Weird Shorts | Page 4

loving look and demands that I treat the stockings as though
I commanded them. I do. And they settle.
I wonder what tomorrow holds.
Chapter 3.
Weird Fiction
Welcome to the part of the book, that defied other categories.
I am not strange, I am just not normal.
Salvador Dali
MY NEW TATTOO
It says, "Empath."
The letters are bold, blue and permanently inked onto the soft side of
my wrist, which reads right side up when I hold it up to my face.
I've never gotten a tattoo and I'm not going to star now. Yeah, I've
though about getting one, but the thought of my hanging, elderly skin,
inked by the intoxication of youth, never roused me to surrender to that
inclement.
So I get a mental tattoo.

No one else can see it.
No one else needs to.
RED CURTAIN
A red curtain falls to the floor and the last four feet of it stay on the
floor, as the curtain is too long for its current location. Ronny and
Micah continue talking about their recent performance and the curtain
raises with a snap!
It falls with an accordion run and smoke implodes with the fall of the
curtain. In an instant, there are many people and they are boisterously
speaking French, smoking with ornate cigarette holders and laughing
entirely too hard. "PopoÖ." A man requests the attention of another and
the curtain raises as quickly as it had fallen.
Again, it falls to the earth and a man is dying in the desert. His khaki
outfit is torn, dirty and thin. All he wants is a drop of water and all he
gets is a random picture show, centering around a curtain.
THE BUTTAHFLY GUILD
The year is 2006 and it's seven thirty in the a.m. at 111 Fine Pines Lane.
Ms. Mamie is in the living room, with the front door open and sun rays
displayed in a geometric pattern on an unkempt hardwood floor. There
seems to be a baby in her arms.
"Well, they was Margaret Jo, Mary Jean, Tranelle and Margretta. Each
of them girls was a member of the club. 'Course now, we lost Mary
Jean 'bout a week ago." Pausing. "It was ve'y unfortunate how sh' wuh
playin' so close to a street like that. Umm mmmm," shaking her head.
"Po thang neve' did seen it comin' like that! No, she sure didn't." In a
sing-song voice, "No she didn't. No she didn't."
Ms. Mamie giggles with joy as she perceives a cooing baby.
Squinting, Ms. Mamie looks away from the door, places an empty,

dirty coffee mug on an old, scratched end table, continues with her tale
and starts with a smirk and a scratch to the back of the head.
"Now, in the beginning, they was only three of them girls. Ummm
hmmmmmm. They was three girls and it started out as jes' somethin'
that kep' them girls bus-y. Pujibity. They ca'd theyselves, "The
Buttahfly Guild," Looking away, "Sho was. Ummm hmmmm." Her
tempo accelerates, "M.J., Tranelle and Ma'y Jean was the only
members in tha beginning. Ugh huh. And they was all the same age.
School had n'er start yet and they was bored, so they.." Ms. Mamie's
left hand cramps into an arthritic ball and she loses thought. "...school
h'aint started yet, so they needed 'em sum'in to do with they selves, so
they started this hur club. It kept 'em busy fuh a couple a years, it did.
Foshing..." The other hand cramps up and a dusty blanket falls to the
hardwood. The pain was excruciating. There's no denial, memory,
healing, companionship or love in a dusty blanket, whose stains are
more obvious under the scrutiny of an unrelenting morning sun.
Chapter 4.
Short Stories by Katie Maud Stephan
I am so grateful that Katie Maud Stephan has agreed to do this book
with me. I only wish that I could appreciate other writers of this genre
as much as I appreciate her! Truly, she is in a class by herself.
All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise.
Cleopatra
COMING TO TERMS
So now she had to deal with the reality of the situation.
Ever since his arrest, Caren had been in an admitted state of denial. It
was simply impossible that anyone in her family was capable of what
he had been arrested for, convicted of, now to be slain for.

What did his deeds say about her? As his sister, was she subject to the
same proclivities?
Compulsively she scoured her memories for even a single instance that
foreshadowed this nightmare, but she came up empty.
More heartlessly, she scrutinized her own childhood cruelties and
jealousies, every mean thought, each lost friendship; all for naught. No
sudden insights rocked her, no hidden