Friday, October 30, 2009

Everyday Monsters - 12 Days of Halloween: Scary Flash Fiction: Story 1

Hey all, today marks the last story in the 12 Days of Halloween story sequence.  For those of you who don’t know, I wrote a short story, or a poem, for every day of the 12 days leading up to Halloween.  Tomorrow is Halloween so today is the last story.  It’s a bit of a misnomer, actually, because today’s post is a story-poem.  I always find that rhyming is a powerful device to control rhythm and tempo, and both those things contribute immensely to creating a ’scary tone.’  Or maybe it’s just that my early readings in ’scary’ literature had heavy focus on rhyme and meter.  As always, comments welcome!

 

Angry Mob by dpsullivan on Flickr.com

 

This tale we tell on Halloween

regards the frightening and unseen

horrors that might split the seam

of sanity down the middle. 

But If you listen carefully,

with open minds judgement free,

beyond our pomp hyperbole,

you might just hear a riddle. 

Sphinx our story does not hold,

but riddles make the truth unfold,

and monsters often are truth untold,

so lets tell truths on Halloween. 

Our first regards young Billy Blane,

who habits alley and dirty lane,

endures conceit and much disdain,

from most who bare to look on him. 

He lost his job and now casts spells

with condoms and lubricant jells,

he helps rid men of work day shells,

before they see their family. 

And when they burn him at the stake

a curse will smoke and fire make

so all that watch will never shake

his screams from their memory. 

For no true witches ever lived.

Those who burn them seldom forgive

the choices some folk make to live.

The monster is the mob. 

And what of Sally Tuberdale

who ran from parents raged on ale

and sleeps on streets though oft regales

she’s better off without them. 

For here can she hold the hand

of any lover, woman or man,

and public eyes daily withstand,

the sight of true love’s fancies. 

And so she sleeps beneath a bridge

content with homeless pilgrimage.

The monster is that the life she lives

resides not in a home. 

There’s Cindy Sayer, the local mayor,

who robs blind honest tax payers

to funds bad projects so she can say her

term was not for not. 

The friends she’s made with greenbacks paid,

the crowds she’s stayed with media aid,

and all the voters she has played,

will not save her humanity. 

For in her quiet well kept house,

no spoiled child or trophy spouse,

will suffice to quiet doubts,

that plague her lonely dreams. 

The truth is she would rather die

than ever admit to a single lie,  

and in the end she’d most deny,

that power makes a monster. 

And last we see those daily races,

workers working at crazy paces,

and squashing flat all of the faces

that plead for a slower lane.

The great machine we grease with blood,

the dams we built so we can flood

our verdant valleys with seas of mud,

so we can keep our jobs. 

The riddle now becomes much clearer,

if monsters live in every mirror,

appear amongst us mad or sober,

in every month, not just October,

then can we also therefore deem,

that everyday is Halloween?

 

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