Tag: death

Postcards: Careful Who You Let In

eskaftun

If you’re enjoying these, hop over to patreon to get every postcard story I write from now on, for as low as $3/mo. One per week! Some postcards will still find their way here, but not all.

Image of polar bear on ice, surrounded by a bloody mess.

Dear Tara,
The puppies are growing up fast! Especially Bjørn; he’s MUCH bigger than his siblings and causes more mischief. I’m pleased at least one is thriving; I still don’t know what killed their poor mama.
Today I let them out to romp in the fresh snow, and boy did Bjørn get into something messy! I’d be mad if his self-satisfied smile wasn’t so stinking cute. I was so busy cleaning him up I barely noticed that the other puppies weren’t underfoot. They never came home! Tomorrow I’ll look for them, but for now at least I have my Bjørn to cuddle with. He’s a little bitey, but we’re working on it.
Love,
Ellie
Image of a sexy hitchhiker

Dear Sophia,

We were fighting in the car, as usual, when he pulled over for this hitchhiker that looked like a time traveler from an old-timey pinup magazine. Leans right over me, asks where she’s going. Ogles her legs. “Get in the back,” he tells me. He had that look on his face, that wild look, so I did.

Not two miles later he reached over and grabbed her thigh. Instantly he screamed and writhed in agony. The woman parked our car and then she … opened … like a hole in the universe. She ate him whole. And then she was a woman again, winking at me as she left.

It’s been a few days now. The shock is fading and I still don’t miss him. Thanks, hitchhiking monster lady!

~Rita

Postcards: Learning through Travel

eskaftun

Exciting postcard news: I have a patreon for these now! That is where you can see every postcard story that I write from now on, starting at $3/mo. One per week! Some postcards will still find their way here, but not all. If you enjoy these, I hope you’ll hop over to patreon and subscribe.

Image of the head and torso of a skeleton, among other decorative bones.
Dear Liam,
For one moment, I knew the meaning of life. I learned it in a crypt. I went as a tourist: go see the ancient bones, weird art made by monks in god’s name. But then the lights went out. Sort of. I could still see. But the other tourists were gone, along with everything modern. It was the kind of quiet that’s loud, the only sound the creak of a skeleton turning his skull to me. He told me the secret that only bones can know. I carry it inside me now, deep inside, but I’ll only know it again once my flesh rots away. Isn’t that oddly comforting?
Yours eternally,
Cole
Image of a long-horned unicorn in a very small pen.
Dear Elizabeth,
Evolution is fascinating! Prize stags’ racks get smaller. Elephants are born without tusks. Same with unicorns.
Today, at the Queen’s Bestiary, we met the oldest living unicorn. 700 years old and horn at least 4 feet long! The younger ones, captured in the last few centuries, just have dainty twee little horns. Today we learned—fun fact—unicorns simply refuse to breed in captivity. Yet they live forever. Poor things.
One wonders what would happen if they mated in the wild. Over generations, would their horns grow long again? Or are those genes lost for good?
Wouldn’t it be interesting if a visitor left a pen unlatched, and some horny unicorns escaped into the nearby horse pastures? For science?
—A Scientist

Story alert: “The Wicks Whisper”

eskaftun
Cover of BCS issue 411, with a twisted tree against a greenish sky.

“It’s her. Sort of. It’s a rippling sculpture made of smoke, an eyeless silhouette with a hazy but intact suggestion of wings.”

Imagine you could talk to a dead person—but only once. Would you do it right away, when your grief and memories are fresh, so present they suffocate you? Or would you save that chance like a fine wine, growing dusty in a cellar maybe never to be uncorked? When you finally summoned them, what if their presence didn’t comfort as much as you’d hoped?

Check out my latest story in Beneath Ceaseless Skies! I’m delighted to be back in this terrific publication, edited by the stellar Scott H. Andrews. The story is available as text and audio (read by M.K. Hobson).

Want more stories? The full list is here.

Story alert: “Eat Cosmic Jello”

eskaftun
Line drawing of a wobbly jello being orbited by hearts, stars, and musical notes.

“So what if she was indeterminate alien goo inside? That would only matter if she got cut open.”

This is one of the most personal stories I’ve ever written, about grief and family, with a side of shapeshifting, reincarnating alien. It is, to date, my favorite published story.

You can read it in the inaugural issue of Heartlines Spec! I’m chuffed as hell that the editors chose me to help launch their journal—and made my story such a cute illustration.

Want more stories? The full list is here.

The Big Idea: Living Forever

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I talk about death on John Scalzi’s blog, Whatever

cover of Living Forever & Other Terrible Ideas by Emily C. Skaftun

In today’s Big Idea, author Emily C. Skaftun is thinking about death… for starters. With a book title like Living Forever & Other Terrible Ideas, perhaps this is not entirely surprising.

EMILY C. SKAFTUN:

Death! There is no bigger idea. 

The theme that emerged as I was putting together my favorite stories to create my first collection—and no one is more surprised than I that a theme emerged at all!—is something like:

Death. Maybe it’s not the worst thing that could happen?

Or: Be sure to read the fine print about your life after death.

To keep reading, head over to Whatever, where this piece was originally published.

Family, and a poisonous corpse

eskaftun

It seems troubled family is on my mind.

Postcard of woman in red dress near a waterfall
Dear Tyler,
We’d hiked all day to get to the waterfall, like the guidebook said. It was supposed to be awesome. But we got there & there was no water. None. Like, the rocks were dry & there were dried-up fish bones in the riverbed. Then this lady in a bright red dress totally appeared out of nowhere. She looked creepy, man, right away. But Sam whistles at her. Her creepy eyes flash red & she spins around pointing at him & says, “Blood for water!” Then the waterfall starts back on like she opened a faucet. We all scrambled out of its path, but I don’t know what happened to Sam. We never found him. I think the witch got your brother.
Sorry, dude.
Robbie
Postcard of tiny plane and huge volcanic ash cloud
Dear Dad,
You’ll be happy to know that Susie is still a virgin—or at least she had this tribe fooled. After your last letter I tracked her halfway around the world, to a beautiful little island. She thought she had it made, because the natives were treating her like a princess (like you). She told me to get lost. But I stuck around long enough to decipher some stone carvings: virgin, volcano, sacrifice. Standard stuff really. I got to her just in time, swooping into the caldera in my little plane to pluck her from mid-air (who’s your favorite child now?). We’re on our way home now.
To recap: The good news: Susie is a virgin.
The bad news: there’s one less island in the ocean.
Love,
Eric
Postcard of Edvard Munch's "At the death bed"
Dear Gramma,
I’m sorry you’re dead and won’t receive this card. But I want to thank you for a couple of things. 1) Your snickerdoodle recipe. Because of it I was in the kitchen pulling cookies out of the oven at your wake when uncle Dwight decided to open your casket. Moron. Which brings me to 2) whatever chemical or bacteria or voodoo curse you had yourself buried with. It actually melted them, the whole aggravating lot of them. I had just time to watch as they dissolved into ghostly wraiths before I ran for it. And now I am free.
I love you, gramma. Rest in peace,
Kelly

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