Erica’s Funeral was written in late 2009 and has been collecting virtual dust on my hard drive since then. I didn’t do a thing with it, except release it in limited quantities to interested readers. But this is a story I’m fond of and decided to put it out there. For the time being, I’m releasing it for free (which may eventually change, or not).

Description: A mother, carrying out a final wish, recounts her daughter’s unorthodox funeral. (This story doesn’t contain coarse language, explicit situations, or violence.)

Length: approx. 1,100 words (4 pages)

First Page:

Let me begin by stating a fact: Funerals in general tend to be dreary affairs. Erica Johnston’s was an exception. Before she died, she had it planned out—and when I say before, I mean since the tender age of ten.

One afternoon when she arrived home from school, she sat down at her art station—the one she begged me to buy every six minutes until I caved—pulled out a yellow sheet of construction paper and a purple marker and wrote at the top: ERICA’S FUNERAL. Some might think it was a rather morbid undertaking for one so young, but those are the people who never knew her, the real Erica.

Beneath the title, she began to spell out every detail of her funeral beginning with Slappy, the clown/magician who entertained at her third birthday party. She didn’t really remember him, but she’d watched a video of the event and fell in love. When she grew up, she planned to marry Slappy and have a bunch of magical clown babies, so it was only fitting he should be invited.

Next on the list was cake. Erica loved cake. She preferred red velvet with extra red. It was her favorite color and she appreciated that an experimental baker somewhere in the world devoted an entire cake to it. On top of the cake would be candles—one for every year that she lived. They’d all be lit and everyone who ever loved her would help blow them out.

You can download this ebook in PDF, EPUB, or MOBI.

I’ve decided to take the tiniest break from writing The Night Princesses, mostly to write a mountain of reviews that are well overdue, but also to write a few short stories for an anthology.

And what better way to ease back into blogging than by posting up a SFP for the latest short story, The Hungry Garden. (That title may change though. Maybe.)

Anywhoozit…the unrefined first page:

Moonlight dripped from the ceiling and painted shadows across the room. I listened. Before, like the first few nights, I would have slapped the pillow over my face and ignored it, but it wore me down. It was the kind of melody that was too beautiful for words, but heartbreak swam beneath the surface, like a dirge disguised as a lullaby. Ten nights at a minute after midnight, without fail.

Maybe I should get up, slip out of bed and gently pad over to the window. Maybe this is the night I see them. Maybe they might invite me to join them.

Before I could will myself to move I was at the window gazing out onto the inky lawn. Weeping willows draped in mist that reminded me of spun sugar and weekends at Nana’s dotted the horizon. How I wanted to join them, if only I knew where they were.

And then, something moving. I glimpsed it, a shadow in bed clothes. I slid open the window and the voices enveloped me. They were all around me, but nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, wait for me.” My own voice sounded inadequate, sinking into the cloying night voices.

I took the stairs two at a time, but it still felt like I was crawling. There were only moments left. Soon they would be gone, replaced by emptiness. If I could just get to the shadow I knew it would lead me to them. Finally.

But something stopped me at the threshold. A vice around my arm pulling me back with such force I thought everything in me shattered when my body met the floor.

Since, like the majority of my stories, this was written longhand, it’s time for me to finish transcribing it. Lots o’ typing ahead.