Keyboards and Darkness

Trying to sort of organize myself creatively speaking, so here is just something small. A pair of haikus inspired by the nice break in weather we’ve been having in Pittsburgh. :: #Sunset at #RiverviewPark in #Pittsburgh with #deer flocking around the #Observatory. A photo posted by Katie Pugh (@bohemianonrye) on Nov 19, 2014 at 3:29am PST The sun still shines down But it has become friends with…

Microfiction: Four Stories About Love

(This was fun! Stay tuned for whatever is coming next!) There were three people on opposite sides of the park. An expanse of green spread out between them, dotted by picnic baskets, umbrellas, babies taking shaky steps. Above, a blue ocean of sky. They couldn’t see one another well, but they waved all the same. They made up stories about each other. The old man was a war veteran. The young boy…

Microfiction: Ending and Beginning

“I don’t want a last meal. I want a bath.” The guard vouched for him. The prisoner was old, what could be the harm? The guard, who had been a young man when he started in death row. The guard, who had grown to know the man who would die for a crime he didn’t commit. When he took him to the small bathroom, his final act of mercy was unlocking the cabinet of cleaning supplies, dropping the keys…

The doctor made the robot to look exactly like her. It wasn’t perfect – on the contrary, it had all her acne, her gray hairs, her fifty-two scars. Its voice had her gravelly rasp, her eyes the not-quite-color of evergreen. By the time she was done, she could barely stand to see it. “Now what?” the robot asked. “Just go be me.” “To what end?” Its head inclined, curious. “I want people to think I’m…

Tippy kept a home for the ghosts of small pets. When the Jehovah’s Witness knocked on her door and saw Boogers the rat run through her ankle, he passed out cold. She brought him inside, and, shooing away the ethereal birds from the couch, set him down. He woke up to a cup of tea, a biscuit and a surly specter guinea pig named Horace. “I don’t understand,” he said, as a non-corporeal boa tried to…

The plummet from the twenty-third story was surprisingly short. There was barely time to get accustomed to the rush of wind, limbs sprawling, the upward rush sending Tom topsy-turvy until he hit the ground, the whole journey taking three seconds before impact with the ground. “Dude. You all right?” Tom looked up at Finn standing over him. Well, his remains. Now, Tom was standing in the exact same…

Microfiction: Four Fairy Tales

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, the spare for the heir was betrothed to a terrible prince in an effort to unite the families. The princess begged for it not to be, but they were married in the sweltering heat of August. On her wedding night, she cut the prince’s throat with a cheese knife and ran into the cursed wood. There, she confronted a coterie of monsters and won their hearts. Both…