Morgan Delaney

Dark, strange and fantastic fiction

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How To Save Face On A Date

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Image generated by OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 AI system. Prompt by Morgan Delaney

Originally appeared in my newsletter from July 23rd. Some bits might not make sense out of context!

First off, People Skins, Volume 1 has been EXPANDED to twice it’s original size. It now features 10 short stories, instead of 5. 

Talk about thick-skinned! 

Grab your free copy of the new edition right here for some brand-new stories set in Boston, Russia, and some very dangerous woods… 

But make sure you come back because I’ve got a new story for you right here as well, and lots more to read in the links at the bottom.If you can “face” it, of course…

Flash Fiction: How To Save Face On A Date

Alan didn’t know what to wear for his first date in years. 

Should he dress to remind her that he had been famous, or should he pretend to just be a regular guy?

People were fascinated by celebrities. It might give her a kick.

Although, perhaps he should let her get to know him before reminding her what the newspapers had said.

It had started in school. He’d got in trouble when the boy behind him was talking during class. The teacher had blamed Alan, and Alan’s parents had come to demand an apology. 

The teacher apologised and insisted that it was only because Alan had “no face.”

In the mirror at home afterwards, Alan could see it was true. He couldn’t have picked his own face out of a lineup of suspects.

He looked like everyone else and nobody at all. For a while he had overcompensated, wearing the most flamboyant clothes he could find (a zoot suit he’d found in the bottom of the “Please Take!” box at the charity shop, Hawaiian shirts with purple tuxedos, overalls sewn out of curtain fabric, which had had cartoon horses on it.

Then he’d overcompensated even more, and his distinctive style had meant the police soon caught him.

Since they had released him from prison, he’d been wearing simple T-shirts and jeans. 

Having no recognisable face turned out to be a blessing as he rebuilt his life. 

Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if it would excite her to know she was having dinner with *that* Alan Benson!

Or would she run away screaming before he could tell her she had nothing to worry about?

He didn’t do that anymore. He liked being “No Face.”

He wouldn’t try to take hers.

Oh, and…

Research!While doing some research on book clubs for the next Alumière story, I came across the following Wikipedia article about the Right Book Club, which was set up to counteract the influence of the (more popular) Left Book Club. It looks like books have been political for a lot longer than most people today realise. Crucially, however, they can be dated back to about 1900, so I don’t have to edit them back out of The Squared Circle!

Read!Like me, J.F.Penn is also offering FREE short stories via Bookfunnel, which you don’t even have to sign up for. Get A Thousand Fiendish Angels right here!!
Read!
Writing group buddy G.M. White has you covered if you’d prefer a bit more swordly swashbuckling with your fantasy. Get the first novella in his Royal Champion series, The Swordsman’s Intent straight from the author’s own website!
Read Or Listen!
Finally, Tim Waggoner is in Apex Magazine with “In the Monster’s Mouth”, which you can read or listen to over here!

WTF? (Where’s The Fiction?)

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Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

If you’re here looking for some fresh flash fiction, I’m afraid I’ve made good on the threat/promise in my recent newsletter and “gone weekly”.

I’m sending my stories to my newsletter subscribers first, so they’ll be getting today’s story in their email inboxes on Saturday.

In future I’m only going to be updating my blog on a monthly-ish basis.

Sorry, but there’s nothing stopping YOU from signing up too. Join us!

Faded

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Image generated by OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 AI system. Prompt by Morgan Delaney

Welcome, you have reached the home—still, barely—of Morgan Delaney, writer of dark, strange and fantastic fiction.

He is fading fast, but reading the following piece of flash fiction may keep him going a little longer.

Read on!

“Listen!” said the author. The word sliced through the pitch black of the room we all sat in.

Through the walls came the sound of someone asking for a book. It was the wrong book, for the author gave a sob as the cash register rang and footsteps receded.

I was more worried that I didn’t know if I was sitting in the dark, because I didn’t have hands to check whether my eyes were open or closed.

I hadn’t been there long, and the author was the only one who would talk to me, though lots of other people were close by, muttering to themselves or each other.

“Statistically,” he said after a pause. “Statistically, someone has to order one of my books eventually. I wrote more than a dozen, so at some point… Don’t worry!” He said that last bit as if to soothe me.

He had already explained his theory that this was Purgatory. All it would take was one reader ordering one dead author’s book for that author to get into heaven. The word “statistically” seemed to comfort him, though I was sure his reasoning was faulty.

“But how many books did you sell? When you are alive?” I hated having to ask the question. Thinking about death gave me a queasy feeling where my stomach used to be, though I was sure that I was still alive: I had merely bumped my head while gardening.

“Ah!” he said mysteriously, as if I could never hope to understand his sales, not if I stayed in Author Purgatory for eternity. I decided it meant he hadn’t sold many.

Some of the other authors must have been listening, for they sniffed at my question, as if to say, “you can’t measure literature by sales!”

I had put together a booklet of dreadful poems while at school, which is presumably why I was here. I would never have called myself as an author, though, and certainly couldn’t expect to hear anyone request a copy of… what had it been called? Paper Blooms? Something like that.

If I had thought about it, I might have assumed that being trapped with serious authors for eternity would at least be interesting. All these great minds. Deep thinkers, interested in exploring the human condition and trained in expressing their thoughts with precision and grace. But the conversation always returned to sales.

“If I’d known, I would have bought one of your books. Before I—“

“Listen!” said the author. The bell tinkled through the walls and footsteps made their way to the counter next door to make their next request.

I hope you enjoyed that?

If not, perhaps you’ll enjoy this: it’s an old video, but new to me, and the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.

And if you’re a subscriber, make sure you check out my newsletter this Saturday, as it’s got news of an important update for you!

Lumber

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An eldritch tree looms over a winter cottage
Image generated by OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 AI system. Prompt by Morgan Delaney

For this week’s fantasy flash fiction we’re going into the woods. Content warning: there will be no teddy bears and no teddy bear picnics there today!

Enjoy!

I could hear her thoughts, so she could hear mine. Thoughts of what we’d bake each other to sweeten the long forest winter swirled around us to fill our cottage.

Darker thoughts which hinted at Him were quickly covered with the thin pastry of apple tarts and covered with cream, weighed down with the ballast of porter cake sodden with beer, or stuffed with turkeys full of sage and pepper breadcrumbs.

Seven of us sisters had lived here before the curse dropped at our door.

He would come once more. Taking one of us, leaving the last alone.

When I thought about it, it seemed to me—as it did to my sister—that being taken was the kinder death. It would be quick, whereas being left alone would mean death would take an entire lifetime.

We tended the common grave of the five sisters who had already succumbed, but we tended it separately. It gave us time to think unguarded.

My thoughts were always the same: “Let Him take her.”

Now that idea had been let loose in the cottage, but whether it came from her or from me, was impossible to say. With practice, it is possible to dull thoughts so they have no personality or flavour.

He knocked on the door that night. Rain clouds covered the moon, so neither of us could see him. Nor could he see us to choose.

He chose by our thoughts and in the morning there were no more sisters, just a woman living alone.

Without her to distract me, I heard His thoughts: the wild, bellowing calm of the forest.

If you’re around this evening, make sure you check out the launch party for Mark Stay’s third Witches of Woodville book, The Ghost of Ivy Barn, which is being live-streamed right here!

Perfect for fans of the Alumière Sisters! Here’s a cool trailer video to get you in the mood!

If you’re more a People Skins person and in the mood for something a little darker and stranger, check out the new trailer for Danger Slater’s Moonfellows here!

Strap

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A woman looks into an ornate mirror, a man looks back out at her.
Image generated by OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 AI system. Prompt by Morgan Delaney

In this week’s unsettling flash fiction, we go back to the “good old days” to take a good hard look at ourselves. Join me?

Strap could never be sure she was real, but spent his life looking for her.

Strap was Lord Heaney’s eldest, a black-haired, thick-bodied bully. His father wouldn’t have him in the house, leaving Strap to pretend he managed the estate. He prowled the boundaries of his father’s land with his riding whip in hand. It twitched at every rustling leaf, any animal that didn’t move out of his way fast enough.

He was looking for her.

He had first seen her when he was 14 and decided he wanted her. She had white skin, green eyes, red hair, and the smile she had given him had promised cruelty. Whether it would be gladly given or gladly taken, he did not know.

Despite his family’s wealth, he had not a single friend in the village. The villagers kept their womenfolk, and their livestock, away from him. Even the priest had referred to him as “the unholy Strap” after finding his favourite horse blinded and bleeding from cuts to its face.

He was finally betrothed to a girl from the next county. In return for marrying the aging spinster, her family would give him control of the estate. It was a shame for the girl, but no one said a word so they could be free of him.

Strap wondered what his love would make of the marriage. She would know all about it by now. He could feel her wherever he went, even if he couldn’t see her.

Several times, she had come close enough for him to think he had caught her, but it had been a trick. She liked to lend her face to poor animals to suffer for his love.

She came to his wedding and wore his wife’s face for the ceremony, while witnesses surrounded them.

Their house too was never at peace, for they engaged a battery of nurses to look after the children, for she took turns to wear their faces, too.

He was happiest away from all of them. In the bathroom, she looked out at him from the mirror.

The most beautiful woman he had ever seen, trapped in his brutal, lumbering body.

If you liked that, you might like the exclusive short story coming in the July edition of my newsletter. It also involves a lot of staring, and someone’s very unusual… talent. There’s still time to sign up right here!

(If you didn’t enjoy this story, you might enjoy the exclusive short story coming in the July edition of my newsletter anyway. It involves someone’s very unusual… talent, and some staring. Sign up here to check it out! )

Otherwise, you might like to check out and buy this amazing cardboard gorilla puzzle.

Past

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A watercolour of two skulls kissing
Image generated by OpenAI‘s DALL-E 2 AI system. Prompt by Morgan Delaney

I finished reading Ryan North’s How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain this week, so there’s a good chance you’ll be seeing me on the news wearing tights and battling my supervillain frenemy Elon Musk shortly.

In the meantime, check out my Goodreads review of that book, or stay on this page for some romantic horror flash fiction!

Enjoy!

Why not me, instead? Or both of us together?

I don’t leave the flat we shared. Let others put flowers on your grave.

The doorbell rings and rings. I only answer to make the noise stop, and there you are, dead.

The cold grave has not been kind to you. (You always hated the cold.) I strip you of your clothes and take you to bed to warm you up.

You feel different—not just cold—but you were an organ donor.

I have most of you back.

#

It happens naturally.

You hold me, and I hold you, and our mouths meet. I miss your breath pushing past mine as we kiss, but the chill of your tongue in my mouth is exciting.

It’s perfect. It’s you, but different.

Like starting over again with someone new, but already knowing them.

You’re hungry, too, not just cold. I feed you.

I’m happy to be buried inside you, so nothing can tear us apart again.

Research for the third Alumière sisters’ adventure (The Squared Circle, coming soon!) revealed this week that evergreen hit “Yes! We Have No Bananas” entered the public domain in the US in 2019.

So now anyone can sing it!