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The closed library smells of cluster flies, old books, hardly strange in a library, and an indefinable something―funerary linen from some millennial boneyard, perhaps. Elizabeth Profitt Pease strains to open the window. Shut. Tight.

"What have I done for myself lately?" Libby Pease asks no one in particular. "Not much," she answers, "have I?" Libby regards the pottery jar that contains her father’s ashes.

Blue (as in an Early Frost)

“Oh, the poor, dear man,” said Dicey Pease. As they undid the corpse’s nightshirt, a smell issued forth. Noses were crinkled, then relaxed. “The Milos,” said Libby’s mother.

Pansy Graham’s sanitary habits had been well-defined. In death as in life he was preceded by a not unpleasant smell which Dicey identified as the yellow bar soap provided by the Daughters of Milo.

Grasshopper Dreams

A storefront nun confronted the contents of her tambourine. Empty. No, wait... a dull clatter on the drumhead. A nickel. Sister Joyful frowned. "Slim pickin's Sister," said a tall robust man from the open door of the Chapel of Divine Satisfaction.

This man was a gift and gifts were doubtful. "You are the Devil, then." Sister Joyful stood her ground.

The Missingest Man in America

Alma Nightingale had put on a flowered print silk dress, a summer frock, and wore her hair up. Alma found herself thinking of Harry often as the years piled into decades separating them from their high school romance.

The smell of fresh cut grass with the roar of a two stroke engine said Harry was doing the library lawn. He must have been at it for hours and that meant he was drinking. Riding circles and massaging the turf till the beer or the gas gave out.

The Prophet Harry

You probably picked up this tale expecting one of those conspiracy theory tell-alls. I mean from the title and all. Nope. Well, there was this one item about an exploding deer that got buried in the back pages.

The only witnesses to the deer’s end were tomatoes: Cherokee Purples, large and irregularly formed. See, the deer didn’t have a name but the tomatoes did.

The Death of James A. Garfield

The merchant princes of Richmond, Indiana shepherded their wives, mothers and little ones through my doors to be defined for future generations. My studio was chock full of the nineteenth century props of the proper photographic salon.

Giant bumblebees prowled thick wisteria, vines knotted to frame a lovers’ bower. In the foreground lay a toppled faun, his lips curled in a sneer of passion.

The Tirewoman Gabriel