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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

entry arrow1:49 AM | Excerpt From Another New Story

This is the second story I wrote this week -- and the fourth one this year. For a slowpoke like me who usually writes one story a year, this is pretty much a good run. What accounts for the sudden deluge of fiction-writing? Four things: LitCritters, which is the best push ever devised for writing. Deadlines for friends' anthologies. Coming off one particularly bad phase in my eternal bouts of manic-depression. And the realization that life is too short to just mope around and not do anything. I wrote this story in white heat for another anthology, starting around lunch time in Chantilly, where I had several cups of brewed coffee, an Oreo cake, fish fillet with rice, and spaghetti al funghi. I stopped for a bit to go to my 3 to 4 pm class, and pursued the ending till almost nine o'clock at night in Scooby's Snack Bar where I had a large cup of iced tea. This story freaked me out. I am never writing another horror story ever again. Guess what, I have another story to finish this week for another friend's anthology...


From The Flicker

...

Late one night, the people in the neighborhood began to notice that there was a faint glow coming from one of the upstairs windows—soft like candlelight, but steady, its orange glimmer almost bright red.

“Someone is living in the old Ballesteros house,” Grandmother Meding said. She had crossed the quick distance between the landing of the stairs and the picture window beside the front door, and drew the curtains quickly. There was a tension in her voice, almost a tight gasp, and when she saw the faraway light steadying, she crossed herself, the names of the saints quickly issuing forth from her lips in a rushed whisper.

Elena, leaving on the dining table the kitchen knives she was wiping with a dry cloth, came to the window. “But it can’t be. It has been more than ten years…” she said.

“Eleven,” grandmother said in a dead, defeated tone, cutting in, “Eleven years, to be exact.”

“Not since?”

“Not since.”

“Susmariahosep,” that last one from Elena, who drew a nervous step back, and then looked at the clock on the wall, noting how far late into the night it already was.

“What is it, Ma?” came a girl’s sleepy voice from behind them.

“None of your business, Anita,” Elena said, spinning around and shushing away the girl back to the dark upstairs. “Go back to your bed. It’s very, very late, hija.”

If Grandmother Meding had not closed the curtains at the instance of the girl’s query, they would have seen the flickering light brightening from the distant windows, its glow floating from room to room of the silent old house.

Everywhere in the neighborhood, the night suddenly seemed too long.

Continues...

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