It was on this date (August 19th) back in 14 AD that the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus kicked the bucket (having successfully crossed off Become Ruler of the Known World on his bucket list).
Rumours abounded at the time that he had been poisoned by his wife the Empress Livia.
. . .
“What is this?” Caesar Augustus asked his wife Livia.
“Your favourite,” Livia smiled as she handed him the plate, “Roasted mushrooms.”
“Where are the food tasters?” Augustus looked around.
“I gave them the night off,” Livia poured herself a goblet of wine.
“Gave them the night off?” Augustus’ face turned ashen white (If a Marxist Critical Race Theory professor of Classics and Ancient History had been there, he or she or it (if they belonged to the category of gender confused in the Alphabet Soup community) would have called Caesar Augustus out as the supreme example of white privilege).
Caesar Augustus ate the mushrooms.
“I don’t feel so well,” Caesar Augustus wiped his brow.
“I brought you some nice looking grapes,” Livia put a bowl of delicious looking grapes down in front of Augustus.
“They do look good,” Augustus noted.
He had one.
And another.
And then another…
Until he had finished them all.
“I think I’m dying,” Caesar Augustus stated.
“I’m not surprised,” Livia answered, “I put enough poison in those mushrooms and grapes to kill a horse.”
At that moment a horse neighed loudly from the stables before finally biting the dust.
Both Augustus and horse passed into the midsts of Sheol.
And the dog star Sirius continued on its merry way.
Livia when she was younger before she became Roman Empress and a terrible cook.
-A short story
written by Christopher
Thursday August 19th
2021.
Permalink
10 Comments
A great story written by an excellent storyteller and writer.
A Voice from Iran
A woman asked the Devil: “Do you see that man, the tailor?” and pointed to a small deprived shop.
Devil said: “Yes.”
The woman said: “He loves his wife so much. Can you make him hate his wife?”
Devil responded: “It would be very easy.”
The devil walked towards the shop. He tried many tricks on the tailor but couldn’t convince him to dislike his wife. He came back towards the woman and confessed that he is not able to deceive each and every human.
The woman said: “But a woman can.”
She walked to the tailor’s shop, pointed to an expensive fabric and said: “Can I have two meters of this fine fabric? My son would like to buy a gift for his lover and asked me to help him.”
The tailor cut two meters of the fabric and handed it to her. The woman walked towards the tailor’s…
View original post 215 more words
Permalink
12 Comments
Here’s a short story I wrote almost 2 years ago.
It’s a short story featuring the late great TCM Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne:
Dracul Van Helsing
Edgar Allan Poe: Swinging Like A Pendulum Do
It was an old movie from the 1930s on television. Johnson had heard of the film The Pit and The Pendulum based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
But he wasn’t familiar with the 1930s version. He had only heard of a movie version from the 1960s with Vincent Price.
But this 1930s version was totally new to him and here he was a big classic horror movies fan. The Pit and The Pendulum from 1936 with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.
Try as he might, he could not recall Karloff and Lugosi ever making such a film. Lugosi had made The Black Cat with Karloff. He had made The Raven. He had made Murders In The Rue Morgue. All based on works by Poe.
But Johnson had never heard of Lugosi doing a movie version of Poe’s The Pit…
View original post 669 more words
Permalink
Leave a Comment
An excellent short story written by an excellent short story writer.
PROLIFIC WRITERS ACADEMY
“Come over here right now!” Vuccinio retorted irately as he pushed forward and pulled a file from Noah’s sweaty palms. “Don’t you dare touch this!”he continued and then plodded to the comfort of his office chair. Noah gazed at the file next to vuccinio,his death wish urging him to grab it once more. Noah reached out for it.
Like a careless football,Noah’s head came rolling on the floor, and there came a knock on the door.
“Is everything alright in there?” ..“what broke?”. People asked from behind the door and vuccinio replied
“mataré a todos..sólo el diablo puede gobernar“.
————————————————-
“Hey!…don’t hold it tight…it hurts!”Stefanie shouted at the hairstylist who frowned at her through the wide mirror. Stefanie turned on the Television. The breaking news was read out on TV.
Hombre encontrado muerto en una habitación de hotel…
View original post 951 more words
Permalink
9 Comments
Sadako Shado Tamashi
The archivist at the British Museum was looking through a bunch of early 20th Century Japanese photographs.
He came across a photo of a very beautiful young Japanese woman wearing a long white dress.
He stopped to look at her.
In fact, he looked at her for quite a while.
To his amazement, a heart ❤️ suddenly appeared in the photograph.
The word Yokubo appeared in the heart.
What the Hell? Archivist Moreau thought to himself.
What does Yokubo mean?
Moreau turned to the next photograph which was of a Japanese print of a Japanese Christ being crucified on the Cross.
That’s interesting, Moreau thought to himself, not too many of those pictures in Japan.
The next photo was of the same beautiful woman he had looked at a few photos earlier.
But now her long black hair was covering her entire face.
And blood (the colour red) actually appeared on her dress in the black and white photograph.
She was pointing a finger at someone (almost as if she was pointing at him from the photo).
Behind her was a word on the wall written in blood (again blood red showed up in the black and white photo).
The word was KAN’IN.
The next morning they found Moreau’s body dead in the photo archives of the British Museum.
His throat had been slashed from ear to ear as if he had just revealed Freemasonic secrets.
All the photos were gone.
Save for one black and white photo showing a woman in a long white dress with long black hair over her face standing over the body and pointing an accusatory finger at him.
The woman had very long sharp fingernails on her accusatory hand.
The nails were blood red (and red actually showed up in the B and W photo).
-A short story written by
Christopher
Wednesday August 8th
2018.
Permalink
31 Comments
Herb Takes A Walk: A Short Short Story
Herb decided to take a walk in the neighbourhood.
He decided to walk across a school field.
There was a sign warning him that the grass had recently been sprayed.
It didn’t bother Herb at all.
He walked across the field.
Halfway across the field, he keeled over and died.
Later the coroner explained the cause of death.
The sign had warned him Herbicide Application Applied Today.
Herb had ignored the sign at his peril.
-A short short story
Written by Christopher
Wednesday June 27th
2018.
Permalink
21 Comments
An excellent, original, unique and totally different short story about the sinking of that great and mighty “unsinkable” ship The Titanic.
Histories and Mysteries
I boarded the ship at Southampton, on England’s southern coast, a city they called Gateway to the World. It was appropriately named. New worlds would indeed open to those that dared sail on the Titanic’s maiden voyage.
Southampton was seafaring town of busy docks, commerce and fishermen who, given half the chance may have recognized me for what I was. Yet I went ably and quietly about my business, our custom being to operate in stealth. My disguise was well put together, a simple blue dress, lace up boots and one bag of luggage that contained only my combs, mirrors, candles and an ancient grimoire. For all the crew and passengers knew, I could have been any normal woman, a widow perhaps, traveling alone with a full purse and a certain destination.
My nature necessitated a room in first class, where I could have daily baths in the salt…
View original post 1,247 more words
Permalink
12 Comments
An absolutely hilarious blog post written by my dear friend and fellow writer Sherrie de Valeria.
I think most of my readers and followers will enjoy reading this post but in particular I think my friends George F., Ortensia72 and velvetscreams will enjoy reading it because it will start your day with a good laugh. 😀
Permalink
11 Comments
The Lonely Patient: A Short Story
The man lay on his bed in the hospital and sighed.
No visitors.
Again today.
No visitors.
No family.
No friends.
No co-workers from his long and varied career.
He had once served in a big and powerful position.
But now that he no longer had that, no one came to see him.
The only people who entered his room were nurses and orderlies.
But even they- once they had done their selected tasks in the room- quickly left.
Most of them glanced at him, grimaced and then left.
The only person who stayed and talked to him and showed genuine concern for him was his doctor.
She wasn’t his regular doctor.
She was the doctor who had been assigned to him when he was admitted to hospital.
No, not even his regular doctor visited him.
No one visited him these days.
The only one who was a constant visitor was this doctor.
She generally showed up every 45 minutes to an hour.
She always said “Hello”, gave him a warm smile as she entered the room and touched his forehead and held his hand and asked him, how he was doing?
When she left, she always turned around and smiled and said, “I’ll be back in a bit.”
And then exited.
And she always was.
Always was back in a bit.
The man himself said very little to her when she was in the room.
Very little at all.
Today at this time as she was about to leave, the man felt compelled to ask her, “I can’t help but notice. You seem to have an accent. Where are you from?”.
She turned and smiled at the man, “Haiti.”
She stood there as if waiting for some sort of response or visual acknowledgement from the man.
Instead the man just immediately turned his head and glanced away.
She left the room and gently closed the door behind her.
The man thought to himself as he continued to look at the drawn curtains on the window.
Had he not years ago once referred to Haiti as a shithole country in a rowdy meeting where he was overheard by several people making those remarks.
The man looked back towards the door.
The woman doctor who had just left the room had great nobility of character.
The man who lay lonely and alone in that hospital room did not.
For he had made his bed.
Now he must lie in it.
-A short story
written by Christopher
Friday January 12th
2018.
Permalink
56 Comments
Gertrude Grannick was no John Merrick. She wasn’t born with a debilitating disease. A debilitating disease of the body at any rate- possibly a debilitating disease of the soul. She chose to be able to turn into an elephant in a bizarre black magic ceremony.
Gertrude Grannick had always held a high opinion of herself. She was the only who did. She had no friends in high school because she was so conceited.
If she had been beautiful, she might have been able to take advantage of men and count them among her suitors. Some women might have chosen to become friends with her in the hopes her popularity might rub off on them.
But Gertrude Grannick was ugly. Quite repulsively so. Ugly and conceited. A strange combination to say nothing of an outrageously stupid one.
Gertrude Grannick went for a degree in Social Work. Not out of any genuine desire to help people. But in hopes that someday she’d win a Citizen of the Year Award.
Upon graduating, she landed a job with a city social services agency. And she fell in love with her supervisor. If such a person as Gertrude Grannick was capable of love.
It was more of an obsession rather than what might be properly called love. But her supervisor Ted Dowling did not love her. In fact an office romance was starting to develop between Ted Dowling and another social worker Madge Simmons.
As Ted and Madge had candlelight dinners around the city, Gertrude would go home to her apartment and order in delivery. Usually about a dozen pizzas, a dozen orders of chicken wings and a dozen Chinese combo dishes from Ho-Ho’s Chinese Food.
She ate so much that Gertrude Grannick was starting to look like an elephant even before she participated in the black magic ceremony.
Then there had come that day at the office when Ted Dowling and Madge Simmons announced they were getting married. Gertrude Grannick was so angry that she had broke the pencil sharpener (to say nothing of the photocopier, the printer and the coffee machine) – all actions for which her employment was terminated.
Gertrude Grannick stampeded down the street in a huff- causing numerous damage to passing motor vehicles to say nothing of laying the groundwork for future pot holes (which would lead to the lighting up of city hall complaint lines).
Gertrude Grannick used her termination pay and what little she had of her savings (for her monthly food bill was quite out of this world) to fly to Africa.
For she had heard of a witch doctor in Congo who had the power to turn men and women into elephant people – people who had the power to shapeshift into elephants and use the power of the elephant to cause damage and destruction.
Gertrude Grannick hired a group of guides to take her to the village in the Congo where the witch doctor lived.
All but one of her guides died of starvation on the expedition (due to her eating up all the supplies).
When she reached the village hut where the witch doctor was (who was busy text messaging Donald Trump about the possible uses of black magic in 21st Century warfare). Gertrude Grannick told him, “I wish to become an elephant woman.”
Although the witch doctor was tempted to say, “You already are”, he bit his tongue instead (for which he said “Ouch!” in his native tribal language) and proceeded to chant the spell that would turn her into a shapeshifting elephant woman.
Upon chanting the spell, he gave her an instruction manual called So Now You’re An Elephant Woman, What’s Next? which gave Gertrude Grannick detailed instructions on how to enjoy her new found power.
Upon returning home to North America (where she spent the entire flight bitching and complaining about having to pay for the cost of three seats), she returned to the city of her recent Social Services job termination whereupon she turned into an elephant and stampeded and destroyed the house that Mr. and Mrs. Ted Dowling had bought.
She landed a job as a Distress Line counselor where people who called into the Distress Line were generally worse off than they were before calling in.
Gertrude Grannick was let go from that job after Department heads noticed a huge spike in the number of suicides after calls to the distress line.
After stampeding and destroying her Distress Line supervisor’s house, Gertrude Grannick eventually found her true calling in life- which was to serve as a licensing clerk in a Department of Motor Vehicles branch.
The Elephant Woman Gertrude Grannick continued to follow the activities of Mr. and Mrs. Ted Dowling.
When Mrs. Dowling gave birth to her first child, Gertrude Grannick turned into an Elephant Woman and stampeded and stormed and stomped the maternity ward of the hospital where the child was born.
The Dowlings had already taken their child home but that did nothing to relieve the grief of the other parents whose babies were killed.
A similar attack happened at another maternity ward when the Dowlings’ second child was born a few years later.
And then again when the Dowlings’ third child was born a couple of years after that.
A big game hunter Theodore Roosevelt Matthews (distantly related to the big game hunting President of the early 20th Century United States- Teddy Roosevelt) was brought in to try to catch this mysterious elephant known for destroying homes and maternity wards across the city the past decade.
Teddy Roosevelt Matthews was approached by a psychic Nyssa Dhawan who told him that the destroying elephant was no natural creature but a preternatural Elephant Woman- a woman given the black magic supernatural ability to shapeshift into an elephant.
Nyssa gave Theo a medallion with the image of the Hindu god Ganesha on it for protection.
In the meantime, Theodore Roosevelt Matthews began setting elephant traps across the city.
The Mayor was advising everyone to stay home. As a lot of sports league play-offs were currently underway to say nothing of a new reality TV series showing a bunch of catty women fighting and backstabbing one another, the mayor’s stay home message was definitely easier done than said. Both husbands and wives stayed home watching television. And their kids were naturally playing violent video games or busy text messaging one another in their rooms.
The streets of the city were quiet except for the earthshaking footsteps of the Elephant Woman Gertrude Grannick and the stealthy prowling quiet steps of the hunter Teddy Roosevelt Matthews.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Gertrude Grannick bellowed in a voice that would have made Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat wince at such an example of notoriously bad overacting.
Theodore Roosevelt Matthews said nothing. He just quietly bided his time.
Suddenly there was a roar as Elephant Woman Gertrude Grannick stepped in an elephant trap.
Normally the trap would have been easy to spot but a department store had wisely placed an elephant sized mirror in a large window and the narcissistically conceited Gertrude Grannick had stopped to admire herself in the mirror not noticing the trap in front of her.
Gertrude Grannick bellowed like an elephant cow in pain (which is what she was).
She waddled several blocks on 3 legs until she caught sight of Theodore Roosevelt Matthews. She bellowed at him and charged.
Theo opened the door of the nearest building which happened to be a Hindu temple.
Theo ran up to the central altar.
Gertrude Grannick stampeded through the door knocking it down.
She saw Theodore Roosevelt Matthews standing at the altar and charged at him.
Matthews waited and then ducked out of the way at the proper moment clutching at the medallion that the psychic Nyssa Dhawan had given him.
The Elephant Woman Gertrude Grannick struck the altar with full force causing the giant bronze statue of Ganesha to come crashing down from the ceiling with full force on top of her.
Ganesha’s bronze tusks pierced Gertrude Grannick’s head causing it to be severed from her body.
The Elephant Woman was dead.
A good elephant had triumphed over an evil elephant.
And the city was once again safe.
The only place that carried reminders of her existence was the local Department of Motor Vehicles licensing branch.
-A tale of horror
written by Christopher
Thursday March 30th
2017.
Permalink
Leave a Comment
Next page »
Dracul Van Helsing 
The Elephant Woman
March 30, 2017 at 6:58 pm (Commentary, Horror, Short stories, Short Story) (contemporary tales of terror, Elephant Woman Gertrude Granniick, Nyssa Dhawan, Theodore Roosevelt Matthews, World Religions- Hindu deity Ganesha)
Gertrude Grannick was no John Merrick. She wasn’t born with a debilitating disease. A debilitating disease of the body at any rate- possibly a debilitating disease of the soul. She chose to be able to turn into an elephant in a bizarre black magic ceremony.
Gertrude Grannick had always held a high opinion of herself. She was the only who did. She had no friends in high school because she was so conceited.
If she had been beautiful, she might have been able to take advantage of men and count them among her suitors. Some women might have chosen to become friends with her in the hopes her popularity might rub off on them.
But Gertrude Grannick was ugly. Quite repulsively so. Ugly and conceited. A strange combination to say nothing of an outrageously stupid one.
Gertrude Grannick went for a degree in Social Work. Not out of any genuine desire to help people. But in hopes that someday she’d win a Citizen of the Year Award.
Upon graduating, she landed a job with a city social services agency. And she fell in love with her supervisor. If such a person as Gertrude Grannick was capable of love.
It was more of an obsession rather than what might be properly called love. But her supervisor Ted Dowling did not love her. In fact an office romance was starting to develop between Ted Dowling and another social worker Madge Simmons.
As Ted and Madge had candlelight dinners around the city, Gertrude would go home to her apartment and order in delivery. Usually about a dozen pizzas, a dozen orders of chicken wings and a dozen Chinese combo dishes from Ho-Ho’s Chinese Food.
She ate so much that Gertrude Grannick was starting to look like an elephant even before she participated in the black magic ceremony.
Then there had come that day at the office when Ted Dowling and Madge Simmons announced they were getting married. Gertrude Grannick was so angry that she had broke the pencil sharpener (to say nothing of the photocopier, the printer and the coffee machine) – all actions for which her employment was terminated.
Gertrude Grannick stampeded down the street in a huff- causing numerous damage to passing motor vehicles to say nothing of laying the groundwork for future pot holes (which would lead to the lighting up of city hall complaint lines).
Gertrude Grannick used her termination pay and what little she had of her savings (for her monthly food bill was quite out of this world) to fly to Africa.
For she had heard of a witch doctor in Congo who had the power to turn men and women into elephant people – people who had the power to shapeshift into elephants and use the power of the elephant to cause damage and destruction.
Gertrude Grannick hired a group of guides to take her to the village in the Congo where the witch doctor lived.
All but one of her guides died of starvation on the expedition (due to her eating up all the supplies).
When she reached the village hut where the witch doctor was (who was busy text messaging Donald Trump about the possible uses of black magic in 21st Century warfare). Gertrude Grannick told him, “I wish to become an elephant woman.”
Although the witch doctor was tempted to say, “You already are”, he bit his tongue instead (for which he said “Ouch!” in his native tribal language) and proceeded to chant the spell that would turn her into a shapeshifting elephant woman.
Upon chanting the spell, he gave her an instruction manual called So Now You’re An Elephant Woman, What’s Next? which gave Gertrude Grannick detailed instructions on how to enjoy her new found power.
Upon returning home to North America (where she spent the entire flight bitching and complaining about having to pay for the cost of three seats), she returned to the city of her recent Social Services job termination whereupon she turned into an elephant and stampeded and destroyed the house that Mr. and Mrs. Ted Dowling had bought.
She landed a job as a Distress Line counselor where people who called into the Distress Line were generally worse off than they were before calling in.
Gertrude Grannick was let go from that job after Department heads noticed a huge spike in the number of suicides after calls to the distress line.
After stampeding and destroying her Distress Line supervisor’s house, Gertrude Grannick eventually found her true calling in life- which was to serve as a licensing clerk in a Department of Motor Vehicles branch.
The Elephant Woman Gertrude Grannick continued to follow the activities of Mr. and Mrs. Ted Dowling.
When Mrs. Dowling gave birth to her first child, Gertrude Grannick turned into an Elephant Woman and stampeded and stormed and stomped the maternity ward of the hospital where the child was born.
The Dowlings had already taken their child home but that did nothing to relieve the grief of the other parents whose babies were killed.
A similar attack happened at another maternity ward when the Dowlings’ second child was born a few years later.
And then again when the Dowlings’ third child was born a couple of years after that.
A big game hunter Theodore Roosevelt Matthews (distantly related to the big game hunting President of the early 20th Century United States- Teddy Roosevelt) was brought in to try to catch this mysterious elephant known for destroying homes and maternity wards across the city the past decade.
Teddy Roosevelt Matthews was approached by a psychic Nyssa Dhawan who told him that the destroying elephant was no natural creature but a preternatural Elephant Woman- a woman given the black magic supernatural ability to shapeshift into an elephant.
Nyssa gave Theo a medallion with the image of the Hindu god Ganesha on it for protection.
In the meantime, Theodore Roosevelt Matthews began setting elephant traps across the city.
The Mayor was advising everyone to stay home. As a lot of sports league play-offs were currently underway to say nothing of a new reality TV series showing a bunch of catty women fighting and backstabbing one another, the mayor’s stay home message was definitely easier done than said. Both husbands and wives stayed home watching television. And their kids were naturally playing violent video games or busy text messaging one another in their rooms.
The streets of the city were quiet except for the earthshaking footsteps of the Elephant Woman Gertrude Grannick and the stealthy prowling quiet steps of the hunter Teddy Roosevelt Matthews.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Gertrude Grannick bellowed in a voice that would have made Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat wince at such an example of notoriously bad overacting.
Theodore Roosevelt Matthews said nothing. He just quietly bided his time.
Suddenly there was a roar as Elephant Woman Gertrude Grannick stepped in an elephant trap.
Normally the trap would have been easy to spot but a department store had wisely placed an elephant sized mirror in a large window and the narcissistically conceited Gertrude Grannick had stopped to admire herself in the mirror not noticing the trap in front of her.
Gertrude Grannick bellowed like an elephant cow in pain (which is what she was).
She waddled several blocks on 3 legs until she caught sight of Theodore Roosevelt Matthews. She bellowed at him and charged.
Theo opened the door of the nearest building which happened to be a Hindu temple.
Theo ran up to the central altar.
Gertrude Grannick stampeded through the door knocking it down.
She saw Theodore Roosevelt Matthews standing at the altar and charged at him.
Matthews waited and then ducked out of the way at the proper moment clutching at the medallion that the psychic Nyssa Dhawan had given him.
The Elephant Woman Gertrude Grannick struck the altar with full force causing the giant bronze statue of Ganesha to come crashing down from the ceiling with full force on top of her.
Ganesha’s bronze tusks pierced Gertrude Grannick’s head causing it to be severed from her body.
The Elephant Woman was dead.
A good elephant had triumphed over an evil elephant.
And the city was once again safe.
The only place that carried reminders of her existence was the local Department of Motor Vehicles licensing branch.
-A tale of horror
written by Christopher
Thursday March 30th
2017.
Permalink Leave a Comment