-American Grouse County. Characters who see their lives as heading straight but actually meandering through highs and lows, good times and bad. The stories accumulate to paint a heartbreaking narrative of lifelong efforts to find a bit of happiness.

An aspect of the novel I particularly enjoyed was Drury’s abundant use of music, with liberal sprinkling of musician names, song titles and lyrics. The characters were steeped in music and albums and the CD appeared near the end of the novel, albeit with only one character: most others missed out on that questionable technological breakthrough. Another aspect I enjoyed was the slow decay of the rural county, its towns, and the quality of life of its citizens, summed up well by the narrator with ‘services were leaving Grafton like seed from a dandelion.’

As I read the constant vignettes, I imagined a quilt or a web slowly being built. Intersecting lives, chance meetings and near misses, more and more odd decisions and chances taken. Characters lost on their own meandering paths. A very engaging read and a wakeup call to enjoy and appreciate the journey.

Idle Hill: Available Now! in synkroniciti magazine

My short story Idle Hill is now available for purchase at synkroniciti magazine. It is a PDF download for $7.00 and includes lots of other great authors and artists and their interpretations of the theme Haunting. I have also provided a link to the magazine’s website on my Publication page. Idle Hill is my contribution to this theme and explores toxic masculinity and grieving. It would be wonderful if you could give it a read and let me know what you think. Please enjoy.

IDLE HILL: A NEW STORY BY DAVID H WEINBERGER

On December 15, 2024 my short story Idle Hill will appear in the magazine Synkroniciti! The issue focuses on the theme ‘Haunting’ and I love how that theme overlaps the struggles and thoughts of my main character. When I wrote the story I was exploring toxic masculinity, specifically its generational aspects, and its devastating outcomes. Extreme thanks to all at Synkroniciti for reading my story and valuing it enough to share it in their next issue. I will announce when it is available.

Backstory: The New Normal

            The New Normal is primarily fiction. The autobiography part of it is that I really did have a worm crawl into my ear and after a few terrifying moments my father removed it with tweezers. That vignette sat around for decades until around 2016 when Trump began campaigning and eventually was elected as the president of the United States. There was something about his abrasive manner, the toxicity of his words, which made me think of that worm from so long ago. I have nothing in common with Trump, instead, he is everything I fight against, everything I dislike in another person, the posterchild for what is wrong with masculinity, maleness, interpersonal relationships. There is nothing about him which speaks to what it means to be a good and decent human being. I began to see him, and mostly his words and the feelings that choked them, as a worm burrowing inside the public’s head, lodging somewhere deep inside and refusing to leave. I came to believe that we hear things throughout our lives, and they get buried deep within us. Sadly, those thoughts and feelings nestle there and are ready to be expressed at the most surprising times.

            I remember an extended family situation where a very sweet grandma, gentle in everything she did, in every interaction she participated in, became very sick and incapacitated. Through her suffering, her children listened to her spout endless racist judgements. She had never spoken that way throughout her life. But in her final moments it was like the flood gates were opened and those words and thoughts cascaded outwards. A burrowed worm waiting its chance to appear and direct its host’s behaviour.

            With Trump and the actions of grandma, I began to see that worm which crawled into my ear as something a lot more sinister and thought it might make a good story. However, I got some things wrong. One thing I did wrong in that story is that I did not portray successfully the incipient nature of the worm: how it could enter the brain, burrow deep inside, and impact how we view the world. I was wrong in my premise that the worm finally left. It stays there eating and defecating looking for a viable method of expressing its existence. It may be dormant but it remains even still.

            The other thing I got wrong is that I do not believe I portrayed my metaphor of the worm successfully. And to be blunt now so as not to miss the point, at the time I saw the worm as the hateful, racist, misogynistic, and criminal verbiage coming from Trump’s mouth, as well as his stooges who stood by him and allowed his diatribes to run unfettered. I believe that people for the most part disregard what he says and somehow justify that he is still a good presidential candidate despite his incendiary words. (Though it is also true that there is a large part of the population who support the man and every word he says. They believe the same as he does and would love to see him follow through on his promises.) But in supporting the man’s economy or border control, or whatever lets them sleep at night, I believe people have also supported the worst of him. That niggling worm he implanted years ago lived on with all its hatred and bitterness, and destruction and selfishness and negativity. And we will now pay the price.

            I don’t blame the worm. I believe it is possible to reject its destructive goal. There are plenty of people who have heard the same message coming from Trump & Co. who have not sunk to his level. But sadly, over half the nation has embraced the man and his message. The worm worked his destruction in their brains and they acted no different than the man himself.

            That’s the back story for The New Normal. I would title it differently today but I don’t have the energy to create a better name and certainly not to rewrite the story to  be more fitting for the 2024 fiasco. It will have to stand as my defiance, weak and insufficient as it may be. I hope you enjoy it.

The New Normal

by David H Weinberger

It’s rotting inside my head. The remaining part. Lived there over six years, the life expectancy of a night crawler. Burrowing through my brain. I could feel it that whole time. Tunnelling and exploring. And then it just stopped.

I was seven when the first worm slithered its way inside my ear. I was caressed by the grass as I relaxed on my side in the front yard, listening for sounds deep within Earth. I felt a slight tremor, which tickled more than startled, as something seemed to move from the dirt beneath the grass into my ear. It was pleasant enough that I did not move. But whatever it was continued on its journey into my ear, and then actually dangled from the depths, free from the confines of the soil. The pleasant feeling quickly turned to a sharp pain and I jumped from the ground and ran screaming around the yard. I could feel the thing penetrating, wriggling deeper into my ear canal. My father ran out of the house, grabbed me by the shoulders, and looked me over to assess the damage. He asked me how in God’s name I managed to get a worm in my ear and I started crying. He told me to hold still as he grasped the worm between two fingers and gently pulled. The worm stretched taut and I was afraid half the worm would remain in my ear forever, left to burrow into my brain, causing lifelong damage. But the worm finally released its grip inside the ear and sort of popped right out, like a cork released from a champagne bottle. My father held the worm up in front of my face and I vomited.

I slept fitfully that night, staying on my back out of fear of putting my ear against the bed. I knew there was no way a worm would rise up out of the pillow but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I dreamed of a major worm attack in our city, where millions of worms attacked and ate people and left their droppings to fertilize a new city. Each time I woke up covered in sweat and short of breath, I could see giant worms crawling on my bed, laughing hideous laughs, and crawling towards my ears. I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling with my hands covering my ears. Early morning, I started worrying about worms entering my nostrils and my mouth. Lacking enough hands to cover all my holes, I got up early for breakfast.

            I told my friends about the worm incident. No one believed me. How could a worm move from the ground and up into a person’s ear? Just not possible. Even though I swore it was true and promised that my dad saw it and actually pulled the worm out, they ridiculed me and called me a liar. My teacher, who gently patted my hand and told me she was glad I was okay, seemed sceptical. But I continued in the telling because I had the lingering, disturbing sensation of a slim, slimy object entering my ear.

            The nightmares and worries faded quickly but my fear of the grass and what lies below it did not. I saw it as the representation of the hell we learned about in Sunday school, where everything bad and evil exists. I could walk in grass but I would never linger. When my family picnicked, I sat in the car and ate my food and read. I didn’t play in our yard any longer for fear of the pervasive creatures capable of invading bodies.

            Eight years later, when the second worm slithered its way inside my ear, I was lying in wild grass and dandelions with my first girlfriend, Anne. Her allure clouded my young, hormone addled mind and I forgot the frightful memory of laying in the grass with my ear against the ground. This time, I was holding Anne’s hands, our knees touching, and staring into her eyes. I was experiencing a lot of new feelings right then so I did not perceive the slight tickle in my ear as different from the rest of the tingling going on in other body parts. But when the worm had reached a one inch entry into my ear, I knew it wasn’t love or desire I was feeling. Once again, I screamed, jumped up, and ran around the field. Anne watched me, and when I approached her in tears, she stared aghast at a four-inch piece of worm sticking out of my ear. I could feel the worm inching deeper inside of me as I squeezed Anne’s hands and begged her to do something. But Anne was not as adept at removing worms from ears as my father was, so she hesitated and actually took a step back before I fell on my knees and beseeched her to pull out the worm. I watched her hesitant reach for the worm and the look of disgust on her face as her hand neared the worm, just before she turned and ran.

            I closed my eyes and searched for the worm sticking out of my ear. I felt its coldness before I touched its wet, messy body. I grasped the worm and slowly pulled, once again fearing that half of it would remain in my ear. Just like when I was seven, the worm stretched taut and I grit my teeth waiting for the pop. But there was no pop. No release of pressure in my ear. No dangling worm. I held in front of me half a worm. I quickly stuck a finger in my ear and searched for the missing worm half. I felt nothing, but I still had the sense of an invader in my skull. I could feel the incessant wriggling of the worm half that was burrowing into my ear.

            I ran home and my mom immediately took me to emergency, frantically speeding through red lights and stop signs, ignoring the irritated blare of other drivers’ horns. A nurse took me to a bed right away and a doctor was attending to me shortly. I explained what happened, but in spite of his powerful little light and nifty tweezers, he was unable to find any worm half. With a cynical chuckle, he explained how a worm would have to get past the middle ear, move into the Eustachian tube, and then the nasopharynx, before it had any possibility of reaching the brain, which was short of impossible. He claimed he had never seen an earthworm enter a human ear, and definitely not travel past the middle ear. He saw no need for further tests. In spite of his assurances of non-travel potential and my mom’s subsequent relief, I could still feel the worm moving deeper into my head. The doctor suggested that I was experiencing a psychosomatic reaction to a traumatic event and prescribed Xanax to calm me down and help me sleep. All would be better in the morning.

            But it wasn’t better. I woke with a scream, forced awake by a constant vibration behind my nose. The worm was alive and moving in my nasal cavity, right at the top of my throat. I violently blew my nose over the side of the bed, trying to extract the creature. Nothing but a bit of snot blew to the ground and the internal rumbling continued. My mom suggested I take some Xanax, but I refused because I knew it was not just nerves. The worm was active in my head and moving upward. Regardless of my pleas for help, my mom trusted the doctor’s diagnosis and did her best to push the drugs and calm me down.

Once again, people did not believe that an actual earthworm lived inside me. They automatically thought of tapeworms, those parasitic, spaghetti-like fiends associated more with the intestines than the brain. I assured them that it was, indeed, an earthworm, but they just laughed at me. I’m sure people called me crazy. Like the crazy man I knew as a kid who always told me at the bus stop that he had a plate in his head protecting his brain from extra-terrestrial radiation. I didn’t believe him. Why would anyone believe me?

            The worm continued to move. It came as a slight sensation in my skull, like a breeze blowing over a bird’s feathers. I felt a new freedom in my nasal cavity with a concomitant squeezing in my cranium as the worm moved upward. I could feel my brain contracting, both in size and structure, making room for the worm. Like an untreated wound, the worm festered in my head. If it wasn’t crawling around, it was busy defecating or nibbling away at my brain, digesting microscopic bits of me at a snail-like pace. I imagined it would take decades for it to work its way through my brain, if I survived that long, but I worried about what would happen to me as it removed critical neurological matter.

            Later, in my high school biology class, my teacher presented a glistening tray of earthworms, ready for us to study and dissect. A feeling of sweet revenge cascaded over me as I thought of the retribution I would exact over my personal invasion. But as the tray was passed around, and finally arrived in my hands, I was revolted, both by the sight of the wriggling worms, and my feelings towards my comeuppance. I no more wanted to touch those worms than to dissect them to understand how they operate. Their evilness was abhorrent to me, but I lacked the willpower for personal revenge. This disgusted me as much as the worm in my head did.

            Over the coming months and years, I contemplated seeking alternative diagnoses and help. Maybe a CAT scan or an MRI would reveal something to someone who would operate to remove the invasive creature. Perhaps there was a drug I could take which would eat away at the worm but leave me intact. I never really believed in these possibilities though and so I never pursued them. Seeing no alternative, I reluctantly accepted the existence of my uninvited resident and went about my life as best I could, even though thoughts of labyrinthine wormholes in my brain and putrid worm shit scattered throughout my skull left me melancholy and agitated. It became my new normal, part and parcel with the perceptible changes in my personality and worldview. I seemed to lose the ability to decipher truth from falsehood, right from wrong, and a deep fog engulfed the subtle similarities between different people. But no physical manifestations of a flesh-eating earthworm.

            So now the end of my worm, or at least its life. Six years is a long time to live with another life inside of you. Although disgusted by it, I grew used to having it around: the slow niggling in my brain as it was under way, the slight burning as it deposited its waste. My ability to accommodate such a hideous creature is abominable. What I could have done differently is still unclear to me, but I feel less of a person for having habituated the worm’s activity. As it decays my body might expel its remains. But I fear the carcass will be forever, a slow degradation lasting longer than me.

END

Bluebird: My Newest Published Short Story

Over at twelvewinters.com my newest story, Bluebird, is live. Actually, it’s rather an old story but I continued to rework it over the years until Twelve Winters picked it up. A great big thank you to the Twelve Winters team! This story was inspired by a cruel school bus driver I had back in grade school. She was one of the many bullies I had to deal with growing up. I reimagined her with a troubling past and some redeeming qualities. I would be quite pleased if you read the story, and I hope you enjoy it. And on September 10 my story The Remove will be available in The Cost of Our Baggage. Looking forward to seeing that!