Archive for the ‘Fiction’ Category
“Conway Twitty”
Conway Twitty is here, and he wants a lint brush
He lives on a diet of dogflesh and buttermilk
He polishes his shoes with moonlight and sleeps hanging upside down from a rod
Conway Twitty is the god of the new flesh: the scratchy, itchy, flammable polyester flesh
His red blazer holds an eternity of dark secrets
Look deep into a pocket and see screaming eternity
Lesser men have gone mad
Read the first third of my novel: “The Warrior Monks of Video Heaven”
It’s up now. Check it out here.
Nakatoma Tales: Meet the Pig Man
I’ve written a handful of stories set in the mythical county of Nakatoma, Mississippi. It’s a perfect setting for stories about desperate men, ungodly happenings, monsters, vampires, UFOs and more. Nakatoma the county doesn’t really exist, but If you talk to enough people here in Mississippi you’ll find that there’s a little bit of Nakatoma here, and a little bit there.
Nakatoma is anywhere you can find hellfire-and-damnation churches, corrupt sheriffs, drunk bigots. It’s also anywhere you can find old folks who can remember the old ways – the ways of the Conjure Man, or the Root Doctor. It’s at the crossroads, in the old juke joints and in crumbling plantations falling apart by themselves in old-growth forests. Nakatoma is nowhere and everywhere here in Mississippi.
I thought I’d drag out a few of my old Nakatoma stories for you here. They’re crude, because I’m not really much of a writer, but I suppose if you enjoy them for a moment or two then that’s okay.
Here’s “Meet the Pig Man“
Rain battered the road in endless, pounding sheets as winds buffeted the near-leafless autumn trees, branches waving like skeletal hands. A lone red wrecker sped through the downpour, its headlights dim in the terrible gloom.
The Burden of Her Abilities
Just a rough draft of a story I wrote today – never mind the errors and weird stuff.
-Matt Staggs
“The Burden of Her Abilities”
The streets are clotted with luminescent algae, glittering with small drops of water, dew condensing from yesterday’s downpour. Muddy streets run slick with orange-red rivers of run-off dye from textile carts deserted all too quickly in the sulfurous downpour. Here and there a whisper-soft trail cuts through the purple clouds as a gammahawk dragonfly flicker flicks overhead.
Mephul strides with purpose her face sheltered partway and cavelike by her yellow babushka and cloak. Her old liver-spotted hand encloses the child’s little palm like a clutch of old tree branches. Coming to the market. The market.
“We won’t find them there lest we move quickly, child. Never mind the scuttle crabs and pick up the pace.” Mephul hurries; worried someone might recognize the child.
