Wicker Man Studios
by Barb Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper
**********
The spaceship landed in an empty field.
A car happened by… and slowed down… and stopped by the side of the road.
“Oh mi’God,” said the young woman in the car on the passenger side, “it’s a real UFO.”
“We should call the police,” said the young man driving.
“They won’t believe us without pictures– I’m getting out of the car,” said the young woman.
Well, it’s October now– things have been a bit delayed with our first contest, as you already know presuming you read our last newsletter. In case you missed it, the publisher of our story Hungry Ghosts celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a giveaway contest, giving away art and copies of Hungry Ghosts the graphic novel– and some copies of the ebook of the HG prose novel, too, as well as a digital story from Barb’s comic Gun Street Girl.
by Barbara Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper
**********
**********
Transcript: Discovering Your Maine Heritage (Episode 95 (S5 E15) now with added Update)
Findley (vocal over images of trees, the Portland skyline, waves breaking on rocks): …You’re watching Channel 10, Portland’s own public television station.
Findley (a thin, elderly man with silver hair and a white beard and glasses, wearing slacks and a sweater and a blazer and loafers) (outside a large mansion, with a slight breeze blowing): I’m James Findley, and as always, I’m your host… for Discovering Your Maine Heritage.
Findley (vocal over sitting at a large wooden library table near a large window with a man in his late 30s, with brown hair and haunted eyes): I’m here today with David Collins, of Collinsport, Maine. We’re exploring David’s family history.
“I Hate Asparagus,” by Barb Lien-Cooper
(based on a piece of writing advice by Shirley Jackson)
●●●●●●●●●●
“I hate asparagus,” Louise MacNamara said to the kitchen clock on the wall.
All the clock said in response was tick, tick, tick.
“10:03 already. The morning’s just slipped away from me… I simply must get to the grocery store. …Where is my list…?”
She found it by her purse. “Milk, eggs, bacon, bread…” she said out loud.
And asparagus.
“I hate asparagus,” Louise said.
Asparagus was always a difficult vegetable to get right, her mother had always told her. Cook it too little, it’s chewy. Cook it too much, and it’s bitter and slimy.
I’m bitter because my husband is slimy, Louise thought.
~~~~~~~~~~
by Barbara Lien-Cooper
~~~~~~~~~~
“You look troubled,” I said to Roger. “And you’ve hardly eaten your food. It seems silly to bring me to one of the most lovely restaurants in Bangor and then not touch a bite of your food…”
“Ah, well, you’re far lovelier than this place, my dear…” said Roger.
I smiled at him. Roger might not have been other women’s romantic ideal; he was balding, and his countenance often seemed grim. But he had a fine mind, and he’d always been every bit the gentleman, especially to me. I’d known him for almost five years. We’d met soon after his first wife, Laura, had died under mysterious circumstances; he’d come to Bangor on business. He always seemed to have a lot of financial reasons to visit Bangor, something to do with his family’s business ties… He wasn’t the owner of whatever company or companies his family owned—his sister Elizabeth seemed to have the lion’s share of the stock in the concern, and he just managed things. I once asked Roger about the family’s financial arrangements… he told me quite honestly that he’d spent his money on having fun. Since he didn’t like talking about it, I was never sure quite what the family business was—something to do with lumber, or canneries, or perhaps both… “I appreciate the comment, Roger, but it concerns me that you’re not eating.”
“Family troubles again,” said Roger.
“When is it anything else? Is it David again?”
“No, not my son, not this time…”
~~~~~~~~~~
by Barbara Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper
~~~~~~~~~~
For Randy M. Chertow
~~~~~~~~~~
1968 was a watershed year, people say. But it didn’t feel like it to me at the time, stuck behind my desk the way I was.
My career always consisted of being stuck behind a desk. During the halcyon days of the studio system, I’d been a big man. I’d worked with everyone from Errol Flynn to Jerry Lewis (I still don’t like thinking about working with Lewis). But TV killed the old studio system. I thought, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and I got a programming job with NBC. Not the worst job, but I resented where I ended up.
“I know nothing about teenagers or their tastes,” I protested. “I’m an old white guy. I like Cole Porter and Frank Sinatra.”
“Believe me, Charlie, so do I,” my boss’d said to me. “But no one else around here knows what these crazy teenagers like either, so it might as well be you, so it’s either you do this job, or you retire.”
I couldn’t imagine retiring. Retirement meant death. I’d seen too many old executives retire and then fall over of a heart attack. I liked living, so I took on the job like my life depended on it, which I felt like it did.
“Charlie, we think we have a winner here,” my boss said to me one day. “It’s Elvis Presley—he’s interested in doing a TV special. Or at least that’s what his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, says. So read through this script and tell us what you think.”
In the great house of Collinwood, in the study, Julia Hoffman sat reading a book. It was a psychiatric book about new techniques in group therapy for which she’d promised to write a review for a scholarly journal.
She had trouble keeping her mind on it, though. Its language was no more dry and academic than any other book of its type—perhaps a little better, really—but even though there was a pleasant fire burning in the study’s fireplace, the wind was blowing just enough that the sound of the phenomenon called “The Widows” was occasionally happening.
(Note: Here’s the rest of the Hungry Ghosts short story from two weeks ago!
If you missed reading the first half two weeks ago, go here and read it now!
Okay, so now, here’s the conclusion (read below)! )
~~~~~~~~~~
“I tried to see Tokubei, but he was off inspecting his lands and attending to business,” said Eisai-sama. “So I asked to see Osono. I was told that she would not see me. So, I asked to see her father, a man named Mosaku. I was led to his quarters… I was surprised to see prayer sutras all over his room… and he looked scared of something. When he found out that I was a monk and that I had seen a face in the well water, he begged me to say prayers over the well. I did so…”
“It didn’t work,” I guessed, although since I knew the well was still haunted, it was a pretty easy guess.
by Barb Lien-Cooper
FOREWORD:
Like a lot of Dark Shadows fans, I was not a fan of the character of Roxanne Drew. I eventually realized that the reason I had no emotional connection to her was that she had just sort of showed up one day in Parallel Time. Usually, when the DS writers introduced a new character, the new character either had a major tie to the Collins family, or a tie to a character on the show that wasn’t a Collins, or the new character would be a major player in the plot that was going to be introduced. None of this seemed to properly apply to Roxanne. The writers had Barnabas say he was falling in love with her, and we, the viewers, were just supposed to accept that idea.
I said to my husband once that I had an idea for a story concerning how Roxanne could’ve been introduced to the audience in a way that might have worked better, which is how this story came to be.
However, much later, as I was writing this story, the idea I had turned into something else: the story of a very unusual friendship.
by Barb Lien-Cooper
~~~~~~~~~~
Kiyoko wasn’t doing well in the battle, and we could all see it. These weren’t just tough peasants with big talk, these were experienced soldiers, and she was a young woman (with her hair cut short, who happened to be passing herself off as a young man). She was not half bad with a sword, not at all, but these were killers, and she lacked the killer instinct.
“We would gladly share our food with you, sirs. None of this is necessary,” I heard Eisai-sama say, over on my left.
“We want the magical pouch of rice you carry! Then we would never be hungry!” shouted the leader of the pack of soldiers as he lunged at Eisai-sama, who easily blocked the man with his sword, the legendary Lightning-on-the-Water.
“…We’re hungry for blood, Takeshi,” the voice of the old man in my head said.
“Starve yourselves,” I told the old man’s voice in my head, “just like these soldiers starve. Just because you want me to use my sword to kill doesn’t mean I want that…”