Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

59yo cis-gender queer woman from a little town in New Jersey. Medical editor by day. Love animals and all things creepy. Inside my brain you’ll find dinosaurs, haunted houses, spaceships, dancing skeletons, and fudge sundaes. She/her.

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

Part 7. God Rest Ye

1 min read

“Why is it scary?” Hal asked.

Charlotte sipped her hot cocoa and shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. But when I hear that carol I feel uneasy. Like it’s not a happy song at all.”

Hal nodded. “Tidings of comfort and joy,” he said. “But it doesn’t sound comforting or joyful.”

The two enjoyed their drinks, imbibing the cafe’s holiday ambience: crackling fire, the sound of silverware tinkling o...

Drama

Part 6. Sammy

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

Oh no, Charlotte thought. Not the desert again. I hate this dream.

But she couldn’t wake herself up so she’d have to endure it.

A few yards in front of her feet—she was still lying down as if in bed, with the covers and pillow in the sand instead of a mattress—a movement in the sand.

A head popped out, then a body. It was gray and had “Clearview High” stitched on the side of it. The body wri...

Drama

Part 5. Knuckles

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

Charlotte still felt the sting of the ruler on the back of her hand.

Ms. Rothman. Her third grade teacher. Always hated Charlotte and she never knew why until many years later. How many times did the ruler come down on the back of her hand? Too many.

“No left hand writing in my classroom,” the teacher would snarl as the ruler came down on the young tender knuckles.

She spent the whole year w...

Drama

Part 4. Show Down On Center Street

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

“Freeze, stranger! Put ‘em up!”

The voice startled Charlotte for a moment. It was a child’s voice.

She put her hands up and turned to look at who the voice was. “Take your shot, stranger! You’ll only get one!” She said.

Then turned to face a 4-foot-high cowboy holding an orange-tipped pistol in her direction.

“We don’t take kindly to strangers in these parts,” the boy drawled.

“Samuel Jone...

Romance

Part 3. The Tea Party

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

The fire was crackling cheerfully. A few fresh logs were tossed on top and spread around the grate.

Charlotte stood the photo frames in a line on the dusty coffee table and stirred a dash of milk in her tea.

“Aunt Grace,” she said to the first photo, of an older woman wearing a 1970s Easter bonnet. “You were such a firecracker.”

Then to the next photo, her cousin who died of cancer some year...

Romance

Drama

A Holiday Story

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

Dear Readers: as in inducement to keep writing through the busier season, I’m creating a holiday story based on the daily prompts from now through January 6. I think. That’s the plan. I don’t know if I’ll finish it or if I’ll give up but I will take it day by day. Currently it’s a cozy mystery set in a small town in Northeast America during the holiday season. The main character is a middle-aged w...

Part 2. The Library

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

“It’s hard to be inconspicuous when you’re hanging upside down,” Charlotte said.

“I can explain,” the man said. “Just help me down, please?”

Charlotte couldn’t feel too upset with him. After all It was she who had effectively broken into the library and was meandering around the shelves like she owned the place.

After some discussion, it was decided that Charlotte would go up into the attic a...

Romance

Mystery

A Holiday Story. Part 1. Silver Linings

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

The waitress, name tag Jeannie, delivered the steaming cup of cappuccino and a plate with something that looked delicious.

“I only ordered the coffee,” I said, apologetically.

Jeannie smiled and delivered the tray. “Compliments of the owner,” she said. “Our famous cranberry orange scone.”

I didn’t argue. “Thanks so much.”

So here I was. I flipped open my laptop and began to type.

My flight...

Romance

One Saturday Night At Dry Gulch

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

Pastor Mabley watched from across the bar as yet another cowboy swaggered into Dry Gulch Inn looking for whiskey, women and gambling.

The place was a pox on this little town, he thought. A worn and dog-eared Bible lay on his lap, open to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He had read it more times than he could count.

Here was a town, the clergyman thought, that is just as bad as Sodom. And yet t...

Western

Drama

Not This Time

Penny Dreadful ☠️ 🦑🧜‍♀️

1 min read

Yet again freedom is in trouble

Why can’t people be allowed

To live their own lives?

To make their own decisions?

To be hindered only from

Hurting others?

I fear the future

I fear that once again

The times are telling me

Freedom isn’t for everyone.

Not yet....

Poetry