Tonya R. Moore's Blog: Tonya R. Moore, page 33

River Duppy

Deep in the country, the grown-ups have little else to do at night but play dominoes and tell rum-soaked stories by the firelight outside Miss Betsy’s little shack of a grocery shop. Bobo Dread and five other red-eyed farmers are gathered around the table set up outside, laughing and arguing jokingly with spliffs hanging out the sides of their mouths. They each take turns slamming the little white bricks down onto the table top.

The smell of ganja fills the air. Draw too close and the smoke will make you cough and your eyes sting and turn red at the rims. Before you can worry about your asthma acting up again, Paulie beckons to you from behind Miss Betsy’s shop. Paulie’s a local and one year older than you. Nineteen and brave and athletic, Paulie is everything you aren’t but he doesn’t seem to mind the differences. He’s been your friend ever since your parents decided to plop down in this Rastafarian village in the middle of bum-freaking nowhere two years ago.

You both drop down low and creep into the shop through the back door. Paulie grabs a bottle of rum and hurries outside beckoning for you to follow. You both sneak off into the wood-line and down the footpath, toward the river. Down by the river, you take turns taking a swig straight from the bottle. The first gulp goes down like acid. You cough. Tears spring forth. Snot plugs up your nose. A slow fire begins to burn in your belly.

Deep in the woods, the voices of the villagers can’t reach you. Pale moonlight shines down through the ghostly treetops. The sound of rushing water melds with the seething song of crickets. Dead leaves and branches make a crunching noise underfoot as you and Paulie make your way to the river’s edge. You both sit on the river bank, content and slightly buzzed from the rum worming its way into your bones. You’re content to listen to Paulie speak in hushed tones.

“Yeah man,” he says. “I think I would like to go to America. Not to live there but just to see what it’s like, you know?”

“I think that’s a great—”

There’s a really loud splash, a little bit down river. You peer into the semi dark, straining to get a look at whatever it was. The crickets have gone silent. There’s no sound save for the leaves fluttering in the breeze and the gurgling of the river water. You know enough about Jamaican ecology to know that there shouldn’t be anything big enough to make that kind of sound in the river.

“What do you think that was?” You ask.

Paulie shrugs. He’s trying to peer into the semi-darkness too and seems uneasy. He stands after a few moments.

“Come on,” he says nervously, “let’s get out of here.”

You hear him but you don’t move from the spot where you’re seated. You can’t. Your eyes are fixed on the water and you’re sitting there frozen in disbelief. A shadow is rising up out of the wet. First the head, then the naked torso of a beautiful woman. She is dark, almost melting away into the darkness of the night. Her black hair is long, twists about her shoulders and back in wet, snaky tendrils. Her eyes are inky and magnetic. She looks right at you and she bares her teeth. Spiky, inhuman teeth.

“Rahtid!” Paulie croaks, lapsing into the local dialect.

Rooted to the ground, you whimper. You want to run but you can’t. The strength has gone out of your body. You can only sit there trembling, the sound of your heart hammering away in your ribcage drowning out the sound of the rushing water.

Paulie drops the rum bottle, grabs you by the shoulders, and yanks you to your feet. He takes your hand and half drags you along as he runs away from the creature coming up out of the river. You struggle to keep up. You can barely catch your breath. You hear the slosh-slosh of wet footsteps behind you. Your heads whips around briefly, but you see nothing there.

You and Paulie arrive at your house.

“Hurry up!” He urges as your trembling fingers fumble with the keys.

The door opens. Paulie ushers you inside and shuts the door firmly. Moments later, there’s a thud against the door. Then nothing. You and Paulie wait in silence. You’re bent down, wheezing and struggling to catch your breath. When you finally catch your breath you look to your friend.

“Paulie, who—”

“Shhh!” He hisses.

He unlocks the door and cautiously opens it to look outside. He recoils, slams the door shut, and secures the deadbolt. He’s gone pale and his eyes are wild and scared.

“Rahtid!” He hisses, pacing back and forth in front of the door. “A duppy dat!”

“English, Paulie!” You plead.

He stops pacing long enough to wave a hand at her frantically. “You know! Riva Muma, yeah?”

You’ve heard of Riva Muma, the spirit that haunts the rivers of Jamaica. She lies in wait below the surface, waiting for unsuspecting victims to approach. Then she drags them under and drowns them.

“That’s just a myth!” You splutter.

Besides, who’s ever heard of Riva Muma coming out of the river?

Paulie stops pacing again but before he can set you straight, there’s another thump on the door. You hear that sloshing sound of something wet moving around outside.

You can’t keep the rising panic out of your voice. “What does it want?”

“Only Jah know!” Paulie snorted. “Just don’t open this door, you hear?”

There’s another thump on the door. Then another. Then another. Each thump is louder and more forceful than the one before.

Your voice dissolves into a panicked whimper. “Paulie, what do we do?”

 

— To Be Continued (By Someone Else)

This piece was written in response to Chuck Wendig’s “Scary Story” Flash Fiction Challenge.

*Riva Muma (River Mumma) is a mermaid spirit from Jamaican folklore.

 

River Duppy – Part One

Deep in the country, the grown-ups have little else to do at night but play dominoes and tell rum-soaked stories by the firelight outside Miss Betsy’s little shack of a grocery shop. Bobo Dread and five other red-eyed farmers are gathered around the table set up outside, laughing and arguing jokingly with spliffs hanging out the sides of their mouths. They each take turns slamming the little white bricks down onto the table top.

The smell of ganja fills the air. Draw too close and the smoke will make you cough and your eyes sting and turn red at the rims. Before you can worry about your asthma acting up again, Paulie beckons to you from behind Miss Betsy’s shop. Paulie’s a local and one year older than you. Nineteen and brave and athletic, Paulie is everything you aren’t but he doesn’t seem to mind the differences. He’s been your friend ever since your parents decided to plop down in this Rastafarian village in the middle of bum-freaking nowhere two years ago.

You both drop down low and creep into the shop through the back door. Paulie grabs a bottle of rum and hurries outside beckoning for you to follow. You both sneak off into the wood-line and down the footpath, toward the river. Down by the river, you take turns taking a swig straight from the bottle. The first gulp goes down like acid. You cough. Tears spring forth. Snot plugs up your nose. A slow fire begins to burn in your belly.

Deep in the woods, the voices of the villagers can’t reach you. Pale moonlight shines down through the ghostly treetops. The sound of rushing water melds with the seething song of crickets. Dead leaves and branches make a crunching noise underfoot as you and Paulie make your way to the river’s edge. You both sit on the river bank, content and slightly buzzed from the rum worming its way into your bones. You’re content to listen to Paulie speak in hushed tones.

“Yeah man,” he says. “I think I would like to go to America. Not to live there but just to see what it’s like, you know?”

“I think that’s a great—”

There’s a really loud splash, a little bit down river. You peer into the semi dark, straining to get a look at whatever it was. The crickets have gone silent. There’s no sound save for the leaves fluttering in the breeze and the gurgling of the river water. You know enough about Jamaican ecology to know that there shouldn’t be anything big enough to make that kind of sound in the river.

“What do you think that was?” You ask.

Paulie shrugs. He’s trying to peer into the semi-darkness too and seems uneasy. He stands after a few moments.

“Come on,” he says nervously, “let’s get out of here.”

You hear him but you don’t move from the spot where you’re seated. You can’t. Your eyes are fixed on the water and you’re sitting there frozen in disbelief. A shadow is rising up out of the wet. First the head, then the naked torso of a beautiful woman. She is dark, almost melting away into the darkness of the night. Her black hair is long, twists about her shoulders and back in wet, snaky tendrils. Her eyes are inky and magnetic. She looks right at you and she bares her teeth. Spiky, inhuman teeth.

“Rahtid!” Paulie croaks, lapsing into the local dialect.

Rooted to the ground, you whimper. You want to run but you can’t. The strength has gone out of your body. You can only sit there trembling, the sound of your heart hammering away in your ribcage drowning out the sound of the rushing water.

Paulie drops the rum bottle, grabs you by the shoulders, and yanks you to your feet. He takes your hand and half drags you along as he runs away from the creature coming up out of the river. You struggle to keep up. You can barely catch your breath. You hear the slosh-slosh of wet footsteps behind you. Your heads whips around briefly, but you see nothing there.

You and Paulie arrive at your house.

“Hurry up!” He urges as your trembling fingers fumble with the keys.

The door opens. Paulie ushers you inside and shuts the door firmly. Moments later, there’s a thud against the door. Then nothing. You and Paulie wait in silence. You’re bent down, wheezing and struggling to catch your breath. When you finally catch your breath you look to your friend.

“Paulie, who—”

“Shhh!” He hisses.

He unlocks the door and cautiously opens it to look outside. He recoils, slams the door shut, and secures the deadbolt. He’s gone pale and his eyes are wild and scared.

“Rahtid!” He hisses, pacing back and forth in front of the door. “A duppy dat!”

“English, Paulie!” You plead.

He stops pacing long enough to wave a hand at her frantically. “You know! Riva Muma, yeah?”

You’ve heard of Riva Muma, the spirit that haunts the rivers of Jamaica. She lies in wait below the surface, waiting for unsuspecting victims to approach. Then she drags them under and drowns them.

“That’s just a myth!” You splutter.

Besides, who’s ever heard of Riva Muma coming out of the river?

Paulie stops pacing again but before he can set you straight, there’s another thump on the door. You hear that sloshing sound of something wet moving around outside.

You can’t keep the rising panic out of your voice. “What does it want?”

“Only Jah know!” Paulie snorted. “Just don’t open this door, you hear?”

There’s another thump on the door. Then another. Then another. Each thump is louder and more forceful than the one before.

Your voice dissolves into a panicked whimper. “Paulie, what do we do?”

 

— To Be Continued (By Someone Else)

This piece was written in response to Chuck Wendig’s “Scary Story” Flash Fiction Challenge.

*Riva Muma (River Mumma) is a mermaid spirit from Jamaican folklore.

 

My Supernatural Encounter

This is a story about that one time I thought I was being chased by a creature called a rolling calf.

Please, let me explain.

In Jamaican folklore, a rolling calf is a sort of demonic calf-like beast that roams along roadways, terrorizing hapless travelers at night.

In the stories that I heard while growing up, anyone who encountered the rolling calf would hear the shudder-worthy clanking of its chains. During some telling, someone must have included the cloppity-clopping of its feet among the terrifying sounds you would hear.

One night when I was in my late teens, I had one such encounter.

What I Thought Was Happening

It was dark and I was walking along a lonely, rural road. I was on my way home from I-forget-where.

Out of the blue, I heard this sound behind me.

Cloppity-clop. Cloppity Clop.

Strange, I thought.

Still walking, I glanced behind me to see what was making that sound. In the dark, I could only make out the hazy shape of a person. As this person or thing traipsed behind me, I could still hear the unnatural cloppity-clop of cow-like feet.

Unnerved, I whipped my head back around and started walking faster. My follower stepped up the pace too!

Cue the Twilight Zone music.

I started to silently freak-out.

Whoever or whatever was following me so doggedly couldn’t possibly be up to any good. Was it even human? Would a human’s feet sound like the cloppity-clop of some demon calf?

Was I being followed by a rolling calf? A freaking rolling calf in disguise?!

I didn’t dare look behind me again. For some reason, it didn’t seem like a good idea. Maybe I was just scared of confirming my fear.

I shifted gear into my fastest power-walk and wouldn’t you know? That beastly thing walked faster too!

The sound was getting closer and closer. I just couldn’t seem to get away from that rapid clop-cloppity-clop sound.

Finally, my house was in sight. I ran into the yard and slammed the gate shut behind me. I ran up the steps onto the verandah and crouched low, peeking over the banister. There was a streetlight in front of the house, so I knew I’d be able to get a good look.

Some woman in a red dress passed under the street light. She briefly looked up to where I was in utter confusion and kept walking. As she vanished into the night, I could still hear the cloppity-clop of her weird-sounding shoes.

The door to the house opened and someone inside asked, “what’s going on?”

Feeling like an idiot I stood, smiled and said. “Oh, n-nothing.”

What Really Happened

An innocent traveler was walking along a dark country road. Unnerved by the creepy atmosphere, she was relieved to see another person walking ahead of her. Figuring that a little company might help ease her fears, she tried catching up to the person in front.

When the person in front started walking faster, she started walking faster too, scared of the dark and still hoping to catch up. When the person ahead practically started running, she desperately chased after that person still.

So, this late night comedy unfolded with neither party truly understanding why they were chasing or being chased.

I hope this embarrassing story from my youth made you smile.

Every time it comes to mind, I dissolve into helpless giggle-fits.

I mean… really?!

A rolling calf… what was I thinking?

How to Handle Rejection

Rejection bites. That’s the plain and simple truth.

You pour your heart into a story and revise the heck out of it. Then you submit/query and repeat until hopefully, someone finally thinks that you have something worth publishing.

Unless you’re some sort of literary genius whose work always gets accepted on the very first submission, it can become quite a discouraging process.

Rejections are a blow to the ego. They make us question whether we possess talent or not. Whether we should keep trying or not.

It takes persistence and gumption to achieve any meaningful goal. Gaining some measure of success as a writer is no different.

Sometimes, we have to change our way of thinking about things to see past them.

Here are 3 things to remember the next time you get a rejection email or letter:


This doesn’t define you.

When our work is rejected, creatives often feel as if we’re the ones being rejected. When you pour so much of yourself into what you do, it’s only natural to think that way.

If you stop and think about it though, you realize that this isn’t true. The person evaluating your work isn’t thinking about you at all. They’re thinking about the piece of work before them and whether or not it suits their purposes.

Sometimes yours will. Sometimes it won’t.

This Doesn’t Define Your Work

A rejection response send one simple message: Do Not Want.

Unfortunately, this message feeds into our fear of failure and rejection, so what we think we’re being told is: Not Good Enough.

What if instead of “not good enough” we thought “maybe next time?”

The tiniest shift of perspective  can make the difference between quitting and persisting.

You Can Learn From This

Have you ever gotten a response from an editor that included notes about part of your story that either stood out or failed to grab them?

This is probably the most useful kind of feedback you can get.

I recently got such a thoughtful response from an editor who rejected one of my stories and I was immensely grateful for the time and effort that person took share his thoughts on my work.

Not only did I understand immediately why my story just wasn’t right for that particular publication, I learned a few things that will help me as I continue to write new stories.

Here’s one final thing to remember:

Rejection is nothing in the face of a human being’s ability to persevere and progress. It’s just a stepping stone that guides us along our way.

The Eerie Beauty of Mushishi

Mushishi is the title of an anime that I watched sometime ago.

The anime is derived from the eponymous manga by Yuki Urushibara. This transporting story has spawned two anime series and a live-action movie.

Mushishi occupies an imaginary timeline set somewhere between Japan’s Edo and Meiji periods, against a backdrop of lush mountains, seething valleys and quaint seaside villages.

The premise of Mushishi is eerie and difficult for me to explain.

Consider existence as a whole. Say there is a part of existence called life and another part called non-life. Between the two, there is a vague and primitive third existence which is neither alive nor not-alive.

This is as close as I can come to defining that which is called the “mushi” in my own words.

The mushi are a ghostly and ever-present existence. Diverse, ethereal and supernatural, the mimic both living and non-living things. People. Insects. Rainbows. Bodies of water. You name it.

Most humans are oblivious to the presence of the mushi. The few who encounter them are bedeviled, transformed or even spirited away.

Each poignant tale in Mushishi revolves around different characters and types of mushi.

Ginko, the protagonist, is a mushishi (a mushi master/researcher). He himself has been infected and forever transformed by the mushi. The mushi are attracted to Ginko’s existence. They gather to him like bugs to a light. For this reason, he can never remain in one place for too long.

Ginko leads a nomadic life. Traveling on foot from village to village, he renders aid and advice to some of those who have been adversely affected by the mushi.

Others, he is powerless to help, and he listens to their stories in order to gain new understanding of how the mushi interact with the human world.

 

Death Parade

One awesome anime discovery earlier this year was a series called Death Parade. Death Parade is an anime series written and directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa and produced by Madhouse.

I must admit that at first, the premise of Death Parade seemed a bit cheesy:

Whenever two people die at the same time, they are sent to one of many mysterious bars run by bartenders serving as arbiters. There, they are coerced into participating in Death Games with their lives on the line. The result of the games reveal what secrets led them to their situation and what their fate will be afterwards, with the arbiters judging whether their souls will be reincarnated or banished into oblivion.

I’m still on something like the fifth or sixth episode but so far, Death Parade seems to be spun around Decim, the bartender of on such bar known as Quindecim. Perhaps Decim’s methods are found to be lacking by the Powers That Be, in which case, he now has a new assistant–a nameless black haired woman with a potentially keen understanding of human nature.

Each episode focuses on a different pair and you’re never quite sure how their story is going to turn out. Whether what is revealed is the depravity or the beauty of the human soul, each revelation is either surprising or provides much food for thought.

I was quickly drawn in by this series and by episode four, had shed a tear or two. I think that even if you’ve never watched an anime before, as a fan of speculative fiction, you would find much to appreciate about this series. The series started in January of 2015 and is simulcast on Hulu, where I believe you can watch episodes for free.

As an aside: if you’re familiar with popular animes like One Piece and Bleach, you will no doubt hear a few familiar voices here and there.

NaNoWriMo 2016

For some reason that I can’t quite explain, I’ve picked up the NaNoWriMo torch… again. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve lost my mind. I have no idea how I’m going to juggle school, work and a 50k word novel in 30 days. Some serious scheduling will be involved. My non-existent social life… will not be affected. Somehow this realization makes me wanna laugh-cry.

In any case, for those of you who don’t know—is there actually anyone out there who doesn’t know?

National Novel Writing Month is… well, say there’s this bunch of perfectly sane people. Let’s call them strange folk. Every year on the first of November, the strange folk all simultaneously lose their minds and decide to write a fifty-thousand-word novel. Not only will they write the heck out of this novel, they will do it in 30 days.

It usually starts out with nervous enthusiasm, followed by alternating bouts of tears, self-loathing, and anxiety along with a completely baseless and fleeting sense of triumph. The result of this roller coaster of emotions?

Three weeks later, some hapless passerby walks into a local Starbucks to find it over taken over by a bunch of these strange folk, each hunched over a cup of the strongest coffee and staring at his or her laptop screen like a deer staring down the barrel of a gun.

As the start of week four rolls around, sanity slaps the strange folk in their faces and each wakes up wondering WTF they’ve managed to get themselves into. Only it’s too late to stop, so they press on with a dogged kind of determination. Come December first, November slips away like a wild and frightening dream. The strange folk return to their normal lives, some completely oblivious to the fact that nothing about them will ever be “normal” again.

Well, that’s my take on NaNoWriMo in a nutshell. It’s a fun and crazy ride. I haven’t always reached my goal, to tell you the truth but no matter how many times I participate, I take something invaluable away from the experience.

My 2016 NaNoWriMo Project will be a novella. The working title is “Sea Witch Song.”

Those who might dare pick up the torch, please also note:

The Write Practice has outlined 4 Reasons NaNoWriMo Rocks plus they are offering up a NaNoWriMo Survival Kit to one lucky winner. You have until October 11th, 2016 to enter to win. Check it out!

Mermaid

Say, the only dream you ever had was blue, a cool brilliance that engulfs everything in the universe. All you know of your place in the monochromatic Everything is webbed feet, jewel fingers and a certain unnameable longing.

You reach upward and out, straining to grasp the hazy glow of a distant light in your palms. You begin to swim faster and farther from the deep and dark. It’s warm near the surface but you don’t know what warmth is. There had never been anyone to teach you that word.

It’s a different kind of feeling. It tickles your skin. It makes your blood blaze and your heart leap.

You soar, soar, and soar toward the brilliance above and beyond until one night, the ghostly light looms directly overhead. You’re amazed because before, you had only your heart to see with but now you have eyes and ears, and everything everywhere is amplified.

Suddenly, you’re no longer floating in that vast and lonely silence. The world you know has been set on its ear. It tilts over like a clumsy crab, unsettling you. You breathe in the air but you don’t know what air is. It whips around you and it roars. It makes your bones sing, sing, sing.

The light you were chasing is still way up above and out of reach. The darkness overhead is blanketed by jittery dots of light. You remember, with stark clarity that you’ve seen it all before; that you once stood on two feet on this shore and lamented over the alien yet strangely familiar jewels that you could neither grasp with your own two hands, nor wish upon fast enough when they fell from the heavens like tears.

You remember being human, what the poet said about death and the narwhal’s horn. You look to the stars. You look to the sea. You remember why you once cast the earth and the heavens away.

Is this the first time it occurs to you, that the glitter-spotted darkness you’d left behind in the wet was the same as the seething mass in that place where you cannot fly?

Your body bends. You sink back down into the sea. Burying your heart and your longing once again, you dive all the way back down into the dark, into the deep.

Becoming

“The geese love her, that girl.” Tei, Sarrah’s most recent patient paused the video projected on the opposite wall. In his hospital patient whites, he seemed childlike and earnest, despite the gray hair curled over his ears.

“Ah, yes. I suppose you could say they do.” Sarrah closed the door firmly behind her. “That’s one of the earliest recorded sightings, over twenty five years after the original colonists first settled on Cobalt. Before that, humans weren’t even aware that something like the Doan existed.”

She stood there, watching the filmed drama unfolding.

A young woman with skin as dark as the richest earth stands amidst a flock of black-necked geese. She wears an overcoat of ivory. Her scarf is blue, her countenance sad. In on one hand, she carries a blushing, berry-laden branch.

Tei pressed Play to continue.

Sarrah had already watched the recording countless times and knew what would happen next.

The girl’s lovely scarf is stolen by a gust of wind. She cries out. The startled geese toke flight en masse. The wistful one whirls. Her body begins to lengthen and twist, her limbs becoming wings. Together, the avians depart, the new anatidae’s berry branch and blue scarf forgotten among the rushes.

“It always happens quickly,” Sarrah explained. “You’d only notice if you were watching closely.

Tei said nothing.

“I wonder if it hurt, transforming like that.” Sarrah ventured again. “It must hurt, don’t you think? I wonder if the Doan feel pain.”

“I’m sure it did.” Tei declared.

Sarrah’s interest was piqued. She tried not to let it show. “How do you know?”

“Well look,” Tei backtracked then zoomed in on the image at moment before the flock had taken flight and vanished. “She’s crying. Do you see?”

Sarrah nodded wordlessly. An odd lump swelled up in her throat. She’d watched this sequence so many times and had never noticed such a thing. “I wonder what makes them change, Tei. What kind of sorrow made her no longer wish to be human?”

“The records say that Doan who transform into people don’t remember being anything but human. Either you or I, or both of us could be Doan. We’d never know it.” Tei said. “Isn’t that a frightening thought?”

Sarrah laughed lightly, despite the sharp pang in her chest. “Maybe one day I’ll become entranced by something beautiful or become so saddened that I’ll no longer wish to be human. I’ll shed my skin and fly away.”

“No, Sarrah” Tei caught her fingers tightly in his own. “I wouldn’t want that!” He whispered harshly. “I wouldn’t want you to fly away and leave me behind.”

Sarrah’s heart ached. Why had this one become Tei? There were so many more questions, so many things that she wanted to ask, but it was no use. He couldn’t remember being anything but human.

Guest Bloggers Wanted

Calling all SF genre writers and bloggers:

My aim is to make this blog a great place to guest blog about your speculative fiction works, or just genres that you love. As for the specific topic or your post, that would be up to you. Write about what you like on your own terms. You can be as abstract or specific as you wish.

Policy

Your guest post must be genre-relevant. The themes of guest posts must be related to speculative fiction in some way. I’d love to see people writing about awesome things like steampunk heroines, intergalactic travel, space opera, urban fantasy, horror, robots, aliens, monsters–you name it.

How to Submit a Request to Post

Use the CONTACT ME form to send me an email with a brief introduction, your proposed topic and the date that you would like to post. You should expect a response from me within 3 days.

If you need to post to coincide with a book launch or other promo that you’re running on your own blog or website, do let me know so that we can schedule your guest post accordingly.

Questions or Suggestions?

Please post them in the comments below.