Welcome to this week’s installment of many micro stories, ranging in length from 100 words to 500 words.
With each story we hope to deliver a little whimsy into the lives of our readers.
GHOST DOG
The ghost dog sniffed, atop the hill above the red brick house. Fresh cut grass lay below. It was near twilight, and late summer brought the sounds of crickets chirping their doomed love songs with the croaks of peeper frogs dwelling along the narrow stream that ran from the cornfield above through the stand of woods beside the house.
But trouble was there now.
Ghost dogs return to where they were most loved. The old masters don’t know their faithful one still pads about, testing the air and nuzzling the ground, lifting spectral ears at the myriad familiar sounds that seem so real, so alive and so true.
The ghost dog knew that the Pack had changed. Packs do.
The youngest departed not long after the ghost dog had passed, thirty years ago. Washed away like the rush of a flooding river. But the ghost dog still smelled him along the gently rising line between the small stretch of trees leading to the stream and the mowed grass.
The Pack’s elders had separated soon after the youngest left, and He had brought a new mate into the house.
The ghost dog paid her scent no mind.
The Old Master missed the youngest, missed him now more than ever. The youngest never came back.
A spider dangled from a partly spun web hanging from a thin branch. The youngest had not liked spiders. The ghost dog paid spiders no mind.
They were here.
And now again, so was he. And here he would stay.
Until the Old Master passed from this gray world to lay his spectral hand upon the ghost dog’s head and scratch behind his ears. And perhaps the youngest might join them, again. And make the present all more bountiful and kind.
Michael A. Clark’s work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Ab Terra, Liquid Imagination, Mystery Weekly Magazine, Cosmic Horror Magazine, the benefit anthology Burning Love and Bleeding Hearts, Black Hare Press and anotherealm. Clark’s work also appears in History Through Fiction, Twenty Two Twenty Eight and Dark Matter Magazine, Issue 016. His novella “Are One” is published by Water Dragon Publishing, The Final Shot” appears at https://whitecatpublications.com/2024/04/09/the-final-shot/, and his short story “Leader of the Pack” appears in Altitude Press’ anthology To the Dogs. “Vampires, LLC” can be found at Vampires, LLC | Daikaijuzine, and “The Hole in One Ball Field’s Concession Stand” now appears in 4 Star Stories, Issue 31.
Clark lives in Charlotte, NC, and works in industrial automation while spending as much time as he can outdoors. He likes baseball and writes short stories and music because that’s what he does.
If you enjoyed this story you can find it and more in the Hawthorn & Ash 2023 anthology.
Iron Faerie Publishing 
One thought on “Hawthorn & Ash #114”