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    Wisp
    Wisp
    Wisp
    Ebook48 pages40 minutes

    Wisp

    By Cher Smith

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In this long story, five intertwined tales each reveal an aspect of humanity under a wisp of smoke curling from the smokestack of the Henry and Green Mortuary and Crematorium. Birth, family, sex, religion, and career all play out in separate stories against the backdrop of the one thing they all have in common: death.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDead Key Publishing
    Release dateFeb 12, 2014
    ISBN9781311983626
    Wisp
    Author

    Cher Smith

    Cher Smith began her writing career when she was eight years old, folding over notebook paper to look like a book. While her novel "Lazy Bones" was never finished, she never lost the love of creating characters and placing them in awkward, mysterious, dangerous or romantic situations, sometimes all at once. She has a master's degree in philosophy of religion and taught philosophy and English for a few years. She has been in marketing and publishing for most of her adult career and designs and maintains websites in her spare time. Her first published novel, The Falcon and the Serpent (1990), fell in the fantasy genre, but her writing career has grown considerably beyond that single genre into more contemporary and literary works, including Justified Means, a quirky comedy-drama that follows a pastor’s wife along a Robin Hood-like adventure. She has published numerous articles, including three entries for The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (the television show Home Improvement, the Coors mystique, and Playgirl magazine), movie reviews for Infuze Magazine and several feature stories for Colorado Country Life magazine. She also co-authored a nonfiction book about the changing demographics in America. Cher Smith is the founder, editor and chief instigator at Dead Key Publishing. It is her desire to bring novels -- hers and others -- to readers who love books.

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      Book preview

      Wisp - Cher Smith

      Wisp

      Cher Smith

      Published by Dead Key Publishing at Smashwords

      Copyright 2014 by Cher Smith

      License Note

      Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

      Table of Contents

      About This Short Story

      Prologue

      Grace

      Pearl

      Frank

      Wash

      Luz

      About Cher Smith

      Connect with Cher Smith

      About This Short Story

      Five short stories intertwine to highlight one aspect of life: birth, family, sex, religion, and career. All of them share one thing in common, as do we all: death.

      Caution: Some readers may find the third short story, Frank, disturbing. While it is not pornographic, the sexual theme is deviant and disturbing.

      On the day Mr. Henry fired Frank Lester, two bodies awaited cremation at the Henry and Green Mortuary and Crematorium: a baby girl and an old woman. They didn’t have anything to do with Frank, alive or dead. At least not before he shoved their coffins into the furnace as his last act. That the act was petty at best, criminal at worst, didn’t cross his mind. Only the need for revenge. The aptness of the phrase revenge is a dish best served cold struck him as humorous given the body temperature of said bodies, and he snorted on his way out the door.

      He didn’t wonder about the baby girl and the old woman, their fated demise at opposite ends of the spectrum. Their lives, the lives of the baby girl and the old woman, were meaningless now except as they intertwined in the greasy smoke curling from the obscene smokestack.

      Grace

      Hee hee hee hoo. Hee hee hee hoo. Concentrate on the focal point. Breathe through the contraction.

      God had sucked the sunlight out of the sky the day Dr. Iverson had told Laurie and Scott Webber that something was wrong with the pregnancy. Everything turned gray and fuzzy around the edges, even Dr. Iverson’s compassionate face.

      Laurie thought about his face now as it peered up at her from between her legs, the white sheet between them acting as a decorous — although fictional — shield. The wrinkles around the guileless blue eyes suggested trust while the wild white hair made him seem bemused. In fact, his entire appearance inspired faith and confidence from the reddish freckles scattered liberally and boyishly across his face and hands to his rumpled doctor’s greens. Even on that dark day, Laurie had put her trust in him. She didn’t just believe him, she believed in him, in the same way that Scott believed in God. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in God, she did with all her heart, but Dr. Iverson had been present in a way that God wasn’t. When she cried in his office, he held her hand. It was as simple, and maybe as complicated, as that.

      He pulled the sheet back down and sighed. You’re about halfway there, about five centimeters. It’s not too late to change your mind, you know.

      Scott brushed damp hair away from her forehead. It’s up to you, honey.

      She shook her

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