Author Archives: theladyruthless

Whenever you heard ‘Teepike’ on a Search and Rescue dispatch call you were in for a rough slog; that’s what we told the newbies on their first day, and as warden of my team a good decade into my career that opinion held strong. But nothing any of us saw out there beat the TeiganContinue reading “Old Kings”

my curse has always beento romanticise my lifewhen it didn’t deserve it that time we kissed in the rainI was an fleabite on your armthat you scratched when I turned away the Polaroid of us drinkingmulled wine in a cabinI looked at for a swollen momentthen threw out with the rest of it running shoelessContinue reading “Calcify”

we’re too alike, you and Inot by the filaments of a cellor by bone; your face is yoursand mine is paint and polymer before that I looked like my fatherso people said, a backhandwith a smile, although I was youfrom the brine of the afterbirthyour code pressed into the wrinklesof my brain like crisp ironingContinue reading “Next Of Kin”

Mortem sat with his back against the hard ridges of his daughter’s cradle, struggling to keep his eyes open. Ilsa moaned in her sleep, but didn’t wake, nor would she ever again, if Mortem failed to last since sunrise. That was the only rule, at least the only one that Mortem knew. He stared intoContinue reading “Crib”

It was Friday night when Lois found the hole. It had opened up in the flowerbed, where the cats had been buried, one after the other, where the summer blooms had been brown and wilted and dying. They were all gone now, having fallen into the black pit without a trace. It was as wideContinue reading “Gone Were The Flowers”

The snow lay heavy in the village, even thicker than it had been back home in Boston; there was less and less of it every winter, it seemed. Tomo stood and watched the heaven’s fall, wondering how long it would take for the snow to cover him completely if he prostrated himself upon the ground.Continue reading “Tomo’s Path”

I know how I’ll dress when you’re gone waist small as two fistslips laquered black,black as the pineI’ll rap with my knucklesto see you out, to see youspun into cinderson a loom at which Death toiledwith sympathetic fingersturning dustinto gold I know how I’ll stand meeting the shiftinggaze of any who thoughtI was a shadowfromContinue reading “A Funeral In Bangor”

Memories hurt more in the summeror mine do, at least;I can only speak for myself,myself being all that I know-human feeling has long beenother to me, each mood and whim returning as unfamiliaras the scent of outerspace;they say that it smells like char,and somehow that speaks to memore than people ever didbecause I knowhow itContinue reading “The Rhythm Of A Number”

“I didn’t know that Joe had a dog.” It was the man who said it. He hung back in the farmhouse doorway, one hand hovering over the girl’s thin shoulderblade, poised to yank her back into the barren yard at the first sign of trouble. The dog, however, did not move. It stood with aContinue reading “The Dog”