Meg Sefton's Blog, page 7

Sister

Sister,

It pains me to see on the horizon a dark figure walking towards the golden bridges of our beloved Guanyin River Gorge. I fear it is a guard searching for the “Olds,” enemies to the cause of The New Day Dawning, against which our government has cast aspersions. I must spirit away my charges who have come to find evidence of their ancestors, who have come to gather a sense of what must transpire to pave the way for overthrow. We are not safe here.

Love,
MeiMei

Meimei

Dear Mother,

It has become a habit to write and though I am afraid you are no more, your spirit lingers in the valley. The government lost control of the dam during the flooding and our old haunts were revealed though the lowlier huts such as ours are gone forever. Inimical to my journey has been my precarious status though I have learned that with wealth, even a suspicious woman can carry a basket of dissidents to touch down on the stone hand of the bodhisattva.

Meimei

I am revisiting a story concept I started working on a few years ago that I abandoned for other projects. My recent involvement in Mastodon has seen me coming across science fiction and fantasy writers who have an interest in creating and sharing bits and pieces of work inspired by visual and word prompts. This activity has helped me envision a new approach to old material. Though I won’t be posting my rewrites fully, these have been amazing exercises I hope to share with you. This picture prompt along with the word “inimical” inspired me to begin. These pieces will be approximately 100 words, most of them more precisely 110-120 which is about the length of a post on Mastodon.

Tiny Frights

In November, the fabulous indie journal Tiny Frights published two of my fifty-word pieces “Ms. Linden” and “Leonard,” pieces I featured here a couple of years ago, but which may now be found in this really cool journal as a zine substack. They also have a website. Definitely worth a visit. So much good stuff! —Margaret

Half-beast

Hello, friends and visitors. Life has thrown me a curveball and I’ve been a bit off my game in many ways. I’m learning to function on a lower dosage of my mood stabilizer and for now, that has affected my thinking and functioning. In some ways, I feel the same, but in other ways, I feel quite different. I may be touching base just to share observations or maybe even a little story I manage to eke out. I am ok with varying modes and varying levels of productivity. Besides, I sometimes think, you never know what new thing may come out of it, or new insights, or new connections. I hope this Sunday finds you well. If you are an American celebrating Thanksgiving stateside or abroad, I wish you memorable times. If you are alone, may your times be no less cherished. Here is a piece published recently in Corvus Review, a piece I have also shared here some time ago. Peace—Margaret

They had agreed to meet at the kitschy restaurant next to the vinyl records store. He thought she might like the restaurant’s eclectic confusion of chandeliers and stained-glass panels that hung from the ceiling. He preferred sparsely decorated spaces and vaulted ceilings, but he knew she would like it. Although they were new to each other, they had chatted onscreen for months and he felt that in many ways, he already knew her.

He felt his stomach knot as he sat upon a hard church pew in the waiting area. For the first time, he worried about whether his antlers would become entangled in the low-hanging chandeliers or smash into a stained glass window and bring it crashing to the floor. People were generally accepting of him, but he nonetheless found it inconvenient to carry this weight on his head, though of course, his rack gained him respect. Who could argue with a 15-point man-buck? He had told her about this singular feature of his, but he didn’t have the space in his apartment to give her a full-screen picture. He didn’t care anymore. He didn’t have the luxury of self-consciousness. He was lonely and yearned for companionship.

She was all freshness, sweetness, and light, just as he had expected, based on the way she was on the screen. She gave him a hug and said how much she loved his antlers, immediately putting him at ease. And yet, once seated at the table, he inadvertently unhooked a chandelier with a point. He shrugged and wore it while they drank their wine. This tickled her. The staff scurried about, debating how to extricate the gold branches of the light fixture from his crown.

But the bigger problem came with the meal. She had made him so comfortable that he forgot himself when he ate his salad. Although he had long practiced eating in the manner of a civilized person, isolation during the pandemic had unmoored his self-discipline. At first, he wasn’t even aware that his relaxed state had freed his mouth to engage in its old, circular motion, much in the exaggerated fashion of a deer.

He saw her staring at him, watching his mouth. She was no longer laughing and delighted. She had nothing to say to him to help him save face. She made an excuse to make a phone call outside and she didn’t return.

Out by the railroad tracks which led to the woods where his brother had died, where his mother had given birth to him, and his father had taught him to forage and fight, he wondered if it had been an overreach for him to be in this other world. He gave in to this likelihood and let his hands become hooves. He bolted through the empty Florida city and out through pastures and orange groves, and up into lands farther north, familiar breezes, forests of berries and trees and acorns.

Published in Corvus Review, Issue 18

Bloody Bucket Bridge

Florida Memory, Public Domain, flickr : (The Lyndhurst Plantation in Monticello is far north of The Bloody Bridge, but this photo illustrates the style of homes in mid-19th century Florida during the time of slavery.)

Philadelphian “Tampa Tom” knew there was really nothing to “The Legend of Bloody Bucket Bridge,” a tale of a slave woman and midwife who supposedly smothered the children she delivered and dumped into the Peace River in Wauchula, telling the parents the babes had been stillborn.

Regardless of the baselessness of the legend, Tom would go down to Florida with his wife and film the location and story, then have a luxurious night at St. Pete’s Don Cesar. They would probably film and post their celebration too, complete with the apt Bloody Marys. They were wont to share their celebrations of completed “paranormal explorations” with their social media fans and Tom had lots of fans in Florida because he often traveled back home to create new content for his channel.

It was an easy story: People loved the vengeful ghost angle, and who could argue with a slave’s righteous vengeance? It was said her masters had killed (or sold) her child. And for full disclosure, Tom told the story of the “Bloody Bridge Bar” nearby and explain that the reason for its name was its notoriety as a place of fighting. Perhaps the bridge had been named for the bar instead of the other way around, he admitted to the camera.

But then he began his gaslighting tour guide magic in which logic gets tossed in lieu of sights, sounds, sensations, and emotions while his cinematographer-wife, “Pennsylvania Pam”-filmed the light of the setting sun on the river which, in this light, could be argued, appeared “red as blood.” As the night wore on, he inspired his youtube fans to listen to what may or may not be “signs” of a haunting, of an evil spirit, a murderous witch: wind rippling the water, the glowing of a light, a prolonged eerie silence. It was as good a Casanovian seduction as any. And by morning, it was a wrap.

At The Don Cesar in St. Pete the next day, Tom and Pam slept through the afternoon and into the night, having celebrated what they jokingly called “the light con.” They slept like two dead people.

But all at once, a sound woke them up in their room,a room dark as pitch. They turned on a light, but there was no one. Pam went to the bathroom while Tom lay there, immobile, tired, and still a little drunk. When Pam returned to the room, a huge figure loomed over Tom, but she couldn’t see his or her face. She could hear her husband’s muffled cries and see his body as it kicked and bucked.

She ran from the room to get help.

But no one could find evidence of an intruder that night or in the weeks to come.

Pam went to jail for the death of Tampa Tom.

Psytrance

Public Domain image, flickr

On All Hallows, former 60s flower child, Summer, cokes up outside the Orlando nightclub. Her aged party friends have died or retired, but she dances to psychedelic trance music and can’t stop. She moves with the young bodies around her, siphoning their energy. She will never die. She is free.

Samhain

Been years since still-birthin’ Wandalene an’ I been feelin’ phantom cold-mouth nursin’ on my breast. The house has taken to falling in tatters—the aged lace of wallpapers and curtains. When Samhain come an’ spirits cross, we play in moonlight: Wanda laughin’ at my funny faces, cooin’ with my lullabies.

Golden Hour Village

Suzy Hazelwood, Public Domain, flickr

The simulated clouds of Golden Hour Village glow orange and purple as Mrs. Lupei shakily places tiny pumpkins on her “porch,” a façade to her room. Tonight, she will nuzzle Rafael, one of the young nurses who help entertain on holidays. She may puncture his flesh if her dentures cooperate.

Sin-eater

Fire by Arseni Mourzenko, Public Domain, flickr

On All Saints Day, we took our cornhusk dolls to the sin-eater. We laid them inside the drum circle where fire dancers spun. At night, the sin eater took our sins away by fire, except for lecherous Mr. Murphy who died, not a singe mark on a husk.

Double

Street scene from Sydney, ca. 1885-1890, State Library of New South Wales, flickr

While hurricane winds stirred, Nivena spied a woman in her mother’s spare bedroom—a younger version of her mother. She was rearranging her mother’s books while her own mother made dinner. Alarmed, Nivena vowed that when the hurricane passed, she would return home and keep what she saw a secret.