#firstfictionpublished

The Demons Will Charm You

My short story was published by Landescapes Literary and Arts Journal! Thank you Peter Chilson for all your help.

Here's an excerpt from page 1.

September 2012: Present Day

     I find the diversity of noises in the city fascinating: Car alarms, 

sirens, the gears clicking on bicycles, the tick of the crosswalks, 

espresso machines pouring shots over ice as soymilk bubbles 

onto the counter… noises overlap and build. But, never from the 

people. People are quiet – plugged into their iPods and carefully 

avoiding eye contact. What I find most interesting is that here I 

feel completely invisible. I can blend into the environment and get 

lost within the people and actions around me; let the city of Seattle 

cover me in its sounds and shroud myself in a jarring silence.

     However, as I sit beside the small tombstone in Lakeview 

Cemetery looking back on my life, there are no sounds. But there’s 

something tangible about this silence that I cling to. The way it fills 

your ears just the way music or voices do, the way you peel away 

layers of quietness to get at sounds beneath it. Layers that suffocate 

the senses; a heart beating on the eardrum – the same ominous 

tone with no decipherable pitch. I suppose I like it because I am 

always searching for noise — sitting up at three in the morning; 

the creak of the house and the metallic clack of a dog’s tags outside 

as his owner takes him for a pre-dawn walk and the wind against 

the glass of my window. It is interesting though because we never 

actually reach it. Silence is like being in the dark: we find shapes 

and sounds when we expect nothing. And silence means much