K.A. Ashcomb's Blog, page 41

Short Story: Cities

I have this thought that cities are living things. Visit one, and you get this sense of what they are and how they are; open, warm, desperate, forgotten… As soon as I realized this, I began to notice better how people took in the city’s mood and its needs and became part of it. It was fantastic, reminding me of ants and termites, making me wonder if we had a more collective side to us than we are ready to admit. I followed the traffic patterns, pedestrians, how people flowed in and out of the sh...

Short Story: The United Weather Service

Hello! I am back from fishing. It was such a good thing to take a break and just be. Especially how hard last year was. Let’s hope this new one comes with something beautiful and good. Here is a short story I wrote. I hope you enjoy

“It’s happening again, isn’t it?!” she heard asked behind her.
She could only nod and watch the numbers flickering on the screen. She wasn’t the only one who stared in stunned silence. The last time something similar had happened, everything had gone ape shit....

Gone Fishing

Hi everyone!

No short stories for a couple of weeks. See you later

New Year

It is that time of the year we look forward and promise to be a better person for all our failures. This year there is an additional burden, which made us a little more aware of how our world is organized and what matters in life. So to the next year we carry the hope of normality and finally to be able to mourn our losses. Those who had gone and other uncertainties we have picked up because of Covid-19. It would be nice to say there end all the 2020’s troubles. But we have witnessed again and a...

Short Story: Around the Tree

The darkest day of the year had passed, and it was the eve of horrors to come. Around the tall fir-tree, they had gathered to plot for jollier times. There they argued how to proceed. Fangs against teeth. A fur side by side with scales. Claws lifted to meet the paws. Their voices echoed against the snowy mountain tops. How could they cheat the beast of beasts? The one who knew all the secrets.

Some hissed, “To cheat the cheater, you have to be more clever than it.”

Another said, “To subdue...

Short Story: Watered-Down Curses

My story began a long time ago. Before I was born or even before my mother was born. I am not sure how far it goes, but earliest I know was with my grandma’s parents and the day she ran away from home. She was born into a religious family to harsh parents, doing everything to make their farm thrive and their family pious. But when it comes to good morals, they are tricky ones under men, who see their rule as divine. My great-grandpa was one of those men. He saw it as his right to sleep with his ...

Short Story: Strange Loops

It always started like this. He would snap into attention standing on a small secluded bridge. Sometimes he blew his brain off straight away as he awakened. But what was the point now? Twenty times in a row had changed nothing. Why would one more make a difference? Other times he shot the man next to him and hiked as far as he could before falling asleep and ending up back on the bridge. Eight days was the farthest he had gotten without sleep, and that was even using his amphetamine surplus....

Book Review: Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty

I have always had a weird fascination with death and dying. Ever since I was a child. I am not sure when it started, but I wanted to become a mortician when I was a teenager. I never did. So listening to this book was like reliving those thoughts I had as a kid and more. This is a morbidly funny book. I found myself more than once smiling, and not even to the obviously pronounced jokes the writer herself emphasized. But those she carefully laid there for the readers who dont get offended....

Short Story: Him

She glanced at her wrist clock and looked up at the night sky. Nothing. This was the usual time. It should be already happening. Her calculations couldn’t be that wrong—every abductee was taken every third month, precisely at twenty past three on the first Thursday. And in addition, the rotation pattern marked this spot as the right place. But as soon as she had arrived, she had her qualms. She was in the middle of an abandoned gas station out of nowhere. There was no one there except her. Maybe...

Book Review: Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djèlí Clark is a fantastic writer. I have greatly loved his other novellas, but this one I struggled with despite the promising premise and important subject. This is a book about Maryse Boudreaux, who hunts demons (those who had possessed Ku Klux Klan members) with her friends Sadie, a sharpshooter, and bomb expert “Chef” Cordelia Lawrence. The book is set in 1922 Georgia to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. 

The story struggles at times with pacing between action and dialogue and making a po...