Literary as hell.

Tag: halloween 2023

2023 Halloween contest winner: “Assassin 4” by Joseph Kiaza

The letter arrived on Tuesday in a plain white envelope with no return address. Inside was a mossy green card with a smiling, toothy jack-o-lantern on the front and a speech bubble that read, “Boo!” Will frowned and flipped it open.

The message was written in black pen and long, looping letters.

 

Dearest William,

I am going to kill you on October 28th. The method I will employ is electrocution, though this may be subject to change, depending on unforeseen factors (i.e. weather). There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop me, so I encourage you to enjoy your life to the fullest in the weeks you have left. Machu Picchu is lovely this time of year.

Best,

Assassin 4

 

Without thinking, Will slid the card back into the envelope and put it underneath the other mail he’d picked up, as if by undoing the operation of having seen it he could make the letter not exist. He quickly realized this was stupid and took the card back out, staring at it while rubbing his neck. After a minute he walked over to the table, grabbed his cellphone, and dialed a number.

His mom picked up on the last ring. “Can it wait?” she asked.

“Er.”

“Are you about to die?”

“Well…” That would depend on how you defined about to. “I guess technically no.”

“Then it can wait,” she said, and hung up.

Will placed the phone back onto the table. He still gripped the card in one hand, holding it away from him as though it were foul-smelling. Wandering over to his desk chair, he booted up his computer and began searching the Internet.

As it turned out there was a wealth of information on cards like this. It was a rare but not unknown phenomenon: people would start getting letters in the mail at any point from a year to a couple weeks before their inscribed expiration date, and without fail, they would indeed be killed, or die in some terrible accident—be it semi-truck collision or shark attack, house fire or hunting mishap.

In no recorded case did the target ever survive. Nothing was known about the assassins except their unblemished professional record; if you received one of these letters, you would die on the date they said you would. No exceptions. None.

Will wasn’t quite sure how to feel about this.

He had always possessed the vague notion that he would die someday, but he tried not to think about that too much. He didn’t really believe in an afterlife, not because he’d given it much consideration, more just a feeling that it seemed rather implausible. When his time came, he figured that would be that. The World, for all intents and purposes, would end.

He’d had a dream once that was sort of about dying: in it he’d gone to sleep and woken up at the very end of the universe, but he was the only one there; everyone else in the entire world had lived their lives and died and turned to dust, and humanity itself had ceased to exist a hundred billion years ago, leaving him alone at the very end of things—he had missed it all.

That was what dying was like, he imagined: the separation of oneself from time, so that the moment your brain stopped processing all of time skipped forward some impossibly large amount. Viewing it that way it was clear that, if you knew you were going to die, there really was no point in worrying about anything.

He played solitaire on his computer for a while, and then eventually got up and pinned the card to his refrigerator with one of his fridge magnets, a smaller magnet in the shape of a leopard seal. Then he washed his hands and went to go make himself an egg salad sandwich.

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2023 Halloween Contest Finalist: Baba Yaga Revived by Diane Funston

Glass cobalt evil eyes from Turkey

hang in windows in every room. 

A hammered tin Hamsa

hangs outside each entrance. 

 

These baubles I placed for protection 

from all harm, 

the seen and unseen. 

 

After centuries of abuse,

words and other wounds

I forgave Baba Yaga,

whom I believed 

would no longer eat children.

 

Her advanced age, gnarled weak bones

grew frail in unforgiving winters,

she grew lonely with failing powers. 

 

I moved her out of her high-rise hut

into our warm home 

far away from black ice. 

 

I tended my garden 

as she grew accustomed 

to nourishing meals and healing sun. 

 

I began to wonder 

if there was maybe a little love

or was I merely a place to eat and rest…

 

Her voice regained 

familiar strength and timbre

I heard her chanting spells behind her door. 

 

Her responses to my questions 

growled back

Her elderly hands grew talons

ready to pierce and slice 

even the most innocent requests.

 

In between battles about last century’s war

I prayed daily to my god of poetry.

 

I found myself denying recent scratches 

rinsing drops of blood down the drain. 

I shielded torn flesh from my loved ones

I was cursed with guilt 

for welcoming her in.

 

When the plague locked us all inside for months,

it was easy to cover my scars and wounds. 

 

“Come here”Baba Yaga hissed one day,

after she again drew blood with her tongue,

her claws reaching for me,

 

“Mother knows you need redoing.”

 


Diane Funston lives in Marysville, California. Diane has been published in journals including California Quarterly, Lake Affect, Tule Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, Whirlwind, Summation, among others. She served two years as Poet-in-Residence for Yuba-Sutter Arts and Culture Her chapbook, “Over the Falls” was published by Foothills Publishing in 2022.

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