fiction writing

A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part I)

You wake up in a strange city, in a bed that doesn’t belong to you, and you feel a strange tickling in your pinkie. You glance down – a small pair of turquoise and brown feathers are fluttering on your nail bed. “What the…” you begin to murmur, but before you can complete the sentiment, a stranger slides back into the bed beside you.

“Oh,” he says with a big smile, “you’re awake.”

You writhe around, trying to find a way to keep the stranger from discovering what you just found out for yourself – that over night, you’ve developed a tiny pair of wings.

You try to smile back, but the stranger recognizes how uncomfortable you are. “Would you like to freshen up?” he offers.

How magnanimous, you think. Maybe he has some nail clippers in the bathroom and I can just snip the wings off. You nod and hide your hands behind your back as he gestures toward the bathroom. You nod and scurry to the bathroom, slamming the door behind you. “Sorry,” you call over your shoulder.

“No worries,” he replies. At least he seems like an easygoing enough guy. You find a hairbrush and untangle your snarled hair. You make do without a toothbrush. Then, the most important reason – you start hunting for a pair of nail clippers.

You find them and easily snip the wings off, but even in the yellow light of the bathroom, they are oddly beautiful – the turquoise is the color of the ocean and the brown is even lovely, the shade of a wren’s feathers.

Even weirder is the pain that sears through you when you cut them off. Like a scorching, sizzling sort of pain. You bite back a gasp.

Then, the unthinkable happens.

The two tiny feathers that had been beating against each other grow back.

“You okay in there?” the stranger calls.

You are speechless but finally swallow your fears and call back, “Yep. I’m fine.”

You think about it. This is a stranger. You probably slept together. You don’t really remember much. The night is a little hazy. You are naked. You did wake up in his bed. He was naked when he came back to bed.

“Did we have sex?” you ask because why the hell not? That’s safer than asking him if he knows anything about pinkie feathers.

“I was that memorable, huh?” he replies, his voice teasing. “We sure did. Next thing you know, you’ll tell me you don’t remember my name.”

Shit. It’s like someone wiped your memory clean.

What is his name?

“You’re going to hate me,” you respond, your voice decidedly not teasing.

“I’m Micah,” he tells you, “and you can come out of the bathroom now. I know all about the feathers on your finger.”

…to be continued.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.

An Avocation for Breathing

A story with a protagonist whose perspective requires an associative, free-flowing use of language.

inspired by Friederike Mayröcker

Her 1988 story “my heart my room my name,” was written entirely without punctuation, which inspires the breathlessness of these pieces by not utilizing punctuation.

vignette i: breath

When I took a course on modern poetry at a university where classes were taught in crumbling brick buildings with decaying ivy and windows held together by glass glue the professor told me that a comma is an inadvertent signal to the reader to pause to take a breath and that by writing long sentences we are forcing our readers to draw in their breaths sharper deeper like they are swimming or more accurately drowning but this isn’t a poem modern or otherwise this is me introducing you to who I am so I’m sure you’re asking who am I why is my story something special but it’s not it’s not I don’t know how to convince you otherwise but that summer I turned nineteen my breathing was sharper deeper and I thought I was drowning but instead I was swimming yet no-one told me that I was in a hotel pool not an ocean like I had come to believe and every time I tried to swallow everything shimmered at the edges like a dream sequence or a hallucination but I was not dying I was not dying and you told me I was beautiful I was beautiful but I thought those were just words you said to a corpse because I was so sure I had said the same thing to a body in a glass case in a museum near Pompeii because I was so sure I had said the same thing to my grandfather’s body in a cherrywood box in a funeral home down the street from his empty house but no one told me no one told me what you’re supposed to say when someone dies but I was just a child the professor told me that a comma is an inadvertent signal to the reader to pause to take a breath but we’re not breathing are we?

are we?

vignette ii: love song

He asked me if I only write sad poems like elegies or church bells with missing clappers but I know I’ve written happy things whether they’re memories or fiction I’m not sure but this isn’t just a collection of all the times my heart was an explosive and detonated too soon and I hope you’re remembering to breathe because all of this is building up to a climax that’s not all that exciting yet I want to be the vial of peppermint oil that invigorates you when you thought you were dead yet I want to make you laugh so hard you feel like you can’t breathe but I can’t believe I’m jealous of a ghost and yet my memory isn’t what it used to be but I keep reading articles about our shrinking hippocampus and our galaxy expanding faster than it should and books about false memories like that will stop the onslaught the ravaging of my mind by that plaque that destroys but I guess you don’t realize how scared I am of forgetting what if I call you by the wrong name or what if I offer you a honeysuckle flower and you tell me it’s calla lilies and daisies you’ve always loved and I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is a love story even though it doesn’t sound like one because all I’ve wanted all I’ve ever wanted is to be your home and to be the vials of peppermint oil that invigorate you and yet I’ll write you poems until my ink well dries but he asked if I only write sad poems but isn’t love just a sad villanelle or a brokenhearted sonnet?

isn’t it?

vignette iii: exhale

are you still breathing?

are you?

vignette iv: lungs

Anyone who knows me knows my poetry is a catharsis and hears the truth veiled underneath the metaphors and listens past the rustling of tree leaves and knows there’s more beneath the surface and knows I’m more than my past because if you just look at the faded Polaroids and old cassettes you will see one version of me but there are so many layers so many layers like when you’re painting and you wet the canvas and layer one coat of acrylic over the top of another and some kind of masterpiece emerges and this is what it’s like to live some days I’ve heard neurodivergent voices refer to it as “masking” and while that feels applicable I wonder where does the mask stop once it adheres to the flesh because I feel like I’m crafted of papier-mâchépapier-mâchépapier-mâché and glue and I’m afraid to peel back the mask because what if what’s underneath is ugly it is ugly isn’t it and I’m afraid because people are often repulsed by what they don’t recognize and if I don’t recognize myself in the mirror does that mean I’m a monster and are monsters even capable of breathing when he stitched a man of mangled flesh and confiscated organs did he know he was building a monster and were those recycled vintage lungs of his creature capable of breathing because I forget to inhale and exhale some days because I forget to breathe some days because I forget to be human some days and am I a monster because I always told myself I was a Russian nesting doll but I forget to breathe some days and is this my punishment for being a bad daughter and am I a bad daughter because my mother often told me that I was a thorn in her side and thorns don’t have lungs

does this mean I’m a monster?

does this mean I’m not breathing?

A drabble is a short work of fiction of precisely one hundred words in length. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author’s ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in a confined space.

He had vanished all those years ago. All I had left was a pressed flower and an empty pack of cigarettes to remember him by. He offered me a world I could not fathom, so I Iingered behind. I guess the dying don’t lie. I promised I’d wait. Last night, he reappeared in a dream only to say I miss you, and that was enough. His eyes told me every story his lips could not, and I told him I dedicated every song to him at every show. I told him about the lightning showers. And that was enough.

Every time the sun rises out her window, she’s at a split in her story. Autobiography isn’t etched in stone. It is impermanent like fingers caressing rivers or kisses in the rain. Everything is until it isn’t. Everything feels fabled until you see how easily the stories dissolve. They crumble in the rain. She tells stories of her youth about the boy who drew blueprints for a house he could never afford. About the taste of honeysuckle in June. She can change the narrative. She can be the new beginning her children never had. Just run and don’t look back.

When I say I want to be described as breathtaking, I hope he realizes I mean beyond what can be seen. I hope it doesn’t sound like I want to be the girl in the sundress among a field of wisteria with golden light. I want my words to captivate. My soul to catch on fire. I want him to look at me and see my aura ablaze. I want to write poetry and stories that stop people’s hearts. That makes them forget where they are. Forget how to breathe. My words could be as unique as fingerprints. Don’t forget.

Isabelle Palerma

Spooky Sunday: Interview with Shane Blackheart

Shane is a disabled non-binary trans author and artist from Ohio. They live with their two cats, and they spend way too much time exploring liminal space voids. They started writing stories at the age of seven and haven’t stopped since.

Having grown up with depression and a panic disorder, writing was often the best way to cope with early symptoms of trauma and agoraphobia. Later having been diagnosed with several mental health conditions, they made it their goal to raise awareness for these diagnoses, as they are often misunderstood.

What is your absolute least favorite horror novel cliché?

“Satanists are evil/violent/the villains of the story.” I can’t stand that because not only is it over-used, it’s punching down to a group of people who aren’t evil to begin with. It’s a tired trope from the Satanic Panic era that we should just all leave behind. I tend to DNF [Do Not Finish] a book when I see it.

If you were locked in a room with your biggest fear, what would you be staring down?

I’d be staring at a big black void because my biggest fear is not knowing, or the unknown and what lurks in it. Death would probably be standing there somewhere.

Where’s the creepiest place you’ve ever been?

Equally creepy and cool, years ago I went to the Mansfield Reformatory in Ohio, which is where they filmed the Shawshank Redemption. They aren’t joking when they say that place is haunted. I stepped into a cell to start taking photos of the second floor rooms, and two brand new sets of batteries drained instantly. On the bottom floor heading toward solitary confinement, my mom and I were the only ones in the room and I kept hearing shuffling footsteps behind me. I got the feeling I was being followed. When I turned around to see if another family was behind us, there was nothing there. I really want to go back to have more experiences.

What do you think it says about people that we like to be scared?

I’m not sure generally, but as someone with an anxiety disorder, it’s a safe way to be scared that I have control over. It’s probably similar to why people like going on roller coasters. When it’s safe it becomes fun, and it makes you feel alive in a way.

Why do you write horror?

To cope with my nightmare disorder. I’ve had chronic nightmares, night terrors, and occasional sleep paralysis episodes since I was an infant, according to my mom, and I’ve carried it into adulthood. I became used to it for the most part, but you never get used to the terrors that stick with you. I have very vivid, sometimes lucid, nightmares that have a definite message or a full or partial coherent narrative. In order to gain control over them and give them a purpose, I turn them into short stories and include some in my longer books. I also just love horror and it’s basically a lifestyle because it’s so close to home.

If you could build a Frankenstein’s monster – a Shane Blackheart monster, I guess – what celebrities would you steal body parts from to make the ultimate creature?

This is a really hard but super cool question. I’d say Johnny Depp’s head, Vincent Price’s brain, and for the rest, I’m not really sure but someone who has a bunch of tattoos because it would make a pretty sweet looking monster, plus it’s just my whole aesthetic at this point. I wish I could be covered in tattoos, if money ever permits.

What would you say is your greatest strength in your writing?

I’ve been told it’s two things: my natural and realistic flow of dialogue between characters, and my unconventional and weird way of storytelling. I don’t really stick to any formulas, and while I understand the writing rules, I set them aside for the most part because I don’t like to hinder my creativity or the honesty of the story I’m writing. My editor says it works well with what I do, so I’ll stick with it.

Share a photo or art of a character inspiration.

I’m an artist myself, and I often draw my own stuff. I can share some art I did of a main character in my current WIP.

When you write an emotionally draining scene, how do you prepare? How do you repair yourself afterwards?

The best way to explain is to bring up a scene I chose to intentionally trigger myself for to write authentically. I put on headphones and turned up a dark ambient album that reminded me of my worst days, and I let the dread just sort of take over as I let the words flow. It was an emotional and intense scene because it had to do with overcoming my worst fears related to trauma, and it drained me big time.

Afterward, I surrounded myself with comfort stuff, like my favorite music, foods, and shows. I gave myself the time to come down from it for a few days. I didn’t really prepare because I’m impatient and just like to get it over with, so the recovery afterward is just as important.

What famous author, living or dead, would you want to be your mentor? Why?

There are a few, but I have to say Anne Rice. Her books were everything to me as a teenager, and growing up, I read more and more of her work. I just admire her mind and how it works, and I feel like I could learn so much from her. She has a lot of advice and videos still up about writing because she loved to help other writers, and one of her messages always kept me going when I felt down about myself and my talents.

She always said that if a story had a burning need to be told, and you really loved it and wanted to tell it, then it deserves to be told and it’s important to get it out there.

How do you feel about banned books? What would be your response if one of your books was banned?

If one of my books was banned, I’d know I did something right. I go out of my way to read wrongfully banned books from the past, and I will continue to do so now. Book banning is dangerous, and it concerns me with what’s happening right now in America. If we’ve learned anything, it’s the books they don’t want you to read that you should be reading the most.

Would you rather be in a room full of snakes or a room full of spiders?

My arachnophobia is so bad, I’d have to say snakes. Hopefully they’ve been fed beforehand.

Share a link to a favorite song or playlist you always listen to when writing.

I make playlists specifically for everything I write, but while I’m writing I can’t have anything with lyrics. My favorite dark ambient album to put on repeat is one that’s been perfect for writing psychological horror: Atrium Carceri and Cities Last Broadcast.

Would you be willing to share a scary scene (no spoilers!) for a book you’re working on now?

Sure! I’m not sure if it’s scary in the usual sense, but it is unsettling.

A dark doorway came into view, and I stepped past its threshold much sooner than I’d realized. Time did not exist there in any way that mattered.

The space grew dark as night washed over it, and a blood moon beamed through from an open balcony at the end of the room. Large open windows that stretched from floor to ceiling lined one of the walls, and red streaks of moonlight painted the floor in slatted patterns.

I approached the balcony and looked out over the expanse of the now red desert. The mountains were closer, but they weren’t stationary.

They began to writhe slowly as if they were exhausted. Human-shaped spirits the size of titans rose from the mountains and sunk back once more, and a distant wailing that grew louder became a droning chant. The titans were in agony, and more joined the desolate cries that surfaced from a Hell they could not escape. I turned to see my void partner backing me against the railing, and beside me stood my shadow man. Around us gathered the cloaked shadow figures in waiting for the intimate ritual to come, and hovering above, the giant eldritch eye reappeared to complete the gathering.

Where can readers find you?

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShaneBlkheart

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shaneblackheart

Instagram: https://instagram.com/shaneblackheart

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/ShaneLestan