Bill Tells A Story: In-Progress Tales That Never Find a Home

As someone who writes both fiction and nonfiction every day, I often discover snippets of writing in notebooks or in long-forgotten files on my hard drive. Generally, I know what they are. At least, I have some idea of why I wrote them. If they are nonfiction, I sometimes revise them for blog posts. The fiction snippets are more difficult to use. I always tell myself that I will finish the story or find a place to use it in the ever-expanding novel that I secretly contend is narratively daring.

This snippet is amusing, if nothing else, so I am sharing it. Perhaps, I want to remind myself at some future date that I will eventually finish each of these brief pieces. Another thing, why did I think I could use goosebump as a verb? For this story, I wonder what was coming next: a scary ghost story, a humorous tale, a novel about Bill and his madcap crew of camp rangers, or the secret life of William Jefferson Clinton. One thing I do know is that I am now hungry for s'mores.

Take it away, Bill.

"Close your eyes and imagine this. A real vampire hiding in the bushes. Willing and ready to suck your blood at any given moment. Stalking you like an animal. As soon as you think you're safe he lunges. You can't escape. You don't even have a moment to react. You're his rightfully like a mouse a cat toys with. He can eat you, kill you, or make you his own. Either way, you look at it, you're pretty much screwed." Bill told us this with not a hint of reservation as we sat around the campfire eating our s'mores. With each gooey bite, we were more enthralled in the story, more likely to goosebump, more likely to run at the slightest noise in the forest, the slightest twinge of the wind, the slightest howl of a coyote."