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Worship Hymn
Lizzy Beck likes to play alone in the park next to her boring suburban neighborhood. With no true friends to speak of and a family that makes her feel like an outsider, solitude suits her just fine. But when she finds a disembodied head floating in a creek, her mundane reality—and her loneliness—take a sharp turn for the surreal.
42 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 5, 2014
4 people want to read
About the author
Ricardo Bare
6 books23 followersRicardo Bare was born in Madrid, Spain, the son of an American fighter jet mechanic and a Spanish damsel. Roman aqueducts, crumbling castles, Moorish arches, churros and chocolate, and carving slices off a leg of jamon serrano that hung next to his aunt's kitchen door are still etched in his childhood memory.
It was probably finding an old copy of John Carter of Mars in his grandfather's attic that first seriously ignited his love of reading and eventually led to his high school English teacher recommending he join the creative writing group after finding that a "free writing" exercise she'd assigned turned into a long description of battles between monsters and knights wielding magic swords.
Deeply connected to his love of stories is his love of games. Ricardo grew up playing computer games, board games, and table top RPGs, cutting his teeth on the Commodore 64 version of the The Bard's Tale. Many years later, he joined the video games industry as a designer where he helped create the award winning Deus Ex series. Most recently Ricardo worked with Arkane Studios on Dishonored, 2012's Game of the Year.
Eventually he found his way to Texas, the land of tongue-scalding food and infernal summers, where he now lives close to Austin with his beloved family.
Ricardo writes in the slim spaces left between making games, time with his family, and trying to grow all the ingredients necessary for salsa and gazpacho in his backyard garden. He's written dozens of short stories, a few of which have been presentable enough to be shown in public. His first novel, Jack of Hearts will be published by Bell Bridge books.
He hopes readers will take as much enjoyment from his works as he's had in creating them.
It was probably finding an old copy of John Carter of Mars in his grandfather's attic that first seriously ignited his love of reading and eventually led to his high school English teacher recommending he join the creative writing group after finding that a "free writing" exercise she'd assigned turned into a long description of battles between monsters and knights wielding magic swords.
Deeply connected to his love of stories is his love of games. Ricardo grew up playing computer games, board games, and table top RPGs, cutting his teeth on the Commodore 64 version of the The Bard's Tale. Many years later, he joined the video games industry as a designer where he helped create the award winning Deus Ex series. Most recently Ricardo worked with Arkane Studios on Dishonored, 2012's Game of the Year.
Eventually he found his way to Texas, the land of tongue-scalding food and infernal summers, where he now lives close to Austin with his beloved family.
Ricardo writes in the slim spaces left between making games, time with his family, and trying to grow all the ingredients necessary for salsa and gazpacho in his backyard garden. He's written dozens of short stories, a few of which have been presentable enough to be shown in public. His first novel, Jack of Hearts will be published by Bell Bridge books.
He hopes readers will take as much enjoyment from his works as he's had in creating them.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 19, 2015
Ricardo Bare I hear you ask? Yeah me too. Never heard of the fella but on seeing this short story and reading the blurb I liked what I saw. Turns out I very much liked what I read as well.
Lizzy often plays by herself, having no one she can call real friends. Her mom and dad ask her to go outside to play with their dog Skeebo while they clean the house. This is nothing new. She went to the creek behind her house to play and let the dog roam around. When the dog starts barking and growling she goes to investigate and discovers the dismembered head of a man, floating face up in the water. Her initial thought is to get her parents to call the police. That is until the head starts to sing to her. This is the beginning of probably the most surreal period of Lizzy’s life.
And that’s as far as I can go without totally spoiling things. This is a short story that you could probably read in an hour and a half. It was totally not what I expected it to be but in a very good way.
Mr Bare has written a story that is incredibly dark, surreal and will leave you at times thinking “what am I reading here”. The difference between being a confusing tale that you read with your face scrunched up, and really losing yourself in the story and believing everything you read, is a fine line. I would urge anyone reading it to stay on the light side of that line and just enjoy.
What transpires is a story right out of The Twilight Zone or an old horror flick you might have watched in the 80’s or early 90’s. It has that certain “atmosphere” about it that transports you back to those times and if you enjoyed the films of those days then this is a story for you. You wonder what is happening and then think to yourself “I’ve got it” only to be proved wrong as another little confusing section comes along and gets you wondering once again where it is going.
It looks like this is going to be the first book in a series and I for one would definitely be interested to see how Ricardo Bare is going to expand on this. To me it has the makings of a very cool set of stories almost paying homage to the horror of old.
It has plenty of gore, plenty of “eh?” moments and more than its fair share of old school horror. Well worth the read if you want to kill a couple of hours without taxing the brain too much.
An enjoyable 3 stars from me. - See more at: http://www.gingernutsofhorror.com/rev...
Lizzy often plays by herself, having no one she can call real friends. Her mom and dad ask her to go outside to play with their dog Skeebo while they clean the house. This is nothing new. She went to the creek behind her house to play and let the dog roam around. When the dog starts barking and growling she goes to investigate and discovers the dismembered head of a man, floating face up in the water. Her initial thought is to get her parents to call the police. That is until the head starts to sing to her. This is the beginning of probably the most surreal period of Lizzy’s life.
And that’s as far as I can go without totally spoiling things. This is a short story that you could probably read in an hour and a half. It was totally not what I expected it to be but in a very good way.
Mr Bare has written a story that is incredibly dark, surreal and will leave you at times thinking “what am I reading here”. The difference between being a confusing tale that you read with your face scrunched up, and really losing yourself in the story and believing everything you read, is a fine line. I would urge anyone reading it to stay on the light side of that line and just enjoy.
What transpires is a story right out of The Twilight Zone or an old horror flick you might have watched in the 80’s or early 90’s. It has that certain “atmosphere” about it that transports you back to those times and if you enjoyed the films of those days then this is a story for you. You wonder what is happening and then think to yourself “I’ve got it” only to be proved wrong as another little confusing section comes along and gets you wondering once again where it is going.
It looks like this is going to be the first book in a series and I for one would definitely be interested to see how Ricardo Bare is going to expand on this. To me it has the makings of a very cool set of stories almost paying homage to the horror of old.
It has plenty of gore, plenty of “eh?” moments and more than its fair share of old school horror. Well worth the read if you want to kill a couple of hours without taxing the brain too much.
An enjoyable 3 stars from me. - See more at: http://www.gingernutsofhorror.com/rev...
Displaying 1 of 1 review