Tsunami Ridge Publishing

(If you’d prefer to read this story on your ebook reader, you can find it in all major formats for free download on SmashWords.com)

Songs of Lesser Voices

by

Christina F. York

There were six of us that Christmas, three couples mixed and matched since junior high.    Thrown together as the “not good enough for chorus” club, we bonded over a shared pose of too-cool-to-join.

Twenty years later, paired up and nostalgic, we met for dinner and wine and memories.

“A toast,” Jake said, lifting his glass. “To good friends, and bad voices.”

We all joined in the toast, chuckling at the memory of how we met.

I was always amazed at the things I remembered. The humiliation of auditions for the not-very-good glee club had stayed with me, and I suspected it had with the others. We all pretended it didn’t matter at the time, and eventually came to believe that was true. But I always knew something was missing.

Our Christmas party had become an annual affair after we all went off to college. Each year, as we came home for the holidays, we would reassemble, share a meal, and catch up on each other’s lives.

Somehow, we had all moved back to our small hometown, and picked up our friendships where they’d left off. In the intervening years, we had become couples and families, each other’s oldest and dearest friends.

Now, we met once again to celebrate the holidays, and the passing of another year.

Still, something was missing.

I don’t know when it struck me, but this year I knew what that something was.

And I knew what to do about it.

As we gathered in Jake and Lyn’s living room to exchange gifts, I put my plan in motion. There was a package for each of us, marked “from Santa.” Inside were a hat, gloves, and a scarf. They all matched, giving us a uniform.

“Matching scarves?” Lyn asked. “Isn’t that kind of junior high?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it kind of is. But it’s part of my plan.”

“What plan?” asked Alyssa and Michelle in unison. It was something they’d done for years, and it was still unnerving.

“Yeah, what plan?” My husband Bruce said.

“You’ll see,” I answered, and smiled. “It’s just something I need to do.”

Bruce looked at me with a question in his eyes. I didn’t often keep secrets from him–well, except for things like Christmas gifts, and occasionally the cost of a pair of shoes. He waited, but I didn’t answer right away.

We finished opening our gifts, and Jake refilled our glasses. A pleasant hum of conversation filled the room with warmth and friendship, until I stood up, and asked for their attention.

“You wanted to know about the scarves, and the gloves,” I said. “It’s because there’s something I have always wanted to do at Christmas.”

I looked from one face to the other, the people that were closest to me, the friends of my childhood and now my adulthood. I swallowed hard before I continued.

“I want to go caroling.”

My friends seemed torn between shock and amusement. The idea that the “not good enough for chorus” club could go caroling was not anything they had ever considered.

“I know,” I said. “None of us are singers. We weren’t singers in junior high, and we aren’t now. But I have a plan, and I hope you’ll help me.”

Bruce reacted first. “If it’s that important, honey,” he said, “I’m with you.”

Everyone nodded, and I continued. “Bring your hats, and gloves, and scarves, and meet in front of my house tomorrow at seven. Bring the kids, if you want.” I knew Alyssa and Michelle might have babysitter problems.

***

Promptly at seven the next evening, everyone was waiting on my front lawn. A light snow was falling, giving our street the look of a quintessential Christmas scene.

“Okay,” Jake said. Apparently he had been elected spokesperson for the group. “We’re here, Janie. How do we get away with this?”

“With these.” I handed each of my friends a small paper sack. Lyn glanced inside, then back at me, a grin spreading across her face.

I nodded, clutching my own paper sack, and signaled them to follow me down the street.

We assembled outside my neighbor’s house, and I glanced from one face to the other. “Okay. Ready?”

I glanced from one to the other as they all nodded.

This was it. The thing I’d been missing.

“Everybody take the blue card, the one with the snowflakes on the front.” I waited as they all withdrew the greeting cards from their bags. “On three,” I said.

“One, two, three.”

On my mark, they each opened their card, and the faint strains of “Silent Night” played from each one.

It wasn’t exactly caroling, but for us it was good enough.

- END -

Of this story, national-best-selling author Steve York says, “I tried to imagine what it would be like if Edgar Allan Poe had tried to write a Christmas story, and his meds started to kick in a little just at the end…

(If you’d prefer to read this story on your ebook reader, you can find it in all major formats for free download on SmashWords.com)

One Foot in the Grave

by

J. Steven York

My foot troubles me these cold winter nights.  The bunions throb, and the long, ragged nails click on the hardwood floor of this great empty house.  It wasn’t always so.  I remember my foot as it used to be, before I had it cut off.

It was a good foot, well muscled, sleek of form, straight of toe, sculpted in asymmetrical beauty.  It carried me through life in strong, purposeful strides.  Then the day came, that dark and terrible day, when my foot, so perfect and wonderful, made a single misstep, and took my beautiful Betty from me.

It was a cool morning at the end of summer, and the fog hung low over Puget Sound.  We were camping at the state park, Betty and I, in the woods overlooking the beach.  It was a beautiful place, the air sweet with evergreen, complimented by the tang of salt coming off the Sound.  At the time, it was hard to believe that beautiful place had once been a military base, a place of war and killing, where great guns stood poised to rain on attackers with flaming death.

But that had been nearly fifty years before, and those days were all but forgotten, marked only by a few overgrown bunkers, silent gun emplacements, and concrete mounds that covered underground chambers where shells and powder were once stored.

We had seen the signs, of course, marking the old gunnery range.  They warned that unexploded shells still might wait there, ready to explode with the slightest touch.  But the threat had seemed distant, almost absurd, and the beach that way was so beautiful.

Who knew how long the shell had waited there?  Perhaps it had washed down from the eroded cliffs above, buried under a film of sand.  Waiting.

For my foot.

I do not remember the explosion, or the terrible sound of it.  I only remember flying, seeing the first patch of clear blue sky as the morning fog burned off.  I remember the landing, something felt with the detachment of a bag of flour dropped to the kitchen floor.  I remember looking at the dead and ruined face of my beloved Betty.

Later, in the hospital, the doctors worked around the clock to save my foot, but there was only so much they could do.  Cruel fate had taken my Betty from me.  Let it take my foot too, foul betrayer that it was.  “Cut it off,“ I told them.  “Be done with it.”

But it was not done, as I went back to our house alone, that huge and empty house, a cavern where only echoes lived.  Winter came, and late at night, I heard the clicking of those toes, moving across my floor.  At first, I thought my Betty had come back to me, and I rushed, as fast as my false foot and cane could take me, to the living room.  There, I had put up the plastic Christmas tree her parents had given us, holly, candles, and stockings, in a mockery of my former life.  Christmas time had been our favorite time of the year, our special time of togetherness and celebration.

There was no joy in that room, no spirit of Christmas.  But there, on the floor, by the piles of gifts from friends long ignored, was the living spirit of my departed foot.

I screamed with horror, and stumbled back towards my room.  I quickly fell, months of physical therapy forgotten, I crawled on my hands and knees like an animal.  I scuttled to my room, slamming the door, throwing it shut, feeling the thick walnut against my back.  I sat there on the floor, sobbing, trying to catch my breath.  I thought I was safe.  But then, outside the door, in the hallway, I could hear that sound.  The sound of a single footstep.

Each night it came, until Christmas eve.  Then, and only then, it followed me to the door of my room, paused for a time, and then, walked away.

Each year it came, as sure as Christmas carols and bell ringers at the mall.  It was the one certainty in my life as other things crumbled away like plaster from a neglected building: my job, my friends, my family.  There were no new presents under the dusty plastic tree, to join the ones unopened from years before.  So it is each Christmas.  So it is now.

I see myself in the mirror in the hall, gaunt, unshaven, unrecognizable.  Is this what I’ve come to?  I make my way to the living room filled with grim determination.  I can’t go on.  This is where it must end.

I throw a log in the fireplace, light the kindling, and fan the reluctant flames, warming the bricks of the hearth for the first time in years.  I stand before the fireplace, the flickering light of the fire the only light in the room, casting ghostly shadows on the faded wallpaper.  But the real ghost has not yet arrived.

Then I hear it, padding softly through the dining room.  I feel my blood thundering in my ears, heart pounding my ribs like a forgotten prisoner, but I do not run.  I stand and wait.

Then I see it, coming out from behind the couch, twisted and scarred, a horrible parody of its former perfection.  I want to turn my eyes away, but I do not.

I look on my severed foot, feel my chest tighten, and the tears run down my cheeks like salty waves.  “What do you want from me?” I cry.  “What more can you want from me?  You took her from me.  You took my Betty from me.  What else can you possibly want?”  But I know there will be no answer.

Feet cannot speak.

I know now, that the answers must come from me.  While the spirit of my severed foot seems to have a will of its own, it was not always so.  A foot is slave to the leg, and the leg is slave to the body, and the body is slave to the mind, and, ultimately, the mind is slave to the heart.

I see my foot in a different way, betrayed and alone.  What can it want from me?  Forgiveness?  I know now that there is nothing to forgive.  What can it want?

Then my hand falls on the stocking, hanging empty from the mantel.  I caress the soft felt and fur of it with my fingertips, and I understand.  I take it down from its perch and lower it gently to the floor.  I open the top, and the foot comes closer, like a lost puppy, eager, but also afraid.  In hesitates but for a moment, and then it squirms inside.  A peace comes over me.

I sit before the hearth, my feet warming before the crackling fire.  I do not remember the last time I was content.  In the shadows of the corner, I think I can see poor, lost, Betty watching us, and she is smiling.

-END-

Today’s free story is an early short-short work by our author Christina F. York, who writes science fiction, fantasy, and romance (see our novel release, “Dory Cove”) who also writes mystery as Christy Evans and Christy Fifield (watch for future mystery announcements from Chris).

(If you’d prefer to read this story on your ebook reader, you can find it in all major formats for free download on SmashWords.com)

FOOD FIGHT

by

Christina F. York

“Honey, how do you like the candied yams?  I made them special for you.”  Lori wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, pushing her bangs to one side.    The fatigue and stress were evident in the quaver in her voice.  It was important that everything be perfect.

It had been a long, nerve-wracking day, the first holiday meal she had cooked on her own.  The table was set with their best dishes, everything was done, even the pumpkin pie cooling on the counter between the kitchen and the dining nook.

Greg paused, a forkful of mashed potatoes and gravy dripping onto the turkey on his plate.  “They’re OK.  Pretty good, actually, but not like my mom made them.  She always put orange juice in the glaze, and …”

“Not like my mom made?”  Lori’s voice rose an octave.  “Not like my mom made?”  She was screaming now.  “Look at the mess in the kitchen.  I’ve been working for hours to make our first Christmas really special, and all you can say is ‘not like my mom made’?  Well, then maybe we better not eat them.”  She took the cover off the casserole dish of yams, and dumped the contents onto the tile floor.  “Maybe you should just go get yourself a hamburger.”

“For heaven’s sake, sweetheart, there’s no reason to come unglued!  They weren’t the same as mom’s, but they were alright.  Look at the mess you made.  You’re being unreasonable.  Now come on sit down and eat something.  You’ll feel better.”

“Don’t partonize me, Gregory Rose!  I hate that gee-you’re-cute-when-you’re-mad bullshit.”  She turned away, huffing toward the kitchen, and nearly tripping over Bones, the Scotty she’d had since high school.

Greg hesitated, then picked up a roll from the basket on the table.  Ten years of Little League paid off, as he pegged Lori in the back of the head.  The soft bread bounced off onto the floor.  Bones grabbed it and retreated under the table to enjoy his booty.

Lori whirled around, eyes blazing.  “Funny man, you are gonna be sorry.”  She reached the table in two long strides, and emptied the basket of rolls over Greg’s head.  Then she topped them with the dish of cranberry-orange relish.

“Why’d you do that?  There’s cranberries all over my shirt, and in my hair.”  He fished a handful of sweet glop out of his shirt pocket and dropped it on top of the yams, which Bones was devouring.  Greg scooped up a handful of mashed potatoes, leaving cranberry streaks in the fluffy white mounds, and dropped them down the front of Lori’s shirt.  “Here, how about a little gravy with that?”

Before he could pour, Lori knocked the ladle from his hand, sending an arc of gravy spatters across the wall.  Greg picked up the potato bowl.  “Oh, is that where you want ‘em?”  He flung the potatoes along the same arc as the gravy.  Lori responded by pouring the remaining gravy on Greg’s shoes.  Bones abandoned the potatoes and licked rapidly at the gravy lake on the floor.

Greg grabbed the stuffing bowl, and shoved the serving spoon in his mouth.  “This is really good,” he mumbled with his mouth full.  “But it’s not at all like mother’s, so out it goes!”  He jerked the bowl upwards, and watched the contents splat against the ceiling before joining the rest of the food on the floor.  Corn, peas, olives and sweet pickles were added in rapid succession.  Neither Greg nor Lori spoke as they pelted each other with vegetables.  Neither dared touch the turkey, but Lori had one more bit of ammunition.

Stepping around the waist-high divider into the splattered kitchen, she picked up the pumpkin pie that was cooling on the counter.

“No!”  After the speechless minutes, Greg’s voice shocked her.  She hesitated, arm half-cocked, ready to give him the old pie-in-the-face routine.  Gary’s mouth fought with a grin, losing as he finally blurted, “You forgot the whipped cream!”

Lori stared as Greg struggled to supress his amusement.  What was so damned funny, she wondered?  Their first Christmas was ruined.  She had worked so hard, tried so hard to make it memorable.  Well, it would be memorable.  Her arm relaxed, as she looked at Greg, hair sticky with cranberries, gravy on his feet, a sweet pickle caught in the neck of his shirt.  What a mess!  Her lips started to twitch, then broke into a broad smile as she unleashed the pie, and a whoop of laughter at the same time.  Greg ducked,  the pie crashed into the wall behind him, then dropped onto Bones who was too busy eating to notice until it was too late.

Greg laughed then, too.  The little Scotty peered up from under his coat of soft brown custard, evidently waiting for the next load of manna from heaven.  Looking at his eager face, Lori laughed harder.  Greg picked his way through the debris, to take his gasping wife in his arms.  They leaned on each other and whooped and chortled ’til tears ran down their cheeks and they had to hold each other up.

“Look at this.  Will you ever be able to forget our first Christmas?” Lori gasped.

“Never.  Uh, I don’t think we’re going to have this for dinner.”  Greg waved an arm around the room.  “How about we clean up some,” he fished mashed potatoes from the front of her shirt, “and go get something to eat?  I’m kinda hungry after all that exercise.”

Lori nodded.  Working together, they cleared the table, wiped the walls, and finally interrupted Bones’ feast so they could clean the floor.

The hamburgers weren’t like mom used to make, but they were the best Greg had ever tasted.

- END -

As a special holiday gift to you, enjoy this free “Short Story Solo” short-short story by national-best-selling author J. Steven York!  And check out our other Short Story Solos, available on Amazon, Nook, Smashwords, iBooks and most other major ebook sellers…

(If you’d prefer to read this story on your ebook reader, you can find it in all major formats for free download on SmashWords.com)

A HOLIDAY EXPLAINED

By

J. Steven York

The skeleton danced around the darkened living room, stacking carefully wrapped presents and stuffing carefully hung stockings. The pointy red cap, trimmed with fur two shades whiter than the grinning skull, was the only clue that these were the bones of Santa Claus.

Meanwhile, on the snow-covered roof, the rest of Santa slouched over the peak, a quivering wrinkled mass of red felt and white whiskers, looking for all the world like a bowl full of jelly. From a deep fold within the mass, blue eyes twinkled with restless intelligence.

“So, that’s how a jolly fat man gets down all those 8 inch chimney flues,” said a high, sweet voice that came from behind the chimney.

A large, chocolate-brown rabbit stepped from his hiding place and padded across the snowy roof, skirting around Santa’s saucer that hovered silently, a few inches above the snow.

“Trade secrets,” said Santa, his voice gurgling from the mass like bubbles out of boiling gravy. “So, you found me out at last, Easter Bunny.”

“And this,” the rabbit nodded toward the saucer, “antigravity, time flux adjustment, fifth generation stealth technology. State-of-the-art. I figured that reindeer crap had to be part of the skillful campaign of misinformation. You’re good at that, SC. I guess that’s why you’re number one. I don’t suppose you’d have anything to do with all the bad press on cholesterol in eggs or the effects of refined sugar.”

The only response was a thick, liquid “Ho, ho, ho.”

The Bunny stepped forward, little paws clenched. “I’ve had it with you, fatso. I’m tired of the lies and the dirty tricks and the P. R. machine that makes Disney’s look like squat. I’m tired of running an also-ran holiday while you get your decorations up at the mall just before Halloween.”

The Bunny scowled. “You have any idea how difficult it is to run a holiday on bran muffins and celery sticks?”

Louder now, “Ho, ho, ho!”

He glanced down the steep, icy slope of the roof. “I think it’s time you told me your secrets, fat man — — all your secrets. The toy manufacturing scam, the carol kickbacks, the tinsel tax, the subliminal messages that let you tell the kids what to ask for at Christmas, and especially eggnog! How the hell did your holiday get eggnog?”

The blue eyes twinkled malevolently. “And how do you intend to get me to do that, little bunny?”

The rabbit kicked the Santa blob, and watched it ripple. “Seems like I have you right where I want you, Mr. Spineless. One good push, and you’ll be over the side. You’ll hit the driveway and pop like an overripe cantaloupe.”

The blue eyes glanced down the pitch of the roof, and the twinkle dimmed for a moment. “I see your point. I’ll talk.”

The Bunny chuckled. “I knew you would. Let’s start with the skeleton trick. How does it work?”

“Ho, ho, ho,” said the Santa blob. “It isn’t a trick. You don’t open the body to get to the bones, you phase shift the bones to make them immaterial, and let them out. Let me show you how it works.”

The bunny’s long ears twitched at a clopping sound, like reindeer hooves on slate shingles.

Or the footsteps made by bony feet!

He whirled, too late, as the ghostly skeleton hand reached bloodlessly through his stomach, wrapped fingers around his spine, and pulled…

And that is the story of how the chocolate Easter bunny became hollow.

- END -