What Old Tamber Had to Say

“They say she lives alone out there.”

“What, like out in the woods?”

“Not like way back in a cabin or anything, but in a little house out there off the road. I'm not even sure she has a car.”

“What, does she walk in here every day? Seems a long way. And not really safe is it, or doesn't seem safe. Anyone come along on someone looks like her, well if they ain't a good sort that'd turn around pretty bad.”

“They say she speaks in a funny tongue, some weird, old accent. Old Tamber said she spoke with all manner of things too. That when you'd go up by the place she'd be outside, out in back of the place or over on the side nearer to the stream and the marsh near that fork in the road.”

“The one that leads over to Dalton.”

“Or over towards Hume yeah.”

“Hm, didn't realize the place was up that far. I'm not out that way too much.”

“Tamber says she'll be out there talking with the plants, sometimes treating them to a congregation.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“A sermon.”

“Like a preacher?”

“Yeah. Holding forth on all those plants and anything else there she might be seeing. What kind of virtue to you suppose you'd extol to a plant.”

“Hahaha, hmm. Constancy.”

“How about a venus fly trap?”

“Sort of have to condone murder on that one don't you.”

“Either that, or you and Tamber just having on, right?”

“I'm not, I'm telling you what Tamber said.”

“That old broad knows just about everyone, and doesn't strike me as to like to make up a story like that.”

“No, s'why I kind of went on with it. It's out there sure, but don't fall off the edge.”

“Still, even if she is sort of odd, she's still a beauty and there are still all kinds out there up on the hills. That one guy, the one they say takes off anytime he gets wind of the FBI after him, he lives out there. He's not someone I'd put anything past. Even if I didn't know him twice as well as I'd like to I'd've heard in a year more than half what I need to know he isn't any sort.”

“Yeah. I don't know. Makes a mystery though doesn't it. She's only lived here for what, five years. Opens this little store, always standing there in the doorway. But it's gotta be good for the town, having a curio shop that sells flowers.”

“Sure. You think you're ever gonna talk to her.”

“Me? No.”

“Why not?”

“I get tongue tied and stammerin' just thinking about talking to her.”

“You'd maybe do alright.”

“No, carpenters don't talk to pretty florists.”


-One of the 10% Stories I wrote during the triathlon. Got too caught up at the end with training to post this properly out side of its home at Fictionaut.

We're sitting a coffee shop now, trying to see if there isn't more to say upstairs in the old idea box at the moment. Re-reading Grendel at the moment, and have an idea for a thing and the artist I wouldn't mind talking to about it, so that might be a thing in and of itself. Fun, sort of.

Lights Outside

Stay out of the light. Keep your distance as if this were a bear that had no form. Ursus, which means destroyer – the shapeless, indescribable doom peoples would not name and called only bruin, the brown, the beast left untraceable, its edges incomprehensible. It assassinates inside the captivating hugeness of its body. Its shadow was sorrow, and there are many shadows here. Perhaps they are sure lights. Maybe you want to call them that and let all of that pale, wavering immateria spill over your face. Maybe.

There are some who would want the lights to be brighter, but they stay were they are, their intensity unmoved, unafflicted by your glowing emotions. The light shining around you, circumscribing your body reflecting on the surfaces in the center of everyone around you. These two come up together, dueling, charged and seconded, your glow by the perceptions of your heart and the light by the grid. The light wins out. It sorry, weak light remains ceaseless, inexhaustible, so long as its filamental gases hold out. It awards its prize, casting a pallor on the bare skin of a coughing chest waiting to come to rest forever. Pinpointing for us where weakness has developed.

Who knows, maybe it’s a paling in the end. Maybe it keeps us aware of what’s going to happen when we look at the bed. Giving us a chance, a moment or two more to adjust our senses instead of coming in here with some kind of unknowing, or at the outside worst, false hope. Perhaps they are sure lights outside room 317, knowing that they are at least honest.


The gidget below is my Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Team in Training fundraising widget. I am competing in the NYC Triathlon this year to raise money for LLS research and patient services charity. Last year a friend, classmate, and fellow writer, Honest Jon Harding, passed away after a long battle with cancer.

For every 10% of my goal that I raise, I will post a new story here or someplace else on the internet. If you want more fiction, or if you want to donate to this wonderful cause, just click below. This weeks story riffed off of this image at Elephant Words.

Update The Fundraising widget doesn't seem to be working right now, so until then, here is a link to my donations page. Anything you can give goes to a great cause, and all donations are tax deductible.