Emma’s Black Cake

February 1, 2026 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

Emma started baking when she was six years old, although it wasn’t exactly real baking. She baked small cakes in an Easy-Bake oven, which was a working toy oven. At first, when it was introduced in 1963, the heat source was two light bulbs. Hers had been the newer Ultimate Oven model, which used a real heating element. The baking was easy. There were Easy-Bake cake mixes and small round pans. She poured the cake mix into a pan, added water, blended it, and then pushed the pan through a slot into the oven. After the baking was done she pushed the pan out through a slot at the back end of the oven.

Now that she was thirteen years old she baked for real. Her mother was a good cook, but her father was a better baker. He was an electrical engineer and knew all about energy getting the job done. “Baking is a science,” he said when he began teaching her everything he knew. “It’s all about precise measurements and proper techniques. It’s about the chemical reactions that happen when ingredients are combined and exposed to heat, like the leavening agents in baking powder that create bubbles in batter. Do you follow me?”

“I guess so.”

“All right, let’s start at the beginning by cracking eggs.”

She wasn’t a beginner anymore. She knew the four pillars of baking, which were flour, eggs, sugar, and fat. Flour and eggs were structure builders while sugar and fat were tenderizers. She wasn’t good enough to make yeasted breads and laminated pastries, yet, but she was a hotshot with cookies, brownies, and cakes.

Her brother Oliver was going to be eleven years old in exactly one day. She was planning on baking a cake for him. It was going to be a black cake made from a recipe by Emily Dickinson. Black cake is a kind of Caribbean Christmas cake, a close relative of British fruit cake.

Emma was a big fan of reading. She had started reading Emily Dickinson’s poems when her aunt gave her “Poetry for Kids: Emily Dickinson” two years ago for her birthday. Since then she had read “A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson,” which was a biography, and read every one of her poems, all one thousand eight hundred of them, in one library book after another. Only ten of the poems were ever published during Emily Dickinson’s lifetime.

“A bird came down the walk, he did not know I saw, he bit an angleworm in halves and ate the fellow, raw, and then he drank a dew from a convenient grass, and then hopped sideways to the wall to let a beetle pass.”

What most people didn’t know about Emily Dickinson was that she was a very good baker. She was better known for her desserts than her poems. She was especially skillful with bread. She won second prize at the 1856 Amherst Cattle Show for her rye and Indian round bread. Emma knew all about her baking prowess because she had discovered “The Emily Dickinson Cookbook” which was full of recipes for gingerbread and chocolate caramels. It was where she found the recipe for black cake.

There was a copy of the hand-written recipe, written in Emily Dickinson’s hand, in the book. She had a funny way of forming her letters. It took some getting used to. Emma had the book propped open on the kitchen counter.

She had her work cut out for her. The recipe called for two pounds of flour, two pounds of butter, five pounds of raisins, and nineteen eggs, among other ingredients. It made a twenty pound cake. She didn’t have a cake pan that could contain any such thing. She wasn’t sure if such a thing would even fit in their oven.

She got to work, cutting the recipe down to size, leaving the brandy it called for out of the batter, and by the end of the afternoon the cake was in the oven, baking away. That is when she heard a voice speaking from the oven.

“You do know that’s a Christmas cake, don’t you?” the voice, which sounded like Foghorn Leghorn, said.

“I know, but it’s February, which is close enough,” Emma said.

“Do you know the roots of that cake go back to slavery?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“And Emily Dickinson couldn’t have ever baked it if it wasn’t for the slaves in America.”

“What do you mean? Her family never had slaves. They didn’t like slavery. Her father was a lawyer and he stood up for three black men who rescued a girl who was about to be sold into slavery. Their gardener, Jeremiah, was black. He got paid for his work. He wasn’t a slave.”

“Emily Dickinson hated black people,” Foghorn Leghorn said.

“How do you know that?”

“Everybody knows that.”

Emma didn’t know that. If everybody knew it, how come she didn’t know it? None of the poems had anything about black people or slavery in them. She should know, since she had read all of them.

“Have you read her poems?” she asked the voice.

No, but it’s like the Bible. You don’t have to read the Good Book to know what its message is.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“You’re too young to understand.”

Emma didn’t like being told she was too young to understand.

“I understand full well that you can’t know what’s in a book unless you read it. Talking about Emily Dickinson without reading what she wrote would be like giving a fish a bath.”

“You do know why the cake is black, don’t you, little girl?”

Emma did not like being called a little girl, either. “No, I don’t know, but I don’t see why it matters.” She was getting tired of Foghorn Leghorn.

“It’s called black cake because the color comes from molasses and spices, which were sourced from slave plantations in the Caribbean.”

“I didn’t use molasses, smarty pants, I used sugar.”

“Burnt sugar?”

“Yes, otherwise the cake wouldn’t be black.”

“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m the one baking it and whether it comes our black, or not, I say it’s a black cake,” Emma said, digging in her heels. Why was Foghorn Leghorn in her oven? She looked inside of it but didn’t see anything except for the cake. Where was he? Did he get burned up? She didn’t see any ashes.

“Emily Dickinson’s poems should be burned on the bonfire of bad history. She was an elitist.”

“What does elitist mean?”

“Elitists think wealth, intellect, and social status make them superior and those who have those qualities should have more power and influence.”

“She lived on a farm, not in a mansion,” Emma said. “They had pigs, cows, horses, a fruit orchard, and a hay meadow. They grew most of their own food. She had a big garden and was always working in it. Everybody said she had a green thumb. She baked twenty pound cakes. She sometimes complained about all the work she had to do. Lots of her poems are about fields and farm life.”

“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, and a bee, and reverie. The reverie alone will do, If bees are few.”

“If she wasn’t an elitist, why was she always wearing white?” Foghorn Leghorn crowed.

“Who says she always wore white?”

“Everybody says so.”

“Everybody is wrong, just like you. There’s only one photograph of her and she’s wearing a dark dress. She wore clothes made from unbleached linen and hemp and wool. Most of her clothes were brown-hued. Most of the time she probably wore simple linen skirts as an underlayer topped by a dark woolen overskirt.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read it in a book.”

“I don’t like reading, too much work. I like watching TV. I like movies that are based on comic books and cell phone apps. I like the internet. There are lots of pictures.”

“Why are you picking on Emily Dickinson?”

“She thinks she’s all that with her fancy poems.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Leghorn, but you’ve got to go. My cake is almost done and I’m done listening to you.”

The next morning was a cold February morning, but sunny.

“Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door,” is what Emily Dickinson said about mornings.

Oliver had black cake for breakfast on his birthday.

“This cake is boss, sis, thanks so much,” he said.

“My pleasure,” Emma said.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Production

Old Man Time

January 1, 2026 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

It was getting close to midnight and Father Time was still trying to throw Baby New Year out the window. It was proving to be harder than he thought it would be. Who knew a newborn, even though he looked more like toddler, could be so hefty? Who knew a newborn had any idea about how to throw a left jab? Or throw a left jab that knew where to land where it hurt the most?

Father Time hadn’t started the fight, although he had declared he wasn’t ready to leave, new year or no new year. Baby New Year had started it when he had tried to kick Father Time out the back door. “Your time is over and done with,” he said. “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.” Father Time didn’t see the kick coming. It got him just below the back of the knee and buckled his leg. When it did he stumbled and hit his head on the door jamb. He was already angry, but that got his dander way up.

He wasn’t just anybody to mess with. Way back when, when the Greeks were in charge, he had been Chronos. When the Romans took over he became Saturn. During the Renaissance he started carrying an hourglass and stood shoulder to shoulder with the Grim Reaper. By the 20^th century he was carrying a scythe, representing the cyclical nature of time.

He kept his scythe in good working order. He cleaned the blade after every use. He sharpened it with a whetstone. He peened it to restore the edge after it had been overworked. He could swing it with the best of them.

Father Time got up from where he had stumbled. He whirled around. Baby New Year had a fork in his hand. Father Time grabbed his scythe.

“What’s gotten into those two?” Oliver asked his sister.

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good,” Emma said.

They were at a New Year’s Eve party with their parents at their aunt’s swank house in Bratenahl. It was the first time they had ever been there. It was the first time they had ever been invited. The house was a waterfront mansion. It had a great view of Lake Erie. The ceilings were sky high and all the sofas and armchairs were white. There were four bedrooms and five bathrooms.

“She must go to the toilet a lot,” Emma said.

Their aunt’s grown-up children and their spouses and some of their children were there. Oliver and Emma’s parents and everybody else were in the great room testing their paper tube noisemakers and pouring champagne into tulip-shaped glasses. The glasses were so clean they glistened like Vin Diesel’s bald head.

Oliver and Emma were in the kitchen, although they were keeping their distance from the combatants, who were circling each other.

“You’re the old year, you codger, and I’m the new year,” Baby New Year said. “It’s always been that way. You’ve got to hand the new year over to me. It’s time to pass the baton.” He had his 2026 sash at the ready. He waved his fork for emphasis.

Baby New Year went back to when the Greeks were in charge, just like Father Time. He went back to the Great Dionysia, which celebrated the springtime resurrection of Dionysius, who was the god of wine and fertility. After the parade and during the buffet, Dionysius’s birth was celebrated by putting the baby in a winnowing fan, which was a kind of bread basket, and showing him off. Everybody made sure not to eat him by mistake.

“Pass the baton?” Father Time said. “What do you know? You don’t know anything. You’ll just screw things up worse than they already are. Your kind always does, starry-eyed and incompetent. I’ve got plenty of experience. I’ll keep the ship on course.”

“On course?” Baby New Year exclaimed. “The train is running off the rails. The future needs new blood. That means me. Now give me that hourglass you’ve got hidden inside your robe.” By all rights Father Time was supposed to hand the hourglass over and pass on his wisdom and duties.

“What I say is what Percy Shelly wrote in his poem,” Baby New Year said. “My Father Time is weak and gray, with waiting for a better day, see how idiot-like he stands, fumbling with his palsied hands.”

Baby New Year had gone through hell and high water to get to the handover on time. He had been stuck on the Archipelago of Last Years, which were islands where all the old years retired. He had gone there to prep for the new year, hoping to gain insights and absorb wisdom about what were going to be his new duties.

When he got there, however, he was taken prisoner by Eon the Terrible, who was a supersized vulture. From birth the big evil bird had been destined to live a half a million years. His problem was the half a million years were coming to an end at the end of the year. When that happened he was going to suddenly turn into dust and be blown away by the wind. Keeping Baby New Year prisoner would stop time and keep the year from ending. It would keep him alive, too.

When Santa Claus found out what was happening he was appalled. Stopping time would stop Christmas. He sent Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer to rescue Baby New Year. It was easier said than done. Eon the Terrible took the reindeer prisoner, too, and locked him up on his Island of No-Name, located north of the North Pole. When Rudolph escaped Eon the Terrible unleashed an avalanche that trapped the reindeer inside a gigantic snowball. Rudolph melted the snow with his bright shiny nose, climbed up to Eon the Terrible’s nest, and set Baby New Year free.

“After all I’ve gone through, give me that hourglass.” Baby New Year said. Time was running short. It was ten minutes to midnight. That’s when the rumble in the kitchen got serous. Father Time swung his scythe at Baby New Year’s head. But since he had a bad back and couldn’t bend even an inch, he missed by a mile. Baby New Year stuck his fork into Father Time’s foot.

“Ouch!” Father Time yelped, limping this way and that, using his scythe as a cane. The cook, who had been washing dishes, had backed herself into a corner, using a chopping board as a shield. She had a spatula she was prepared to use for protection, if it came to that.

Father Time groaned and lowered himself onto a stool.

“He looks all worn out,’ Oliver said. ‘He should give it up.”

“Maybe he thinks Baby New Year just isn’t ready,” Emma said.

“Babies are never ready. They just have to jump in with both feet.”

“I was the most happening man at the party all this past year, but now I think it’s time to leave,” Father Time said. He stood up and went towards the back door. He put his hourglass on the floor and leaned his scythe against the wall.

“You’ll need these things,” he said while looking down at the half-pint who was going to take his place. “Good luck, you’ll need it.” He left his shadow behind, but even that soon disappeared. It was like he had never been there.

Oliver lifted Baby New Year onto his shoulders, and with Emma beside him, carried him into the great room where everybody was waiting. A cheer went up. Champagne went down throats.

Out with the old and in with the new.

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

The Mighty Draco

December 1, 2025 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

It was twilight on Christmas Eve when Santa Claus landed his sled in Oliver and Emma’s backyard in Perry, Ohio. He skidded to a stop and was right away followed by nine larger supply sleds manned by elves. When they landed they formed a kind of wagon train circle. Two more sleds landed in the middle. They were stealth sleds. The elves in them were Santa Claus’s bodyguards. They were dressed all in black and wore AI-powered smart glasses.

The stealth sleds were invisible to radar, infrared, and acoustic sensors. They were built with special radar-absorbent materials. They weren’t pulled by reindeers. They were powered by a jet engine designed to mask its heat signature. The elf bodyguards unloaded the ray guns they carried inside internal bays and distributed them to all the other elves. Three of them huddled with Santa Claus. They scanned the sky anxiously.

“It’s all hands on deck tonight,” Santa Claus said, “although not in the way we expected.”

“We’ve been watching Draco, but we didn’t anticipate him attacking us on this of all days,” one of the elf bodyguards said.

“He tried to surprise us,” Santa Claus said. “It’s a good thing Rudolph sniffed out the danger.”

The youngest of Santa’s reindeer team, Rudolph was the lead reindeer. He was brown with some white on his muzzle. He had a glowing red nose. It was what he used to guide Santa Claus’s sleigh through darkness and snow storms. He could sniff out trouble in thick fog and around the corner. He didn’t say much but he was reliable and brave.

“That is more elves than I’ve ever seen in my life,” Emma said, looking out the window. “Although, to be honest I’ve never even seen one before today.”

“I wasn’t sure Santa Claus was real,” Oliver said, “but there he is.”

“Why is he out there with all those sleds?”

“Let’s go find out.”

They went through the sliding doors leading to their patio and out to the field behind their house. The Assembly of God was at the front end of the field and a cell phone tower was at the back end of the field. The church was small. The cell phone tower was large.

One of the elf bodyguards tried to wave them back, but Oliver and Emma ran right up to Santa Claus. He was younger and taller than they thought he would be. He wasn’t roly-poly. He was fit as a fiddle. He was wearing a bright red coat and matching pants, trimmed with white fur. The fabric, however, wasn’t cloth. It was ripcord. “It resists wear and tear,” Santa Claus said. The rest of him was fitted with a black belt dressed up with a gold buckle, a red hat with a white pom-pom, and black boots. He didn’t look jolly. He looked commanding.

“What’s going on?” Oliver asked. “Why are you here and not delivering gifts?”

“It’s the Mighty Draco,” Sanra Claus said. “He’s from far away, from outer space. He’s been circling our planet for years. He intends to take over the earth. He is starting by destabilizing our institutions. One of his body snatchers is in Washington, D.C. spreading lies and shutting down the federal agencies that help people. Another one of his body snatchers is in Moscow, spreading death and destruction wherever he can. One is in North Korea. There are others, powerful body snatchers with a lust for riches and power.”

“But what does that have to do with you?” Emma asked.

“He wants to strip us of our holidays, starting with me. “The Easter Bunny will be next and after that the Thanksgiving Turkey. He doesn’t want us celebrating the things we hold dear. He’s a tyrant, the unhappiest of creatures. He wants everybody to be unhappy like him.”

Just then an intergalactic flying saucer landed. The Mighty Draco floated down from his spacecraft, followed by his shock troops. He was green from tip to toe, naked except for a pair of red Speedo’s, with horns sticking out from his temples and webbed hands and feet. He and his shock troops were carrying ray guns. They looked fearsome. The Mighty Draco’s face was twisted with a sneer.

“Earthmen,” he said in a voice that had the icy chill of deep space in it. “I have come to destroy Santa Claus and everything he stands for. When I am done with him and his kind I shall issue an ultimatum which will bring everyone to their knees, making them subject to the rule of the Mighty Draco.”

Why is he talking about himself in the third person? Emma wondered. One of her pet peeves was blowhards talking about themselves in the third person.

“Since you say you are starting with me,” Santa Claus sad, “I am taking it upon myself to stop you right here.”

The Mighty Draco roared with laughter. “You and your midgets are going to stop me? That’ll be the day!” No sooner had he said that than he and his shock troops began blasting the circle of sleds with their ray guns. Santa Claus and his elves began blasting back. There was the crackle of hundreds of electric energy beams. The air stank with acrid smoke. Beams clanged off the force field the bodyguard elves had thrown over their sleds. Their beams bounced off the shock troops, protected by their own force fields. When the shooting stopped, the ground was black and smoking, but no one had gained the upper hand. Both sides were reloading their ray guns when Oliver stuck his index fingers into his mouth, forming an “A” shape, He curled his tongue back and pressed it down with his fingers. He whistled, a piercing sound that brought everybody to a stop.

“Are you calling Ralph?” Emmas asked.

“Yes,” Oliver said.” He’ll put the clamps on that Mighty Draco.”

Ralph was a honey badger who lived in the woods beyond the cell phone tower. He had helped Oliver and Emma a couple of times over the years. He was stocky with thick skin. He was black with a white stripe running from his head to the base of his tail. His front feet featured large claws. He was very strong and fearless. He was tougher than woodpecker beaks and saltwater crocodiles. He came trotting out of the woods. Oliver rubbed the top of his head and pointed at the Mighty Draco.

“He needs to go back to where he came from,” he said.

“That thing is your champion?” the Mighty Draco hooted. “It’s no bigger than a dog. I’ll make hamburger meat out of him in two seconds.”

He started blasting Ralph with his ray gun. Ralph steadied himself, growled, and made a beeline for the creature from beyond the stars. His African relatives fought lions and Cape buffaloes day in and day out. A green knucklehead wearing red Speedo’s wasn’t going to get the better of him.

Ralph advanced, glowing, the ray gun lighting him up. His eyes went shiny red and his coarse fur bristled with static. He broke into a trot and bull rushed the Mighty Draco, head butting him in the front of his red shorts. The creature went down like a shot. Ralph got behind him, sunk his teeth into his rear end, and dragged him back to his flying saucer. He lifted him overhead, swung him around in circles, and finally heaved him into his spacecraft. The Mighty Draco lay groaning just inside the hatch. The swinging had made him dizzy. He threw up all over.

All the air went out of the shock troops. They floated up to their master, mopped up the vomit, closed the hatch, and fired up the engines. The flying saucer sped away.

Santa Claus walked up to Ralph and thanked him for a job well done.

“It was child’s play,” Ralph said, snorting.

“I wish I had something for you,” Santa Claus said. “Next year I will, and it will be something special.”

The honey badger grunted and sauntered back into the words. He needed a nap.

“He’s a man of few words,” Santa Claus said to Oliver and Emma. “Do you happen to have any more like him that I can drop down chimneys in Washington, D.C., Moscow, and North Korea?”

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

Front Lawn of Fear

November 1, 2025 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

Oliver had heard about the house with the front lawn full of life-size skeletons, but had never seen the Halloween display himself. It was down Canyon Ridge Dr. on the east side of the street. The street was about a ten minute walk from where he lived. “There‘s a bunch of skeletons carrying some kind of hatchet and one really big one who’s the leader of the pack,” Tommy One Shoe said. “They’re all chained together, but they’ve been getting loose in the middle of the night the closer it gets to fright night.”

“If they’re carrying something, it’s probably a scythe,” Oliver said.

“What’s that?”

“A farming thing from long ago.”

“Oh.”

Oliver knew which house it was, at least he knew the backyard of it. He had seen it many times looking up from Masons Landing Metropolitan Park on the Grand River where there was a bend and a stretch of bank. He could see it from the bank. It was the only house on the street with a side yard. It was the only house with a sweet gum tree. The fruit of the tree was a hard spiky ball he called a monkey ball. Nobody wanted to step barefooted on a monkey ball. He knew that from personal experience.

“What do you mean they’ve been getting loose?” Oliver asked.

“They get loose from their chains somehow and roam around at night waking everybody up. Their bones rub against each other clicking, clacking, and rattling.”

“I guess that might be a nuisance,” Oliver said, “but it doesn’t sound menacing.”

“That’s not all they do.”

“What else do they do?”

“They swing their scythe things at shrubs, the mailboxes, and cats on the loose. All the shrubs look terrible, like a really bad haircut. A bunch of mailboxes have holes in them. One cat ran up a tree and wouldn’t come down for two days.”

“That sort of sounds like teenagers on the loose.”

“Maybe it does, but last night a lady was walking her dog. It was late. She was looking one way, the skeleton was looking the other way, and they bumped into each other. She ran home and the dog chased the skeleton to South Ridge Rd.”

“The skeleton ran away?”

“That’s what she said, and she said the dog came back with a scrap of black fabric stuck in his teeth.”

“I see,” Oliver said. “Can you sneak out tonight and meet me across the street from the skeletons?”

“What time?”

“Let’s say three. My parents don’t get up at three in the morning for anything.”

“No problemo,” Tommy said. “Mine don’t get up for anything between midnight and sunrise, unless maybe the end of the world was happening.”

That night at three in the morning Oliver and Tommy met across the street from the front lawn of fear. Both of them were wearing jeans and dark sweatshirts. Oliver had a flashlight with him. He would have brought his sister Emma for back-up, but she was at a sleepover in Painesville. Tommy had a plastic Ninja Sword he had gotten from the Spirit Halloween store in Mentor. He whacked the bark of the pin oak tree they were hiding behind.

“You’re going to break it,” Oliver said.

“No, that’s some tough bark.”

“I meant the sword, and besides, we need to be quiet.”

“What’s the plan?”

“The plan is to throw some light on whoever it is in that house who is pretending to be a skeleton, and why.”

They almost fell asleep. It was nearly five in the morning when they were roused by a car coming down the street. Oliver had been wool-gathering the new ray gun he was inventing. The car pulled into the driveway of the house where they were hiding. They squeezed close together behind the pin oak tree. A man in a uniform got out of the car. He had a rolling carry-on suitcase and a flight bag full of manuals, a headset, and an iPad. He was a Southwest Airlines pilot.

He was fumbling in his pocket for his house keys when Tommy saw a skeleton wielding a scythe crossing the street. He was heading straight for the pilot, one determined step after another. A full moon illumined him. It wasn’t a real skeleton. It was man dressed in black tights and a form-fitting long sleeve spandex t-shirt. The bones had been stenciled on the fabric with glow-in-the-dark paint.

Tommy poked Oliver in the ribs.

“Hey,” Oliver grunted.

“Look,” Tommy said.

“I thought it was going to be something like that,” Oliver said.

When the skeleton got close to the pilot he raised his scythe.

“Oh, my God, put that thing down and take that stupid mask off,” the pilot said. “Who do you think you are, the Grim Reaper? I just got in from Hawaii and the last thing I need to do is fool around with you.”

“The last thing I need is you fooling around with my wife anymore,” the skeleton said.

“I wouldn’t be doing that if you spent more time fooling around with her.”

“I told you to stop, but you didn’t. Now I’ve got you where I want you. Everybody on the street thinks my skeletons have been coming to life. No one dares to be out at night anymore. There aren’t going to be any witnesses and everybody will chalk it up to the supernatural.”

“That’s crazy,” the pilot said.

“Crazy as a fox,” the skeleton said and advanced on the pilot. He raised his scythe and swung it down at him, who raised his ballistic nylon flight bag to parry the blade. The blade cut through the bag like butter. When it did the force of the swing, its trajectory altered, carried the scythe downwards towards the skeleton’s feet. The front point of it pierced his left tennis shoe, sinking an inch deep into the top of his foot.

“Youch!” the skeleton cried out, going to his knees and reaching for his foot. He tore his tennis shoe off. Blood gushed out of his foot, soaking the grass. The pilot staunched the bleeding with a spare shirt he pulled out of his carry-all.

“Who knew skeletons could bleed,” Tommy said, dumbfounded.

The pilot called 911 and an EMS truck showed up in five minutes, followed by a police car. After the skeleton had been put on a stretcher and driven away, a policeman asked Oliver and Tommy what they were doing there.

“We heard there were skeletons walking around at night,” Tommy said. “We wanted to see what was going on. We saw the skeleton come across the street and swing his scythe thing at the man in the uniform who came home, but he missed, and cut himself.”

“What do you have to say?” the policeman asked Oliver.

“The same thing,” Oliver said.

“All right, go home, and stay there.”

They started up Canyon Ridge Dr. The moon was setting. Dawn was on the horizon.

“What was that all about?” Tommy asked. “All they talked about was fooling around, although the skeleton sounded mad, and the other man looked annoyed, and the next thing you know the skeleton was trying to slice and dice that man.”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said. “Grown-ups confuse me. Sometimes they seem more crazy than not.”

“I know all about that,” Tommy said. “My parents are totally crazy.”

They were exchanging shaggy-dog stories about their parents, aunts, and uncles, and were so absorbed in their critique of grown-ups they didn’t see the Headless Horseman, who was carrying his severed head on his saddle, go past them at the crossroad of Canyon Ridge Dr. and South Ridge Rd. on his way back to the Perry Cemetery.

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

Busting Out of Franklin Castle

October 1, 2025 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

“Well, well,” the Grim Reaper said. “What have we got here, Hansel and Gretel?” He grinned looking down on them and then laughed like a hen with hiccups.

“Oh, oh,” Emma said, looking him up and down. She didn’t like what she was seeing or hearing. Who laughs like a hen with hiccups?

“No, we’re not Hansel and Gretel,” Oliver said. “Who do you think you are? It’s not Halloween. And what’s with the laugh?”

“Who do I think I am? I am the Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Flies, and Old Nick all wrapped up in one. I am Scratch and that’s no Halloween nonsense. I am the Grim Reaper.”

“All right, Mr. Grim, but what’s with the laugh?”

“I’ve got something in my craw I just can’t shake.”

“Would that be the Angel of Life?”

“Never you mind, young man.”

“Why are you calling us Hansel and Gretel? Do you think you are going to eat us?”

“I ask the questions around here,” the Grim Reaper said. “What are you doing in this castle?”

“We have a professional interest in Franklin Castle,” Oliver said. “We’re the Monster Hunters of Lake County.”

“Have you lost your way? This is Cuyahoga County. On top of that, you’re nothing but children. What kind of professional interest could you possibly have in anything? Are you half-pints even in school?”

“I just started middle school, I’ll have you know,” Emma said.

She had seen the Grim Reaper in a history book, a long-haired skeletal figure from the 14^th century wearing wings and carrying a scythe. His black clothing went back to the early 19th century, when people started wearing black at funerals. The full Monty, hooded skeleton, black robe, and scythe, became common around the mid-19th century. That’s what he looked like in “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, wearing a dark cloak with only a single gesturing hand to be seen.

“People fear me, you know,” the Grim Reaper said.

“I once heard a song called ’Don’t Fear the Reaper,’” Oliver said.

“All our times have come here, but now they’re gone, seasons don’t fear the reaper,
nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain.”

“That was some tough talk by the Blue Oyster Cult,” the Grim Reaper said. “Do you know what their new album last year was called?”

“No.”

“It was called ‘Ghost Stories.’ That’s what they’re going to be sooner or later. I saw one of their shows. After the show I made a joke, asking them, ‘What did the chicken say to the Grim Reaper?’ The drummer was like you. He asked me why I was asking. I told him because I was death myself.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘I’ll talk louder then.’ He was half deaf from his own loud music and misunderstood what I said.”

“What did the chicken say, anyway?”

“I should have looked both ways,” the Grim Reaper chuckled.

“What’s with that stick with the curved knife at the bottom?” Oliver asked.

“It’s not a stick and it’s not a knife. It’s a scythe. It’s for harvesting souls like a farmer harvests crops.”

“Farmers use tractors, not that scythe thing.”

“The scythe is what farmers used to work their fields with.”

“Well, they don’t use them anymore. You should get a tractor.”

“That’s not the point,” the Grim reaper said, annoyed. “It’s a symbol.”

“Symbols don’t put food on the table,” Emma said. “Dad has to go to work every day and mom just got a job so we will have money for college. We are buying a new house soon, too. Does the FBI know you carry that scythe thing around? It looks like a deadly weapon. Is it legal?”

The Grim Reaper was not used to being peppered with questions. “Why me, why now?” is what he sometimes heard, although most people were scared stiff and didn’t say much of anything. Whenever they asked he always said, “Life is for the living but then I arrive with my scythe and you are done with life. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be glad it happens in that order.”

“Did you hear what I asked you, Mr. Grim?” Emma asked. “Is that thing legal?”

The Grim Reaper was losing his patience. He was normally very patient. Life spans, however, had been increasing century by century and appointed hours had become long in coming. The trend was taxing him. These children questioning his tools of the trade were irksome. Their appointed hour wasn’t close at hand, but if they kept it up he might lose his composure and go after them.

“You should put that thing away and get some nicer clothes,” Emma said. “That robe has got moth holes. It’s really dirty, too. Do you ever wash it?”

That was all the Grim Reaper could stand. He raised his scythe and swung at Emma. She jumped away from the swing. She was a quick girl on her feet.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Oliver shouted. “Leave my sister alone.”

The Grim Reaper swung his scythe at Oliver, who dodged the sharp blade, grabbed Emma’s hand, and pulled her towards the door. The Grim Reaper weas fuming. He never swung and missed. Was he getting old and feeble? That couldn’t be. He was ageless, after all.

“This house has thirteen fireplaces,” he shouted. “ When I catch you I will burn you both in all of them.”

He ran after Oliver and Emma, his bones clacking and the scythe hissing. He wasn’t fast enough. Oliver and Emma pushed the ballroom doors open and ran down the stairs. The Grim Reaper followed, making up time by straddling the handrail and sliding down it.

Oliver and Emma ran past the reading room on the third floor where a book was reading itself. It was a one thousand page weepie. Tears were splashing onto the pages. They ran past Hannes Tiedemann’s office on the second floor. The ledgers in the office had long since turned to yellow dust.

By the time they got to the ground floor the Grim Reaper was hard on their heels. A voice called out to them, “Come this way.” It was the ghost of Hannes Tiedemann. “Get in this barrel,” he said, pointing to a barrel. They got in it. Hannes Tiedemann fitted a circular lid on top of the barrel.

After coming from Germany as a boy Hannes Tiedemann had worked as an apprentice barrel maker before getting into wholesale groceries and later into banking. He liked money well enough, but never lost his fondness for barrels.

The Grim Reaper searched the ground floor, the foyer, parlor, and dining room. He searched the toilet room. He came up empty. Gnashing his teeth he went up and came back down the servant’s stairwell. He was standing in the foyer when he noticed his reflection in a full-length mirror. Looking himself over he thought maybe the brat was right. He was looking shabby. He needed a new robe. He checked his wallet. He had enough cash to get something nice. He went out the front door and disappeared down Franklin Ave. towards the stores on W. 25^th St.

When Oliver and Emma were sure he was gone they got out of the barrel and ran outside to where they had left their Lime e-scooter. It wouldn’t start, however. It had timed out. Neither of them had a credit card. Neither of them had ever had a credit card. They pushed the e-scooter off the sidewalk and leaned it against the wrought-iron fence surrounding the house.

It was a long walk back to St. Ignatius High School. They were very tired by the time they got there. Their father put them in the back seat of their Jeep SUV. He drove north to Lake Erie and took a right. He took the Shoreway back to Lake County. Oliver and Emma slept like the dead all the way home.

Previous: Franklin Castle Walkabout

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

Franklin Castle Walkabout

September 1, 2025 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

Emma almost jumped out of her bobby pins when the voice behind them said, “Who has broken into my castle?” Oliver, however, kept his nerve. He turned around and said to the eight-foot tall man spirit, “Can I see your deed to this place?”

The man spirit looked like a butler from an old movie. He was wearing a black suit with a white dress shirt, black bow tie, and a waistcoat. He had a long face and a nose that was as sharp as a hatchet.

“I don’t have a deed,” he said.

“Then it’s not really your castle, is it?”

“Well, no, but I live here.”

“We heard the castle is haunted.”

“You heard correctly, young man. There are ghosts and phantoms in every room.”

“Are they mean?”

“Not all of them, but you would be playing with fire if you thought otherwise.”

“Can you show us around?”

“No, I can’t. I have to return to my quarters.”

“Are they upstairs? Maybe we could follow you.”

“No, my quarters are in the carriage house in the back.” He pointed through a window. “There is an underground tunnel that runs from the basement, under the rose garden, and to my quarters.”

Oliver and Emma looked through the window. There wasn’t a rose garden or a carriage house in the backyard. When they turned back to the butler, he wasn’t there anymore. There was a pile of sand where he had been standing.

“Where did he go?”

“Maybe he went down to the basement.”

“Let’s go look.”

The basement was dark and musty. It had a smell they didn’t recognize. They didn’t know liquor had been made in the basement during Prohibition. A whiskey still was still in a hidden room of the basement, behind a sealed panel in the wall. They saw a trapdoor in the floor.

“Maybe he went down there,” Emma said.

When they pulled the trapdoor open, it went nowhere. There wasn’t a tunnel, or anything, just loose-packed dirt. It was a dead-end. Worms were slithering in the dirt.

“Oh, gross,” Emma said.

“I like glow worms the best,” Oliver said.

“I like gummy worms the best,” Emma said.

They went back upstairs. There was a large oil painting in the living room above the fireplace. The painting was of Hannes Tiedemann, his wife Louise, and their children, Dora and August. Every time Oliver looked at it out of the corner of his eye he thought they were moving their heads and looking at him. He stopped looking out of the corner of his eye. They stopped looking at him.

There were built-in bookcases on both sides of the fireplace. The shelves were packed with books. All the books were moldy except for one. The book looked new. It’s title was “The World Without Us.”

“Let’s go upstairs,” Oliver said.

The stairs were wide and the handrails were dark brown wood. They felt damp and sticky. There was a small round table on the landing halfway up. There was a recently lit cigar in an ash tray on the table. Smoke like a garden snake curled up to the ceiling.

“That smells terrible,” Emma said.

“It smells like old armpits,” Oliver said, stubbing the cigar out.

When they got to the top of the stairs a wall of fog materialized in front of them. It was a green and yellow fog. Emma took a step into it. She began to lose her way. Oliver pulled her back.

“I thought I was going to pass out,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

There were four bedrooms on the second floor. There was a collection of small colored glass bottles full of liquids on a side table in the first of the bedrooms. The bottles were labeled. One said, “This Will Make You Larger.” Another one said, “This Will Make You Smaller.”

“It’s like Alice in Wonderland,” Oliver said.

Only one bottle was made of clear glass. It said, “This Will Make You Disappear.”

“I could use that on some bullies I know,” Emma said. She reached for the bottle. Just as she was about to put it in her pocket it disappeared. A voice whispered in her ear. “That’s not for you.”

In another bedroom the outside shutters were loose. They banged against the window frame when the wind blew. When Oliver opened the window and reached for the shutters to secure them, they shut and locked themselves. As soon as he walked away they unlocked themselves and started flapping in the wind again.

“Things have got a mind of their own in this house,” he said.

The next bedroom had spiderwebs in every corner. There was fossilized cordwood laid in the fireplace grate. There was a bed and there was a sofa, too, big enough to sleep in. Rotting curtains rustled even though the windows were closed and the air in the room was fetid. There was a diary on the bedside table.

“Let’s take a look at this book,” Emma said. “Maybe it will tell us something about this house.”

When they opened the book, however, as they flipped the pages they crumbled into yellow fragments. A shred of a page whispered, “Whoever reads my journal, beware of the creature below.” The yellow fragments sprinkled themselves all over the floor. When Oliver and Emma turned to leave, the fragments gathered themselves and transformed into an arm that reached for their legs. The fingers were long as carrots. They ran out of the room.

When they opened the door of the last bedroom it was inky black inside, even though the curtains were pulled back and they could see through the window that it was sunny and bright outside.

“Let’s not go in this room,” Emma said.

“This house is creepy but it isn’t really any more creepy than that abandoned amusement park in Chippewa Lake dad stopped at last year,” Oliver said. “The one where he said they filmed the movie ‘Closed for the Season.’ The Ferris wheel, remember how it was all rusty, and the Fun House, some of the old walls were still there, painted in Day-Glo green, it was kind of sad.”

“It was closed forever,” Emma said.

“That’s a long time,” Oliver said.

They took the stairs to the top floor ballroom. It was put in by Hannes Tiedemann to cheer up his wife, Louise, after the tragedies the family suffered. He thought she might dance her sorrows away. The ballroom was large, stretching the length of the house. When it was added to the house so were turrets and gargoyles. It was what made the house look like a castle.

The ballroom was empty. They walked the length of it, their footsteps echoing behind them. The echo was behind time, always a few seconds behind their footsteps. When they turned around to go back the way they had come the echo was gone. There was a specter blocking their way. It was a skeleton wearing a black hooded cloak and carrying a scythe. It was the Grim Reaper.

“Well, well,” the Grim Reaper said. “What have we got here, Hansel and Gretel?”

Previous: Breaking Into Franklin Castle

Next: Busting Out of Franklin Castle

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street at http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A thriller in the Maritimes, out of the past, a double cross, and a fight to the finish.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CV9MRG55

Summer, 1989. A small town on Prince Edward Island. Mob money on the move gone missing. Muscle from Montreal. A constable working the back roads stands in the way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

Breaking Into Franklin Castle

August 1, 2025 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

The first thing Oliver and Emma’s father did when he pulled into the St. Ignatius High School parking lot on the near west side of Cleveland was park the car, get out, and take his children on a tour of the campus.

“It’s a lot different than when I was here,” he told them.

“When was that, dad?”

“The middle 1980s,” he said.

“That was another century,” Oliver said.

“That’s right.”

“That was another millennium,” Emma said. She was two years older than Oliver and knew more big words.

“That’s right, too, although both of you are making me feel old.”

“How is it different?” Oliver asked.

“It’s bigger,” their father said, looking around.

When St. Ignatius opened in 1886 as a school for Cleveland’s Catholic young men it was both a high school and a college. The college later became Jonn Carroll College and moved to the east side. St Ignatius stayed where it was in its Gothic edifice on W. 30^th St. and Carrol Ave. The grounds got bigger over the years, expanding to fifteen acres. The Saint Mary of the Assumption Chapel was built in 1998 and the O’Donnell Athletic Complex was unveiled in 2001. The Welsh Academy, a middle school for urban boys, was established in the former Foursquare Church building in 2019. By then the campus had grown to nineteen buildings and three athletic fields on twenty three acres.

“Are you giving a speech today?” Emma asked.

“They asked me to speak at Career Day, but it’s not a speech, exactly, more like a panel discussion with other graduates followed up by questions from the students.”

Their father was an electrical engineer and brought home the bacon so the home fires stayed lit.

“Dad, would it be alright if we went to see the Franklin Castle while you give your speech?” Emma asked.

Oliver and Emma were the Monster Hunters of Lake County. No matter how scary, they couldn’t resist anyplace full of spooks and monsters, especially one that was old and creepy and that happened to be nearby.

“It’s not far away, so it should be all right. Be careful crossing streets and be back here in two-and-a-half hours.”

They were a block away when they found a Lime e-scooter with time still ticking on its clock. They had a short argument about who was going to pilot the e-scooter, an argument Emma won by hopping on it and grasping the handlebars. Oliver wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and they sped off in the bike lane. They went down Fulton Rd., turned on Woodbine Ave., went round at a traffic circle getting onto W. 38^th St., and before they knew it they were at the Franklin Castle, which was on the north side of Franklin Blvd. They had gone about a mile.

“You’re not going to tell mom and dad we rode this scooter, are you?” Emma asked her brother.

“No way!” Oliver said.

They loved their parents more than anything, but didn’t love everything they said and did. They weren’t in love with crime and punishment, for sure. They thought it was unfair that they couldn’t discipline their parents, who made mistakes just like them, because of the size difference between them.

“It’s like Godzilla always says,” their friend Tommy One Shoe said. “Might makes right.”

Franklin Castle was a big stone house built in the early 1880s. It was built where a two-story wood house called Bachelor’s Hall had once stood before being torn down. Bachelor’s Hall was built by the Wolverton brothers. They fought in the Civil War with the Ohio Light Artillery. Only two of the four brothers survived the war. Only one came back to Cleveland. After he died and after Franklin Castle was built visitors reported seeing ghostly soldiers in faded uniforms in the backyard galloping on desperate horses.

The stone house was built by Hannes Tiedemann, a successful merchant and banker, for his family. His family was his mother, his wife Louise, and six children. His15-year-old daughter Emma died of diabetes. Then his mother Wiebeka died. In the space of no time he buried three more children who died of infectious diseases, two of them of measles. The last children, Dora and August, survived.

The diminished family lived in their new home on Franklin Blvd. until Louise died in 1895. Soon after the new century dawned Dora and August died. Their father retired to Steinberg, his sprawling summer house on Lake Erie in nearby Lakewood. He passed away in 1908, alone and worn out by tragedy. Franklin Castle became the home of the German Socialist Party. When nobody liked socialists anymore it became the German American League for Culture. Their singing club was very popular, as was the beer garden. Singing in the garden while waving a stein was always a good time. Everybody called it Eintracht Hall in those days.

After the Germans moved out in 1968 the Romano family moved in. The lady of the house was warned that “this domicile is evil and you shouldn’t have come. You should move out.” One winter day she sent her children to the top floor to play. When they came down they told their parents about finding a sad little girl in a ragged dress who asked for a cookie to cheer her up.

They searched the top floor but no child was found. When it happened again they locked the door and kept it locked. They started hearing organ music on weekends, even though there was no organ in the house. Their children woke up in the middle of the night to find their blankets being yanked off them by unseen hands. The family moved out in 1974 and the house was taken over by a man who began offering public tours of “Haunted Franklin Castle.”

“What’s so haunted about it?” Emma asked.

“Lights go on and off by themselves, mirrors suddenly fog up, voices can be heard in empty rooms, and doors fly off their hinge, for starters,” Oliver said.

“Let’s go inside and see,” Emma said.

“Does anybody live there?”

“When I asked dad, he said nobody lives there anymore.”

When they tried to get inside the house they discovered all the doors were locked. They knocked on the front door. They looked through windows. They knocked on the back door. Nobody answered.

They were scratching their heads outside the back door when Emma plucked two bobby pins out of her hair. The first pin was going to be a replacement for a key. She bent the rounded end until it was perpendicular to the two free ends. She stuck the rounded end into the key slot. It would act as a handle. She unbent and flattened the second pin, making a long straight pick. She bent one end slightly and slid the bent end into the top half of the keyhole, above the pin she had already inserted into the lock. Emma used her bobby pin to push the pins up, one at a time, until the cylinder was free to turn. She turned it with the first pin she had made into a handle. It was easy as pie. The door opened and they went inside.

“How did you learn to do that?” Oliver asked.

“It’s a secret.”

“No, tell me.”

“I’ll tell you when you’re 12-years-old like me.”

The back door suddenly slammed shut. The air got hot and gluey. It got dark as a tar pit. They heard heavy footsteps.

“Who has broken into my castle?” the voice of bad juju behind them said.

Next: Franklin Castle Walkabout

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A thriller in the Maritimes, out of the past, a double cross, and a fight to the finish.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CV9MRG55

Summer, 1989. A small town on Prince Edward Island. Mob money on the move gone missing. Muscle from Montreal. A constable working the back roads stands in the way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

Silent Cal Sounds Off

July 1, 2025 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

Emma met Calvin the day after she got back from a week at a piano camp in Oberlin. Her brother Oliver was still in Lithuania with their father, who had gone there on a working trip. Their father was an electrical engineer. Oliver was on his summer vacation with him, scaring up shadows in the Baltics. He was the Monster Hunter of Lake County.

His sister was still disgruntled about the piano camp. She didn’t even exactly like the piano anymore. The clarinet was her thing. She was getting good enough on it to make it sing and shout. She played it in the school band.

Emma was eating two hard-boiled eggs and licking teaspoons of hummus at a round table on the outside patio when their neighbor’s dog started barking. It was a Toto terrier kind of dog. The neighbor was an old Italian lady who always dressed in black. She tied Toto to a stake two or three times a day outside her sliding back door for twenty or thirty minutes. While he was outside he barked at anything that moved, including insects. He once barked a coyote out of the neighborhood. Her father resented the dog and the neighbor. He worked out of the house two days a week and said the dog drove him nuts.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he told his wife. He wouldn’t talk to the old Italian lady and had long ago given up trying to reason with the dog.

Emma put her second egg down when she saw a boy come out the back of the house and flop down on the grass next to the dog, who was barking at a bluejay. The bird was barking back at him. Neither understood what the other one was saying.

“Hi,” Emma said.

“Hi,” the boy said.

“Are you our new neighbor?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you the boy who started school with us just before summer started?”

“Yeah.”

“And are you the one who everybody calls Silent Cal?”

“Yeah.”

Calvin had moved in with his grandmother at the end of April. By mid-summer hardly anybody in the neighborhood had even spoken him. It was partly the dog’s fault and partly his own fault. The dog was too loud. HCalvinwas too quiet. The neighbors were disgruntled by the noisy dog. They didn’t notice Calvin, who was quiet as a mouse.

One day at lunch just before school let out for the summer, a girl sitting across from Calvin in the lunchroom said, “Everybody says you never say more than two words. I bet I can make you say more than two words.”

“Bet what?”

“I bet my chocolate chip cookie.”

“You lose,” Silent Cal said reaching for the cookie.

“How come you don’t talk much?” Emma asked.

“Because my dad said so.”

“He told you not to talk?”

“Yeah.”

“How come?”

“It was after my mom died,” Calvin said.

“Your mom died?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s terrible. How did it happen?”

“She was driving me to school when we lived in Brecksville. A car in front of us rode over some kind of pipe and it went flying. It hit our windshield and killed my mother.”

Emma didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine it happening to her mother. The only dead people she had ever seen were grandparents. They were never killed by pipes. Grandparents wore out and one morning didn’t wake up.

“My dad went back into the army and they shipped him away to where Arabs are fighting. When I asked him when he was coming back he told me to shut up. He said he didn’t want to hear a word from me ever again. Then he dropped me off here at my grandmother’s house.”

“Is he coming back?”

“I don’t think so. I think he hates me.”

“How could that be?”

“Whenever I tried to talk to him, even before mom died, he was always telling me what to do, even if I wasn’t talking about a problem, or he would start yelling at me for the bad choices he thought I was making. He was always talking down to me. I tried to tell him I wasn’t a kid anymore but he wouldn’t listen. When I asked him to listen, he looked like he wanted to hit me.”

Emma’s parents could be bossy and strict, but she knew they would never do that. They never had. She knew they never would.

“Did your mom listen?”

“She always listened. We had great talks. I miss her so much.”

“You can still talk to her if you want. She’s not here but she’s still here. My brother Oliver is always talking to ghosts and spirits. They talk back whenever they have something to say, although you can’t always understand what they’re saying since they don’t always speak English.”

“Oh,” Calvin said.

“My brother didn’t talk for a long time after he was born. When he wanted something he would point to it and make funny sounds. Finally, our mom pretended to not hear him when he was doing that. She ignored him until he started talking. Gosh, now we can’t shut him up!”

Calvin looked thoughtful.

“Are you going to live here from now on?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Well, if your dad isn’t here to tell you shut up, maybe you could start talking. That’s how to make friends. When you don’t talk it makes the other person feel bad. They feel like you don’t like them. They don’t know what you’re thinking, what’s going on. It makes it seem like you don’t care. How can I be your friend if you won’t talk to me, know what I mean”

“I think so, but what is there to talk about?”

“What flavor popsicle do you like?”

“Grape.”

“I like orange. What games do you like?”

“I like kickball.”

“ I like checkers. I always beat my uncle. He said he’s going to bring a chess board the next time he visits, but I told him I don’t know how to play chess.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, all the better, whatever that means.”

“I played checkers with my mom. She was better than me, but I won sometimes.”

“How old are you?” Emma asked.

“I’m 12.”

“Oh, that’s the same as me. When were you born?”

“In September.”

“What day?”

“September 1^st.”

Emma was flabbergasted. She was born on September 1^st the same as Calvin.

“You’re a blue moon baby, just like me.”

“That’s what my mom always said. She said I was a blue moon baby because there were two full moons that month on the first day and the last day of the month I was born.”

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“I call him Ziggy.”

“Do you want to take him for a walk. There’s a trail through the woods back there. We could take his leash off. He could run around. Maybe he wouldn’t bark so much if he could run around once in a while.”

“Maybe he’s trying to tell us something,” Calvin said.

“I know, but his barking makes my dad say bad words. Let’s go and get it out of his system.”

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A thriller in the Maritimes, out of the past, a double cross, and a fight to the finish.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CV9MRG55

Summer, 1989. A small town on Prince Edward Island. Mob money on the move gone missing. Two hired guns from Montreal. A constable working the back roads stands in the way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

Bird in the Hand

June 1, 2025 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

Oliver was watching a black-billed magpie eat worms, beetles, and caterpillars. It was a three course dinner. He had seen magpies forage for berries and grains in the fall before they went away somewhere. He didn’t know where they went during the winter, but he knew they always came back to the wild garden his father had planted in the backyard.

It was the last week of March. The month used to be a cold month in northern Ohio, but lately it had turned into a warm month. Everything was budding and going green sooner than ever. The magpie’s better half was building a nest in a tree next to the garden. The nest was cup-shaped and lined with grass and mud. Sticks were sticking out all over it. There were two entrances to it.

“Just in case,” the lady of the nest said, enlarging one of the entrances. She wasn’t a licensed carpenter, but she knew what she was doing. She was going to be laying six or seven eggs soon enough. When that happened, she would keep the clutch warm. Once the eggs hatched and came to life she would be more than busy keeping them in line and fed. In the meantime, she would take care of her incubating chores.

Magpies are one of the world’s most intelligent birds. Like people, and unlike almost everything else, they can recognize themselves in mirrors. They make and use tools and work in teams. They play games and can imitate speech. They are particularly well known for their squawking and singing, especially ‘Three Little Birds’ by Bob Marley and the Wailers.

The man of the nest, who was snacking on mayflies, looked at Oliver. “Is that maniac still living down the street?” the bird asked him.

“Yes,” Oliver said. “Dad said he probably will never move away.”

“We appreciate your father talking to him.”

“He’s a man of few words. I think he just told him to stay out of our yard.”

Their neighbor was a man by the name of Gilbert. Oliver and Emma, his sister and right-hand man, called him Sour Head. He was always complaining about something. He was married but hardly anybody ever saw his wife, except when she was mowing the lawn or washing the car. She did the grocery shopping and Home Depot shopping, too. They had children but nobody ever saw them. They lived in another state. Gilbert had been a businessman but was now retired. He watched FOX News day and night. “In this corner, still undefeated, is Gilbert with his long-held beliefs.” He had nutty opinions up the wazoo. He didn’t like magpies, among other things.

Magpies are black and white birds with long diamond-shaped tails. Their coloring has a glossy sheen to it. They are loud mouths. Somebody who talks obnoxiously is sometimes called a magpie. Gilbert had a chatterbox neighbor he called a magpie. “Idle chatter is for the birds” is what he said, never mind his own idle chatter. What got his goat more than anything was their thieving.

“They’re kleptomaniacs” is what he said. “There was that woman in Chardon who lost her engagement ring three or four years ago. A bird watcher found it in a magpie’s nest. Then there was the man in Fairport Harbor who was gardening, took off his watch so it wouldn’t get dirty, and then watched a magpie fly away with it. My wife keeps some colored crystals on the window ledge and they are always pecking on the glass trying to get them.”

“That doesn’t mean they are kleptomaniacs,” Oliver said.

“Then why is there some opera some Eyetalian wrote called the ‘The Thieving Magpie’ if they aren’t kleptomaniacs?” He believed seeing a magpie brought bad luck. “One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a funeral, four for birth, five for heaven, six for hell, seven for the devil, his own self,” is what he said, even though he didn’t know exactly what it meant.

“Italians are always writing operas about one thing or another,” Emma said. She played the piano and was in the school band. She played the clarinet in the marching band. She knew more about music than anybody in their neighborhood.

“You think you’re so smart,” Gilbert said. He didn’t like Emma because he knew full well she thought she was smarter than him, even though she was only twelve years old. He wasn’t far off the mark, the mark being she was smarter than him. The only thing Gilbert knew anything about was making money, by hook or by crook. He was a miser by another name. He suspected Emma didn’t care all that much about money. He didn’t like that. He resented it.

“If you’re so smart, how come you don’t know the magpie is the only bird who didn’t mourn for Jesus when he was crucified? Not only that, it was the only bird who didn’t go into the ark with Noah. Instead, it sat on top of the ark and cursed up a storm while the world was being drowned.”

Oliver and Emma looked at each other. Emma threw up her hands. “You are kind of weird, mister,” she said, brushing aside his scowl.

It wasn’t long before Gilbert got what he thought was a great idea. He knew the magpies were laying eggs and before long there would be a flock of them. Even though he had been warned to stay out of Oliver and Emma’s backyard, he decided he would sneak into it, steal the eggs, and throw them into the garbage for the racoons. That would show the magpies who was boss.

The next night, after everybody had gone to bed, he carried his ladder to their house, made sure no lights were on anywhere, and propped the ladder against the tree. He saw the nest. He pulled on a pair of antibacterial gloves. He knew their nest was full of germs, or worse. They weren’t even real Americans. They had snuck into the United States from Asia or some other foreign place. He started up the rungs. When he got to the nest he pulled a disposable bag out of his back pocket. He reached for the eggs but was surprised to see that they had hatched.

No matter, he thought, I’ll just stuff them birdies into my bag and drown them in the Grand River.

No sooner did he come up with his new plan of action than the lady of the nest began putting up a racket. She struck at him with her long beak. Gilbert tried to brush her aside. He didn’t see the man of the nest swooping down on him. The magpie wasn’t about to let Gilbert threaten his nestlings. He had survived many hardships, struggled to lay hands on some real estate, and been able to find a partner. He wasn’t about to lose it all to a bloodthirsty peddler.

The magpie swooped and jabbed at Gilbert. He wouldn’t give up. Gilbert waved his bag at him. He swooped again. After Gilbert was pecked several times, he gave up. He had always been all about easy money. He started down the ladder. He was fuming and sputtering curses.

One of the chicks leaned out from the nest. He was blind and pink. He was pink as a Barbie doll. His eyes would open and downy feathers appear in about a week. He farted and pooped. The poop went over the side and splatted on top of Gilbert’s bald pate. When he reached to wipe it off, the magpie swooped at him one more time. Gilbert waved him away with his other hand, the hand that had been holding on to the ladder. When he did, no hands were left holding on to the ladder. He fell off and landed on his butt, yelping when he bounced. Lights started going on in nearby houses. The Perry Police arrived and cited him for trespassing.

The next morning Oliver and Emma found the ladder still propped against their tree. Oliver went up it to check on the birds. He gave Emma the high sign. “Hey, let’s go find some wood and build a bird feeder,” he said. “They look hungry. And let’s get rid of this ladder in case Sour Head comes back.”

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Production

More Dead Than Alive

May 1, 2025 Edward Staskus Leave a comment

By Ed Staskus

The night that zombies invaded Canterbury Crossings everybody except Oliver and Emma locked their doors and telephoned the governor in Columbus pleading for the National Guard to be called out. Oliver and Emma climbed a ladder to the top of their roof instead of calling anybody. They pulled the ladder up after them so the zombies couldn’t reach them. They didn’t necessarily have to since they knew zombies didn’t know how to climb ladders, but they didn’t want the neighbors joining them. The pitch was severe. Not all of them had a good sense of balance. Many of them were hidebound. If too many joined them, the roof might even collapse.

Oliver and Emma straddled the gable roof and watched the zombies lumbering towards their house, which was the last house at the turnaround at the end of the street. They looked out at the field behind their house. A young man was taking selfies with some zombies, at least until they reached for and dragged him away. His red-rimmed sunglasses fell off his face. One of the zombies mindlessly stepped on them.

“Why was he wearing sunglasses?” Oliver asked. “It’s nighttime.” The only reason the night wasn’t dark as a tar pit was because there was a full moon.

“That’s Noah from the other end over by Naylor St.,” Emma said. “He has photophobia.”

“Is he scared of light?”

“No, his eyes are just very sensitive to it.”

“Should we go down and help him?”

“We don’t have to. Once they get to the woods the zombies will be getting more than they bargained for and Noah can run away as soon the fighting starts.”

“Oh, right, I see what you mean.”

Their friend the honey badger lived in the woods. He had many “No Trespassing” signs posted. Some people ignored the signs, to their regret. The honey badger was very tough. He had strong claws, a powerful bite, and a fearless attitude. He could fight all day if he had to. He was tireless. He was immune to just about everything, including snake and scorpion venom. It wasn’t long before the zombies who had dragged Noah away came stumbling and bumbling out of the woods, licking their wounds. Noah took a picture of them fleeing the wrath of the honey badger.

“There’s no sense in asking for it,” Emma said. “You always get what you ask for when you bell the cat.”

Oliver nodded, although he wasn’t paying attention. He was peering through his binoculars at more zombies entering the condominium complex from the approach off S. Ridge Rd. Their faces were the color of dried mud.

“Where are they coming from?” Emma asked.

“I am guessing they found a secret passage out of the land of the undead into the land of the living through Perry Cemetery,” Oliver said. The cemetery was a quarter mile away around a bend.

Zombies are reanimated corpses, the living dead, who are always looking for something to eat. Their favorite meal is people’s brains. There is no negotiating their menu choice. Their clothes are moldy and their flesh is rotten. Nobody ever cuddles up to them. They are slow on their feet, shuffling rather than walking. They are slow-going as infants crawling on all fours. Somebody would have to be standing still, like Noah had been, for a zombie to be able to catch them.

The problem wasn’t outwalking them. The problem was that zombies never stopped. They didn’t need to rest or sleep. They were like the Energizer Bunny. They didn’t like daylight, though. It made them even slower than they already were. They were careful of direct sunlight. Too much of it would make them burst into flames.

When the National Guard arrived in their tactical vehicles and deployed, they started filling the zombies full of bullets until they didn’t have any bullets left. The bullets penetrated the zombies but had no effect. The soldiers would have been better off bringing chainsaws. When the zombies started marching towards them the soldiers retreated.

“What can we do to help?” Emma asked.

“Didn’t mom plant pennyroyal in the backyard last year?”

“What’s that”

“She calls it pudding grass.”

“Oh yeah, the stuff with purple flowers that smell like spearmint. Mom likes the smell and she likes that none of the animals around here eat it, not even the honey badger. She said It keeps snakes away from the house.”

“It’s not just snakes,” Oliver said. “Fleas and zombies both hate the smell of pennyroyal.”

“Are we going to chase them away with the purple flowers?”

“Not exactly,” Oliver said. “You go get your clarinet and I’ll crush lots of the flowers into a pile.”

Emma played the musical instrument in the school band. Her favorite clarinet player of all time was Benny “The King of Swing” Goodman. Her favorite clarinet song was George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” although in her opinion it could have used even more clarinet.

Dawn was starting to happen. They climbed down from the roof when the zombies weren’t looking. Emma ran into the house and got her clarinet. Oliver ran into the garage, found a pair of gardening gloves, and ran into the backyard. He wore the gloves because he knew the oil of the pennyroyal flowers was poisonous. He tore purple flowers off their stems and crushed them with his hands until he had a soccer ball-sized pile of them.

“Do you know how to play the song ‘Sure Shot’ from the movie ‘Shrek’”?

“Of course.”

“That’s great,” Oliver said. “Here’s the plan. You be the Pied Piper and I’ll bring up the rear with the pennyroyal. We’ll be like sheepdogs and herd them back to Perry Cemetery.”

It was easier than they thought it would be. The zombies were enchanted by the clarinet and repelled by the pennyroyal. They followed Emma while Oliver waved handfuls of pennyroyal at stragglers. They herded the zombies down S. Ridge Rd. to the Perry Cemetery on Lane Rd. The boneyard, like most of the town of Perry, was shaded by many trees.

“Ollie, I have a better idea,” Emma said once they got to the cemetery.

“What’s that?”

“Let’s take them across the street to that big open field off River Rd.”

“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Oliver asked.

“Hurry up,” Emma said. “The sun will be coming up any minute.”

They highballed the zombies down River Rd. to the big open field. When they got there they herded the living dead into a tight circle. They looked tired from their forced march. A pack of dogs passing by helped Oliver and Emma make the zombies behave.

The sun came up just as the zombies were getting restless. By that time Tommy One Shoe had joined Oliver and Emma. They split the pennyroyal up among themselves and kept the ghouls corralled. When the zombie apocalypse happened it happened fast. First, the greasy hair of one of them burst into flames. Then the mossy shoulders of more of them burst into flames. Before long all of them were on fire and melting. They melted down to the ground, the ground opened up, and they were swallowed up by a hole that immediately filled itself back up.

“Thanks for your help,” Oliver told Tommy.

“That’s what friends are for,” Tommy said.

When they got home they found their father making breakfast and their mother staring at what was left of her pennyroyal. They had slept through the zombie invasion. Their mother gave them a long look.

“What happened to all my pudding grass?”

“It’s a long story,” Emma said.

“It better be a good story,” the head of the household said, tapping her foot.

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A stem-winder in the Maritimes.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVDP8B58

Summer, 1989. A small town on Prince Edward Island. Mob money on the move gone missing. Two hired guns from Montreal. A rookie RCMP constable stands in the way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication