Advent Ghosts 2016

Today I’m participating in the 100-word #adventghosts2016 flash fiction event run by writer Loren Eaton. You'll find links to all the stories at his blog, I Saw Lightning Fall. Here’s my piece.

Christmas Eve at the Tree Farm, Candler, North Carolina

Every year this night I wait for her, bed down in our fields with my fleece, my flask, my fire, my gun.

Takes twelve years to grow a Fraser to a size you can sell. Takes that long to raise three children right, but only one to lose a wife.

Midnight she picks her footless path through the snow. Nothing but mist pulled together into the shape I once knew.

My heart speaks: I love thee, I love thee, I love thee.

She turns amid the firs with a look only the dead can wear, and whispers, Who are you?

Copyright 2016 Joseph D’Agnese

My previous contributions to the Advent Ghosts events are here.

Check out my story on Shotgun Honey today

I have a flash piece up at Shotgun Honey today. "Wood Man" is short, sweet, and unpleasant. I hope you'll check it out. My thanks to Ron and the other editors there.

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Unrelated:

I've been absent from here a bit. I'm sorry to say that my wife lost her grandmother over the Memorial Day weekend. On its own, that loss would would have been bearable, but coming two months to the day after her mom passed, Grandma's death seemed to carry on even more weight. I originally wanted to write more about her, but I find I just don't have the energy to go there. We are still mired in the world of wills and estate resolutions that the living must attend to, even in their grief. The double-death experience has already taught me a lot. Everyone needs a good, clear trust or will, like, yesterday. Writers especially need to figure out how they're going to dispose of their intellectual property after death. I'll write more about this when I've completed my own estate plan, but you might start here and here.

#AdventGhosts2014

Today I’m participating in the 100-word #adventghosts2014 flash fiction event run by writer Loren Eaton. Here’s my piece. Links to all of this year’s stories are here.

Assassin in Jack’s Backyard, AD 1660

“Are you…a demon?”

I straddled his chest and peered into his eyes.

“I am the frost at the pane. I am the art in the flake. I am the cold that will enshroud your grave forever. My name is Winter.”

“Damn you, then!”

Mine is the touch of the north and south, the touch of the wind, the touch of the tundra, the horrible frigid blade that bleeds feet, frosts toes, stills hearts, and rends minds.

He was a fair chunk of ice, he was, when I smacked his face and sent his head across the drifts of snow.

Copyright 2014 Joseph D’Agnese

My 2013 and 2012 contributions are here.

#AdventGhosts2013

Today I’m participating in the 100-word #adventghosts2013 flash fiction event run by writer Loren Eaton. Here’s my piece. Links to all of this year’s stories are here.

Winter in Amsterdam

Peerenboom’s eyes opened to find his partner looming over his deathbed. “Oh, Jan! My sons want to change my will. They say our business is corrupted by weird doings.”

“I loved you as a father, Albers! Why shouldn’t I inherit?”

“That pact was made fifty years ago. I’ve grown old…but you! You look as young as ever. How—?”

“I got sloppy,” said the other Dutchman. 

Skin pale as Venetian milk glass, he grasped his crony’s hand.

“Sleep, friend, sleep.”

“So cold,” Peerenboom thrashed. “So cold!”

“Ja, like the grave.”

So ended the partnership of Peerenboom & deWinter, purveyors of ice.

Copyright 2013 Joseph D’Agnese