πΎππππ π΅ππππ
Bio
Dark Humorist. Writer. Memoirist.
For all things freelance, fiction, and business, or for a dose of dark humor connect with me on LinkTree. Joshua St. James is the founder of Saint James Writing.
Stories (9/0)
Inside the Midnight Hour
We drove up the snowy, winding road toward the cozy A-frame cabin. The snow had freshly fallen, sparkling a luminescent blue hue in the evening light. The place I booked was about an hour's drive north, and the only way to get there was via a long winding road that seemed to disappear into the Northern Vermont forest.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ4 months ago in Fiction
Run, Just in Case
The package was small, beaten to hell. It was bruised, with bits of tape holding it together. It appeared like any normal package that could fit through my door, but the strange thing was there wasn't a single label on it.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ4 months ago in Fiction
Horror In Dreamland
βDreamland is dying. Burlesque performances and sideshows arenβt what they used to be,β Amelie said to the wide-eyed troupe of discarded souls. βWe have to keep our show on top. Itβs 1941, after all. Weβre in a new era, boys!β She slammed her hands down on the thick oak table erected in the center of the performerβs cabin. Dreamland had been a burlesque, sideshow hybrid in the Louisiana Bayou for going on thirty years. Amelie wasnβt about to let it die off now.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ2 years ago in Fiction
The Summer of 2005
Kansas summers were always brutal, but the fierce heat on that afternoon in the summer of 2005: Iβll feel that for an eternity. My best friends and I locked arms on the now infamous day in June and walked blissfully into a backwoods amphitheater for our first and only Warped Tour as a trio. Mindy and Julie were Juniors in high school; I was still an innocent sophomore, led by the bad influence of my two best friends, or so everyone thought. As the summer drug on, it appeared that I might have been the bad influence after all. As reserved as I was in my everyday life, I turned into a monster when I had those two by my side. We raised hell in our Podunk town that summer, but we didnβt do it alone: we did it in style, with a summer anthem behind us.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ2 years ago in Beat
My Father: The Style Icon
My father was the funniest person Iβve ever known and the most annoying soul my mother had ever met. He loved her with a fire brighter than the sunβs surface. Temperamental as a bull, he complimented my motherβs occasional passiveness. A Taurus, born in the early summer months of 1957, the man never did anything calmly or without a stubborn undertone. He was steadfast and kind, but most of all, he was always greedy for a laugh. His humor got on every last one of my mother's nerves but made me laugh so hard that Iβd have to sprint to the bathroom before I peed my pants. I've always been envious of what couldβve easily been his stand-up comedy routine. I was enamored when he took his dentures out and sat them on my motherβs shoulder while she innocuously sat on the floral print loveseat in our living room, attempting to watch an hour of General Hospital. Her reaction was always a violent gagging sound and a jump, launching them off her shoulder onto the cushion of the chair placed opposite the loveseat.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ2 years ago in Styled
Dreams: An Evening Imprisoned
It was a Saturday evening, and my mother had been working, thus my father was responsible for keeping me upright and alive. He was only barely able to do either. He stumbled into the living room, interrupting my second favorite T.V. show, Murder, She Wrote. I want to be Jessica Fletcher when I grow up, but I realize that the cards are stacked against me by judging my father's actions daily. He buzzed around behind the couch for a bit before approaching the Zenith floor model television set and poking the power button, effectively ruining my evening. "We're leaving," he mumbled.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ2 years ago in Families
Mistress of the Mafia
The marquee flickered, the top row of bulbs missing, and the rest barely clinging to life. Nevertheless, the sign lit up enough to read The Flamingo. Light bounced off of my newly darkened locks and plump cherry lips. I looked nothing like myself in the reflections of the clubβs windows, but I presume thatβs the goal for a girl like me. The bouncer brought my attention back to reality when he placed a hand slightly north of my bosom where the strap of my black Dior met my collar bone.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ2 years ago in Criminal
Love in Hindsight
Lust was thick in the air when my eyes locked with yours that first day. Your eyes, two pools of glistening honey, made the perfect vessel for mine to melt deep into and never escape. You stepped into my world on a blisteringly hot day in July of 1969, and I knew I would never be the same. The Santa Monica street fair happened the first week of July every year since β61, and I'd been every year. The festival line three square blocks with booths overflowing with a unique character operating only the shadiest carnival games. Street food venues littered in between the games and rickety amusement rides that had seen every inch of the country. It was the carnival of the year. You see, the street fair wasnβt a carnival for families, but it was a place for people of every shape, style, and spirit. Where once there was a wholesome weekend activity for families, no stood streets flooded with partially nude twenty-somethings and lovers taking solace in the bushes for privacy. Love was evolving for everyone in the '60s. It was given and received freely; there were no rules, no boundaries, and especially for me, no limitations. The fair was a place to explore, to dive into what love meant to you, without being judged.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ2 years ago in Confessions
Dancing On Corpses with Imaginary Friends
The stench of a funeral home has unforgettably stuck with me. Each one smells identically of rotting flesh, formaldehyde, and dying floral arrangements. The first time that smell gripped my nostrils was six days before my fifth birthday. My father made his way back to our home after leaving me with my Granny. His veins were racing with a Molotov cocktail of cocaine, Jim Beam, and rage. A mere hour behind him, my mother arrived home after a Sunday morning shift at the grocery store deli she worked part-time at to support my father's drinking and driving habits. She inserted her key into the front door, turned the worn brass handle, and stepped in through the storm door as she did every other afternoon. This step wasnβt like the others. My mother looked up to a black revolver staring at her forehead, my fatherβs dead eyes staring from behind it. His demons overtook him that day, convincing him to grab a handgun, usually stowed away in a small red toolbox in the back of his garage, and destroy everything in its path. It was in my mother's blood to fight, and as I was wholly unaware, slumped on my Granny's couch unable to help her, she did exactly that. She fought for her life. My father was still present somewhere deep inside the demonβs grasp, and in a final gracious gesture, sacrificed himself. After a struggle, the gun must've pulled back and turned on the evil that overtook him. I imagine that there was a glimmer of the man we had once known but hadn't seen in so long, looking back into my mother's eyes as a final selfless apology. His last bit of light pulled the trigger, and the gun fired. All of our worlds, and everything we had all known, simultaneously fell crashing onto the floor.
By πΎππππ π΅ππππ2 years ago in Families
