Half Light

By Adam C. Kelley

A wide ranging collection of short stories and vignettes from a variety of genres, arranged in an arc of emotions.
Some stories are amusing, some painful, but all are thought provoking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam C. Kelley
• Release date: Dec 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005522308

Adam C. Kelley

Adam Kelley lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California with his wife of 26 years, Alta, and three of their four children. He has traveled widely in the US, Canada, and Mexico including an 18 month stay in Mexico as an LDS missionary. If he is not working or writing, Adam likes to do home improvement projects, hike, visit new places, scuba dive, and sleep. He likes dark chocolate and doesn't care for broccoli or asparagus.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my long suffering beta-readers and editors for pointing out problems when I just wanted to be done. Honest, informed criticism is a treasure.

Dedication

To those that travel many hours in darkness to follow the light.

Chiaroscuro

From Hades’ dark throne,

From Persephone’s sweet embrace

Grew Chiaroscuro, queen of twilight

Came Chiaroscuro, of shadow and light

She in her father’s kingdom saw

Monsters many, souls lost

Her mother’s pale winter torment

That a few pomegranate seeds cost

And in her dappled eyes grew shadow and light

And as she aged she swore she’d avenge

Each child lost too early

Each storm’s wanton fury

The terror of the night

So a great banquet she held

The Furies in attendance

Snakes in their hair

Dreadful Deimos

Thanatos, the sweetest there

Every Cacodaemon

And the hungry Keres

Eurynomus and other daemons

Nymphs of the underworld as well

And her mad sister Melinoë

The cavern groaning under a heavy weight

Key supports ready to fall

Every deity of hate

Crushed with the pull of a hidden cord

She sent a runner to Persephone

Bearing the joyful news:

No sickness, no violence

Now she had poisoned the poisonous

And all were there

All was ready

Her arm steady yet

She hesitated

As in her eyes played shadow and light

Then quick-footed light——

Apollo!

Rushed in,

Dangerous and bright

‘How true’

She thought softly

Shadow, saved by the sun——

Darkness, clinging at light’s wake

The skin shed by the snake.  

And Chiaroscuro cursed her fate.

A Troublesome Corpse

Mama, I thought you said Grandpa died, said five year old Luke as he padded into the kitchen in his PJ’s.

He did, son, his mother said, her hands in a sink of sudsy water and yesterday’s dishes.

Then why was he fixing the garden gate this morning? Luke insisted. Margaret looked out the window above the sink and saw that the gate was indeed fixed.

It was probably just your Papa. He was up early this morning.

Luke left the kitchen insulted.

I know the difference between my Grandpa and Papa, he said.

Margaret exhaled loudly. It wasn’t enough that the old man wouldn’t listen to the doctors or that by his request they’d held the funeral in the old barn and distant relatives spent three days weeping, consoling, remembering his virtues, forgetting his faults, making up memories, and completely trashing her house. No, that wasn’t enough. He also had to have his own private mausoleum on the property. He had paid for it before he died, so she didn’t even have the right to resent the cost. But the hulking eccentricity sat on in the old barnyard as out of place as he had been at any function requiring a suit. And now the kids were having nightmares.

Her husband, Emmett, came in.

Did you fix the garden gate this morning? she asked.

No. I’ll try to get to it this afternoon, he said.

No need. Someone’s done it.

He looked out the window.

Hmm, he said. It was down yesterday.

Luke saw someone working on it this morning. I figured it was you.

No. I wish it had been. Maybe it was the neighbors.

Margaret thumbed through the index of neighbors in her mind, but couldn’t think of any that might have done it.

In the evening things returned to a semblance of normal. The house was mostly back in order, and all the essential chores were done. They took a break and had a picnic by the creek where you couldn’t see the barn yard. Luke and his older sister Maggie played in the creek until they were so cold they couldn’t remember being hot and then they watched the sun set and the stars come out. It was an evening without expectations, and so without conflict, and one they would remember.

When they got back to the house, Emmett took the garbage from the picnic to the overflowing trash cans to see if he could pack it in before the morning pick up, but they were gone. He found them at end of the long driveway on the state road where the garbage truck stopped. He should have been grateful, but he felt spiteful about the interference.

In the morning he found that the cows milked and out to pasture, and a whiff of aftershave lingering in the barn that he declined to identify. He contented himself with feeding the chickens and cleaning up the barn yard.

In the evening he found the cows in their stalls waiting to be milked and the back door of the barn creaking shut as he entered. He sprinted across the barn and out the back door, but he saw no one.

On Sunday, he asked to say a few words at church, and said I appreciate what you folks have been doing for my family, but it really isn’t necessary, so you can stop now. His wife shot him a look that meant Are you socially retarded? But everyone else just looked vaguely guilty and said nothing.

When they got back from church he went to finish fixing the bailer, he’d been working on when his father went to the hospital, but all the tools were put away, and the bailer was in working order. He went back in the house and let Luke climb all over him.

In the morning Margaret woke up early with the impression that someone was watching her. She got up and closed the drapes, but as she did, she sensed motion outside. When Emmett went to do morning chores, there were none left to do, so after half an hour of touring the yard and the farm he went inside, reviewed the bills, and made plans for the coming year. There were some things he had been itching to try for years, but the old man wouldn’t let him. He’d do them now.

In the evening the cows were in their stalls, though Emmett had watched the barn door all afternoon and never saw anyone enter. He checked the back door. It was roughed up a bit like someone had snuck them in through it. The cows were mildly discontent, and didn’t settle down even after being milked.

In the morning Emmett woke up at three because he heard the old tractor running. He grabbed the shot-gun, marched into the field beyond the barn, found the tractor at the end of it, and the first 10 acres plowed and planted in corn. It was supposed to be planted in clover. The old fool, Emmett muttered, fired up the tractor and parked it in the shed. He checked his other duties, the cows were milked and put out to pasture, the chickens fed, the garden weeded, and the hitch on the truck fixed.

In the afternoon Emmett said, It’s time we got a few things straight, and waited in the barn. After three hours he heard the old tractor start up. He got up, kicked the barn door open, ran to the shed and found Margaret up on the tractor.

What are you doing? he said tightly.

Well, she said, since you did all my chores, I thought I’d finish the plowing you started this morning.

Shut that thing off! he said.

When she did, they could hear cows lowing in their stalls. Emmett swore softly, and Margaret laughed as he stomped off, but she could see him fighting a smile.

That night a wind kicked up and there was a wailing sound around the corners of the house which stayed with them into the morning. It was a lonesome sound. In the morning, everyone moved a little slower, and were jumpier than usual. When Emmett finally went outside an hour late, he could hear the cows complaining uncomfortably in the barn. He milked them, and sent them to pasture.

Margaret and the kids fed the chickens and gathered eggs. After breakfast Emmett spent a long day on the new tractor away in the fields. He came back late, finished his supper and told bed time stories and gave horsey rides to the kids before bed. Emmett paused and locked the door when he and Margaret went to bed.

Pre-dawn brought the sound of a commotion from the barnyard; upset chickens, upset cows, a clattering noise from the tractor shed. Emmett and Margaret sprang out of bed.

Emmett got the shotgun and went to the barn yard. Margaret watched from the steps, phone in hand. The yard was dim, hard to see. The barn door was not only open, but one hinge was busted. The chickens were out of their yard and running like a storm was coming, but nothing else moved.

When night came, there was a heaviness to the air, full of moisture. There was no moon that night. In the middle of the night the kids came screaming from their room and climbed in bed between their parents. No one slept.

In the morning the cows gave sour milk, which Emmett fed to the hogs after turning the cows out to graze.

There was little conversation at supper and the kids went to sleep early in a nest of blankets at the foot of Emmett and Margaret’s bed. Emmett slept with his clothes on, the shot-gun out of its cabinet and ready in the old rack above the door.

Things started early. Something walked across the porch and bumped a chair. Emmett and Margaret looked at each other, but the children slept. Next they heard someone working the locked kitchen door knob. Emmett grabbed the shot-gun and went to the kitchen. The door knob stopped moving. Emmett threw the door open, cleared the porch, locked the door behind him and moved out into the night. Margaret unlocked the door and stood on the porch, watching, listening.

Emmett did not search the yard, but strode directly across it toward the out-of-place structure between the barn and the pond. As he rounded the corner of it, he barely perceived the door settling across the well-worn path leading to it. He threw open the door, leveled the shot-gun and said,

"This is my farm!

This is my family!

Your time is done!

You leave us alone. Do you hear me?!"

There was no answering sound. The corpse lay there on its shelf staring blankly at the ceiling. An long moment passed in silence and then the frogs began