Wolf Moon (a poem)

Wolf Moon

Written June 28th, 2011

Your children stay up late

Beneath the covers; wide-eyed they shiver and quake

Envisioning the stories told

Horrors about me; folklore of old

The full moon flies in the night sky

If they're just myths, why do you lock your door, why?

There's a drawer where you keep silver and holy water

Afraid I'll come snatch your son? Your daughter?

The House on the Hill (a poem)

The House on the Hill

Written April 13th, 2011

There is a house atop a hill

Lonely on the outskirts of town

The windows cracked, the shadows still

The vines crawl

And the grass is tall

Nature is claiming it back; running it down

In the Moment (a short story)

In the Moment

They had predicted good weather this week. They had said it would be so warm out we would forget it was fall.

I don’t think I had ever heard a bigger lie in my entire life.

The three of us trudged through the sleepy neighborhood, our heads down against the driving wind. Small snowflakes gusted into our faces, gathering on our eyelashes and stinging our skin with icy coldness.

My hands were stuffed under my armpits, but it did little to keep them warm. I didn’t have gloves. Valerie and Erica did though. I’d never been more jealous.

“Just one more house,” Valerie said, her teeth clacking as she looked down at her clipboard.

I looked up ahead, my eyes falling on the house looming at the end of the street.

It was small, but quaint, more like a cottage than a house, and puffs of smoke were rising from the chimney. Oh, the things I would do to be huddled by that fire…

The house was painted a forest green, with natural-looking wooden and doors and shutters. Vines covered almost one entire side of the house, reaching all the way up the chimney. A pretty hedge bordered the property, lightly dusted with snow. Leaves fluttered across the yard in the wind.

As we approached the driveway, I heard Erica say; “I hear she’s a witch.” Valerie’s eyes widened.

“Who?” I called over the wind.

Erica simply nodded to the door we were nearing. It was adorned with a wrought-iron dragon knocker.

The three of us gathered on the doorstep, huddling for warmth.

“Do you think it’s true?” I asked, a chill running up my spine, and not from the cold.

“Just look at the place,” Erica said, gesturing. Valerie nodded in agreement.

“Maybe we should just go back. We can say she wasn’t home,” Valerie offered. I shook my head without hesitating.

“We should at least try. She is a child of God, just like you or I. She deserves a chance.” Valerie and Erica glanced at their feet. Taking a deep breath, I raised the knocker and clapped it against the door three times.

There was a pause, then, over the racket of the gale, I heard a bustle from within. The door creaked, then swung inward.

The woman that stood before us was not what I had been expecting.

The Forever War (informational message)

To my lovely readers:
My novel in progress, the Forever War, is being posted on my booksie website. I currently have the first ten chapters up, and I will be adding more gradually. If you like what you see here on this blog, please stop by and give it a read :) I'm not sure if non-booksie members are allowed to comment, so if you'd like to leave me a message or rating in regards to the Forever War, please leave a comment/rating on this blog post.
There's a link for my Booksie site in the sidebar, but just in case here it is: www.booksie.com/Ousma
The Forever War follows the adventures of Princess Azaa and Prince Sacien in the land of Terrla, comprised of three Kingdoms, two of which have been at war for as long as anyone can remember. Jump into a world of fantasy, magic, Dragons, Griffins, lies, secrets, action, war, and romance and get ready for a wild ride! ;)
I'd like to thank everyone so much for stopping by my blog. I've been getting more attention than I've ever dreamed of, and my passion for writing only grows by the day. I hope my work has been enjoyable for all of you. Thank you again, keep reading, and for all you writers out there, KEEP WRITING! Oh... and Mason, keep jammin! <3
Much love,
Ousma (Faith)

*The List (a short story)

The List

Charlotte ate green peppers all day long.

She had been sitting at her little circular kitchen table, in her old chair (the only one accompanying the table), surrounded by piles of her bills, sipping coffee from her mug. But no, she wasn’t tending to her bills with one of her pencils or pens, she was bent over her piece of paper, her eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. It had only two words on the top line, both spread far apart to represent two different categories. Two simple words, yet they represented something so incredibly big and important.

Boy                                        Girl

Charlotte had been sitting there for a half hour, names dancing by in front of her eyes, a parade of letters. But none had seemed right, so her pen remained poised in the air, waiting for its moment to shine. But it never came in contact with the college ruled sheet of white adorned with blue and pink lines.

She groaned. Blue and pink. Boy and girl.

Throwing down her pen, she paced in the kitchen, distracting herself by reciting in her head; My fridge, my counter, my sink, my dirty dishes, my curtains, my stove, my cooking spices, my overflowing trash, my coffee spoon. Not Mom’s stove, Mom’s fridge, Mom’s sink, Mom’s curtains, no, not hers. Mine. Not Dad’s coffee spoon, Dad’s dirty dishes, Dad’s overflowing trash, Dad’s cooking spices, no, not his. Mine. It was all Charlotte’s. It was strange, scary, and exciting all at once.

Ice Cold (a short story)

Ice Cold

            I remember that day being especially cold.

            It had been nice all week; we were having luck with the fall weather. So that morning I didn’t put on a coat, just a hoodie. As soon as I walked out of the house to wait for the bus, I knew it’d been a mistake. But I couldn’t turn back for fear of missing my ride. Mom would be madder than hell if I woke her up because I missed the bus. So I gritted my teeth and walked down the driveway.

            It was the type of cold that seeped right down into your bones and made them ache real bad. It was the type of cold that left your insides freezing long after your skin had warmed up again.

            The bus didn’t come right away, so I paced back and forth, like they say you’re supposed to in order to keep warm. AS my shoes crunched back and forth over the frost bitten pavement and I was shivering violently, I couldn’t help but think what a load of bullshit that was.

            I had never been happier when the long yellow vehicle finally came to halt in front of me, the sweet relief of the heater melting away my goose bumps.

            At the time I had just taken it as an indication that the winter season was staring to take over, and feeling angry about it. I could hardly stand the thought of pushing through another long New York winter, my sweet summer so far away.

            Looking back though, and knowing what I do now, the biting cold was almost like an omen.

The Soldier's Sleeping Beauty (a poem)

The Soldier's Sleeping Beauty

There was once a girl,
There was once a lad
She was his whole world
She loved him with everything she had

She counted every kiss
That he planted on her sweet lips
And when he was gone
Oh how she would miss
His careful touch
On her skin that she loved so much
The way he'd brush back her hair
And how into her eyes he'd stare

Saying farewell was the worst for him
When the bus came to take him away again
The flood of tears in her eyes
As he held her tight and whispered goodbye
He'd kiss her so deep
And cling to the memory as he lay up late in his bunk
Holding her picture as he quietly weeped

*Named By Fate (a short story)

Named by Fate

“Alice.”

“Alice!”

“ALICE!”

A hand grabbed my shoulder and I jumped violently in surprise. Jessica leapt back from me, not expecting my dramatic response. After a moment she rolled her eyes and tossed her perfect blond hair indignantly, regaining her pristine composure.

“Honestly, Alice, are you ever tuned into Earth?” Jessica sighed, handing me the updated game and practice schedule.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, but she had already moved onto the next person.

I stuffed the schedule into my bag.

As I pulled out my CD player, I wondered if people who had different names were destined to be different. I mean, all the smart kids had names like Edith and Edward. Old fashioned names. They could solve math problems that usually required a calculator easily in their heads.  Then there were the Hopes and Trinity’s, all such nice girls who talked to everyone and stopped to help a kid pick up his books that he’d dumped all over the hallway. And Quinton would be the only kid in school whose name started with a ‘Q’. He would be the class clown, and would probably be a rich stand-up comedian with a show on Comedy Central before he was thirty-five.

            But what about the girl named Mercury who asked to be called by her middle name so she could feel normal? What was my special talent? The ability to be anti-social? I glanced around the bus. As usual, I was the only girl curled up against the window all by her self, while the other twenty-one Varsity and JV girls filled the bus with the awful racket of mindless chatter. On top of that, I was the only one with a CD player, which had been on the endangered species list of technology for at least five years now. Also, there were probably only two or three other girls on the bus who willingly listened to the Beatles. There were the fashionable blonds, the funny brunettes, and the good-time red-heads. Me? Natural black hair. How dreary.

So these are my talents: I’m anti-social (by choice), crappy hair, appreciation of technological dinosaurs, and an eccentric music taste. Great.

*Redemption (a short story)

Redemption

             

            When I woke, I immediately noticed how bright out it was. Usually I woke up in the misty gray hours of dawn, but the air was golden, and the leaves in the upper canopy shimmered in the light, the rain drops they held sparkling like diamonds. The forest was alive with sounds of busy animals rather than the sleepy quiet of daybreak. Through the thick canopy I could make out the position of the sun. I was aghast to see that it was nearly at the peak of the sky. I had slept in for much too long. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. I couldn’t afford to sleep in! I had finally started to get ahead of the recusant General Kyzen and his pertinacious tracking hounds, and I couldn’t lose my lead.

            No sooner had I realized my predicament when I heard the sound that made my stomach clench and my hands get clammy with the veriest fear. A chorus of bays and howls shook the woods, ringing in my ears. They could only be a few miles away. Birds chirped frantically and took flight. Oh, if only I could fly away to somewhere safe like them.

An English Love Story (a short story by Bruno Winterman)

An English Love Story

            The rain hit the cobbled street hard and ran in rivulets down the hill. It made a loud ringing sound on the corrugated tin roofs of the houses that merchants and street performers were hiding under.  The rain was fast, there was no warning, and only a clap of thunder and then the storm came.  The sky was gray and the street urchins who play in the alleys and sit on the corners are all hiding from the storm.  But not Richard Lancaster, he was safe in his carriage on the way to meet the love of his life.

Squeaky Shoes (a short story)

Squeaky Shoes

Today, I ran into an old friend.

            It was a strange, how something as simple as going on a toilet paper run could bring you to something as complicated as a blast from the past.  Just a plain old Sunday in a plain old Wal-Mart, and a particularly wet parking lot that made my shoes squeaky.  I hated squeaky shoes, ever since the 7^th grade, when I owned a pair of sneakers that sounded like ducks even when they weren’t wet.  I had often been stared at, and I had relied on the noisy babble of kids to disguise my noisy shoes.

            And then I rounded the corner, emerging from the toiletries isle, and bam. There he was.