Weekly Challenge freebie #4: Love is a Frail Reed

Hi again!

Continuing with the Weekly Challenge, here’s story #4 out of a potential 52. This one makes me smile, because it has the potential to offend nearly EVERYBODY. Or…at least somebody. Maybe.

But I have a clear responsibility to publish here. This story may already have saved at least one life. I’d tell you how that happened, but it’d involve a heck of a spoiler. So I’ll save it for now and slip it into the post right after the end of the story.

The main thing, though? Just trust me: Reading my fiction might save your life. So don’t forget to tell your friends. I mean, if they’re good people and you want ’em to stick around. Otherwise I guess we might as well not bother.

Guess what? Here it is:

Love is a Frail Reed

Stacy has a tough job. Her interpersonal skills aren’t the best either. Both of these are exacerbated by a problem she’s had since she was a kid. Definitely not a slacker, she’s consumed with a need to improve herself. So what happens when she finds solutions to all of the above? Well, it’s fair to say she turns it all around…

 

[REDACTED 8/28/2014]

I’m making all my stories Amazon-only for a while. Their “Kindle Unlimited” deal is very nice for short fiction. I hate to leave people out if they prefer buying stuff at non-Amazon sites, but…(1) nearly all sales and downloads, for me, have always come from Amazon, (2) while I’ve had issues with Amazon, they’ve been very responsive in dealing with them, (3) I can’t say that for any other online distributor (well, Smashwords is actually pretty nice), and (4) this may boost visibility at Amazon…kind of the core of my business. If you really really hate the idea, please let me know.

 

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Afterword

 

One of my beta readers read this story last Saturday afternoon–and let me know he had a first date planned for that very night with someone he met via an online dating site. Naturally we were concerned for his safety, and arranged for him to let me know how it went.

He survived. Forewarned is forearmed, you see.

Then, on Monday, I was walking barefoot on a nearby trail (as one does) and was accosted by three very hairy men. One indicated my feet with his pointy facial hair and remarked, “Dude, that’s totally Paleo.”

Just so you know: I can’t be sure that they would have murdered me and tossed my body (the uneaten bits anyway) into a nearby creek. BUT I gave a sudden unnerving laugh and they all DID give me a wider berth than they might have otherwise.

Really. READ MY STUFF. It’s for your own good. And it may also help you in various social situations you may encounter.

[UPDATE: I forgot to mention this story was inspired by Dead Clown Barbecue. I was working on something entirely different, then got irritated by an irrelevancy, then…wrote this instead. If you had a good time with the story above, you should probably go check out Jeff Strand’s work. Or you could look at his stuff even if you didn’t like my story, ’cause he’s really good. You’ll find him somewhere near the intersection of Horror and Humor.]

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Boilerplate follows:

My books are not in stores, so the only way anybody hears about them is online. If I’ve entertained you sufficiently, and if you can spare the time, please consider posting a review online. Even a line or two, if posted to Amazon or Goodreads, can make a big difference to me. And I’ll appreciate the heck out of it.

Also, if you’d like to be among the first folks notified of new releases regardless of where they’re sold, you can sign up to my mailing list here. I send email to this list only when I have a new release, and I won’t sell or give away your email address.

Have a good day out there.