He stood, unattended in the overgrown, weed infested flower bed of the vacant house across the street. How this garden gnome came to the high desert, no one knows. Nor is it known why he was left abandoned. After this early morning’s snowfall, I found him standing at my doorstep, too frozen to ask to come in.

https://soundcloud.com/sierra-tom-darby

He stepped onto his front porch when he heard a ‘whooshing’sound and felt a ‘thump.’ This was followed by the reverberations of massive, wet thuds on the asphalt in the street before his home.

Yet, Mike could see absolutely nothing in the street. Then he was struck by a putrefied odor than nearly caused him to heave.

Next came the awful howling of neighborhood dogs. And still he had not a clue what was making the sounds that shook the ground beneath him, and which was fading around the corner and north up a neighboring street.

He stood there transfix as the noise lumbered further away, but came to a sudden halt when there appeared three large dogs from a yard further up the street. Mike could hear the low, unhalting growls of the dogs as they seemed to close-in around the unseen entity.

Suddenly as terrific howl echoed up the street as the dogs set their fangs into whatever they could see, but Mike could not. In an instant the fight, if one could be call such, was over and as the dogs retreated into the shadow of their yard, a grotesque mass of green began to fade into sight.

Quickly, Mike raced to the site, wanting to get a better look at the unknown thing. The view that met him, left him shocked and unable to move.

“Good lord,” he whispered, “What is it?”

The green thing was alive but struggling to hold onto its life. It has dozens of red-eyes, some blinking, other staring off into the void, stacked randomly on its back, the legs were many and each came with tendrils, like tree roots and star-shaped mouths at the end.

Mike moved around it in order to inspect what he was seeing. He found it had a human-shaped face, that contained the snout of a pig, the jowls of a goat, unfurled wings of a bat, webbed claws like that of a cross between a crab and a frog, a chest that bore the hair of a bear, flipper of a fish, scales of a snake and the slimy foot of a snail.

He ran back to his home and entered. He had to grab his camera to record what he was witnessing, but by the time he returned there was nothing more than a few bubbles, like that which dish soap makes as water hits it and a trace of grayish-green dust, wistfully tumbling along the guttered curb.

“I hate that bitch,” she growled as she glared at her through darkened-eyes, “And I hate the way she ignores me, looking right through me without a single indication she recognizes me. And how dare she laugh, walk, play and keep my family and friends company while I’m consigned to her shadow.”

My high school was so small that we held drivers education and sex education in the same car.

jus’ a moment in time
no beginning, no end
not one to back down
so damn angry at me
arms across breasts
hands balled in fists
a real stand-up Angel
wings spread in back
bags packed up front
my last memory of us

It had been a terribly old and rusted padlock. Many of the plants employees said it looked like it came from a treasure chest. Those same employees shook their heads  when the maintenance man cut the antique from the locker’s hasp. Later, they would scream as an unknown thing dragged one of them into the locker’s darkness.

It is a nightmare the young Marine could not awaken from as he lay in the hospital bed. Once, he believed the Sandman meant sleepiness, but the Iraqi desert taught him different. All he can do now is lay between the clean, white sheets, body broken, legs missing, and wait for his return to take what remained.

H/T to Pati G. for the idea…

Mama promised to pass her ring to me, but it disappeared the day she was murdered. Police said it was taken as a trophy, so I never thought I’d see it again. Imagine my shocked on my wedding day, when I recognized the ring he’d slipped it on my finger.

At Thanksgiving feast
Gives a dinner blessing
Chokes on a bone