Source: PNGEgg.com
“What is all this stuff?” George leaned into the workroom, one hand on the door frame, afraid to step beyond the door sill and into what looked to him like an explosion in a junk yard. Continue reading
The Big Bang
Fantasy
The Littlest Christmas Goat Trilogy
1. New Holiday Tradition
“Mom! I can’t find him anywhere!” Janie stumped down the attic stairs, empty-handed.
“That’s ok, I got us something new.”
“Elf on a Shelf is a Christmas tradition!”
“We have to change with the times. It’s been a rough couple of years.” Mom pulled the new tradition out of its paper bag. “Isn’t he cute?”
Janie looked doubtfully at the curving horns, tiny fangs and sharp cloven hooves. She read the tag. “He sees you when you’re sleeping.”
“Go hide him, Janie!” her Mom tossed the tiny goat her way.
“Ouch!” Something sliced Janie’s hand.
The goat’s eyes glittered.
Canceled Flight Canceled
He peered over the edge, at the green and white rush and pull of salt water. He knew he wasn’t ready, felt he never would be. He was different than the others. Continue reading
So, this is happening…
Hugo, in the early days, as seen by Kittelson
I have the great pleasure of being allowed to sit in the Author’s Chair in the Saddle Up Saloon over at the Carrot Ranch. It’s headquartered somewhere in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and around the world, where Rough Writers play with weekly prompts, poetry challenges, and the occasional Online Karaoke. Cowpoke or not, all are welcome to play and/or read.
My time in this week’s Author’s Chair is a bit of dark humor about a hungry giant, some carelessly spunky spelunkers, and the townsfolk nestled in the valley below (based on a Six Sentence Story that like Hugo, got a bit larger). Here’s an excerpt to start, or go on ahead and belly right up to the bar at the Saloon for the full text, and an audio of me reading the tale. Once upon a time:
Giant Problem Solved by Liz Husebye Hartmann
(Trigger alert: Not a tale for the wee ones)
Hugo’s belly pangs rumbled down the darkening mountainside above Heffinger Hollow. He was sorely tempted to nibble on a half-cooked morsel or two of the spunky spelunkers that frequented Carbuncle Caverns. This particular group of spelunkers had surprised the village by sneaking in to the Carbuncle and setting out to explore without a guide. They’d zigged when they should have zagged on that seventh leg of the descent, and had fallen deep into the bowels of the lowest cavern of Carbuncle.
This had proved deadly for them, but put their corpses within easy reach of Hugo…
But a bit of history, first…”
[Please click here to continue]
© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2021)
Happily Ever After
They could’ve gone to the right
To the tidy brown cottage in the ring of aspens.
Goat nibbling happily on the turf roof.
It had reminded them of home.
But they went left.
To the gingerbread house with the candy kitchen. Continue reading
Keepsake Exchange
Henry peered between the slats of the alleyway fence, leaf green eyes nearly popping out of their sockets in horror at what appeared to be carnage of the most brutal kind. Continue reading
Winter Retreat
Winslow Homer 1893
The falling snow piled around his hut, the shelter he’d built at the edge of the woods, from stone and fallen trees, meadow grass and mud, the retreat that was far enough away from the Hold that he rarely got visitors, but near enough that he could watch the lights wink out in the north tower when the weather was clear. Continue reading
Valley of the Trolls 