Worthing Flash

Darkness My Old Friend It’s only a shadow on the wall, but it makes the hairs on Carrie’s arms rise. She wakes from a nightmare, just in time, as one does when the chase is on and you’re the prey, and she can’t drop off back to sleep. She goes downstairs to get a glass of milk and check out the shadow. She lives alone in the woods and enjoys the dark. It feels primitive. Makes fear scintillating. Spawns bogeymen. She never locks her doors. Makes no sense, since all an intruder has to do is bust a window on the first floor. No burglar alarms either. If some fool is that desperate, come on in! She makes her way down the stairs, half asleep, half on instinctive alert, and again spots the shadow, sliding across the fridge like a smudge. Forget the milk. She slips silently outside. The night is warm, and she knows her way around as well outside as in. She tiptoes down the hill toward the creek, to the clearing she created as a meditation space. Leaves underfoot are damp, mu...

I’m not feeling so jolly this very minute. Even though the workshop downstairs is finally quiet and I have a lovely fire going, reading through all these holiday cards lying on my desk isn’t cheering me up one bit. My late husband always ran around being the do-gooder, (and maintaining his playful image), while I managed so much of his behind-the-scenes busywork. But even with him gone, so much remains the same. Here I am, trying to take advantage of a window for change, tired of figuring out what gifts to get for our children and our grandchildren who already have everything they can possibly need. But the little ones still want more Pokémon cards to add to their overflowing collections. Really? I’m exhausted from shopping, wrapping, standing in line at the freezing cold post office to mail gifts, waiting to have the annual holiday offerings acknowledged and, finally, watching the bills roll in. (Last year I decked our own halls with Visa receipts.) Next year I’m totally shiftin...

“ Leave me alone, you devils. I can make it on my own two feet if you just give me my cane. Where the hell did you put that cane? I shoulda had me some daughters instead of a son. Women know how to find stuff.” “ I don’t know, Dad. I’ll track it down later and bring it to you.” What I don’t know is if he believes me. He’s harder to convince than Mother was. He stiffens as they put him in the van. “Please don’t hit his head,” I tell the middle-aged man guiding him with a tired smile. Patricia Ann Bowen is the author of a medical time travel trilogy, a short story collection about people in challenging circumstances, and a serialized beach read. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies and most recently in Mystery Tribune, Chamber Magazine, Idle Ink, and Commuterlit.com. She has taught short story writing, and she leads a critique group of short story writers for the Atlanta Writer’s Club. You can connect with her at www.patriciabowen.com .