The End of the World

On the 21st of December, 2012, Harried Author got up, put on his dressing gown, and headed down the stairs to get the paper. As he passed his computer, he sighed. His WIP was due to his agent in less than forty-eight hours, but he hadn’t been able to write a word in several days.

He sighed again and fetched the newspaper inside. Then he went to make a cup of tea. As he picked up the teapot with a towel, so as not to burn his hand, the glaring headline on the front page of the paper caught his attention: Continue reading “The End of the World”

Off The Hook

You’ve probably already heard that wonderfully creepy urban tale about a teenage boy and girl making out in a car in some Lovers Lane in Anytown, USA, and how the boy starts telling the girl of the “Hook Murders” in the area, whereby amorous teens are being killed by an insane, escaped killer with a hook for a hand. Perhaps not the smartest move on the boy’s part, as his girlfriend gets all distracted by fear, going from initial anxiety to eventual near-hysteria, resisting his advances and demanding they leave that instant. Which he eventually does. He’s all bummed, they bicker on the way back, arrive at her place, she jumps out, slams the door…. and screams. He runs around to her side of the vehicle…. and sees what she sees: a single bloody hook dangling from the door handle.

Creeped out? Good, because I am, and a good haunting is no fun alone. Continue reading “Off The Hook”

A Cautionary Tale About Cautionary Tales?

While discussing the great nation of Scotland recently, in these very pages, I was reminded of something. Undoubtedly, Scotland has bestowed upon our world some fine gifts, including the telephone, television, penicillin, caber tossing, Billy Connolly, the Glasgow Kiss, the Bay City Rollers and the words “bampot”, “stoater”, “drookit”, “hackit” and “blootered”. (I discern a visit to the Urban Dictionary in your future, dear reader.)

But along with such distinguished cultural contributions, Scotland also produced the mother of all cautionary tales, a tale that exemplifies supreme “bathos” (no, silly, Bathos isn’t the name of the fourth Musketeer… and stop interrupting). And that tale goes by the name of William Topaz McGonagall. (Yes, I did just say “Topaz”. Bear with me, you’ll see.) Continue reading “A Cautionary Tale About Cautionary Tales?”