Honey Due's Blog

I remember once,

Driven by a foreign fire, 

Came away from my coop,

And stole into the reality I so admired.

The road stretched narrow,

While the sun fell still.

My backbone shivered,

Tickled by the alien thrill.

I saw before me a seashore man,

Numb, marooned into nothing.

A dead man hanging crisp in the ether,

Ready for the plucking.

I reached my hand out,

Found myself touching his grave

Knowing I could have saved him

Was what sealed the bars of my cage.

Weak and wounded,

Back to the herd, I flew.

Felt their warm welcome,

Bid adieu to the liberty I briefly knew.

 

The more you run from loneliness,

The harder it gets.

Each night, I find ways toward myself,

And each morning, I forget.

As if the me I once was

Has never existed.

I see time frames mapped out before me.

I see people I once longed to know

Now disappear and leave me cold.

My grasp around you weakens

And so I let go.

I kiss your footsteps

And watch them dissipate beneath my lips.

I feel the hair on your arms

Stand up on end

And ripple as I whisper my secrets into it.

My ghost now ashen

In this little tomb of loneliness that I’ve created.

Each morning, I stand at the entrance

And whisper for you.

But you must never hear me,

For you never come back.

And one day soon,

I shall stand at the mouth of my grotto

And wonder

If you ever were here at all.

The dead man opened his eyes to gales of laughter. It was Easter morning and his lips were cracked. His skin chaffed from the handcuffs he’d worn all night and all morning. It was late, but the dead man didn’t mind. The dead ain’t got nowhere to go. He tore at the bindings and freed his shaking hands. Rubbed at his eyes and found God in the perfect darkness, then parted his eyelids and lost Him again. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. What are we going to do together? Everything, the girl had said, but now the girl was gone. Scrammed with his money and all of his hopes. His stereo, too, and that was the real kicker because, without the deafening quiet of the music, the voices in his mind would begin to rattle. He knew he only had a little while to get himself to safety and evade the voices, so the dead man did what he was best at. He reached over on his belly and retched. Watched the thin thread of spittle trickle out of his mouth and wiped. Reached for the empty bottle of wine and took another swig. Out of the pit of his longing, the cruel jester that was his failure of a life. No liquor and no sound. Easter would be a bad day.

With difficulty, he managed to push himself off the bed, smacking his dry lips to get out the sour taste of last night’s wine. The dead man was thirsty, from a long night of excesses. Now deserted by his followers, his fellow revelers gone with the morning breeze, the dead man finally had time to think. But then he heard that laughter again and left thinking aside, for those more inclined to do it.

On shaky legs, he made his way to the too-bright window, the biting April light filtering in through the broken shutters. The man peered out at the world outside and saw her. Yet another her to occupy his mind for a month or just a second. Heavy breasts pushed against the fabric of her blouse. Her festive, Easter blouse. Her Sunday best, though it was not the clothes the dead man cared for. He pressed one hand to the glass, cool against the warmth of this spring sun. And he listened, in hope the girl outside his window might laugh again, but she did not. She’d stopped suddenly and looked up to the window, as if aware of his presence, and for one flattering moment, the dead man tricked himself into thinking she was. But then, the girl shifted her eye, as if she’d seen nothing of great interest, so the dead man was forced to conclude she had not seen him. The girl reminded him of someone, with her obscenely large lips and her loud laughter, though of whom, the dead man no longer cared to remember. He would have liked to have one great love in his life, one woman to have seen him through the bitter end. A lady neatly dressed in black to mourn at his funeral. A stirringly beautiful woman who would then vanish into the ether as if she’d never been, but would never dare forget him. He would have liked to touch someone’s life, and perhaps he could have touched this girl’s. Except he was dead now, and life has no patience for men such as him.

With a heavy jolt to the side of his stomach, he spun on his heels and fell to his knees. Right by the window, for the whole world to see. That is, if the world had taken the slightest interest in him. As it had not, he was left retching once more. Pathetic and alone. The reminisces of last night’s wine warm against his knuckles. He was a wreck, but even wrecks need to pick themselves up off the floor at some point and pull themselves together. If only to go to the nearest liquor store.

The dead man often got the impression he’d outstayed his welcome. Had the feeling this world should have chewed him up and spit him out a long time ago. And for a while, he’d waited just for that, watched the world go by him silently, like a funeral procession. Waved hello to his casket and watched the empty wooden box wave back. You should have been down here, Jack, the earth called up to him. Puah. Already, they’d come nagging. He hadn’t been awake five minutes and here they were, the voices clawing at what remained of his sanity. Telling him about his tomb and the cold, dead earth. Like he hadn’t heard it all a million times before.

‘Fuck off,’ the dead man growled and bit down hard into the fleshy inside of his left cheek. And his mind screamed, but his focus was solely on the devastating, tearing pain and the salty, hot taste slithering down his tongue and into his throat. He wouldn’t wound himself mortally. He never did, for he was not capable of true death. If he’d known it’d be so hard to die again, he would’ve stayed put that first time. But he’d been a young man then, thought he’d die a million times more. Tricked himself into believing there was a good reason to get out of his grave in the first place. He hadn’t anticipated what might happen, hadn’t thought his moves through, which was so unlike him. The old him, the man he’d been up to a certain point.

But in the silence of the grave, he’d suddenly transformed into a giant. Grown tall, so much so that he was forced to wonder how the tiny tomb still accommodated him. Let himself believe he was down for the fight, but he wasn’t.

‘I said go…the fuck…away,’ the dead man screamed, grabbing blindly at the bottles strewn about his bed, throwing them forward and watching them clash against the whitewashed wall and explode. A thousand shards of glass littering his floor, and him walking barefoot across them. A thin trail of blood behind him, tracing his footsteps through the rented apartment. He’d lived here some two years now, and despite everything the voices told him, he hoped not to die here.

The dead man pushed his head under the ice-cold tap and gurgled. Lapping at the water like a greedy pig in his trough. Reveling in the metallic taste. Feeling it dribble down his cheek and into the pit of his left ear. Washing the taste of last night’s wine from his lips. Washing out the taste of blood. His cheek smarting at the cool water, but better. His wound would heal, just like all his wounds healed. Not for some otherworldly gift. The dead man hadn’t been blessed, but damned. To a life of cowardice, of never daring to set foot outside his cemented constraints. Willfully entombing himself in this prison he called a home. Going outside just for long enough to numb the thoughts in his head and pick up another lost woman to pass the night with. For the fucking, yes, but never to assuage the loneliness. The dead man had given up on that endeavor a long time ago and he dared not dream of it again. Not after that first time.

By the time the dead man returned to the window, the woman with the laughter had gone and the streets had grown cold and depressing again. Time for another bloody Easter.

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‘I was the one who put food to their table, I was the one who fed them, who nursed them. Me. And what do those little shits give me? Nothing, if I dropped dead tomorrow, they wouldn’t even notice,’ he seems angry, but he’s faking it. I can see the corner of his mouth twitch. It always does when he’s with me.

‘Don’t worry, Don, I’m sure they would, sooner or later, remember, you’re the one who fills their bowls,’ I tell him. He smiles and I’m relieved, I know he wasn’t only talking about the dogs just then and I try to steer clear of such subjects as his past life.

Everyone deserves a choice, by my count, and if his kids don’t wanna know him, that’s just fine. But I don’t think he should be beating himself up over it all that much. Everyone has a choice.

He pats Jackie on the head as the fat Mastiff passes by his master’s leg. ‘He must’ve heard you talking about him,’ I say and I gulp down my tea. Out of the corner of my eye, I’ve seen the clock on the wall, so far up I sometimes doubt Don can read the little numbers anymore. His eyesight’s really been going downhill these past few months. ‘I must get going,’ I say and I take my leave of him.

I will try to come and visit him again soon. Lately, I can barely leave him alone for more than two days. It’s not that he doesn’t manage, but I get these fears that maybe something will happen to him, maybe I’ll come in the door one day and he’ll really be slumped over the dogs’ food.

I don’t know what he’s done in the past, and I don’t much care. Right now, he’s the only friend I’ve got. I remember Mom used to call him a drunk and sometimes even worse. Of course, that was back when he first moved in the apartment above us. For months, she wouldn’t let me out of the house alone, although I was already quite old (at the grand age of twelve, I felt the slap of not being allowed out on my own). She thought something might happen, I don’t know if she ever thought Don could hurt me, she always denied it later on, but back then, I don’t know, people get some funny ideas in their head when they meet someone who reminds ’em of themselves.

Maybe she was just afraid he’d get drunk and tumble down the stairs as I was coming up, breaking my leg in the process.

Funny how it was her who got us together. ‘Cause I hadn’t seen old Don Hoskins in the apartment above for some ten years, but then the funeral happened. Things had to be taken care of, I stayed for a while and Don was the only company I had in those days. So, we bonded, in a way.

He’s been great, he even watched the kids a couple of times. Didn’t drop them on the head or anything, Mom.

But I don’t think he can do that now, so I no longer ask him and when he offers, I tell him we’re fine. And it makes me so sad to do that because I see the question in his eyes, the need. It’s the closest thing he has to grandchildren.

He never came out and told me about his family, at least not directly, only off-handed comments like the one earlier. But I did a little research on my own, you know, not to snoop, it’s just that sometimes, I don’t think he’s very happy. So, I Googled him up and I got two hits, John and Marla and there was no mistaking it, ’cause after all these years, and after all this bitterness, they had their father’s eyes.

Then, I forgot about them, I hate to pry, so I left the past well alone, leaving it up to Don to speak of it if he wanted to. He didn’t.

But then, one day, as I was coming down the stairs into our own kitchen, I heard something and at first, I didn’t know where it came from. For a second I thought I’d gone mad. I thought I was hearing things. It wouldn’t be the first time…

But then I saw my little Carly snuggled between the couch cushions, switching through the channels.

‘Baby, go back please, put on the news.’

And there it was, those same baby blue eyes that somehow got under your skin. And the world seemed to stand still, as if I’d known him all my life. I guess in a way, I had, his ghost had been up there in Don’s apartment for some thirty years.

And now he was gone, blown apart in a car crash that had killed six others, among which his son, his wife and his sister, Marla. They were both dead and I wished the Earth would open up and swallow me whole.

For a moment, I thought it would, I could only feel it shaking under me and I couldn’t see. My eyes, what was happening to my eyes?

It was the strangest thing, I was crouching in my kitchen, crying for two people I’d never met. For the grandson Don would never know.

Oh my God.

Oh God, no.

‘Tell your Dad Mommy had to leave, okay, baby?’ I yelled as I was running through the door and I was halfway inside my car when I heard her mumbled response.

I knocked on his door. Like a maniac, like a demon, although I tried to steady myself. I wouldn’t want to scare him even more. But then I thought it doesn’t really matter.

But there was no answer, nobody came to the door, no steps rang across the wooden creaky boards and my knees got even shakier.

I fumbled in my purse for the spare he’d made me years ago and I pushed my way inside.

Inside the empty apartment, where I’d had so many cups of tea, where my children had played and listened to stories of the old world. And he was nowhere, he wasn’t in the kitchen, he wasn’t slumped over the dog food, as he’d joked so many times. He was just gone.

I patted Jackie and Ruff and hugged them to me. I went to pour them some food and that’s where I found it. Carefully folded, written by hand. He never could get the hang of computers.

I knew sooner or later you’d think to feed them, L, you always had a good soul and I thank you for that. You brought some joy to my last years.

And for a second, I couldn’t read, my crying blurred out the words.

You’ve been an excellent friend and a better daughter than I could hope for. Better than I deserved, that’s for sure. I’ve really enjoyed our time together, but now I must go. I’ve been the echo of a life that should’ve been for too long. I did some bad things in my life, L, terrible even, and now my punishment is clear. I shall wander the Earth, like a ghost…left behind. Please take care of those little bastards for me, will you?

Sometimes I think I see him walking down the street, sometimes he’s in the line behind me at the grocery store. In the corner of my eye, Don Hoskins will always be there.

‘Walls’ was published as part of my short story collection ‘Grimmest Things’. If you enjoyed this, please consider supporting an indie author and purchasing the collection

“It is crazy to start a porcupine farm in your backyard!” Uncle Thomas was shouting towards the window. “Everybody knows that you do it in the front yard, where folk can see it. Really now, what’s the sense in having something nice if no one gets to see it, you know?”

He didn’t seem to be in a particularly bad mood, and yet, I realized, with a sinking feeling, that no one was going out to speak to him, so I gathered myself from where I’d been lazying around, melting in the easy chair in the bright, July heat, and I dragged my feet all the way to the back of the house.

“Who’re you talking to, Uncle Tom?” I asked, sulking into the backyard, but he couldn’t be bothered to speak to me, it seemed, for he spared me little more than a passing glance and mumbled something into his coat.

Uncle Thomas always wore this thick trench-coat, looked like something from the Great War, though no one knew how it had made its’ way into our family. For years, as a child, I’d thought it was some sort of souvenir, one of the few things we had left from Grandpa Stanley, but then one day, not realizing she was dispelling some childish dream Mom told me it wasn’t, that she’d found it as a second-hand sale, when she was a young girl, and bought it for Uncle Tom, since they didn’t have all that much back in the day. As easy as anything, when I’d assigned this entire world, this Universe to Uncle Tom’s boring old coat. Mom never had much patience for day-dreams.

[image error]Image by ArtTower on Pixabay

 

“I said, who you talking to, Uncle?” I asked, more pointedly this time, doing my best to imitate the faux-British accent that Uncle Thomas sometimes affected, for nothing irritated him as much as being mocked.

“To your father, of course, you silly girl,” he shot, glaring back at me, and despite myself, I must admit I was a little hurt. When I was small, Uncle Thomas was my world, even though I sometimes made fun of him.

“But Dad’s not starting a porcupine farm,” I mumbled, by way of apology, though it didn’t seem to appease him much.

“He is not, indeed,” Uncle Thomas shot back, outraged. “And this is why we’ll be the laughing stock of town. Really, having such bad taste should be illegal.”

Too late, I realized what he was planning on doing and following him into the house, found him standing by the telephone table. He dialed the number of the police substation from memory. Officer Claire was on vacation, I knew, or at least, I knew that’s what he’d come away with. That was what they always said down at the station when Uncle Thomas called.

On vacation. In fact, Officer Claire was probably there, having her lunch right about that time, but she’d come to the house a great many times and I think she’d grown tired of coming. If I’d called, then it would have been different. Officer Claire, kindly though she was, worried about me. Living up here all alone with crazy old Uncle Thomas… the poor little girl.

None in town could see I was not poor, nor was I sad or lonely. There was no one in the whole world I would’ve rather been with at that time, not even Mom and Dad, had they suddenly taken it into their heads to come back for me, though I had no way of telling Officer Claire that. And even if I had told her, she wouldn’t have listened. She’d made up her mind about me, about us and the way we lived here, so I made sure to never call the substation myself, certain they’d blame it all on Uncle Thomas.

Uncle Thomas was erratic, that was for sure. He was imaginative, but not crazy.

“We could start our own porcupine farm, you know,” I tried, watching the mish-mash of emotions on his face. Slowly, as if struck by lightning, his features lit up one by one and he grinned, nodding at me.

“And we won’t tell your father,” he replied. We were conspiring now, he was at ease again. “Let him come out here and see how well we’re doing – how all the neighborhood’s admiring our farm.”

Hurrying into the front yard like two excitable children, we found ourselves standing in the scorching sun, with no real idea where to find porcupines.

Just then, a ball crashed through the window. Loud, breaking our concentration and scuttling all the porcupines away. We turned and ran back inside the house, and although we found the glass scattered on the front room old rug, we could see no ball and indeed, no intruder.

“Sabotage,” Uncle Thomas muttered, but I could see he was smiling.

“Sabotage?”

“Indeed, he must’ve heard our plans,” Uncle Thomas said, nodding towards the back of the house. Empty, as it had been these past ten months, but I wasn’t going to correct him. To be honest, I think part of me had come to believe in Uncle Thomas’ pretense. Done for my benefit, naturally. I knew deep down, Uncle worried that I missed my parents and so, did his best, in his own peculiar way.

And I wouldn’t have thought anything of the incident, but standing there, watching him watching the house, a strange notion sidled into my mind and for the first time since coming to live with Uncle Thomas, I found myself wondering if, by chance, Uncle Thomas wasn’t imagining me as well…

[image error]Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay 

Orderly, alone and quiet in the dusk.

Oatmeal spilt over her milk-cream face.

Porcelain skin breaking under lackluster weight.

And the starlight in her eyes.

Still. Even though tired.

Even though defeat. Even though almost asleep.

Close your eyes, the man whispers,

And she does as she’s told.

Kissing his feet, as she goes down,

Her spine twisting under his thorn-whip,

Her back longing for a soft bed, but finding nothing in its’ fall.

Silent and cracked, she whimpers.

Mushy on the marble floor, she begs,

Wishes it wouldn’t take so long,

Asks for the screaming to stop and swears –

Swears she’ll love him always,

That she will never leave, never seek other worlds.

Yet, her words are not enough for him.

They never have been, and so,

The whip comes down harder and harder,

Her cries mingling with mascara,

Her fingers reaching up his thighs,

But it’s too late now, she finds, as she tries,

That she can no longer stand up, no longer lift herself,

For the man she so loved, it seems, has shattered her spine,

Leaving her tiny and alone in a world that does not know her.

In the darkness of his absence, she cries.

‘Come back,’ she says, but the man does not hear.

Wipes the droplets of blood off his chest and walks away,

In perfect silence, saying a soulless prayer for his fallen woman.

Sounds of torn nails, cracked ribs and stomach grumblings

Punctuating the quiet he leaves behind.

‘Goodbye.’

But she’s gone now, in a realm past hearing.

Goodbye.

Inside, the siren call slacked off, to be replaced by a single note of harmony that rang across his mind until all fell silent again. Or perhaps he’d just grown accustomed to the siren by now. He flicked off the cigarette butt that still half-dangled from his nicotine-eaten fingers. Shrugged. Opened his eyes.

In passing, he stomped his foot precisely once, right above where the siren should have been. She moved, sometimes, and once, she had even attempted to catch him off-guard. But Patton was never off-guard, couldn’t afford to. If he lost his grip on reality for one split second, she might find a way to take over, might shake him off loose. So he’d caught her before she’d had time to catch him, bringing her down and cradling her in his arms until she could call out no more.

It had been the first time he’d heard the hollow hiss coming out of the siren’s throat, full of grit and hopelessness. And though he hadn’t moved an inch, that sound had frightened him far more than her little surprise attacks ever would. For inside the raspy, voiceless cry that rose out of the siren’s throat, he heard himself, his father too, the loss of all humankind. Whimpering, begging, but in truth, already lost.

These days, he didn’t hear from her all that much, so he dressed in relative silence, other than the tiny rattle of mice and the almost soundless footsteps from below. And as he pulled on his coat made of taffeta, black like his liar’s heart, Patton felt it again. Seeping cold and searing pain dart through his head, splitting his furrowed forehead into two unequal pieces. The sheering pain above his left eye, the numbness that felt like a cancer eating away at something right behind his eye.

Instinctively, his hand came up, his fingers already forming the familiar claw shape that he’d so come to despise. It was a game he played with himself, a game he sooner or later was bound to lose. Would he catch himself in time or would today be the fateful, bloody day?

What was truly ironic about Patton was that he could almost see it, fingers digging deep into the soft that was his eye, dirty gnawed-down nails sinking into the white and pulling hard. Like tying a rope around your tooth to force it come loose. One swift pull and this pain would be over. Then, he would be able to think again, then, the ringing in his ears would stop. It would only take a second, a snap at the teeny red cords that kept his eye in place, and then, a lifetime with a giant hole where his eye should have been. It wouldn’t have been that bad, he could always wear a patch. Men like him were supposed to wear patches, were they not?

Or at least, they would be, if he could for once establish what sort of man he had been. Not a good man, he knew as much as that.

But alas, he caught himself in time, rolled his fingers up into a fist and pushed it into his forehead, as if that might banish the pain from its’ place. He would have liked to leave, to go for a long drive, but he feared his eyesight on such long distance. Nowadays, all he could see before him was narrow, his eye on an invisible leash, always pulled back should it decide to stray too far.

Patton unlocked the door and walked down the stairs almost without looking. He’d come down here so many times, he knew this place like his own heart. If he’d had one.

“Yeah. Not renting saves me a bucketload of money.”

It was just their little joke, or rather, just his. He’d often said he could’ve fixed up the place some, rented it out for cash. It had begun in earnest, spoken once as he stumbled drunk down the stairs, in a state of anger. He’d told her perhaps then, he wouldn’t have had to listen to her endless noise. And she’d stared back at him, expressionless, which was in itself cruel. Her face, a complex web of fine lines that just ached to be filled with emotion. Yet, through all her screaming, her pleas, her silences, her face had betrayed nothing.

[image error]Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay

By God, she was beautiful, with her long, black mane and her fierce eyes, still, even after all these years spent down below, trapped on dry land, she looked as compelling as she had that first day. Except Patton had known better than to look at her. As soon as he’d heard her spells, he’d closed his eyes, letting the sounds guide him. The throw of his net had been but pure luck and not a day went by when he didn’t think of that, of how different his life might’ve been had he not trapped the siren that accursed day. Lately, he wondered if he would’ve still had this pain behind his left eye, this constant screaming confounded in his mind.

“What’s it called, d’you know,” he said, his voice mollifying, the stabbing sensation in his eye already abating, “the white bit in your eye?”

The siren looked at him, thinking thoughts of sisters long gone-by, though never forgotten, visions of the sea never to be seen again, and all for a mistake that hadn’t even been hers.

“Let me go.”

Whenever he came down here, she spoke of little else, trying in vain to catch his eye. But Patton was clever enough to avoid her. Though taken out of her natural habit, the siren was still powerful and her eyes might be enough to put sick ideas in his brain, thoughts of unwarranted freedom, perhaps, and he couldn’t risk that. By keeping the siren here, he was doing the world a favor, one that the world, in turn, would be grateful for and perennially remember. Left on her own, she would wreck havoc, as her sisters had done for ages.

To him, she was always the siren, though she’d told him her name many times. He’d refused to listen, pushing her back into the darkness whenever she tried to step out into the tiny sliver of light that made its’ way from upstairs.

Patton shook his head, already getting back a trace of his old smile. The pain was gone now, and though he’d never admit it, that’s why he came down here. He knew he’d feel better as soon as he heard her voice, that she could somehow make the demon in his eye falter.

“No, that’s not it. What do they call this?” he asked, playfully running one finger over his own eye, fearless. The storm had passed, he would not rip out his eye this day either.

“Please.”

He took a step into the dark, guessed at her dirty feet and spat. “You’re tiring me. With your incessant pleading and your whining. You’re here and there’s no chance you’re getting out. Because you are a disease upon the world. You kill for fun, you lure innocent men to their deaths. Not so fun now, is it? You will die here, in the dark, starved and without killing another innocent. And I’m so glad.”

With one last look into the shadows and the ache behind his eye now completely gone, he turned and began walking back up the steps. “Bye-bye now,” a mere murmur on his grinning lips. He was ready to begin his day now. As he locked the door to the basement behind him, he noticed there wasn’t a sound coming from his guest. Good, she sometimes had such moments, when she knew her place.

And in the dark, as she listened to his heavy, bear-like footsteps slowly exit the house, the siren curbed her lips.

“Sclera, you bastard.”

He was limping because of a broken toe. He wasn’t quite sure which one, they were so tightly boxed in inside the painstaking shoe, but that didn’t matter now. All would be better once he reached the water and that wasn’t long to go. It had hurt more on the drive up here, always pushing down on it, but Patton had barely felt it.

It was almost as if he was reaching the end of the road and surely, he couldn’t give up now, not because of a measly toe. He wasn’t even sure how he’d broken it. Perhaps he’d stabbed it on the living room table, he sometimes did that. Or perhaps he’d taken a wrong step going up and down the stairs to the cellar. Odd, though, he didn’t remember the moment of impact itself. Perhaps you weren’t supposed to, he told himself, dragging his foot through the sand. It was a windy day and it was too early in the year for revelers. Other than a presumably-abandoned gray tent pitched higher up on the dunes, there was not a soul in sight.

This was good, he didn’t want people watching, because people might call for help. People were helpless, weaklings, always shouting, always wishing they were somewhere else.

He stopped by the water, letting the cold, slow waves soak through the worn-down leather of his shoes. Perhaps he would’ve liked one last cigarette, but no one was asking him. He bent down, clamping his teeth against the jolt of pain that ran up his leg, and took off his shoes. Threw his jacket to the wind and proceeded to take off the rest of his clothes, until he was left standing in nothing but his underwear. Watching the bright red sun rising from beyond the horizon, Patton smiled. For the first time in months, the ache behind his eye was gone completely. No numbness drowning out his thoughts, no more searing pain, as if the disease in his brain had finally gone.

She would have liked to tell him it wasn’t gone, simply mutated. There was no more disease left in his brain, simply because there was no more brain. In his mind, just her, guiding him through the water. And the funny thing was, the siren thought, as she allowed Patton’s body to drop into the cold, she’d never asked for this. In fact, before Patton came along, she hadn’t even questioned it, why she did what she did and whether she could ever refrain from luring men to their perdition.

But now, she understood it was all in her nature. As Patton’s body sunk deep beneath the surface, she smiled. She was, once again, home.

 

Want more? My collection of stories, Grimmest Things, is available now on Amazon.

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So here’s the deal, I write a lot. I have a lot of stories ready for publishing and the one question I keep running across is – should I go the traditional route or should I be bold and self publish it?

As some of you may know, I self published my first book, Grimmest Things, last year, so I’ve had a bit of experience in the field. I also did all the editing, proofing, cover design all that by myself, and I can tell you it’s a lot of work. Like a lot. We’ll be taking about the editing process in another post but for now, let’s have a look at the pros and cons of both self publishing and traditional publishing.

So, first self publishing. The good?

Well, you get your say in everything. There’s no one looking over your shoulder, saying ‘oh but you can’t write this’ or ‘maybe we should cut this bit out, even though you think this bit should stay’. So, all those ideas you’ve got about what it should look like? You get to put them all to good use. You do it your way, as ole Frankie would say.

The bad side of that is… you get to do it your way. See, thing is, sometimes that extra pair of eyes is actually really helpful, it gives you a more detached view of things and it might give you some useful insight. So, if you self-publish, I would definitely recommend having a close friend or someone whose opinion you value look over the manuscript and give you some honest feedback.

Okay, number two, you get to keep more of the royalties. This of course varies from country to country, but in the US, for example, a writer can expect to get anywhere from 8 to 12 percent of the price of a sold book, depending on things like, you know, how many copies they sell, whether it’s in paperback or hardcover etc. And a lot of countries have similar rates, so if your shelf price is 10 dollars, you would only get around one dollar, if that. Of course, some publishing houses offer advances and that’s a completely different thing, again, varies a lot from place to place, but the bottom line is, you would save a lot of cash by going to self publishing route, because you wouldn’t have to pay as much to the publisher.

If you self publish on, say, Amazon, you get to choose between a 40% royalty or a 60% royalty off the price of your book, so considerably more. For example, the paperback version of my book sells at 8.99, out of which I technically get 60%, which is something like 5.70, but I’ve gotta subtract the printing costs, which actually leaves me with something like 2 dollars, which isn’t a lot, but it’s a lot more than I’d get from a traditional publishing house.

At a real publishing, with a rate of 10% royalty, I’d only get 90 cents.

And for Kindle versions, when you self publish, you get to choose between a 35% or a 70% royalty. So, with the 70% plan, out of one e-book that goes for 4.75, I get something like 2.70, which is quite alright.

So the idea is, you get to keep more money as a self publisher.

But this brings me to my third and most important point – marketing. When you’re working with a traditional publisher, they will obviously distribute your book to bookstores, they might even schedule a book signing session or send you on a book tour, do some sort of bookstore appearance that will help you sell a lot more books.

And besides, they’ve got a name. You don’t. For example, if a stranger has to choose between a self-published book by John Doe and one put out by say Random House, they will probably go with Random, because they think that guarantees quality, which of course is debatable, there’s no guarantee a traditionally published book won’t be bad or vice versa, that a self published one won’t be amazing, so don’t let that discourage you.

The problem with marketing is that it’s very difficult to do on your own, you’ve got to put in the hours to connect with people over social media, to build an Instagram presence and a Twitter presence and all that, you’ve got to reach out to dozens of book bloggers who won’t even bother responding. you’ll have to think up promotions, create engaging artwork which will take away a lot from your main focus, which is writing. And assuming you also have a job going or you’re a student or whatever, it will be really hard to do. You have to work a lot and get very lucky, as a self-published author, to really make a difference.

So, to wrap up, should you self-publish or try to find a traditional publisher?

Well, I’m afraid there’s no one answer-fits-all. It really depends on what you want to do with the book. If you just want to see your book published, if it’s more of a personal thing, a personal achievement, then I suggest you self publish through something like Amazon or Draft2Digital.

Word of caution, never ever go to a vanity publisher, you know, those people who ask for money to publish your book. You should never have to pay to have your book published. Ever.

But if you want to write more seriously, if you’re maybe thinking about building a career in writing, I would strongly suggest trying a traditional publisher, they just have the reach and the strategy and the contacts to help you make it.

Although I will say that self publishing is a very interesting and useful experience for a starting out author such as myself, so if you want to go that way initially, go for it. And if you do try with traditional publishing and get rejected, just remember that’s perfectly normal. Everyone gets rejected and if you feel you’ve got something worth saying and if you think your book is perfect as it is, then self publish it, you know?

If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will.

 

Sooo…what’s your experience? Let me know in the comments! Also, feel free to share this article with your writer friends:

‘I ended up here the same way anybody does, with a death, a pain that rang so hollow I could not simply… go on. Everyone expects there to be this big moment, some sort of explosion going off right outside your head to warn you, but the truth is, there’s nothing, not so much as a sound. See, they know. They know that if you understand what’s happening, that if they give you enough time to react, you will. You’ll run. So they don’t warn you and by the time you get it, it’s far too late, something disastrous has already happened and you’ll never get to go back to your old life again.’

The master’s voice is calm, but not passionless, as if he’s telling an elaborate story. He takes an interest in it, just enough to make it sound real, but nothing more. On occasion, his eyes drift from Mona’s pale face to the wraiths at his door, the sufferers waiting to be noticed and plucked from their torment. Jesters, clowns.

‘My own explosion was by form of a call, not in the middle of the night, followed by no dramatic silence whatsoever. I was a much different man back then, as you can imagine. I worked inside a very tall building on a particularly busy street of our city. I worked well with numbers, listened to very different stories in that time.’

It wasn’t the first time he was telling this story. Mona couldn’t be sure how she knew exactly, but she did. Fleetingly, she wondered how many like her he’d met, how many had come and crawled back into their darkness to await their trials? And the master, he was still here. Eternally here, eternally listening.

‘I received a phone call. I was just leaving the building, on my way back home, but then the next moment, I was not. I was… sitting down. Telling everyone that was milling about me that no, I was not alright. I was trying to convey what the caller had told me, but the information didn’t seem to be getting through. I thought perhaps they couldn’t hear me, so I tried speaking louder, but I was incoherent for the most part. They gathered something bad had happened with my daughter, but not much more than that, I believe. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d really understood it myself at that point.

‘You see, there had been an accident, a car crash. My daughter had been, it seemed she was in someone’s car. There was a man she’d been seeing, called Michael. Mikey, everyone called him. Or rather, almost everyone, except for myself. And the only thing that I could think of, in that moment, the only thought existing in my mind was that I hadn’t even known my daughter was seeing someone. It was the first time I was hearing about this Michael, from the nurse who’d been kind enough to call.’

For Mona, it was a real exercise in concentration to break through the dismal atmosphere that had fallen on the place. If she hadn’t known any better, she might’ve actually believed the storyteller’s words.

‘Around the office, they all knew my daughter, although she hadn’t been around for at least four or five years. I would take her in with me, especially when she was small, and that’s how roughly half the office ended up coming with me to the hospital. Now that I think of it, must’ve looked quite disconcerting from the outside, almost like a funeral procession, all these cars lined up one after the other. Made a mess of the hospital, too. There were all these people coming in and out, asking if I needed anything, some of them not saying anything at all, just… staring.

‘Nevertheless, whenever I think about that night, I always remember myself being alone. I can’t recall one single being in that waiting room with me. It seems that all the faces in the world turn meaningless when the right one is absent. Of course, by the time our makeshift convoy reached the hospital, it was too late. My daughter, she was about your age, she was… I’d like to say she looked a lot like you, except that’s not quite true, just a trick of the brain. I’m sure you could be the exact opposite of you and my mind would be saying the same thing. In truth, there are so many things about my daughter I can’t seem to remember… like her name. For the longest time now, I haven’t been able to remember what she was called. I get these sudden urges, I feel so sure it’s right… here.’

The master put out one pale, thin hand in front of him and suddenly, he didn’t look so imposing, so masterful, but Mona knew better than to fall for that. It was all a ploy, it was all just part of the story.

‘But then, it’s gone. I open my mouth, certain I’ll call her this time, but nothing ever comes out. After my daughter died, I rapidly found myself slipping away. Being less in the real world and more here. But I’m sure this feeling is far more fresh for you than it is for me.’

He glanced at the girl just enough to catch an almost imperceptible nod, her gaze for once cast down.

‘At first, it was a few moments, then a few hours, then finally, a full day. In the brief time I was spending in my old life, I was so lost, so distanced from everything that had once given me pleasure, that somehow made the waking world even worse. At least here, I could mourn for my baby in peace, and so one day, I just didn’t bother crossing back. Same as everyone, I was presented with a choice – swim or drown. Move on or let go completely. Like everyone here, I chose to let go.’

There seemed to fall silence, not just over the room, but over the outside world entirely. For those few seconds, the piercing cries of the mourners pierced no longer, the howls of the shadows grew quiet, to mark the passing into the darkness of one of their own.

‘But how did you get here?’ pushed Mona, with only half her voice. She was beginning to wonder if she hadn’t made a mistake asking for this story to be told, thinking maybe she hadn’t been as ready as she thought. After all, this was only her first time here.

‘By the same path my predecessor came here, by the same road that will one day carry forth my successor. I told a story.’

‘This story?’

‘Perhaps. In my time in this chair, I’ve told many stories. I told the story that needed to be heard, at the time, and I won my place here.’

‘Was it true? Your story, is it what actually happened?’

The master blinked, sorrow gone entirely from his eyes, and flashed an almost magnanimous grin. ‘Of course, all stories told in this hall are true, are they not?’

The bleach blonde girl said nothing. After all, the story was over. All that was left for her to do now was go on her way, bide her time until the hour came for her to tell her story again, and then, she would know better. She would have built such a story that it would be impossible for the master not to like it.

She stood up, but lingered, much to the chagrin of the other mourners, who were by now getting restless outside the heavy doors.

‘Why don’t you just leave? Why don’t you just approve a story, so that you can be free?’

Once more he smiled, albeit less than the first time. ‘Because if it was so easy, then anyone could do it, and then, anyone could be free of their suffering. In a few years, this place would lie abandoned and that cannot be allowed. Only the right story can free me from my suffering.’

‘Then perhaps you and I are not so different.’

She would’ve liked to remain in the presence of the master, even to just sit in the corner and listen, alongside him. She reckoned that way, she’d have her story polished and ready in a matter of months, a year or two at the most. But that would be an unfair advantage. Only the master got to listen to all the stories, for only the master could decide. As for the rest of them, they did what they’d always done, they mourned. They waited for the day when their story would be heard somewhere and their pain forgotten.

The bleach blonde girl trailed off out of the great hall and the master gestured for the next mourner to come in.

The End

Want more? My collection of stories, Grimmest Things, is available now on Amazon.

Beautiful image with great thanks to Pixabay.

‘If we could’ve slept, then maybe things would’ve been different, but the heat… the heat was unbearable. Take off your skin and you’d still be baking, you know, what they tell you hell’s gonna be like before you actually get here and discover it’s this,’ she shrugged at the apparent nothingness in the air above.

‘This is not hell,’ the master’s voice rose only slightly, but sharp enough to cut through glass and steel. ‘Believe you me, you would know if this was hell. Besides, Mona, how could this be hell when you are not yet dead?’

Hearing her name on his lips felt strange, wrong in a way, but at the same time, close, like she’d heard the master say it before. In nightmares, in all the waking hours that seemed to drift by her, stuck inside an endless loop of numbness and morphine never just high enough to actually take the pain away.

‘Right. Well, like I said, it was something awful hot out there which was strange, ‘cause on the ride up, even in the middle of the day, it wasn’t nearly as bad. It had been just an ordinary day up till nine or ten o’clock, just when we were getting ready to drift off. I’ve always been a bit of a night owl, but Jack, he was one of those people up at the crack of dawn, never could understand it myself…’

Another raised eyebrow, another tilted warning that she was straying off her track.

‘I just kept tossing and turning. In the end, I figured I’d rather go for a walk, thinking maybe outside it would be slightly better, at least give Jack a chance to fall asleep, because I knew it was me keeping him up, I knew deep down that he couldn’t really feel the heat. I knew something was wrong and I could’ve stayed with him, but I chose not to. We figured one of us had to leave, to just quiet down. That’s what our dad used to call it, quieting down. Outside the motel, there were these… woods. I was always a stickler for the woods, what with being a city kid mostly. I never got to run out into the forest and lose myself and was always left with the impression that I’d lost out on something.’

They were leaving the motel, it seemed, and the further they strayed, the more his interest waned. The master did not care for the monsters in the forest. He’d seen monsters, he housed plenty of them right beyond those heavy doors. He did not require more man-made ones.

‘I just tip-toed on the line of the forest, you know, where nature meets… highway, I suppose. I always liked doing that, feeling like maybe I could fall in, but never quite falling, you know?’

He knew.

‘I walked for a long time, until I could feel the breeze on my neck again. It was so nice out there, I could’ve stayed forever, but I could feel my eyelids getting droopy, growing tired. I knew there was something wrong about that motel and then, when I felt the night wind as I knew I should be, I just had this overwhelming urge to run and get Jack out of there, but it was too late. I ran for an even longer time, as if the distance between me and Jack was growing ever wider. And the more I ran, the slower I actually moved. Like in one of those movies that go in slow-motion, like the earth was slowly reaching its’ claws up to lap at my feet.’

There was the faintest trace of a smile on the master’s lip.

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‘By the time I got there, it was too late. It was like a hole we’d slipped in, like one of those exits on the highway you know you’re not supposed to take, but you take anyway. When I came back into the room, Jack was dead. Lying on his back, just like I’d left him. He hadn’t so much as burned to death, no, everything in the room was intact, but his organs,’ her voice hitched, again for dramatic effect, ‘they just burst open inside him. Like the rook was slowly roasting him alive from the inside out, until each and every one of his organs popped like a balloon.’

‘Like a hamster inside of a microwave oven,’ the master shot her a lop-sided grin and watched as Mona’s face turned even paler than her burned hair.

‘How do you know about that?’

‘I know… just enough. It’s in your memories. In fact, it was the first thing you thought about when you saw Jack lying there, wasn’t it? Mick, the Irish hamster that your father thought would be fun to roast, just for a gag. That’s how you got the idea for all this, isn’t it?’

The girl collapsed, bit by bit, she sank into the hard bench beneath. Just like that, in under one second, she’d tragically lost her hope. The master had seen through her and this could not be a good sign.

‘Yes.’ It was the only thing she could do, tell the truth, hope to sway him with her pitiful look. She thought that the very state of her would be enough to soften any man, but the master was no mortal man and he’d seen a great many mourners looking far worse.

‘Your story was rushed,’ the master declared, even-toned.

‘I was afraid of keeping you, I didn’t want to try your patience,’ she tried to steady the rising panic in her own voice, but failed.

‘Here, you have all the time in the world, but you should have known that before arriving on my doorstep. You may not try again.’

Bleach-blonde Mona gulped, then nodded. ‘At least, tell me what was wrong, please.’

‘That only you can find out. But one thing that particularly grated my ear were all those ‘likes’ you’re so keen on using, as if you’re searching for my approval every step of the way. A storyteller does not ask, Mona, he commands. If you don’t believe what happened in your story, how can you expect me to?’

A nod. She’d expected this, deep down. After all, she was only on her first try, no one had ever made it on their first try, no one except for one.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No reason, you have all the time in the world to learn.’

In this strange new light, the master – up till now, so far away, so distant and aloof – almost seemed amiable. Kind, even. But then, of course, he could afford to appear kind, for he didn’t have any actual torturing to do. They took care of that for him.

‘Can I ask you one more thing?’

He was about to gesture for her to go away, or failing that, be taken away, but his hand remained frozen on the way up and after a long moment of studying her face for riddles, he conceded.

‘What’s your story? How did you end up here?’

The master couldn’t restrain the faintest of grins taking over his face. It had been a long time since he’d been asked that and I suppose a touch of practice never hurt anyone. Besides, the girl had been clever, the least he could do was admire her for that. The master licked his cracked lips and the story, once more, began.

to be concluded

Want more? My collection of stories, Grimmest Things, is available now on Amazon.

Beautiful image with great thanks to Pixabay.