Family man, grandfather, retired soldier and story teller with an edge.
My plan was slow in evolving, but with the discovery of newfound ability to conjure a pathway to the other world, my spirit began to wander to unfamiliar lands and peoples in the night, always searching for clues to David’s disappearance. Unfortunately, it has not been easy. The ancient thrones and dominions in this dark world do not readily vouchsafe passage through their realms. For that I will need to enlist a power greater than my own.
By John Cox2 months ago in Chapters
Some nights I awaken with my arms tightly embracing my body, the taste of your remembered kisses still fresh upon my lips, the silkiness of your remembered caresses returning in the aftermath of the dream. Unable to sleep, the memory’s potency revives the cruel ache of renewed longing. Do you yet live, my love? Do you still hunger for me as I do for you?
Petals float in tiny streams, My thoughts in these moments stilled.
By John Cox2 months ago in Poets
When it took a full week before Father’s attorney visited, I knew without a doubt that Father was responsible for the malfunctioning camera recording my office door. I was exactly where he wanted me.
They came, like pilgrims, in their tens of thousands. But no religious faith drew them to the sarsen stones. They came just as they had for a thousand years and would again, year after year, for another thousand.
By John Cox2 months ago in Fiction
The detective was more accommodating than my new neighbors. After bringing me to the station as a material witness, he had ordered me to lose the shades as well but relented once I pushed my prescription across the table. I was diagnosed as a child with Photophobia – acute sensitivity to light. It’s not unusual for someone who is born an albino. If I spend even a few minutes out during the day without protection the resulting migraine lasts for hours.
When the police arrested me and led me to the holding cell, the other women there stopped talking to stare slack-jawed at me. An older woman giggled and said – “What’s the matter with you bitches, never seen the sugar plum fairy before?” As they began to laugh, another woman covered her eyes and shrieked “Make it stop, I can’t see!”
An impossible choice is still a choice. Love or leave. Obey or defy. Pick up the sword or die by it. As the years have slowly passed, I tried to pretend that our love did not really matter, that I could continue to live this lonely existence without grieving your absence.
As I hold El's hand, my eyes mist with tears of relief, love and shame together. "I'm a monster," I whisper, but I do not turn away from her still gaze.
During the past week time seemed to slow almost to a stop, tragically reminiscent of the years spent suspended in my maker’s web, Marlowe’s failure to return filling each successive moment with greater angst. Will Dante kill Jon if he can’t turn him? or will Jon simply slip off the grid into the mists that have long cloaked him? Either could happen and I’d never be the wiser.
As I walked through the surrounding trees, I moved almost silently, the way I was taught in a former life. Staying away from the sight line along the ridges, I also avoided the tangled wait-a-bits growing in the valley below along the creek bed.
My breathing eventually slowing, my awareness of the ground beneath my reclining flesh began to dissipate, and I finally drifted again to sleep.