An Excerpt From ~ Alarm Clock


The thing I care most deeply about? Oh, I dont know. . .


Im stalling. Of course I know, but how can I tell her. Why would I tell her? Maybe shes just fishing. Maybe she just wants to feel special ~ you know, loved.

The thing I care most deeply about? I repeat, as I gently brush the hair back from the base of her neck.

. . . right now, that would be you.

Im lying. Of course Im lying; but just look at her profiled seductive little smile shimmer into a twinge of seriousness.

Okay focus. Massage her back with oil.

Less than four hours ago she was an unknown, floating smile. It was that smile which first captured me. Maybe I should have let it sail past as a sudden glance.

More oil.

Too much. Look how perfectly the small of her back pinpoints itself into perfection. I always did love white lace. I need more light. I can barely see her face through these shadows. But thats okay. Or is it? Is a face important in the face of such matters. In the face of such matters? Oh god, did I mutter that aloud. Where do I come up with these thoughts?

This feels wonderful, shes murmuring through the distance. Maybe she heard the face comment thing! Shes murmuring through the distance? Why do I always think in dialogue, like Im writing a cheesy private-eye novel? Well, not always. . .


An Excerpt From ~ The Curse of Jonesys Gold


Rising from the black swamp around me, ghosts hide in plain sight as a fog billows beneath them. They speak a spectral voice. Still, some confuse these nightly voices for wind blown air weeping through the hollows of mysterious trees. Aye, these trees draped in hairy moss appear to be of the devils garden but, if it be the wind, where goeth the fog? I walk again my walk of sorrow and shame on this night. I lay witness to a stillness in the fog on this night, as true of many nights before. The air is as still as the breath of Christ; and, yet, the haunts repeat. They repeat and repeat and repeat. Jonesy, they call through the calm. Jonesy; Jonesy; Jonesy~~~

I dare not answer. I dare not answer lest they confuse me for Jonesy, these many years deceased. Some say me touched. Some swear a frightful oath on the common bible that these calling voices be but the wind lurching its way to the sea. Aye, it may be a searching wind. But it be a spectral wind, to be sure, for I am among the few who know it to be tracing to where we lost Jonesy. Jonesy was not lost to us in body, you see. No, not in body, but the sea surely kept his soul. We carried his body with us to the shore; each in our own way.

I alone hear the spectral voices calling Jonesys soul homeward. Surely now the ghosts have gathered in numbers; surely they have gathered his many parts that we laid in waste along the shore. Their numbers speak. Maybe through the trees; maybe through the fog; maybe through the wind as an instrument; but, it is surely Gods wind ~ created by the sweep of his angry hand.


An Excerpt From ~ Loris Eyes


The thing about Lori is that she isn't. I shall leave you with that thought for a moment as we venture into the scenery I wish you to imagine.

Imagine a beautiful spring day full of flowers and wild grasses growing next to a perfectly painted red and white Amish barn. Do you have that image? Good; now paint yourself a slightly lighter than blue clear sky with just a smidge of pasty, puffy clouds. Are you there? Excellent.

You see, the thing about Lori is that she isn't. She isn't anywhere and she isn't anyone. This is what it has come to: the nowhere and the nothingness of a lost soul.

It wasnt always this way. There was a time when the barn was weathered and grey. There was a time when Lori was whole and it was the barn that was missing boards and beams and true color.

Lori was everyones joy. She was light and happiness and promise. She was her mothers daughter; of this, there can be no mistake. Loris mother? The prototype petite, perfect debutante of yesterday who invades societies with stealth and purpose. Surely you now have the images needed to move forward, so we shall. Loris mother married the bankers son and life unraveled on schedule.