Gathered Flowers, Stones, and Bones

By Daniel R. Robichaud

Over his career, Daniel R. Robichaud has dabbled with the fantastic and the terrifying in unique ways. His latest collection gathers together fourteen of his unique visions of worlds and people similar to our own but impacted by speculative elements. In this collection meet:

Outlaws fleeing a bad bank job only to learn they carry real horror with them.

Half-brothers divided by racial lines sharing a rite that will erase their differences and transform their relationship.

A doctor bringing hope to an African village and dispensing nightmares.

A father discovering the real reason there are so many abandoned shoes in the Washington D. C. Metro.

A new spin on vampires and those who hunt them.

These fourteen fabulist fictions peek into alternate pasts, the unseen present, and even speculate futures we might be hurtling toward with a careful eye toward character, emotion, and lyrical prose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twice Told Tales II
• Release date: Mar 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463995594

Daniel R. Robichaud

Daniel R. Robichaud has lived in southeastern Michigan, central Massachusetts and southern Texas. He is a Rhysling Award nominated poet and the author of over one hundred stories, articles and poems, which have appeared in such markets as Shroud Magazine, Rogue Worlds, Goblin Fruit, Rage of the Behemoth, Green Prints, and WritersWeekly. Daniel holds degrees in both Physics and English, and his career path has reflected these passions. In addition to his numerous writing opportunities, he has been an Igor For Hire (aka a freelance research engineer), a substitute teacher, an automation engineer, and a neurophysiology lab manager. Daniel enjoys entertaining people with his words and stories. If you enjoy a good read, why not try one of his works? You might just love them.

Book preview

Gathered Flowers, Stones, and Bones

Fabulist Stories

Daniel R. Robichaud

Big Night for Daddy's Little Girl

When Darney’s daughter slid out of her momma’s birthing canal, she was no bigger than a deck of cards and had a wisp of a tail. Looked like a mouse had gotten stuck up her tiny ass. The medics ran tests but found no rodent of any sort inside that baby. The tail was hers.

Doctors didn’t know what to make of it. Darney knew too damn well.

While his wife lay in her recovery bed, waiting for the nurse to bring their literal little one from the latest battery of tests, he leaned in close and muttered, Pegs, this is on account of your wanting it doggy style all these years. His wife had nothing to say to that.

They named her Gorgonzola because such a tiny thing needed some weight on her.

As Gorgonzola got older, she didn’t grow too much. Never got more massive than one of those rat-dogs, Shit-zoos or Shit-Wow-wows or whatever they were called. She even had a tiny yip for a voice.

Much as Darney hated those damn dogs, he loved his Gorgonzola. She was Daddy’s Little Girl.

She walked by four months and talked in full sentences by seven. She excelled in the three R’s throughout her schooling.

After the local kids got used to her ‘special features’ — her size and tail were never dubbed ‘deformities’ in the household, violators were liable to a very stern lecture — they fancied her. She was just the right size to fetch toys that slid into hard to reach areas. In fourth grade, she even started a business. ‘Gorgonzola’s Spelunking,’ where she worked, literally, for peanuts. Or other salty snacks, if she knew the client well enough.

Everything was roses, until she got to high school. Then, her friends hit growth spurts and got dosed with hormones.

She matured. Darney sometimes caught boys eyeing his daughter’s budding breasts, which looked like a pair of supersized Hershey’s Kisses under the fabric of the too tight tops that seemed to be the fashion.

However, her friends developed severe cases of teenager shallowness and abandoned her. They called her rotten names to her face. Worse ones behind her back.

She started wearing a lot of black and writing godawful poetry.

Darney began finding fragments of toothpicks around the house with burnt ends. She denied taking up smoking, of course. He hoped it was just a phase.

Then, when she hit twelfth grade, Prom loomed.

At first, she whined and cried about how no one would take her.

Then, she mouthed off about how she didn’t want to go anyway, why give those no-good, heartless bastards and bitches – sorry, mama — the satisfaction of another night to make fun of her?

Then, she just stopped talking about it.

Darney knew it was ever-present on her mind. He found pages from prom dress magazines shoved under cushions and occasionally caught her flicking her tail irritably – a habit she wasn’t even aware of doing, while she mooned over problems.

Pegs noticed, too.

When they approached Gorgonzola about it, she looked up at them, wearing a flutter of a smile, and said, Momma, can we go look at pretty dresses?

You want to go, now? Darney asked.

Gorgonzola nodded.

I’m so glad! Pegs said, You’d’ve regretted missing it.

I’ve been asked out, Gorgonzola said.

Well, of course you have! Darney’s grin made his baby blush something fierce. You’re the most beautiful gal in that school, though I might be biased.

What’s his name? Pegs asked her.

Gordon, Gorgonzola said.

Gorgonzola and Gordon, he chuckled, Going to the Prom. D-A-N-C-I-N-G. He laughed so hard, he slapped his belly.

Pegs, however, wasn’t laughing. Darney saw distance in her eyes and concern on her face. She didn’t explain.

The next day, Pegs and Gorgonzola ordered a special dress from the doll maker’s shop in town. It was ready a week later. It even had a hole in the seat, to let Gorgonzola’s tail swing free, without showing too much of her knickers or hiney.

She tried it on, and Darney realized just how damn fast his little girl had grown up. Well, older.

He wondered about her date, though; she never talked about him.

You’ll meet him on the big night, she said, I don’t want to sway your opinion.

The big night came, and while the gals were off getting Gorgonzola ready, the doorbell rang. Darney answered and found a silver haired, dwarf outside. No, he was even smaller than that. He was barely bigger than one of those garden gnomes Pegs filled the backyard with. He was dressed impeccably in a tiny tuxedo. A fleshy tail poked out of his trousers.

You’re Gordon? Darney asked.

Yeah, the little man said, Where she at?

Getting ready, Darney said, Won’t you come in? Tell me about yourself? I don’t recall seeing you around town.

I travel but make it a point to come back regularly, Gordon smiled and stepped inside. Wouldn’t mind a drink.

Co-cola, alright?

If you add some bourbon, the little man laughed, Just kidding, Pops. Suddenly, Gordon’s eyes lit up. There’s my little one!

Gordan! Gorgonzola ran to embrace him.

Much to Darney’s chagrin, the little man kissed her and tugged on her tail, to make her slip him a little tongue. Then, he cocked a finger gun at Pegs, winked and said, Hey, Puss.

Do you know this person? Darney asked. Pegs was looking away. Darney could swear she was blushing.

We’re acquainted, Pops, Gordon said, then called to Pegs, Woof-woof, Puss!

Darney stared at his wife. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Her face was a fiery, embarrassed red.

Now, wait a second— but when Darney turned back, Gordon and Gorgonzola were almost to the curb.

Don’t wait up, Pops!

Darney hustled out the door after them, but by the time he got to the curb, Gordon’s cherry red, miniature Corvette was just a pair of twinkling taillights disappearing into the night.

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Dedication: To Joe R. Lansdale, for Dead Dogs, Inflatable Dinos and other enjoyable, bizarre yarns.

Dzimba Dzimabwe

I wish to share something with you, for it must be spoken aloud while voices remain.

My name is Anesu, which is Shona for God has given. I am thirty-five years old, father of three sons and one daughter. If I live another two years, I will be the oldest man who ever lived in my whole family. If I am lucky and last three, I will become the oldest living man in Mvuma. If I somehow survive five years, I will then be among the oldest living men in the Midlands, if not the country.

Zimbabwe's name comes from the Shona "dzimba dzemabwe, which means Houses of Stone".

This house is not for living. This country is not for thriving. Once, Zimbabwe was wealthy. Now, it is sick. Our name becomes our tomb.

When the American Doctor came some time ago, he seemed little more than a joke: Will the Doctor help us? some men asked and others answered, "WHO knows?"

Once a prestigious member of the World Health Organization, the Doctor now headed a world spanning but private medical research company. He came to us, talking about SBIR funding and Phase II testing and things that mattered greatly to him but nothing to us.

When he asked for our assistance setting up, many of our people proclaimed him useless. My seventeen year old daughter, Batsirai, asked, What aid can the Doctor offer us, when he cannot do for himself?

Think on your name, I said, before you make such pronouncements.

Batsirai is Shona for Help. When our child was at her most rotten, my wife said her name came from being too difficult a birth—it was the word my love shouted at knowing what trouble she had brought into the world. When our child was at her best, I said her name came from all she could give to this rotten world.

It was my wife's last wish that I save our children. I have outlived two and wish to outlive no more.

I sought the Doctor in his clinic, a hastily erected Quonset hut a three minute walk outside our village.

He asked me my name and I told him. Before he offered his I said, Right now, you are The Doctor. When you have been among us and suffered as we, then you can be named.

He scratched his balding head while he considered this, but said nothing more. Sunlight had turned the largest hairless spot on his head an angry red, as though slapping him. In a few days,