Tuesday Tidbit:

The following is an excerpt from Whispering Hollow, a short story in the works.

The poets of the world will tell you true love is a blessing; the greatest gift man can ever receive. But let me tell you that’s a lie, a cruel and vicious web of deceit the romantic-at-heart weave. No amount of sirens’ songs or pretty words can cover the truth: Love, true love especially, is a curse. It will pull you under its churning waves and strip you of all your senses—both physical and mental. Love robs a man of all he has and leaves him bereft, abandoned on some isolated shore from which there is no escape.


I buried my beloved Chloe a mere month ago along with the broken and desolate shards of my sanity. My heart lay as cold and dead as she, and as I watched the last clumps of dirt rain over her casket, I didn’t know if I should weep with bitter relief or cave beneath the immense burden of grief and guilt. I had watched her hang for her sins, knowing her crimes were no worse than mine. I had watched, and in those moments that ticked by like an unspent eternity, I had felt glee. Even as her tongue lolled and her body twitched in the final throes of death, I rejoiced.

Today, she came back . . .