K. Morris's Blog, page 767
October 12, 2014
Something Wicked (part 2)
Below is part 2 of my story, Something Wicked. For part 1 please visit http://newauthoronline.com/2014/10/11/something-wicked-part-1/
Charles reached for the knob of the bedroom door. He pulled. The door was stuck fast. With all his strength Charles yanked at the door handle. Still it refused to budge. Stepping back and surveying the door, Charles’s eyes met those of the stately raven. It sat on a ledge just above the door.
“Open the door”, he screamed at the bird.
“Never more”, the raven answered, it’s eyes burning into the boy’s.
Desperately Charles grasped the knob with both hands and pulling with all his strength once more attempted to open the door. it remained stubbornly immovable.
The bird’s eyes continued to bore into his, it’s talons tapping against the wooden ledge. The sound increased in volume until it seemed to fill his head.
“Help! Help! Go away”, Charles yelled.
With a start, the boy awoke shivering with cold. In his nightmare the blankets had fallen in a tangled heap on the wooden floor. For some time he lay in that state between dream and reality where the 2 states mingle producing a feeling which can best be described as a waking nightmare. He could feel the bird reaching out, attempting to draw him back into the world of nightmares. With a great effort Charles forced his eyes open and turning towards the door observed, with relief that no raven sat atop it.
Tap, tap, tap. If the bird wasn’t making that sound then who was. In a voice which betrayed none of the terror gnawing away at him, Charles said,
“Is that you uncle? Sorry if I disturbed you, I had the most horrible nightmare”.
No voice answered, while the tapping continued, mingling with, and, at times becoming lost in the sound of the wind which had, while the child was sleeping, begun to buffett the casements of the ancient building.
Charles thought about getting out of bed to retrieve the bedclothes. The desire to become warm once more, to snuggle up under warm blankets contended with the terror of what might happen should he dare to climb out of bed. He remembered stories of bogeymen who lurked under beds waiting to grab the legs of children who came within their grasp.
The wind eased and the sound of the tapping reasserted itself. Despite his terror Charles became aware that the noise eminated not from the door but the wardrobe which faced his bed.
Perhaps Smudge, his uncle’s cat had, somehow become trapped in the wardrobe. The animal loved to curl up among warm clothes and he had found it there previously, lying on top of a pile of jumpers.
“It will be Smudge’s claws making that noise. The poor animal must have become stuck in the wardrobe when I closed it this evening, just before I went to bed”, Charles said to himself.
All his terrors forgotten Charles climbed out of bed and padded across to where the huge old oak wardrobe stood.
“Did you get stuck in the wardrobe? You silly creature”, Charles said as he slid back the heavy wooden doors.
The wardrobe revealed only clothes. Jumpers neatly folded on shelves, several pairs of trousers, shirts, t-shirts and 4 pairs of shoes met the child’s perplexed gaze. He listened. The tapping had, as soon as he opened the wardrobe ceased and a profound silence now engulfed the room.
“I don’t like this” the boy muttered as he collected the tangled blankets and returned to bed.
Charles wished that he owned a mobile. He would like to text or instant message one of his school friends, to communicate with a fellow human being. However his uncle had confiscated his mobile,
“Mobiles fry the brain Charles. As a doctor I know these things. There have been several articles in leading medical journals showing a link between use of mobiles and brain cancer. Its for your own good Charles. If you want to talk to your friends use the landline but you will be seeing them again soon so I can’t see why you can’t wait a couple of weeks before speaking to them”.
So the mobile had been locked away in Lord Brockett’s study leaving Charles with no means of amusing himself other than the dusty volumes which sat in the bookcase in the corner of the room and solitary walks in the grounds of Brockett Hall.
October 11, 2014
Something Wicked (Part 1)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
The boy shot bolt upright in bed. Had he imagined it? No, there it came again, a tentative tapping as of someone who seeks admittance but is uncertain of his welcome.
“Uncle, is that you?” The child asked in a quavering voice.
Dead silence washed over the boy in waves.
“I must have imagined it. That poem’s giving me the creeps. I won’t read anymore tonight”, he thought placing the moth eaten edition of Edgar Alan Poe’s Collected Works on the bedside table.
The boy turned his face towards the wall and attempted to fall asleep. Visions of Poe’s Raven swam before his eyes. It was, he felt sure watching him from the bookcase which stood in the corner of his room. For a few minutes he fought against the urge to open his eyes and look in the direction of the bookcase. The rational portion of his mind told the child that he had nothing to fear, that it was merely an overactive imagination which conjured up phantoms. However the other part of his brain screamed at him that something was amiss, that just beneath the surface of everyday life lurked something unspeakable waiting to devour his very soul.
With a supreme effort the child opened his eyes and, rolling over in the ancient 4 poster bed glanced in the direction of the heavy oak bookcase. Of course there was no raven perched atop the bookcase, which had become black with age. Only the ornamental owl regarded him curiously, it’s beady eyes appearing to bore into his very soul.
The boy dragged his gaze away from that of the bird and for want of anything better to do scanned the titles of the tomes which filled the bookcase: Brontae’s Wuthering Heights, Henry James’s The Turn Of The Screw and other such dark stories met his tired eyes. There wasn’t, the boy remarked, not for the first time, not a single humorous title among them.
“I wish I haden’t lost that copy of 3 Men In A boat that mummy gave me”, he thought.
At the thought of his mother the child buried his head in the pillow and wept. His beautiful, sweet gentle mummy would never again call him her darling and hold him close. He still remembered her scent. Wild flowers mixed with new mown grass, at least that is how he recollected her.
He recalled the police coming to his prep school and how a pretty policewoman had gently taken his hand, in the headmaster’s office,
“Charles I’m so very sorry, I’ve some very sad news. I’m afraid your mum has had an accident”, she had said.
“Is she in hospital?” he had asked.
“Yes she was taken to hospital but, I’m so very sorry, your mummy is dead. Her car hit a tree. She was taken to the hospital. The doctors did everything they could but she died soon after arriving there”, the policewoman had said.
Charles had broken free of the policewoman’s hand. He remembered running and running until, reaching the heart of the woods which bordered the school grounds he had thrown himself on the forest’s ferny ground and wept.
He dimly recollected lying there for what seemed like hours before gentle hands conveyed him to the headmaster’s house.
“He can’t go back to the dorm to stay with the other boys, not after his mother having been killed, Robert”, the headmaster’s wife had said to her husband.
“No Jo, I agree. The poor lad can stay in the guest room until his uncle arrives”, Robert had said.
“I spoke to Lord Brockett just before you came back with the poor little lad. He is coming to collect him tomorrow”, Jo had said.
Charles’s uncle had collected him on the following day and conveyed the boy to Brockett Hall in the depths of Dartmoor.
Notes:
The Raven, a poem by Edgar Alan Poe can be found here, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178713.
Henry James’s novel, The Turn Of The Screw relates how a governess, charged with looking after 2 children in a remote location becomes embroiled in ghostly happenings. It is never clear how much of the happenings are in the woman’s imagination. For further information please see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turn_of_the_Screw.
3 Men In A Boat is a humorous novel, by Jerome, K Jerome about the journey of a group of friends along the River Thames. For the book please visit, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/308/308-h/308-h.htm.
Wuthering Heights, By Emily Brontae is a dark tale, set on the Yorkshire moors, of twisted love and ghostly happenings (the latter hinted at rather than being explicit). For the ebook please visit http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/768
Print Books?
Thus far I have published 4 collections of short stories and 1 longer work. All my books are available solely in ebook format.
For some time now I have been considering producing print versions of my books using the Print On Demand (POD) services of Createspace (https://www.createspace.com/). My reasons for considering POD are:
Not everyone likes ebooks and the availability of my stories in exclusively electronic format means they are not reaching people who might otherwise read them.
Even among ebook readers there exist many book lovers who also purchase traditional (print) titles. The availability of my stories in both formats enhances the choices of such readers.
There is something attractive about the feeling of permanence of print books which, to me at least is lacking in the new kid on the block, ebooks. I, personally like having books on shelves and I am far from being alone in this desire to be surrounded by physical works of fiction and non-fiction.
Having said all that,I hesitate to embrace POD as my longest story, Samantha runs to 29 pages and I am not sure whether people will pay for print books of that length. I could get around this issue by producing an anthology of my writing. However this would, I understand mean that I would lose all my Amazon reviews as these pertain to the individual titles, while an anthology is a different beast and would be reviewed as such.
In short I need to give this matter much more thought rather than jumping in feet first. Any advice from authors who have both ebook and print versions of their works available would be most welcome as would comments from readers of both formats.
I Am Sailing
As those of you who follow this blog will know, my name is Kevin. Yesterday I received the following text from a friend who was, at that time on his way to France via cross channel ferry,
“Just leaving Harbour. Where told the captain’s name is Kevin. Should I be worried?”
My friend’s text made me smile as, being blind there is no way in which I could hold down the job of captain. However, giving the matter a little more thought I arrived at the following brilliant solution to how a blind man might captain a ship. My guide dog, Trigger is trained to avoid obstacles so why not teach him the following additional commands:
Bark once for rocks dead ahead.
Bark twice for another vessel dead ahead and
Let out a continuous howl when the boat strikes submerged rocks or an iceberg.
Does anyone have the contact details for shipping companies please? I’m taking time out from my writing to apply for the position of ship’s captain. God save me and anyone else who sails with me!
Kevin
October 9, 2014
Author Interviews – A Great Way For Authors To Promote Their Work And Readers To Learn About New Writers
Kev Cooper (no relation to yours truly) offers a great (free) author promotion service. Kev’s Author Interviews allows authors to promote themselves and their work by answering questions supplied by Kev. The interviews also act as a great way for readers to learn about new authors. For further information please visit http://kevs-domain.net/author-interviews-and-contact-information/
October 8, 2014
For The Good Of Humanity (satire)
For the good of humanity we must sacrifice the paltry joys of the here and now for the ultimate bliss of tomorrow.
For the good of humanity we must abandon the selfish goal of individual fulfilment for the common good.
For the good of humankind we must place freedom on the backburner for we are building an earthly paradise where “the people” shall rule.
Yet Eden remains, floating, somewhere forever out of reach while “the people” shrug their shoulders, and smile or weep.
Written after reading an article on North Korea).
Abandoned
Rain sodden corpse, in a churchyard. Abandoned, unclaimed, slowly decay setting in.
Once you wowed audiences. Your music had couples dancing, romancing. Many a love was born as you filled the air with melodies sweet.
Now your heart is still. No more tunes will eminate from your once mighty chest.
An old piano, your notes immovable, choked with rain water, you stand by the church, sadly waiting to be taken away.
(On Thursday 2 October my mum, her partner and I came across an abandoned piano, in the church close to my home. When first discovered it still worked. However due to heavy rain the piano’s notes are now immovable. How the instrument came to be in the churchyard I have no idea but, at time of writing it remains there).
October 7, 2014
How Newspapers / Magazines Deceive Readers
Nielsen report that ebook sales constituted only 22 percent of book sales in the first half of the year with both paperback and hardbacks outselling electronic publications. As the author of this post says 22 percent appears to be a somewhat questionable statistic. I would be interested to hear your comments. Are ebook sales only around 22 percent of book sales in your opinion?
Originally posted on Savvy Writers & e-Books online:
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A Joke? Statistics about the numbers of e-Books versus print books – taken from companies that sell only print books? Yes, that’s right – or have you ever purchased an e-book at WalMart, Costco, Sam’s Club, Target or K-Mart?
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Flawed Survey, Sloppy Research, No Fact-Checking…
“Print Books Still Outselling e-Books” or “Print Books Outsold Ebooks In First Half Of 2014” are the big headlines these days at newspapers and magazines, from PublishersWeekly to GoodeReader and Huffington Post.
“According to Nielsen’s survey, e-books constituted only 23 percent of unit sales for the first six months of the year, while hardcovers made up 25 percent and paperback 42 percent of sales.”
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What’s NOT Included in these Articles:
The fact that NielsenScan covers a maximum of 75% of the US and UK book market
From which book retailers and which publishers – trade and / or independent publishers?
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Notice
Yesterday evening my friend, Brian told me about the following sign he had come across in the disabled toilet of a well known coffee chain. It read,
“On pulling the red cord staff will enter the toilet immediately”.
The above conjures up images of a trap door flying open to admit the intrepid rescuers who, with great courage and selflessness parachute in landing in …!
I think, perhaps there should be some form of punctuation in the above mentioned sign!
October 5, 2014
‘To Autumn’ by John Keats
One of my favourite poems and highly appropriate for the time of year. I am lucky enough to live next to a park where I can appreciate the seasons as they come and go. The poem is followed by an insightful commentary on it’s meaning. Enjoy!
Originally posted on A poem for every day:
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head…
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