April’s First Sunday Prose Ends with Tiny Fairy Tale; The Experience of Death

‘Twas that time again, the first Sunday of the month and the Bloomington Writer’s Guild “First Sunday Prose Readings and Open Mic,” held in conjunction with Boxcar Books.  Featured readers were Indiana native Charles Culp with an excerpt from “a story that takes place between the Ohio and the Wabash,” BETWEEN THE LINES; Anne Cabe with a poem to recognize National Poetry Month, “Hungry Witches,” a flash prose piece, and excerpts from a longer story, “Talk to Me”; and Frida Westford with a period fantasy story, “The Third Raven,” followed by a poem about dragons.  After the break there were four walk-on readers, with me batting cleanup with a 75-word all-dialogue take on fairy tales, “As Fine As Frogs’ Hair,” originally published in MISCELLANEA:  A TRANSDIMENSIONAL LIBRARY  (see November 14 2013, et al.).

Also, briefly, while perusing my email etc. just prior to Sunday afternoon’s readings,  through luck and blunder I came upon, from BBC.COM/FUTURE, “The Seven Ways to Have a Near-Death Experience” by Rachel Nuwer.  It seems there has been some serious research on this kind of thing, with resuscitated patients reporting a variety of experiences while they were technically dead, which generally fall into seven categories, some pleasant, some fearful.  Details can be found by pressing here.