Booger Lights: Halloween

Monday, October 26, 2015

Happy Howl-oween From Booger Lights

As I have said before on this blog, this is my favorite time of the year. It’s usually cool enough that the mosquitoes have retreated and kids all get to dress up and do their thing. You get to see all the pretty colored leaves. Not to mention, squirrel season is in and deer season is just around the corner.

It’s hard to post one of my short stories on the blog. Most average around 3,000 words. That makes for a long column. This year I will make an exception to the rule. A while back I toyed some with flash fiction. As a former copy writer I’m used to packing the most wallop into the shortest possible space. Rules dictated that the following tale is a mere 99 words, not counting the title. It won the Saturday Fiction Writers’ Award a couple of years back and MicroHorror subsequently published it. I hope you enjoy fiction done fast.

LOVE AND THE INNER BEAST

I never smelled a girl like her in Safeway. She pushed a buggy down the cereal aisle and turned her cheek to hide the striped claw mark that makeup couldn’t. I knew the lacy blouse hid more scars like the crescent on my cheek a pup gave me as a child.
As I sacked her groceries, my heart sank –-
Cat food.
Large brown eyes showed the felines were just a snack.
“Beautiful moon tonight,” I said, “Feel like a howl?”
Her pupils narrowed to slits. She smiled as her nostrils tasted me.
“Sure.”
Finally. My kind of girl.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Ghost Lights

The Lure of Ghost Lights

When it's late October, its my favorite time of year. The leaves begin to change, the evenings get cool, and the skeeters finally start to thin out. It makes you want to get out after dark and enjoy some of nature’s wonders, especially the paranormal wonders. Okay, you can watch them any time of year, not just the fall. I am not talking about college football, here. I'm talking about earth light phenomena, or as locals more commonly call them, ghost lights or Spooklights.
Various experts give explanations for ghost lights range from swamp gas to tectonic strain to strange light refractions to ghosts. While there are plenty of rational explanations (and even more irrational explanations) for ghosts lights, I prefer to think of them as natural phenomena that are fascinating and just plain fun. You can find worse things to do than spend a quiet evening in the countryside seeing the light.
Growing up within a few miles of one site, I found a natural fascination with ghost lights from the first time I saw the famous Crossett (Arkansas) Light at age eight. So, for your enjoyment I'm periodically publishing some features on different ghost lights compiled for the soon to be published Paronormal Tour Guide, Ghost Lights of Dixie.
Sweet screams,
Thornton Austen