Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Stories

By Paula Freda

(Rated "G" for General Audience) ... Can love be found in the strangest places? Follow the paths of the heart and the stars and find out. ... The Ugliness Without ... Stardust ... Ghost of a Story ... Cathy & the Dolphin ... The Gently Cursed

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paula Freda
• Release date: Jun 28, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452381480

Paula Freda

About the AuthorDorothy Paula Freda, is also known under her pen names Paula Freda and Marianne Dora Rose. Herbooks range from Fiction and Non-fiction Adventure, Romance, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Poetry, Articles, Essays and How-to-Write Instructional complete with Lessons and optional assignments.Homemaker, mother of two grown sons, and former off-the-desk publisher of a family-oriented print small press, (1984 thru 1999), The Pink Chameleon, that she now publishes on line, Paula was raised by her grandmother and mother, and has been writing for as long as she can remember. Even before she could set pencil to paper, she would spin her stories in the recording booths in the Brooklyn Coney Island Arcades for a quarter per 3-minute record. She states, "I love the English language, love words and seeing them on display, typed and alive. A romantic at heart, I write simply and emotionally. One of my former editors kindly described my work, '...her pieces are always deep, gentle and refreshing....'" Paula further states, "My stories are sensitive, deeply emotional, sensual when appropriate, yet non-graphic, family fare, pageturners. My hope is that my writing will bring entertainment and uplift the human spirit, bring a smile to your face and your soul, and leave you filled with a generous amount of hope."

Book preview

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Copyright by Dorothy Paula Freda

Various Dates - 1985 - 2009

Smashwords Edition

September, 2009

SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

The Ugliness Without

Stardust

A Ghost of a Story

Cathy & the Dolphin

The Gently Cursed

* * * * * * * * * * * *

THE UGLINESS WITHOUT

By Paula Freda

Only one word accurately described Tessie Thistlebower, and that word was -- UGLY. Oh, not with regard to any deformity. All her parts were there in their proper places, except for their shape and proportions that can make all the difference in the world between beautiful and ugly. And the shape and proportions of Tessie Thistlebower's parts were ugly.

She was an aging woman with hair and eyebrows that reminded one of coarse gray yarn. As a child, she had survived smallpox, but not its scars. Her reddish skin was pitted mercilessly. As if this were not enough, the loss of youth had endowed her with sagging jowls and a spreading, stooping figure. Her voice had thinned to a cackle, especially when she laughed. And when she cried, which she did at the most unexpected times, her sobs came out as wheezes and gasps, as though she were fighting for her breath and her life.

She was not much taken with soap and deodorants. She smelled like dirty fiber curtains that have been stored unwashed and unwrapped in a hot dank cellar.

The furnished room she rented smelled little better. She never aired it, adamantly refusing to open the solitary window in the small room. It's stuck hard and good with paint and dirt, she would say, and I'm glad of it. Keeps the burglars and molesters out.

Folks had tagged her an old hag. She had few friends. Most persons moved out of nose shot, and looked down those same noses at Tessie, as bent and tilting from side to side, she shuffled by on her daily outings through the neighborhood.

Sparkie was one of the few exceptions. He had moved into the room next to hers last year. His almond colored lashes were drawn together this morning as he lazed leaning, hands in pockets, against the cracked shingles of the rooming house. His attire as usual was casual -- a dark blue windbreaker, unzippered at the moment, showing a sky blue knit shirt, its placket loosed; slacks, sandals. Good lookin' young man, Tessie thought, shuffling up the block toward the rooming house.

A bulging brown paper shopping bag hung from her fat wrist, and a once-white sweater coat now yellowed and stained and having more pulls than stitches hugged her bent form. The hem of her sweater coat fell unevenly about her black wool skirt and its holes and the torn hem of her slip showing beneath. The sweater coat and skirt were too short to hide the elastic tops of her knee-high stockings that were the same color as her shopping bag, and heavy and wrinkled, the material at the ankles having gathered into folds during her morning's excursion.

Good mornin' to you, Sparkie, she greeted, unable to hide the creak in her thin voice.

Sparkie lifted an eyelid. His mouth curved lazily into a smile. Good morning to you, Tessie, he replied in earnest as his other eyelid lifted and his gaze shifted to the bulging shopping bag hanging from Tessie's fat wrist. Make any good finds this morning? he asked.

Tessie grinned. Greenish decayed stumps of what had once been her upper and lower front teeth, showed between her parted cavity. Yeah, I have, she creaked proudly tapping the shopping bag. Among other finds during her morning's rummage through the neighborhood's garbage pails had been a vinyl handbag discarded probably because of the torn lining and the broken plastic handle. Plenty of use left in it, she mused.

A handbag, a toy, a dish cracked in half that a spot of glue will repair like new, she told Sparkie. Her green eyes