Say There Little Chickadee

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

A few years ago I was out ( on Halloween of course ) taking Cemetery pictures for my blog when I noticed I was being followed.

By a crow.

He didn’t fly around me, he sort of hopped along and when we came to this section of the cemetery he hopped from one headstone to the other.

He seemed irritated ( by the sounds of it ) that I wasn’t joining him in the fun.

Photo: A.M. Moscoso

When I was done he hopped up on this headstone and chatted at me.

Right. Like I was going to hop up on the headstone and join him.

But he seemed insistent. In fact he was cawing his little lungs out at me.

I took his picture and was going to take another and when I looked into my camera he was gone.

Just like that.

               I felt a little  sad when I look at those pictures now  because I think I missed my chance to have some fun that afternoon.

amm

We’ll see.

In Regards To Alta and George

Some stories maybe to sad to tell.

The story of Alta and George feels like one of them.

(photos by Anita Moscoso)

Why

Somethings you can never unsee and this thing is one of them.

In Another Universe

In another Universe

monsters might be real.

We must face the fact

it’s a possibility.

However.

In this Universe

we can be sure

it’s a certainty.

amm

Waiting

I have this friend….

I have this- a- friend who has an unusal hobby.

She, this friend that I sort of know collects fake shrunken heads.

I asked this, um, friend if it started with the Vincent Price make it yourself kits.

They were popular when we were kids

You made shrunken heads out of apples:

My friend said that’s what she used at first. But it if you weren’t carefull the apples would attract flies, and that is the mark of an amateur. You know. Attracting flies.

I said I didn’t understand and my friend sort of winced and said ‘nevermind’.

She did say that she took classes and learned to make them from skin- goat’s  skin she said with a rush. Then said cool as you please she prefered pig because it was more human looking.

And when my friend smiled she said quickly:

I’m all about the details you know.So I was admiring my friend’s-  and  like I said I don’t know her super well or anything and I hardly ever see her- prized homemade collection of shrunken heads that are on a shelf next to her living room door.

They were the first thing you noticed when you walked into her house…not that I’ve done that often or anything,

Anyway.

They were so real, I swear you could hear then screaming.

” Why do you keep them there?” I asked this acquaintance of mine,

” Oh. You know, Sometimes people with…unusal hobbies like to brag about what they do but they really can’t because you know, it’s just awkward, So they find other ways of telling people about what they get up to.”

I told this friend that I see maybe a couple a times every few years- sometimes and not on purpose.

I understood.

Completely.

Dreams Of The Dead

Grave Tale of The Funeral Director, The Hearse and The Empty Coffin

Once someone asked me what was the strangest Funeral Home story I had ever heard was and this is it:

Years and years ago, I think it was in the 1930’s a local funeral director left in the company hearse to, as it’s put in the business ‘ do a removal’.

He left in the late in the afternoon, and because it was around late October it was already getting dark and it was foggy. You could hardly see your hand in front of your face.

But there was no way this Funeral Director was going to leave a family in emotional distress with a the remains of a loved one cooling in their house so he made the drive.

He must have driven slow in the less then half light and the fog in his big black hearse. He must have  inched his way slowly around the road that ran above the icy river below.

When he got to the bridge that lead to his turn off his car was completely  swallowed by the fog. Still,  I imagine you could hear the tires working their way over the wooden bridge…

and then all you could hear was the river.

He never made it to the other side.

It was quite a mystery.

The Funeral Director who disappeared, hearse and all on the way to a call.

It was made a great Halloween story.

And then years later they found the hearse and the funeral director and the empty coffin still waiting for the corpse the Funeral Director was supposed to pick up when he disappeared on that October afternoon.

Strange, or not so strange depending on your point of view  was where they found them.

They  found them in the river, almost directly under the bridge they were crossing over all those years ago.

I drove over that bridge several times in a hearse myself over seventy years later, I made  my last drive over it two years before they found the Funeral Director, The Hearse and The Empty Coffin.

When I think of The Funeral Director, I think of him in the drivers’s seat, his hands clutching the steering wheel, his head tilted  towards the surface of the water and  when I think about all those times I drove over him-

I hope his eyes were closed.

Hope Is Eternal

Today I passed a woman in the hall.

She was dressed in black from head to toe, I thought she was wearing a veil and then I realized her face was truly-  and now that I think about it I am grateful- that her face was actually shrouded in darkness.

The woman  cloaked in layers of shadows turned and walked into a wall and as she did I heard a sound like ice crackling in a glass of water.

I don’t think she saw me as she disappeared into oblivion.

At least.

I hope she didn’t see me.