The Tour Stop
Check out these featured authors making their way around the blog scene!
|
Gypsy Love
EXCERPT: Adrian Their routine never changed. Smack the alarm clock for fifteen more minutes of grunting, snoring sleep. Grumble when the contraption bleeped its nauseating music again. Shower, wake the children in the next room, eat some sugary swill, and leave for a day of school or work. Day, after day, after day. If I hadn’t already hated these rotting people, their boring lives would’ve put me over the edge. Unfortunately, my life, or lack thereof, mirrored theirs. An apparition only had so much to do to fill the time. My routine never changed, either, not for over two hundred years. Yes, the families would turn into other families as generations progressed—I lost count of how many had passed—but they were all from the same insane bitch of an ancestor. I wasn’t too particular. All they required was the right name. The little things kept my sanity. Push the clock out of reach. Adjust the water until it grew frigid or scalding, depending on my mood. If I were really on point, I dumped that slop they shoveled into their mouths every morning onto the floor for the mangy dog. So what if these specific Gypsies hadn’t cursed me. A curse, I might add, undeserved. Two hundred years built enough anger to spread vengeance without prejudice. Pathetic, but those little things were all I had. Not much else to occupy my time, and as any good haunt would do, I followed the man, Luca, to the city after he dropped his children off at school–every day. I wouldn’t have been a decent ghost if I hadn’t at least tried to heave him into oncoming traffic as he scurried to his custodian job. I’d been practicing that trick for years, coming so close a few times. Once I perfected it, the push would probably be at the back of the wanker’s grandson. Hell, great-grandson. Unlike them, I had eternity on my side. But one day, a few of the sodding Gypsies would decorate the windshield of a city bus. Not today, though. Luca weaved around the crowd while I slinked through it, body after body. The beastly man tended to hurry, always late due to his nightly drinking binges, and I enjoyed tripping him up in his rush, a skill I had mastered. A millisecond of physical contact might not get anyone smacked with a speeding car, but stumbling in a hurry irritated even the most patient person, which Luca wasn’t. “Christ!” He grabbed a lamppost in time to save his face from the pavement. “Knock your shit off. I ain’t got time for it today.” To an outsider, the bloated man appeared as if he spoke to himself. But I knew better. “Well, good thing for you I’ve plenty of time for us both,” I answered him. Even though he couldn’t hear me, we’d had plenty of conversations over the years, as I had with his father, and his father before him. I used to rage, scream until my voice grew hoarse. Not a blooming soul ever gave any indication they knew I existed. To answer now became habit, needing to speak to him as if I had a voice left in the world. Unfortunately, I’d become as much a part of this heathen family as every other bastard whelped by the likes of a Gypsy bitch. My story became an heirloom, passed from generation to generation. The angry ghost of Miryah Kotorara’s curse. No one had the ability to see me, much less hear a damn word I had to say. Bad luck, a faulty alarm clock, a stumble on nothing, all of it blamed on something none of them really believed in. Me. In truth, no one believed in me except for maybe Luca, probably the reason I chose him to annoy instead of his brother this generation. What good were all my efforts if the person I haunted thought me a fantasy? I was a curse to a god who didn’t exist for the rest of the family. My attempt to scare, kill, or maim them in some way ended up being part irritation, part fun story to repeat at dinner parties. Even vapor had pride, and the Kotorara clan stomped on it any chance they had. Luca straightened his jacket and mumbled curses as the crosswalk light blinked to proceed. Oh, to have the power to push his fat, greasy body into a lorry. I swiped at his back, my hand disappearing through his skin and blubber. One day, you tosser. As soon as we hit the curb, Luca stopped. If I were matter, I’d have rammed into his back. Instead, I whooshed through his body. Times like these, I was grateful for the lack of senses, not particularly fond of body odor, sweat, and soft man flesh. “Well, come on, then. Move your bloody arse.” Even if he could hear, I doubt he would have listened. Luca directed his attention to a sleek building in front of us, a scowl twisting his lips.
GIVEAWAY!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
