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Hektor rides the Ghost bus from midnight to 3. He squeezes in-between the antique lamps and plush red velvet curtains, jostling back and forth as the vehicle picks up speed. He's come for Martha. Her perfume hits just when they nosedive off the Golden Gate Bridge; forfeiting his round-trip ticket. (50 words) Published in Blink-Ink - "Ghost Bus" Issue #39 (In Print), Feb 29, 2020 (50-word stories)
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The blubber-oil lamp flickers against a wall of ice and snow. Illuminated figures loom large like shadow puppets; huge and misshapen. Their dance, dark and muted, whispering from the shadowlands. It reeks like the campfires of my youth, but here the smoke is heavily infused with brine and grease. They begin quietly and without fanfare. Two women close enough to kiss. They exchange breaths. In and out. Hum and thrum. The husky chanting and low growling quicken. Breaths animated and elevated, as if running to catch the wind. Oily, smoke-stained faces flank the circle in reverie. Transferring essence, exchanging spirit, sharing one heartbeat. —The rhythm is everything. I’m being lulled off to sleep like a babe. But in the corner of my eye, I spot the dog. He is restless and pushes up off the floor, straining to stand on rickety spindles. Unsteady. Greyish and thin. In his fur, a deep groove, where a harness once embedded. I watch as he circles, round and again, leaning into a drop, angling down toward the perfect spot, not taking his eyes off the target, as if he is in the throes of ‘musical chairs’ and at any second the music will stop and he will have to dive—no lunge, to claim the remaining spot. He keeps turning on the hypotenuse fixing his eye on the prize. His maneuvering fueled by the rhythm of the throat singers. He waits for precisely the right moment. When his body finally hits the floor—collapsing onto layers of caribou fur and hide, overlaying the hard-packed snow—he lets out a loud grunt, and breaks the spell. The singers stop. All eyes turn toward the dog. They watch for the rise and fall of his chest. One of the women reaches for the poker and nudges the ridge of flames soaking in seal fat on the half-moon shaped soapstone dish. The glow has shrunk to tiny orange specks. It is time. But I’m not sure for what. The woman pulls on her parka—its enormous fur hood draped long down her back—and crouches low before exiting the shelter through the passageway. The dog notices her departure and insists on following. It is hard to watch him in his effort to stand as he struggles to catch up with his companion; out into the perpetual darkness of winter. In the morning I look for the dog. I do not see him anywhere. I am told, it is the rhythm of the North. (416 words) |
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