“The Village of the Sleeping Dead”
speculative fiction
published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 426
February 20, 2025
“There once was.
There once wasn’t.
In the old-oldtimes, when the camels were towncriers and fleas were barbers, when I rocked my mother’s cradle gentle-gentle, here story begins.”
Photo by Steven Cordes on Unsplash
“‘Ain’t Montana preedy?’ Cowboy said, sweeping his arms across the orange-pink sunset. We’d met him in a bar late afternoon. The girls called him Cowboy because of his hat and swagger.”
“Went up on flames. Eighteen thousand (eighteen thousand!) cows inside one dwelling. Dead in hours. (Cows aren’t fire resistant. Flames, though, were worth witnessing. Remember wildfires that turned skies beautiful crimson like hemoglobinrich blood?) ”
Michigan Carbon Works, DetroiT, c. 1892 - Burton Historical Collection, DPL“The Village of the Sleeping Dead”
semifinalist in The Short(er) Fiction Prize 2023 (American Short Fiction)
finalist in Flash Fiction Contest 2023 (Apple in the Dark)
“Pests”
shortlisted in 2023 Force Majeure Flash Contest (Storm Cellar)
“One Hundred and Twenty Years of Remembrance”
finalist in 2023 Robert Day Award for Fiction (New Letters)
finalist in the 56th New Millennium Writing Awards (New Millennium Writings)
“The Jaguar Killer”
finalist in 2023 Montana Prize for Fiction (Whitefish Review)