The Last Leaf

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Leaf-writing season is over. By a small coincidence, a leaf has surfaced on the nightstand by my bed. I have a vague memory of writing this, but the date I'd written on it is gone, along much of my name. 

It reads:

               The leaf came in the mail with a message:

               "Preserve Me and I'll Preserve Thee."

                Some obeyed and prospered. Some

                did not and were not.

I am of two minds on this. One says it wouldn't hurt and might help to preserve it. The other says that I should never give in to a superstition I have coined myself.

 

Above: Anyone looking for the link to the complete text of All Souls Night need only to scroll back to yesterday's post.

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ALL SOULS NIGHT Complete! In One Easy-to-Read Location!

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This year's Halloween story, written on leaves and serialized daily on my blog, one sentence at a time, is done. Every day in October, I added to it, it reached its last words on Halloween.

Funny thing, though. In conversations with two different friends, I learned that neither of them had realized it was a story. They each thought I was just posting random sentences written on leaves. One of them is an artist, and thinks primarily in visual terms, so I thought at first that was a misunderstanding curious to her. The other, however, is a well-known writer and, what's more important, quite a good one. I have no idea what's going on there.

Long story short, at my behest, my son Sean, put all the photos up on Imgur, subtitled. So, if you didn't realize that they told a story... Or if, somehow, you weren't able to hold all the sentences in your head until the story was complete... Now you can find out what was going on. (The stone angels mark the ends of paragraphs.)

You can find it by clicking on the link here.

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My Halloween Season Story, "Unquiet Graves," in CLARKESWORLD

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I am always happiest when a story of mine comes into print. Today, I have the joy of introducing you to "Unquiet Graves," a seasonal tale of graveyard misbehavior and betrayal. Oh, and there's nothing supernatural about it at all.

You can read the story here. But if you're like me, you'll just go to Clarkesworld, look over the table of contents, and decide which story you want to read first. Mine by preference, but follow your whim.

 

And for those who like trivia . . .

I came up with the handheld's app many long years ago and it took forever to come up with a story for it. You'll notice that it is left unnamed in the story. That's because its secret name was "The Graveyard Reader." Which is the title of a well-known story by Theodore Sturgeon.  While I was writing the story, I thought of it as "The New Graveyard Reader." But Sturgeon's story and mine go off in totally different directions, and giving mine (or even the app) a title suggesting there was some implicit connection between the two would only cause confusion.

The title I finally came up with was derived from "The Unquiet Grave" by that most prolific of all poets, Anonymous. If you look it up, I suggest you do so after reading my story. It gives away some of the plot.

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All Souls Night (Conclusion)

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FINIS

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

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All Souls Night (Part 30 of 31)

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CONTINUED TOMORROW. (For those who came in late: The first sentence was posted here on October 1 and a new sentence was posted every day thereafter, to make a complete story.)

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where.I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

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All Souls Night (Part 29 of 31)

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CONTINUED TOMORROW. (For those who came in late: The first sentence was posted here on October 1 and a new sentence was posted every day thereafter.)

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where.I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

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All Souls Night (Part 28 of 31)

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CONTINUED TOMORROW. (For those who came in late: The first sentence was posted here on October 1 and a new sentence was posted every day thereafter.)

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where.I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

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