Tag Archives: spirit

January 15, 2014

Fog Sale – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

(Currently I am on a trip and writing this on my phone so please forgive me if I am late reading your stories.)

Fog Sale

“Fog for sale!” Keppler shouted from his soapbox. “Authentic river fog, blessed by a gen-yoo-wine water spirit!”

The man looked skeptical. “Water spirit?”

“Yeah, her name’s Brittany.”

“What’s fog good for?”

“Good for what ails you, my good man,” Keppler said. “For instance, you seem like a man who has trouble getting a girlfriend– Hey, come back!”

Brittany, the water spirit appeared next to him. “Of all the snake-oil salesmen I could have taken up with…”

“Why do you even need money?”

“Paying off a class-action suit,” she said. “Apparently my water’s too dirty for some cry-babies. Life’s hard, man.”

43 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, fog, Friday Fictioneers, sale, salesman, spirit | posted in Light

October 20, 2013

Guardian – Alastair’s Photo Fiction

By David Stewart

I’m back in the blogging world again. I’ve been quite busy/tired/distracted for the last few weeks, but I hope to do more blog writing and reading in the future. This story is rather dark, but I meant it to have a glimmer of hope at the end. I hope that is how you take it.

Guardian

“What’s that?” I asked my father, when I was five.

“Our family crest.” His deep voice echoed through the long passageway.

“No, above it.”

“The guardian,” he said, turning quickly and starting to walk away.

“It’s scary.”

“Quiet!” He turned so forcefully on me that I bit back a cry.

From that day on, I never asked again; never told when the thing lurking over our shield began appearing in my dreams.

I tried to take it down as a teenager. My father caught me and beat me. I saw then that he was afraid, and there was fawning obeisance in his touch as he carefully replaced it on the wall.

I did nothing when my mother died, when my sister went insane, when my father drank himself to death, but I felt that dark presence looming more and more over the now quiet house.

The night my younger brother died—falling down the stairs—I tried to smash our precious guardian, but my courage failed and I fled.

A friend once told me that if the devil exists, then God must exist as well.

I hope he is right: my search becomes more and more desperate as I feel the darkness growing around me once more.