Good evening,

Please ignore the sounds of banging, moaning, crying or screaming. They are not the sounds that the blog construction crew is making, but the sounds of Americans going through airport security.

Welcome to this new web log on the short fiction I am writing. This blog is intended to be not only read and enjoyed—while informing everyone of the latest information on my short stories—but to be entertainingly interactive.

First, I would like to update everyone that the short story “The River Cave” has been accepted for publication in the literary e-zine Literal Chaos. When it goes live on their site, I will post a link for you to read it. I am overjoyed to be in the first issue of this exciting new e-zine and look forward to seeing it grow. For more on the Literal Chaos go to www.literalchaos.com.

While this posting will not go live until Midnight Central Time (GMT-6) tonight, I am really writing it at 5:40 AM (with mocha in hand) while sitting in the St. Louis Lambert International Airport waiting for my flight to Dallas, Texas where I am going to visit a friend who is terminally ill and she is in her early 30s. I know she will read this later and I will keep her name anonymous.

Anyone who knows me in real life will know that I have dealt with a lot of death in my life, from my childhood to my formative teen years into adulthood. In point of fact I lost my father to cancer in 2006 at the age of 69. Two days later I lost my friend and karate instructor at the age of 26. Within a year I had lost or had friends who went through similar grief and had to comfort them . . .. Well, I lost count at 25. For the next couple of years it piled on with cousins dying at barely 21 and or while in their 40s, or friends facing the same thing. I have felt at times like an Angel of Death more than once.

And that brings me to the topic of tonight: The Angel of Death itself. Many religions and cultures have and have had different views of the Angel. One of my favorites has been the Nordic idea of armored battle maidens who would take the fallen brave to paradise. It is just something about women in battle armor.

Others have given the angel individual names such as Samuel, Gabriel, Azrael (and various spellings of that name), Malak Almawt, Sariel, and Michael. Some religions and mythologies have described the angel as multiple entities or as a deity who reigned over the dead. Some have pictured the angel as:
A skeleton;
A hood being with a huge scythe;
A beautiful creature who is a guide into the afterlife;
A ferry man to row the soul across a river into paradise (or someplace not so nice);
A being that can be tricked or bribed into letting the dying live longer.

We have seen him pop up in literature from Dickens to Terry Pratchett. There have been songs about him and he has shown up in other entertainment. I had seen him cleverly portrayed as a chess player in an old Swedish movie as he played chess with a knight home form the crusades—the stakes were the knight and his companion’s lives(1957 film The Seventh Seal by director Ingmar Bergman). Even some criminals have fashioned his name to be theirs. Regardless, we know that death will come for all—it is a part of living—and while it is expected in old age, it can come at any time.

In my next short story, that will go into the plot stage this weekend, I look at a young woman who is a Blues singer who is experiencing for the first time in her life national and international success. That is until she meets a young man, befriends him and then learns he is the Angel of Death. Now, before you think I just gave away the story, I didn’t. The real story starts after she learns who he is.

Now, let me come to you with a few questions:
1. Even if you had not given it any thought before now, what is our image or belief about “an Angel of Death?” (Regardless of what your culture or religion my call this entity, I am using “Angel” as a general term.) What does it look like?

2. What do you imagine the Angel to be like? Is it like some hunter that can not be deterred? Is it someone who may leave you alone for a few coins or another soul? Or, is it a guide into the afterlife?

3. What would you do if you were the singer in this new story? How would you react to being told that your new friend is no other than Death?

4. Finally, how do you think Death feels about his job? How would you feel if you became the Grim Reaper and became friends with the person before you took them into the afterlife?

While you answer my questions, I will answer them myself in the new story “The Last Friend.”

Next week the topic will revolve around a science fiction story that will go into plot soon. Until then, all my best and good night.