Continuing the Theme...

...of reposting here things that I have already written, here's a short piece of mine that was recently published over at Microhorror.

It's called 'For Sale'.

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Come…on…MOVE…you…son…of…a…

Muscles bulged but the jar lid remained unrepentant. This was getting embarrassing. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time; such a simple idea. Offer to open the new jar for the girl in the kitchen. Impress the girl of his dreams. She didn’t look impressed right now. She looked bored.

I…can’t…believe…this…is…happening…

Still no movement. Not even a fraction of a fraction. The girl had stopped looking bored and was now beginning to look faintly amused. He didn’t know which was worse.

She’s…laughing… at…me…please…open…please…I’ll…do…anything…

Suddenly a hissing, slithering voice whispered in the silence, in the deepest backdrop of his mind.

“Anything?”

- - - -

In the darkness of the under realm, the two demons put the finishing touches to the contract.

“…for the ability to open a jar of sun-dried tomatoes? Really?”

The first demon sounded shocked and a little disgusted. The second demon nodded dolefully.

“There’s no challenge these days. It’s just not fun any more,” he moaned. The first demon finished the document with a flourish of his pen, and slowly shook his head.

“You know what I reckon? I reckon those humans have stopped taking their souls seriously.”

Filler Post

I've not posted for too long, so I'm throwing this up. That might sound like I'm vomiting, but I'm not.

Ruth was away for a week at the end of June, and when she got back I nearly died of flu. Following that we've had about thirty university students here for two weeks. My time has been flittered away on strange and ultimately fruitless pursuits.

Reid will be seven on Saturday. I can't quite believe that he'll be such a big boy. I enjoy all of my children, and they are all so different. It's strange to see little creatures that are a combination of Ruth and myself in personality as well as features. It's also hard to see my own flaws reproduced in my offspring, especially as I know that overcoming some of those flaws will involve walking a difficult path. I suppose that's better than being oblivious to my flaws and therefore unable to help my children grow.