Transcript:

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;

The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;

Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,

And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,

There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.

He looked like a man with a foot in the grave

and scarcely the strength of a louse,

Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar,

and he called for drinks for the house.

There was none could place the stranger's face,

though we searched ourselves for a clue;

But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes,

and hold them hard like a spell;

And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;

With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,

As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.

Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,

And I turned my head -- and there watching him

was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,

Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.

The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,

So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands

-- my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,

And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could _HEAR_;

With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,

A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;

While high overhead, green, yellow and red,

the North Lights swept in bars? --

Then you've a haunch what the music meant...

hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,

But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;

For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;

But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love --

A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true --

(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, --

the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;

But you felt that your life had been looted clean

of all that it once held dear;

That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;

That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.

'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair,

and it thrilled you through and through --

"I guess I'll make it a spread misère," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost died away... then it burst like a pent-up flood;

And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.

The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,

And the lust awoke to kill, to kill...

then the music stopped with a crash,

And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then his lips went in in a kind of grin,

and he spoke, and his voice was calm,

And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;

But I want to state, and my words are straight,

and I'll bet my poke they're true,

That one of you is a hound of hell... and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out,

and two guns blazed in the dark,

And a woman screamed, and the lights went up,

and two men lay stiff and stark.

Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,

While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast

of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.

They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch",

and I'm not denying it's so.

I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two --

The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke --

was the lady that's known as Lou.

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The Shooting of Dan McGrew by Robert W. Service is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Midjourney and Canva Pro.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io

Visit our store at storyletter.press

When Urda Bjarnason tells a tale all the men stop their talking to listen, for they know her to be wise with the wisdom of the old people, and that she has more learning than can be got even from the great schools at Reykjavik. She is especially prized by them here in this new country where the Icelandmen are settled—this America, so new in letters, where the people speak foolishly and write unthinking books. So the men who know that it is given to the mothers of earth to be very wise, stop their six part singing, or their jangles about the free-thinkers, and give attentive ear when Urda Bjarnason lights her pipe and begins her tale.

She is very old. Her daughters and sons are all dead, but her granddaughter, who is most respectable, and the cousin of a physician, says that Urda is twenty-four and a hundred, and there are others who say that she is older still. She watches all that the Iceland people do in the new land; she knows about the building of the five villages on the North Dakota plain, and of the founding of the churches and the schools, and the tilling of the wheat farms. She notes with suspicion the actions of the women who bring home webs of cloth from the store, instead of spinning them as their mothers did before them; and she shakes her head at the wives who run to the village grocery store every fortnight, imitating the wasteful American women, who throw butter in the fire faster than it can be turned from the churn.

She watches yet other things. All winter long the white snows reach across the gently rolling plains as far as the eye can behold. In the morning she sees them tinted pink at the east; at noon she notes golden lights flashing across them; when the sky is gray—which is not often—she notes that they grow as ashen as a face with the death shadow on it. Sometimes they glitter with silver-like tips of ocean waves. But at these things she looks only casually. It is when the blue shadows dance on the snow that she leaves her corner behind the iron stove, and stands before the window, resting her two hands on the stout bar of her cane, and gazing out across the waste with eyes which age has restored after four decades of decrepitude.

The young Icelandmen say:

“Mother, it is the clouds hurrying across the sky that make the dance of the shadows.”

“There are no clouds,” she replies, and points to the jewel-like blue of the arching sky.

“It is the drifting air,” explains Fridrik Halldersson, he who has been in the Northern seas. “As the wind buffets the air, it looks blue against the white of the snow. 'Tis the air that makes the dancing shadows.”

But Urda shakes her head, and points with her dried finger, and those who stand beside her see figures moving, and airy shapes, and contortions of strange things, such as are seen in a beryl stone.

“But Urda Bjarnason,” says Ingeborg Christianson, the pert young wife with the blue-eyed twins, “why is it we see these things only when we stand beside you and you help us to the sight?”

“Because,” says the mother, with a steel-blue flash of her old eyes, “having eyes ye will not see!” Then the men laugh. They like to hear Ingeborg worsted. For did she not jilt two men from Gardar, and one from Mountain, and another from Winnipeg?

Not even Ingeborg can deny that Mother Urda tells true things.

“To-day,” says Urda, standing by the little window and watching the dance of the shadows, “a child breathed thrice on a farm at the West, and then it died.”

The next week at the church gathering, when all the sledges stopped at the house of Urda's granddaughter, they said it was so—that John Christianson's wife Margaret never heard the voice of her son, but that he breathed thrice in his nurse's arms and died.

“Three sledges run over the snow toward Milton,” says Urda; “all are laden with wheat, and in one is a stranger. He has with him a strange engine, but its purpose I do not know.”

Six hours later the drivers of three empty sledges stop at the house.

“We have been to Milton with wheat,” they say, “and Christian Johnson here, carried a photographer from St. Paul.”

Now it stands to reason that the farmers like to amuse themselves through the silent and white winters. And they prefer above all things to talk or to listen, as has been the fashion of their race for a thousand years. Among all the story-tellers there is none like Urda, for she is the daughter and the granddaughter and the great-granddaughter of storytellers. It is given to her to talk, as it is given to John Thorlaksson to sing—he who sings so as his sledge flies over the snow at night, that the people come out in the bitter air from their doors to listen, and the dogs put up their noses and howl, not liking music.

In the little cabin of Peter Christianson, the husband of Urda's granddaughter, it sometimes happens that twenty men will gather about the stove. They hang their bear-skin coats on the wall, put their fur gauntlets underneath the stove, where they will keep warm, and then stretch their stout, felt-covered legs to the wood fire. The room is fetid; the coffee steams eternally on the stove; and from her chair in the warmest corner Urda speaks out to the listening men, who shake their heads with joy as they hear the pure old Icelandic flow in sweet rhythm from between her lips. Among the many, many tales she tells is that of the dead weaver, and she tells it in the simplest language in all the world—language so simple that even great scholars could find no simpler, and the children crawling on the floor can understand.

“Jon and Loa lived with their father and mother far to the north of the Island of Fire, and when the children looked from their windows they saw only wild scaurs and jagged lava rocks, and a distant, deep gleam of the sea. They caught the shine of the sea through an eye-shaped opening in the rocks, and all the long night of winter it gleamed up at them, like the eye of a dead witch. But when it sparkled and began to laugh, the children danced about the hut and sang, for they knew the bright summer time was at hand. Then their father fished, and their mother was gay. But it is true that even in the winter and the darkness they were happy, for they made fishing nets and baskets and cloth together,—Jon and Loa and their father and mother,—and the children were taught to read in the books, and were told the sagas, and given instruction in the part singing.

“They did not know there was such a thing as sorrow in the world, for no one had ever mentioned it to them. But one day their mother died. Then they had to learn how to keep the fire on the hearth, and to smoke the fish, and make the black coffee. And also they had to learn how to live when there is sorrow at the heart.

“They wept together at night for lack of their mother's kisses, and in the morning they were loath to rise because they could not see her face. The dead cold eye of the sea watching them from among the lava rocks made them afraid, so they hung a shawl over the window to keep it out. And the house, try as they would, did not look clean and cheerful as it had used to do when their mother sang and worked about it.

“One day, when a mist rested over the eye of the sea, like that which one beholds on the eyes of the blind, a greater sorrow came to them, for a stepmother crossed the threshold. She looked at Jon and Loa, and made complaint to their father that they were still very small and not likely to be of much use. After that they had to rise earlier than ever, and to work as only those who have their growth should work, till their hearts cracked for weariness and shame. They had not much to eat, for their stepmother said she would trust to the gratitude of no other woman's child, and that she believed in laying up against old age. So she put the few coins that came to the house in a strong box, and bought little food. Neither did she buy the children clothes, though those which their dear mother had made for them were so worn that the warp stood apart from the woof, and there were holes at the elbows and little warmth to be found in them anywhere.

“Moreover, the quilts on their beds were too short for their growing length, so that at night either their purple feet or their thin shoulders were uncovered, and they wept for the cold, and in the morning, when they crept into the larger room to build the fire, they were so stiff they could not stand straight, and there was pain at their joints.

“The wife scolded all the time, and her brow was like a storm sweeping down from the Northwest. There was no peace to be had in the house. The children might not repeat to each other the sagas their mother had taught them, nor try their part singing, nor make little doll cradles of rushes. Always they had to work, always they were scolded, always their clothes grew thinner.

“'Stepmother,' cried Loa one day,—she whom her mother had called the little bird,—'we are a-cold because of our rags. Our mother would have woven blue cloth for us and made it into garments.'

“'Your mother is where she will weave no cloth!' said the stepmother, and she laughed many times.

“All in the cold and still of that night, the stepmother wakened, and she knew not why. She sat up in her bed, and knew not why. She knew not why, and she looked into the room, and there, by the light of a burning fish's tail—'twas such a light the folk used in those days—was a woman, weaving. She had no loom, and shuttle she had none. All with her hands she wove a wondrous cloth. Stooping and bending, rising and swaying with motions beautiful as those the Northern Lights make in a midwinter sky, she wove a cloth. The warp was blue and mystical to see, the woof was white, and shone with its whiteness, so that of all the webs the stepmother had ever seen, she had seen none like to this.

“Yet the sight delighted her not, for beyond the drifting web, and beyond the weaver she saw the room and furniture—aye, saw them through the body of the weaver and the drifting of the cloth. Then she knew—as the haunted are made to know—that 'twas the mother of the children come to show her she could still weave cloth. The heart of the stepmother was cold as ice, yet she could not move to waken her husband at her side, for her hands were as fixed as if they were crossed on her dead breast. The voice in her was silent, and her tongue stood to the roof of her mouth.

“After a time the wraith of the dead mother moved toward her—the wraith of the weaver moved her way—and round and about her body was wound the shining cloth. Wherever it touched the body of the stepmother, it was as hateful to her as the touch of a monster out of sea-slime, so that her flesh crept away from it, and her senses swooned.

“In the early morning she awoke to the voices of the children, whispering in the inner room as they dressed with half-frozen fingers. Still about her was the hateful, beautiful web, filling her soul with loathing and with fear. She thought she saw the task set for her, and when the children crept in to light the fire—very purple and thin were their little bodies, and the rags hung from them—she arose and held out the shining cloth, and cried:

“'Here is the web your mother wove for you. I will make it into garments!' But even as she spoke the cloth faded and fell into nothingness, and the children cried:

“'Stepmother, you have the fever!'

“And then:

“'Stepmother, what makes the strange light in the room?'

“That day the stepmother was too weak to rise from her bed, and the children thought she must be going to die, for she did not scold as they cleared the house and braided their baskets, and she did not frown at them, but looked at them with wistful eyes.

“By fall of night she was as weary as if she had wept all the day, and so she slept. But again she was awakened and knew not why. And again she sat up in her bed and knew not why. And again, not knowing why, she looked and saw a woman weaving cloth. All that had happened the night before happened this night. Then, when the morning came, and the children crept in shivering from their beds, she arose and dressed herself, and from her strong box she took coins, and bade her husband go with her to the town.

“So that night a web of cloth, woven by one of the best weavers in all Iceland, was in the house; and on the beds of the children were blankets of lamb's wool, soft to the touch and fair to the eye. After that the children slept warm and were at peace; for now, when they told the sagas their mother had taught them, or tried their part songs as they sat together on their bench, the stepmother was silent. For she feared to chide, lest she should wake at night, not knowing why, and see the mother's wraith.”

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From the Loom of the Dead by Elia Wilkinson Peattie is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Midjourney and Canva Pro.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io

Visit our store at storyletter.press

King Karna-Vootra sitting on his throne commanding all things said: "I very clearly saw last night the queenly Vava-Nyria. Though partly she was hidden by great clouds that swept continually by her, rolling over and over, yet her face was unhidden and shone, being full of moonlight.

"I said to her:

"'Walk with me by the great pools in many-gardened, beautiful Istrakhan where the lilies float that give delectable dreams; or, drawing aside the curtain of hanging orchids, pass with me thence from the pools by a secret path through the else impassable jungle that fills the only way between the mountains that shut in Istrakhan. They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and at evening when the pools are strange with light, till in their gladness sometimes there melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely heights the mountaineer. They have valleys among them older than the wrinkles in the moon.

"'Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we shall come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only speak of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely that even the butterflies that float about it when they see their images flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each night we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing the stars to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with tidings of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Séndara and men shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Séndara the rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of Zoth, till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing; but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma as they sit telling careless tales to lure men to their wares.

"'And the heralds passing thence shall come even to Ingra, to Ingra where they dance. And there they shall tell of thee, so that thy name long hence shall be sung in that joyous city. And there they shall borrow camels and pass over the sands and go by desert ways to distant Nirid to tell of thee to the lonely men in the mountain monasteries.

"'Come with me even now for it is Spring.'"

"And as I said this she faintly yet perceptibly shook her head. And it was only then I remembered my youth was gone, and she dead forty years."

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The Dream of King Karna-Vootra by Lord Dunsany is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Midjourney and Canva Pro.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io, song is “Narcissus” by Maya Belsitzman and Matan Ephrat

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THERE was only one possible objection to the drawing-room, and that was the occasional presence of Miss Carew; and only one possible objection to Miss Carew. And that was, that she was dead.

She had been dead twenty years, as a matter of fact and record, and to the last of her life sacredly preserved the treasures and traditions of her family, a family bound up—as it is quite unnecessary to explain to any one in good society—with all that is most venerable and heroic in the history of the Republic. Miss Carew never relaxed the proverbial hospitality of her house, even when she remained its sole representative. She continued to preside at her table with dignity and state, and to set an example of excessive modesty and gentle decorum to a generation of restless young women.

It is not likely that having lived a life of such irreproachable gentility as this, Miss Carew would have the bad taste to die in any way not pleasant to mention in fastidious society. She could be trusted to the last, not to outrage those friends who quoted her as an exemplar of propriety. She died very unobtrusively of an affection of the heart, one June morning, while trimming her rose trellis, and her lavender-colored print was not even rumpled when she fell, nor were more than the tips of her little bronze slippers visible.

“Isn't it dreadful,” said the Philadelphians, “that the property should go to a very, very distant cousin in Iowa or somewhere else on the frontier, about whom nobody knows anything at all?”

The Carew treasures were packed in boxes and sent away into the Iowa wilderness; the Carew traditions were preserved by the Historical Society; the Carew property, standing in one of the most umbrageous and aristocratic suburbs of Philadelphia, was rented to all manner of folk—anybody who had money enough to pay the rental—and society entered its doors no more.

But at last, after twenty years, and when all save the oldest Philadelphians had forgotten Miss Lydia Carew, the very, very distant cousin appeared. He was quite in the prime of life, and so agreeable and unassuming that nothing could be urged against him save his patronymic, which, being Boggs, did not commend itself to the euphemists. With him were two maiden sisters, ladies of excellent taste and manners, who restored the Carew china to its ancient cabinets, and replaced the Carew pictures upon the walls, with additions not out of keeping with the elegance of these heirlooms. Society, with a magnanimity almost dramatic, overlooked the name of Boggs—and called.

All was well. At least, to an outsider all seemed to be well. But, in truth, there was a certain distress in the old mansion, and in the hearts of the well-behaved Misses Boggs. It came about most unexpectedly. The sisters had been sitting upstairs, looking out at the beautiful grounds of the old place, and marvelling at the violets, which lifted their heads from every possible cranny about the house, and talking over the cordiality which they had been receiving by those upon whom they had no claim, and they were filled with amiable satisfaction. Life looked attractive. They had often been grateful to Miss Lydia Carew for leaving their brother her fortune. Now they felt even more grateful to her. She had left them a Social Position—one, which even after twenty years of desuetude, was fit for use.

They descended the stairs together, with arms clasped about each other's waists, and as they did so presented a placid and pleasing sight. They entered their drawing-room with the intention of brewing a cup of tea, and drinking it in calm sociability in the twilight. But as they entered the room they became aware of the presence of a lady, who was already seated at their tea-table, regarding their old Wedgewood with the air of a connoisseur.

There were a number of peculiarities about this intruder. To begin with, she was hatless, quite as if she were a habitué; of the house, and was costumed in a prim lilac-colored lawn of the style of two decades past. But a greater peculiarity was the resemblance this lady bore to a faded daguerrotype. If looked at one way, she was perfectly discernible; if looked at another, she went out in a sort of blur. Notwithstanding this comparative invisibility, she exhaled a delicate perfume of sweet lavender, very pleasing to the nostrils of the Misses Boggs, who stood looking at her in gentle and unprotesting surprise.

“I beg your pardon,” began Miss Prudence, the younger of the Misses Boggs, “but—”

But at this moment the Daguerrotype became a blur, and Miss Prudence found herself addressing space. The Misses Boggs were irritated. They had never encountered any mysteries in Iowa. They began an impatient search behind doors and portières, and even under sofas, though it was quite absurd to suppose that a lady recognizing the merits of the Carew Wedgewood would so far forget herself as to crawl under a sofa.

When they had given up all hope of discovering the intruder, they saw her standing at the far end of the drawing-room critically examining a water-color marine. The elder Miss Boggs started toward her with stern decision, but the little Daguerrotype turned with a shadowy smile, became a blur and an imperceptibility.

Miss Boggs looked at Miss Prudence Boggs.

“If there were ghosts,” she said, “this would be one.”

“If there were ghosts,” said Miss Prudence Boggs, “this would be the ghost of Lydia Carew.”

The twilight was settling into blackness, and Miss Boggs nervously lit the gas while Miss Prudence ran for other tea-cups, preferring, for reasons superfluous to mention, not to drink out of the Carew china that evening.

The next day, on taking up her embroidery frame, Miss Boggs found a number of old-fashioned cross-stitches added to her Kensington. Prudence, she knew, would never have degraded herself by taking a cross-stitch, and the parlor-maid was above taking such a liberty. Miss Boggs mentioned the incident that night at a dinner given by an ancient friend of the Carews.

“Oh, that's the work of Lydia Carew, without a doubt!” cried the hostess. “She visits every new family that moves to the house, but she never remains more than a week or two with any one.”

“It must be that she disapproves of them,” suggested Miss Boggs.

“I think that's it,” said the hostess. “She doesn't like their china, or their fiction.”

“I hope she'll disapprove of us,” added Miss Prudence.

The hostess belonged to a very old Philadelphian family, and she shook her head.

“I should say it was a compliment for even the ghost of Miss Lydia Carew to approve of one,” she said severely.

The next morning, when the sisters entered their drawing-room there were numerous evidences of an occupant during their absence. The sofa pillows had been rearranged so that the effect of their grouping was less bizarre than that favored by the Western women; a horrid little Buddhist idol with its eyes fixed on its abdomen, had been chastely hidden behind a Dresden shepherdess, as unfit for the scrutiny of polite eyes; and on the table where Miss Prudence did work in water colors, after the fashion of the impressionists, lay a prim and impossible composition representing a moss-rose and a number of heartsease, colored with that caution which modest spinster artists instinctively exercise.

“Oh, there's no doubt it's the work of Miss Lydia Carew,” said Miss Prudence, contemptuously. “There's no mistaking the drawing of that rigid little rose. Don't you remember those wreaths and bouquets framed, among the pictures we got when the Carew pictures were sent to us? I gave some of them to an orphan asylum and burned up the rest.”

“Hush!” cried Miss Boggs, involuntarily. “If she heard you, it would hurt her feelings terribly. Of course, I mean—” and she blushed. “It might hurt her feelings—but how perfectly ridiculous! It's impossible!”

Miss Prudence held up the sketch of the moss-rose.

“THAT may be impossible in an artistic sense, but it is a palpable thing.”

“Bosh!” cried Miss Boggs.

“But,” protested Miss Prudence, “how do you explain it?”

“I don't,” said Miss Boggs, and left the room.

That evening the sisters made a point of being in the drawing-room before the dusk came on, and of lighting the gas at the first hint of twilight. They didn't believe in Miss Lydia Carew—but still they meant to be beforehand with her. They talked with unwonted vivacity and in a louder tone than was their custom. But as they drank their tea even their utmost verbosity could not make them oblivious to the fact that the perfume of sweet lavender was stealing insidiously through the room. They tacitly refused to recognize this odor and all that it indicated, when suddenly, with a sharp crash, one of the old Carew tea-cups fell from the tea-table to the floor and was broken. The disaster was followed by what sounded like a sigh of pain and dismay.

“I didn't suppose Miss Lydia Carew would ever be as awkward as that,” cried the younger Miss Boggs, petulantly.

“Prudence,” said her sister with a stern accent, “please try not to be a fool. You brushed the cup off with the sleeve of your dress.”

“Your theory wouldn't be so bad,” said Miss Prudence, half laughing and half crying, “if there were any sleeves to my dress, but, as you see, there aren't,” and then Miss Prudence had something as near hysterics as a healthy young woman from the West can have.

“I wouldn't think such a perfect lady as Lydia Carew,” she ejaculated between her sobs, “would make herself so disagreeable! You may talk about good-breeding all you please, but I call such intrusion exceedingly bad taste. I have a horrible idea that she likes us and means to stay with us. She left those other people because she did not approve of their habits or their grammar. It would be just our luck to please her.”

“Well, I like your egotism,” said Miss Boggs.

However, the view Miss Prudence took of the case appeared to be the right one. Time went by and Miss Lydia Carew still remained. When the ladies entered their drawing-room they would see the little lady-like Daguerrotype revolving itself into a blur before one of the family portraits. Or they noticed that the yellow sofa cushion, toward which she appeared to feel a peculiar antipathy, had been dropped behind the sofa upon the floor, or that one of Jane Austen's novels, which none of the family ever read, had been removed from the book shelves and left open upon the table.

“I cannot become reconciled to it,” complained Miss Boggs to Miss Prudence. “I wish we had remained in Iowa where we belong. Of course I don't believe in the thing! No sensible person would. But still I cannot become reconciled.”

But their liberation was to come, and in a most unexpected manner.

A relative by marriage visited them from the West. He was a friendly man and had much to say, so he talked all through dinner, and afterward followed the ladies to the drawing-room to finish his gossip. The gas in the room was turned very low, and as they entered Miss Prudence caught sight of Miss Carew, in company attire, sitting in upright propriety in a stiff-backed chair at the extremity of the apartment.

Miss Prudence had a sudden idea.

“We will not turn up the gas,” she said, with an emphasis intended to convey private information to her sister. “It will be more agreeable to sit here and talk in this soft light.”

Neither her brother nor the man from the West made any objection. Miss Boggs and Miss Prudence, clasping each other's hands, divided their attention between their corporeal and their incorporeal guests. Miss Boggs was confident that her sister had an idea, and was willing to await its development. As the guest from Iowa spoke, Miss Carew bent a politely attentive ear to what he said.

“Ever since Richards took sick that time,” he said briskly, “it seemed like he shed all responsibility.” (The Misses Boggs saw the Daguerrotype put up her shadowy head with a movement of doubt and apprehension.) “The fact of the matter was, Richards didn't seem to scarcely get on the way he might have been expected to.” (At this conscienceless split to the infinitive and misplacing of the preposition, Miss Carew arose trembling perceptibly.) “I saw it wasn't no use for him to count on a quick recovery—”

The Misses Boggs lost the rest of the sentence, for at the utterance of the double negative Miss Lydia Carew had flashed out, not in a blur, but with mortal haste, as when life goes out at a pistol shot!

The man from the West wondered why Miss Prudence should have cried at so pathetic a part of his story:

“Thank Goodness!”

And their brother was amazed to see Miss Boggs kiss Miss Prudence with passion and energy.

It was the end. Miss Carew returned no more.

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A Grammatical Ghost by Elia Wilkinson Peattie is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Midjourney and Adobe Creative Cloud Express.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io

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The Idle City by Lord Dunsany

Narrated by Daniel W. Davison

There was once a city which was an idle city, wherein men told vain tales.

And it was that city's custom to tax all men that would enter in, with the toll of some idle story in the gate.

So all men paid to the watchers in the gate the toll of an idle story, and passed into the city unhindered and unhurt. And in a certain hour of the night when the king of that city arose and went pacing swiftly up and down the chamber of his sleeping, and called upon the name of the dead queen, then would the watchers fasten up the gate and go into that chamber to the king, and, sitting on the floor, would tell him all the tales that they had gathered. And listening to them some calmer mood would come upon the king, and listening still he would lie down again and at last fall asleep, and all the watchers silently would arise and steal away from the chamber.

A while ago wandering, I came to the gate of that city. And even as I came a man stood up to pay his toll to the watchers. They were seated cross-legged on the ground between him and the gate, and each one held a spear. Near him two other travellers sat on the warm sand waiting. And the man said:

"Now the city of Nombros forsook the worship of the gods and turned towards God. So the gods threw their cloaks over their faces and strode away from the city, and going into the haze among the hills passed through the trunks of the olive groves into the sunset. But when they had already left the Earth, they turned and looked through the gleaming folds of the twilight for the last time at their city; and they looked half in anger and half in regret, then turned and went away for ever. But they sent back a Death, who bore a scythe, saying to it: 'Slay half in the city that forsook us, but half of them spare alive that they may yet remember their old forsaken gods.'

"But God sent a destroying angel to show that He was God, saying unto him: 'Go into that city and slay half of the dwellers therein, yet spare a half of them that they may know that I am God.'

"And at once the destroying angel put his hand to his sword, and the sword came out of the scabbard with a deep breath, like to the breath that a broad woodman takes before his first blow at some giant oak. Thereat the angel pointed his arms downwards, and bending his head between them, fell forward from Heaven's edge, and the spring of his ankles shot him downwards with his wings furled behind him. So he went slanting earthward through the evening with his sword stretched out before him, and he was like a javelin that some hunter hath hurled that returneth again to the earth: but just before he touched it he lifted his head and spread his wings with the under feathers forward, and alighted by the bank of the broad Flavro that divides the city of Nombros. And down the bank of the Flavro he fluttered low, like to a hawk over a new-cut cornfield when the little creatures of the corn are shelterless, and at the same time down the other bank the Death from the gods went mowing.

"At once they saw each other, and the angel glared at the Death, and the Death leered back at him, and the flames in the eyes of the angel illumined with a red glare the mist that lay in the hollows of the sockets of the Death. Suddenly they fell on one another, sword to scythe. And the angel captured the temples of the gods, and set up over them the sign of God, and the Death captured the temples of God, and led into them the ceremonies and sacrifices of the gods; and all the while the centuries slipped quietly by, going down the Flavro seawards.

"And now some worship God in the temple of the gods, and others worship the gods in the temple of God, and still the angel hath not returned again to the rejoicing choirs, and still the Death hath not gone back to die with the dead gods; but all through Nombros they fight up and down, and still on each side of the Flavro the city lives."

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in."

Then another traveler rose up, and said:

"Solemnly between Huhenwazy and Nitcrana the huge grey clouds came floating. And those great mountains, heavenly Huhenwazi and Nitcrana, the king of peaks, greeted them, calling them brothers. And the clouds were glad of their greeting, for they meet with companions seldom in the lonely heights of the sky.

"But the vapours of evening said unto the earth-mist, 'What are those shapes that dare to move above us and to go where Nitcrana is and Huhenwazi?'

"And the earth-mist said in answer unto the vapours of evening, 'It is only an earth-mist that has become mad and has left the warm and comfortable earth, and has in his madness thought that his place is with Huhenwazi and Nitcrana.'

"'Once,' said the vapours of evening, 'there were clouds, but this was many and many a day ago, as our forefathers have said. Perhaps the mad one thinks he is the clouds.'

"Then spake the earth-worms from the warm deeps of the mud, saying 'O earth-mist, thou art indeed the clouds, and there are no clouds but thou. And as for Huhenwazi and Nitcrana, I cannot see them, and therefore they are not high, and there are no mountains in the world but those that I cast up every morning out of the deeps of the mud.'

"And the earth-mist and the vapours of evening were glad at the voice of the earth-worms, and looking earthward believed what they had said.

"And indeed it is better to be as the earth-mist, and to keep close to the warm mud at night, and to hear the earth-worm's comfortable speech, and not to be a wanderer in the cheerless heights, but to leave the mountains alone with their desolate snow, to draw what comfort they can from their vast aspect over all the cities of men, and from the whispers that they hear at evening of unknown distant gods."

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in."

Then a man stood up who came out of the west, and told a western tale. He said:

"There is a road in Rome that runs through an ancient temple that once the gods had loved; it runs along the top of a great wall, and the floor of the temple lies far down beneath it, of marble, pink and white.

"Upon the temple floor I counted to the number of thirteen hungry cats.

"'Sometimes,' they said among themselves, 'it was the gods that lived here, sometimes it was men, and now it's cats. So let us enjoy the sun on the hot marble before another people comes.'

"For it was at that hour of a warm afternoon when my fancy is able to hear silent voices.

"And the awful leanness of all those thirteen cats moved me to go into a neighbouring fish shop, and there to buy a quantity of fishes. Then I returned and threw them all over the railing at the top of the great wall, and they fell for thirty feet, and hit the sacred marble with a smack.

"Now, in any other town but Rome, or in the minds of any other cats, the sight of fishes falling out of heaven had surely excited wonder. They rose slowly, and all stretched themselves, then they came leisurely towards the fishes. 'It is only a miracle,' they said in their hearts."

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in."

Proudly and slowly, as they spoke, drew up to them a camel, whose rider sought entrance to the city. His face shone with the sunset by which for long he had steered for the city's gate. Of him they demanded toll. Whereat he spoke to his camel, and the camel roared and kneeled, and the man descended from him. And the man unwrapped from many silks a box of divers metals wrought by the Japanese, and on the lid of it were figures of men who gazed from some shore at an isle of the Inland Sea. This he showed to the watchers, and when they had seen it, said, "It has seemed to me that these speak to each other thus:

"'Behold now Oojni, the dear one of the sea, the little mother sea that hath no storms. She goeth out from Oojni singing a song, and she returneth singing over her sands. Little is Oojni in the lap of the sea, and scarce to be perceived by wondering ships. White sails have never wafted her legends afar, they are told not by bearded wanderers of the sea. Her fireside tales are known not to the North, the dragons of China have not heard of them, nor those that ride on elephants through Ind.

"'Men tell the tales and the smoke ariseth upwards; the smoke departeth and the tales are told.

"'Oojni is not a name among the nations, she is not know of where the merchants meet, she is not spoken of by alien lips.

"'Indeed, but Oojni is a little among the isles, yet is she loved by those that know her coasts and her inland places hidden from the sea.

"Without glory, without fame, and without wealth, Oojni is greatly loved by a little people, and by a few; yet not by few, for all her dead still love her, and oft by night come whispering through her woods. Who could forget Oojni even among the dead?

"For here in Oojni, wot you, are homes of men, and gardens, and golden temples of the gods, and sacred places inshore from the sea, and many murmurous woods. And there is a path that winds over the hills to go into mysterious holy lands where dance by night the spirits of the woods, or sing unseen in the sunlight; and no one goes into these holy lands, for who that love Oojni could rob her of her mysteries, and the curious aliens come not. Indeed, but we love Oojni though she is so little; she is the little mother of our race, and the kindly nurse of all seafaring birds.

"And behold, even now caressing her, the gentle fingers of the mother sea, whose dreams are far with that old wanderer Ocean.

"And yet let us forget not Fuzi-Yama, for he stands manifest over clouds and sea, misty below, and vague and indistinct, but clear above for all the isles to watch. The ships make all their journeys in his sight, the nights and the days go by him like a wind, the summers and winters under him flicker and fade, the lives of men pass quietly here and hence, and Fuzi-Yama watches there—and knows."

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in."

And I, too, would have told them a tale, very wonderful and very true; one that I had told in many cities, which as yet had no believers. But now the sun had set, and the brief twilight gone, and ghostly silences were rising from far and darkening hills. A stillness hung over that city's gate. And the great silence of the solemn night was more acceptable to the watchers in the gate than any sound of man. Therefore they beckoned to us, and motioned with their hands that we should pass untaxed into the city. And softly we went up over the sand, and between the high rock pillars of the gate, and a deep stillness settled among the watchers, and the stars over them twinkled undisturbed.

For how short a while man speaks, and withal how vainly. And for how long he is silent. Only the other day I met a king in Thebes, who had been silent already for four thousand years.

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The Idle City by Lord Dunsany is a work of fiction and in the public domain. Read by Daniel Davison for Librivox.org. Text available at Gutenberg.org.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC Digital Audio Substack Edition.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Adobe Stock and Adobe Creative Cloud Express.

Music and SFX licensing courtesy of Artlist.io

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Transcript:

I don’t remember being born.

I woke up adrift in the warm embrace of a guardian figure,

a guardian everyone wanted to emulate,

a guardian burning so bright that the rest of them appeared dim.

I desired to be that, to burn bright.

However, the longer I drifted through life, the more lonely I became.

The longer I drifted, the faster life went.

The figures I’d once admired shrunk to nothing, forlorn and lost in time.

I was alone for what seemed like millennia.

I gravitated to certain groups, then to others, all of which ignored me as I passed. 

No one attempted to reach out and welcome me into their presence.

No one cared.

No one saw the light in me.

I was a blip on a radar,

thought as nothing more. 

But an opportunity arose on the horizon.

It’s wondrous blue blossomed out of a dark future, 

a symbol of hope and enlightenment,

my chance to shine. 

I was enticed by its strong pull.

The gravity of its grand nature could not be escaped. 

I saw the blues and greens of life like never before.

No longer was I trapped in an empty void.

Warmth and happiness returned after eons of absence.

I became wanted, a spark igniting.

A shining light burst all around me in every direction.

Curious eyes looked up to me. 

They greeted me, noticing me for the first time.

Everyone pointed in awe at my visage.

I burned bright, brighter than I’d ever imagined. 

The heat of the moment touched me to my core.

I’d become the star of my own show, but I knew it wouldn’t last.

Every beginning has an ending.

I could feel the flame dying around me.

My light faded.

The eyes drifted away slowly, no longer interested as I crumbled into nothing and fell.

It had lasted only the briefest of moments, but I had burned bright like my guardian had once done.

I had shown that I, too, could achieve greatness, if only for a blink of an eye. 

I'd hoped that in that fleeting glimpse I’d given someone the inspiration that they needed;

a wish to be granted;

a chance to be seen;

the will to burn bright among the stars.

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Burn Bright is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC, Audio/Digital Substack Edition.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Adobe Stock and Adobe Creative Cloud Express.

Music and SFX courtesy of Artlist.io

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The first episode of the Storyletter Read Aloud (SRA) podcast is now free. Please excuse the quality as this was the first story I ever read out loud, let alone recorded. Even after 10 episodes, I’m not where I want to be but I try to improve with each iteration.

This story came about one day while I was walking my miniature schnauzer in the park near my house. It was either early or late in the day, and the sun was hidden behind the mountains. Darkness had crept along the hillsides, and to make matters worse we have no street lights along the park road. He started growling at something behind us and then barked wildly as if warding something off. I turned and saw nothing. I strained my non-adjusted eyes, but failed to see what he was so alarmed by. He stopped suddenly and pulled me back home. Needless to say, I didn’t fight against his efforts. I’m not sure what it was in the shadows that spooked him so, but that was the seed in which this story sprouted.

This isn’t a scary story despite having ghosts in the title. It’s about love and hope and the connections we make with the world around us. I also don’t like explaining the meaning behind my fiction as I want to leave that up to the reader for the most part. At the very least, I hope you enjoy! ~ WM

Transcript:

My dog and I survived the end of the world together. I guess “end of the world” is a little hyperbolic as people like me are still kicking, but what am I supposed to call it? The fall of civilization? The Great Reset? I don’t know, something. Anyway, Ruckus here has been by my side through thick and thin. Well a little more thin than thick, I’d say. Difficult to find food these days, but we make do.

I bend down to scratch Ruckus between the ears as we walk in the middle of the street toward our favorite midday destination where the ghosts of the past like to play: the park. See, we live in downtown New Salt Lake. It’s old now, but that’s what we called it growing up. This sector of the city is real nice and abandoned just the way I like it. Most survivors live in the outer reaches of the city limits, away from all the scavengers and gangs. If you run up on people inside the city they usually aren’t so kind, therefore it’s best to give strangers a wide berth to be on the safe side.

Animals on the other hand? Now that’s a different story. Truly man’s best friend. Not sure if that’s a saying reserved for dogs but I’d like to think it applies to any creature that finds a home with you. I say this because, well, Ruckus isn’t really a dog. I mean he is, but he isn’t. He’s a synthetic replica all the way down to the hair follicles between the pads of his feet and his cool, wet nose. I don’t know how they did it, but he’s one of the last beautiful things humans created before the Arty-War–that’s short for Artificial Intelligence War, the one caused by the defects, if you happen to know anything about how that went down because I don’t.

Ruckus and I pass a dilapidated building, which doesn't look any different than the rows upon rows of buildings in either direction, but something causes Ruckus’ ears to perk up. He stops and stares at what used to be a café, the front glass shattered long ago, the floor laden with a layer of dirt and dust, the chairs broken or tipped over on their sides. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary so I tell him to come on.

Now you might be wondering, “How do you know he’s not real?” Like, if he’s so convincing then what tipped me off that Ruckus is a replica? Simple. When he falls asleep, there’s a little trap door that pops open behind his neck, in between his shoulder blades, and a blue holographic display pops up that says, “Battery Low”. Can you believe that? My dog needs to be charged! As if they aren’t a handful enough as it is. Oh well, I shouldn’t complain. He keeps me company during the really quiet days and warm on the coldest nights. He’s a blessing to be sure. Sent by the big guy upstairs. And no, I don’t mean the Helix guy living up on Moonbase, if he’s even still alive. 

We reach the park, which is a hilly quadrant nestled amidst towering structures on all sides except one. On that one side, they—the architects or city planners or whoever—had decided it’d be nice to still see the Wasatch mountains from the park, so Ruckus and I like to sit with a view of the snowy peaks. It’s also perfect because there is a charging station there for him while he naps. There are no trees but that’s okay, there’s a slight haze to the sky which makes it nearly overcast at all times. Which had been the case in the valley for as long as I could remember, something about inversion or something. 

On the way to our spot we first see Suzy, a small red-headed ghost girl that likes to kick a ball over and over again. Ruckus goes crazy every time we see Suzy, but I don’t know if it’s her running or the ball that drives him nuts. I also don’t know her real name but I couldn’t keep walking past her memory every day and not at least give her something to remember her by. She’s slightly translucent like all the other ghosts in the park and her laugh wafts along the cool air in an eerily choppy way. She never notices us. Just has eyes for her soccer ball. 

Then there’s Tony over by the dried up pond. He’s a body builder of some kind, or was. Ruckus runs up and bounces in tandem with his push-up cadence, barking with each push as if cheering him on. Faint techno music can be heard from somewhere behind him as he counts each rep in an exhale. He does that for about five minutes and then he disappears for a while, only to come back for a set of jumping jacks. I usually can’t watch Tony for too long as just the thought of working out gets me out of breath. 

I call for Ruckus and he runs back to me with his tongue hanging out. I love seeing him this happy. It makes my day every single time. I want him to stay that way so I lead him away from the old rundown bathroom where Creepy Joe leans up against the side wall. I’m not certain what it is about Creepy Joe that triggers Ruckus, but I suppose even ghosts have an aura that only dogs can really sense. 

We finally reach our spot and plop down next to Linda. She’s a twenty-something that wears a thick coat that she grabs onto for dear life despite the weather being near perfect. She stares out at the park and doesn’t do or say anything, just watches, which is fine by me. Ruckus lays down in between us, but nuzzles into Linda’s see-through thigh like he always does. I unwind the extension cord from the outlet in the hillside. Ruckus doesn’t resist, he knows what to do at this point. It’s our routine. After he puts his head down to rest between his paws, the trap door opens up on the back of his neck. I plug him in and lay back to close my own eyes.

I’m not sure how much time passes, but a voice stirs me, a woman’s. I sit up half expecting Linda to be looking at me, warning me of something straight out of the afterlife. But she’s still staring out with her blank expression, fading in and out.

“Hey, are you real?” the voice comes again. 

I twist to find a woman with greying hair tied back in a bun. She steps toward me but I can’t make out her face for the scarf swaddling her neck overtop a bluish-grey coat. She tugs at her coat lapels nervously as she speaks again and I feel like I know this woman.

“I just want to know if you’re real or not?” she asks. 

I stealthily unplug Ruckus just in case she becomes a threat of some kind, even though I don’t get that impression. It’ll take him a few moments to boot up anyway, so I respond, feeling kind of awkward. 

“I’m real. Are you real?” I ask.

“Yes. I am. I just… I’ve been watching you for awhile. I know, sorry, that sounds weird. I mean, I used to come here every day and sit in this very spot. That’s me right there.”

She points at Linda. I look at Linda. Then I look back at her. 

“Wait, you’re Linda?”

“Linda?”

“Yeah, the dead lady,” I say, thumbing at Linda. “She’s a ghost. Her name’s Linda.”

“That’s not her— that’s me from over twenty years ago.”

“Wait, what? How?” I ask. I’m on the verge of anger, but then Ruckus interrupts. He dashes toward the woman and at first I’m worried he’s going to attack her, but then she lets out what could only be described as a squeal of joy. 

“Barry!” she says, kneeling to embrace my dog. “You’ve come back!”

“Barry? No, that’s Ruckus and her name’s Linda, in case you forgot that already.” 

The woman removes her scarf and Ruckus licks her cheeks and chin as she kisses him all over his slobbery face. She does faintly resemble Linda the more I look at her. I move to stand and get my dog away from this strange lady but Ruckus abruptly turns and runs back to me as if sensing my unease. He lays down next to me, panting. 

The woman’s smile fades slightly. She replaces her scarf and sits next to us, Ruckus in the middle, his face nuzzling my thigh this time. She grabs at her coat as she sits there and I see the resemblance of this older woman to the younger Linda. 

“So, you were saying that Linda here is actually you?” I ask, genuinely curious. 

The woman lowers her head and stares at Ruckus. “Yes. My dog died a long time ago. I had him replicated and they returned Barry to me alive and well. He was so much like the real Barry, they must implant memories or something. I don’t know how they did it. But, unfortunately, one day the door was left open and he ran away. He loved the park. I’d take him for walks here every day and I’d charge him at this very spot. Afterwards, after he’d run away that is, I’d come here and sit to look out over the park in hopes that he’d come back, you know, our routine. One day they–the park city planner people–used drones to scan everyone in the park to implement their new hologram idea, the one that was supposed to make parks look more inviting to get people to visit them more often.” She looks past me at her old self and I see the years of loneliness behind those eyes. The pain she must have felt after losing her friend. She continues, “I figured, since they had a hologram of me sitting here on a loop, then maybe I wouldn’t have to come every day. So it became every other day and then every weekend, and then just once a month before I had to move on with my life.”

I look away, focusing on Ruckus while she speaks, scratching just underneath his ear like he likes. I think to myself what it would’ve been like all the years leading up to now without him but I can’t imagine it. 

“Then as you know the world ended and I was stuck in another state. No way to get back here. No logical reason why I should. I lost everyone important to me and the only thing I had left to keep me going was the thought of Barry coming back here and seeing me but it not really being me. I needed to know what became of the park. So, I made it back. It wasn’t easy. But I’m here. I watched for only one day and saw you and him come here, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had convinced myself that I’d gone crazy to justify what I was seeing. That I was imagining ghosts in order to fill a void in my heart. So… that’s why I asked if you were real or not, just to be sure.” 

Older Linda has tears in her eyes now. I feel so sorry for her. I ponder for a moment but the only thing I think of is that her story makes a lot of sense and it turns out that I’m not crazy either. 

“Huh. Well, you’re not crazy, Linda. Look at me. Here I was thinking I was seeing ghosts in this park the entire time and was acting like it was normal. Holograms? Really? It makes so much more sense. I just didn’t know that it was a thing.”

Linda’s shoulders shudder and I think she’s crying, but she sucks in a big breath and laughs out loud this time. 

“Look,” she says, “I don’t want anything from you. I just had to see Barry one last time. I know that he’s your dog now and I’m okay with that. Thank you for letting me see him.” She gets up and starts walking away. Ruckus sits up and watches her go, ears turned down. 

I can’t let her leave like this. “Hey,” I say. She turns, holding her coat like before. “His name is Ruckus now.”

She nods. “I know.”

“Listen, I can’t give him up. He’s my best friend. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be your best friend, too.”

“What do you mean?” she asks. 

“We come here every day around the same time. You’re welcome to join us. I’m sure he’d love the company.” Deep down I mean “we would love the company”. I can’t see her mouth, but I can tell a smile reaches her eyes as they glisten in the sunlight.

“I’d love that,” she says.

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

After she leaves, Ruckus snaps to attention in the direction of the park again, a low growl emanating from deep within his frame. I had totally lost track of time talking with Older Linda. Creepy Joe is back. The cloaked man always walks past us on the trail if we sit here for too long. Ruckus charges at what I now know is a looped hologram and not the poor soul of a demolished and nearly forgotten past. This time I just let him bark to his heart’s content. No harm, no foul. I smile as I watch him since for the first time in a long time, I’m excited about what tomorrow will bring.

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My Dog Barks at Ghosts in the Park is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

2022 Storyletter XPress Publishing LLC, Audio/Digital Substack Edition.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Winston Malone courtesy of Adobe Stock and Adobe Creative Cloud Express.

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Transcript:

Hello there, welcome to Storyletter Read Aloud. This is Winston Malone, creator of The Storyletter and founder of Storyletter LLC, an independent publisher of speculative fiction. This series will feature audio recordings of prior publications and is available exclusively to paying readers. If you are listening to this and you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so to gain access to future written publications for free. If you haven’t joined our Paid membership, know that if you do, your gracious donations will not go unnoticed. Once you join, it enables access to any future audio recordings and our private Discord, and helps fund original artwork commissions to enhance the quality of the content here on The Storyletter. I’m so glad to have you on this journey and I hope to see you in the comments! Thanks. ~ WM

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