Hello, Writers and Dear Readers.

Congrats to our CotM winner for January! Ferryman brought home the bacon with the post titled, 'Kept Secrets.' In the video on our YouTube channel, we feature Ferryman, give a nod to the honorable mention, and go into our new Challenge of the Month.

We'll tag the authors in the comments. And here's the channel link, and our new challenge link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5tFQhs8V-8

https://theprose.com/challenge/13700

And...

As always...

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

I've spent the morning revising. It's common advice not to edit a novel at all until it's done, but I cannot do that. Maybe others can, but anything fresh that I write is half-formed, or more likely quarter-formed. An unedited piece is a nothing.

I'll post the excerpt I edited today at the end here to illustrate what I mean, but it's revision that brings shape to a thing. Churning out words is a slow and awkward business for me. I have to be able to step back and look critically at the muddle I've created. I've got to see where it points, and assess which bits have real beauty, which are irredeemable, and which bits I forgot to create at all.

I remember, years ago before I learned how to write, rereading a chapter that had felt electric as I typed the night before. In the light of day, it was misshapen. I felt disgust; I felt I failed.

My great breakthrough as a writer came when I learned to trust myself, not to compose flawless words, but to fix broken ones. I know full well that my prose will be misshapen, and I know I can make it better. I can edit, edit again, edit again, and edit again, and one phrase at a time, I can give my prose shape and strength. Precision.

I spent my morning on 350 words, the start of my current project's sixth chapter. I can't give useful context in any reasonable space, but my protagonist is in a tavern eating stew that an important man bought for him; following the excerpt, he'll meet the man for a drink in the tap room. Here's what I started the morning with:

Having eaten nothing since dawn but some bread and dried venison, he appreciated the stew. It was warm and exceeded the standards of his father’s cooking.

The four tables, simple but sturdy, had four chairs and one candle apiece. Each wick and the hearth burned. More light came from the chandeliers, dangling from the rafters by iron hooks. Their metal arms held long tapers in front of a brightly polished shield, which reflected the light in all directions. Accustomed to eating in their cabin by the light of a single candle they’d dipped themselves, Elnathan appreciated his surroundings, much more than when he’d come with his father. The chair was by no means his grandfather’s Windsor, but it was well-made and comfortable. A bright blue-green mantle surmounted the hearth, with two candlesticks and a basket resting on it. Above, Elnathan saw a printed portrait, maybe a foot and a half in height, of a somewhat older gentleman wearing a high collar, a cravat, and a respectable wig. From his table, Elnathan could not quite read the script beneath the image. He sat near the door to the foyer and heard a constant murmur from the tap room beyond, punctuated with the occasional laugh or exclamation. Charles Williamson sat within, and he expected Elnathan Holm.

When she served the stew, Metcalfe’s wife had told him that the Colonel had taken care of the meal. Considered practically, it was a small gesture, a pence marked to Williamson’s account rather than Farnsworth’s. Yet the chief man in a growing settlement had thought to pay for Elnathan’s meal.

That morning, he had expected to ride a pace behind his father, reach Bath and sell two calves, without incident. He wondered, again, what his father would say, or at least think.

Samuel Holm would have gone to bed. He would have risen early in the morning, purchased the nails and sugar, and returned to his farm as quickly as he was able. He would have exchanged fewer than a dozen words with anyone. He would absolutely not enter a tap room.

I reread that, and I did not like it one bit. There's no forward movement. It starts with stew, then a paragraph later flashes back to explain what happened when the stew arrived. There's a series of descriptions without any sort of flow or unity. It's disjointed. The excerpt speaks to the contrast between Elnathan's present circumstances and his life at home, and between his planned actions and his reserved father, but it's not all there yet.

Here's what a morning of editing yielded:

“The Colonel has taken care of your meal,” Metcalf’s wife said, setting the wooden bowl on his table, “so don’t you trouble about asking for anything you want.”

“I thank thee,” Elnathan responded, and with a matronly smile, she returned to her kitchen. The door she closed was green: though the evening had advanced considerably, the door’s color remained bright across the dining room. Lit candles sat on each of the four simple yet sturdy tables. More illumination radiated from the chandeliers, dangling from the rafters by iron hooks. Their metal arms held long tapers in front of brightly polished shields, which reflected the light in all directions. In his father’s cabin, Elnathan ate meals by the dim glow of a single candle he had dipped himself. Here, sitting in a proper chair and not on a stool, he could see every corner of the room with clarity. Surmounting the burning hearth, a mantle painted to match the door held two more lit candlesticks and a wicker basket. Above, Elnathan saw a printed portrait of maybe a foot and a half in height, depicting a somewhat older man wearing a high collar, a cravat, and a gentleman’s wig. Elnathan could not quite read the script beneath the image from his table. He sat near the door to the foyer and heard a constant murmur from the tap room beyond, punctuated by occasional laughs or exclamations. He tried, unsuccessfully, to discern the voice of Charles Williamson.

Elnathan dipped his spoon into the stew, and he immediately felt the hunger he had denied for many hours. Since dawn, he had eaten nothing but some bread and dried venison in the bateau.

The afternoon in the boat and the stew in his gullet belonged, improbably, to the same day. Elnathan had steered the bateau with his pole as his father bid him, watching the waters he knew so well. They landed on the southern shore with the calves his father wished to sell, and all of that belonged to the time before, to the boy under his father’s eye. Everything since belonged to a man, self-determining and self-reliant, yet one day and one person encompassed all of it. It all belonged to Elnathan Holm.

The stew was delicious and hot. The chief man of a growing settlement had bought it for Elnathan. He knew it was a small gesture, a pence marked to Williamson’s account rather than Farnsworth’s. Still, satisfaction seasoned the broth, and he devoured a second helping when the mistress of the inn refilled his bowl.

Samuel Holm would finish his meal and go to bed. He would rise early in the morning, purchase the nails and sugar, and return to his farm as quickly as he was able. He would exchange fewer than a dozen words with anyone. He would absolutely not enter a tap room.

It's better. It's not done. I don't even know how many more times I'll edit this before I proclaim the novel finished many months from now. But it's closer, and I know I can bring it the rest of the way. I trust myself.

The nocturnal seizures started. At first I thought it was just a spicy new level to sleep paralysis but no such luck. The doctor said it’s not epilepsy and that nothing showed on the scan. No surprise there, my monsters have never been kind enough to stay in my head. The ringing in my ears is getting louder by the day. I mean I get it, the signs have been appearing for quite some time now; flies in winter, the smell of decaying flesh, waking up at 3am on the dot for over a week, my dog staring just past me and growling. He’s here. Payment is due. I don’t know what I expected, I just wanted to be different damnitt. I wanted to be the one people fawned over, I wanted to be the one people talked about, I wanted to be…wanted. None of it came true and now he’s here to collect. It’s not like I even wanted that much, I didn’t ask for money, I didn’t ask for fame, I just wanted to be thinner, I wanted to be more outgoing, I wanted to be the person I feel like when I’m on Adderall. There’s not exactly a return policy on demonic rituals though, believe me, I’ve asked. The shittiest part is my life really isn’t that bad. I have friends and family, I have a decent job, an okay house and now it’s all going to go away because it wasn’t enough for me. I’m so fucking stupid. I should’ve wished to be smarter maybe then I could figure a way out of this but no, I wanted to be skinny cause that’s what really matters when you’re being chased down by a demon, is that you look good running. I’m so worthless, how am I going to explain this to my family? Now they have to grieve me because I’m a selfish, dumb piece of shit.

Cassy finished up her blog entry and called it a night. She reached across her cluttered desk and turned the lamp off. As she stood she saw her dog laying just outside her bedroom door staring in, hackles raised.

“Come on Molly.” Cassy said, patting her knee, trying to coax her into the room but Molly only growled in response. The dog hadn’t come near her in two days. “Okay girl, good night.” Cassy said dejectedly as she crawled into bed. She scrolled through social media until her eyelids fell heavy and her mind finally drifted off to sleep.

The warmth of the sun was what woke Cassy. As she stretched she realized she has slept through the night. She stood out of bed and felt…taller. As she went into the kitchen to get Molly her food she realized the ringing in her ears was gone as well.

“Here Molly.” She called as she poured dog food into the bowl. She walked away, waiting to hear Molly’s footsteps on the tiled kitchen floor. As she passed by the mirror in her living room she had to do a double take. Her usual flat hair was shiny and bouncy, there were no dark circles under her eyes and she was taller, she could swear she was taller.

“Molly, breakfast!” She called out, still staring at herself. But no footsteps came. “Molly!” Still nothing. Cassy went through the house but the dog was nowhere to be found. She went back into her bedroom, looked under the bed, nothing. Grabbing her phone off the nightstand it stared vibrating in her hand. She had 47 new notifications. Panic was starting to rise up her spine as she dialed her mom.

“Hi honey!” Came her mom’s sing-song voice.

“Mom, I’m so glad you answered, I can’t find my dog, she was here last night and she’s not in the house, I can’t find her anywhere.”

“What dog sweetheart? It sounds like you just had a weird dream, is everything okay Molly?”

“Molly?” She asked, sounding confused.

“Yes, Molly, sweetheart, is everything alright? I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”

“Everything’s fine Mom.” Cassy finally stammered out. “It, it must have just been a weird dream. I’ll call you later, bye.” Shaken, Cassy hung up the phone. Why was her mom calling her by her dog’s name?

Dazed she ran back downstairs to check outside, thinking maybe Molly had gotten out somehow. That’s when she saw it; Molly’s collar sitting on the kitchen table with a note underneath.

She moved the collar and grabbed the note that consisted of two sentences: The debt has been paid. Enjoy your new life.

“No, no, no. This can’t be right.” Holding the collar in her hand she realized the name tag now said ‘Cassy’ with her phone number beneath. She looked outside and could see a pile of dirt. “No, please no.” She stuttered as she opened the sliding glass door and stepped outside. As she approached the grave she saw there was a headstone which read: Here lies Cassy, An ungrateful dumb bitch. “No!” She screamed and began digging through the dirt with her bare hands. Slowly a face emerged, her face, her dead face covered in dirt. “What the fuck is going on?” She was shaking as she stood and walked backwards into the house. The freshly cleaned and organized house. Looking down she realized Molly’s bowl was gone, she opened the cupboard where she kept the dog food, it was empty. The collar and note were gone from the counter. She heard her phone buzzing in her pocket and pulled it out. 51 new notifications. She looked at her hands, her manicured, dirt-free hands, lifting her head she already knew that the grave would be gone.

Slowly she walked to the living room mirror and stood in front of it, staring.

“Hi, I’m Molly.” She said, tears streaming down her face.

Two men sit in the crowded living room of a single-wide trailer. The front door stands open, kept ajar by a broken cinder block. The small screened porch keeps buzzing mosquitoes and irritating gnats at bay, and an early evening breeze wafts in. Night is quickly falling, and cigarette smoke drifts up to catch it. The smoker perches on a sturdy wooden kitchen chair turned backwards. He leans his elbows on the back, contemplating his companion.

The owner of the mobile home is handcuffed, bleeding from several cuts on his face and a split in his lip. His left eye is one large, swollen bruise. His breathing comes in ragged gasps, and there are tiny, bursting air bubbles in one corner of his mouth. He's pretty sure there are broken ribs in the mix.

The visitor stares at the man on the couch, and he quietly smokes his menthol.

"I fuckin hate Virginia Slims, did you know that?"

The man on the couch answers by spitting blood on the thick, green carpet that was new before Sajak ever spun the wheel. The smoking man's eyes dart down, observing the long matted fibers that remind him of a Grinch costume. "Nice place you got here, slick."

"I think I need an ambulance, man." His teeth are pink.

"Probably. But I'm feeling like we need to have a chat."

"Lawyer. Doctor. Doctor, then lawyer."

"Yeah? You workin' through the list of things your mama wanted you to be when you grew up?"

"Go to hell."

"Oh, buddy," He takes a long drag, and he speaks as he exhales warm smoke. "Let's talk about hell for a minute. You don't know it. It's real. Well. It's metaphysical, and it's physical, but only when you're, y'know, incorporeal, so, what is reality, right?"

His audience stares, out of witty retorts and laboring to breathe.

"So the hell that goes with you. Let's examine that. That's the culmination of your experiences, your trauma, as the cool kids say. My hell is way, way behind us, so to speak. Chronologically, anyway. You familiar with a little something called the la Drang valley?"

The man on the couch breathes, sighs, doesn't respond.

"Yeah. So, the thing is, I'm a lot older than you'd believe. Bet you have a hard time with the fact that a man in his seventies whipped your ass, right?"

This time the uncomfortable shifting isn't because of bruises or broken bones.

"Yeah. I get it. Jesus, you stink. Hang on." The detective fishes another menthol from his pocket and lights it with the clink of a Zippo. "My fuckin' partner thought it was cute to grab me these things when I sent him on a run this morning. Joke's on him, though. I'll smoke anything menthol." He puffs, stares, and rejoins his story. "La Drang. It's in Vietnam, shitheels. Damned thing of it is it's a beautiful country. Great food. Not such a good vacation spot for thousands of 18 year old American boys back when all we heard from our dads were stories of Patton or Rommel or Korea. When I showed up in 'Nam, I was a five-foot-two kid from Appalachia, barely 120 pounds. Hell, I basically looked like an ARVN, but paler."

He breathed in more tobacco and continued.

"Those were the good guys. Well. On paper. At least they only shot at us when we weren't looking, I guess. Mostly. Before they managed to just run the fuck away or skip a fight altogether. Anyway. When I finally came home, I'd hit my growth spurt, you could say. Six-three, 210, built like a goddamned running back, long and lean. Crazy, right?" Folded over on the back of the chair, it's hard to see that this description still largely fits the detective. He's grayer, a little heavier, and wisdom lines his face, but he is often mistaken for a man in his late forties or early fifties.

The man on the couch grunts in what almost sounds like agreement.

"Yeah. The thing is, my family, that little town I'm from? We're different up in those mountains, slick. Puberty, I guess, hits us harder than other folks."

"What the fuck are you goin' on about, old man?" But it comes out as "Whafah are you goggabbou, olemah?"

"Oh, shit. You're sounding worse." He smiles a wolf's grin and smokes like a fiend.

"Okay, okay, I'll get back to it. So, I'm this scared little kid when we go into the jungle, but when I come crawling out of that shit a week later, the only way they recognize me and believe I'm who I say I am is by my dog tags." Inhale. Smokey exhale. Grin. "That's funny, in retrospect." He shakes his head, chuckling, smoking. He uses the nearly spent cigarette to light another. It's a chain of stinking, burning vice that keeps him talking and his hands busy. "I went in with a fireteam, a squad, a platoon. I came out alone. Naked. Barefoot, covered in dried blood and other things people are made of, and none of it was mine. War is hell, slick, and hell is here with us right now in this trailer. My hell ain't your hell, but I'm sure as hell your hell."

"Yeah?"

"You got no clue yet."

"Gonna beat me some more?"

"I only beat you as much as I needed to. Ain't touched you since you got cuffed."

The guy on the couch grunts again, maybe in pain, maybe in agreement.

"What you don't get is I changed in that jungle."

"Yeah, boss, I got that."

"Oh! He speaks again. Does he roll over and fetch?"

The prisoner spits blood on the floor once more. Talking broke loose some scabs.

"I wanna thank you for being my therapist today. And thanks for the workout. For what it's worth, you were never going to win, so don't feel so bad."

"Take the cuffs off, let's go round two." Taggacuffoff lezzroundoo

The old man shakes his head. "Nah, you don't get it. See, I went into the bush a little kid drafted from North Georgia. I came out of the bush a grown monster. Overnight. In a day. Tuesday, I was a Yorkie. Wednesday, I was a fucking Rottweiler. But Tuesday night? When Charlie came to camp and he tried to kill me? Slick. I was somethin' else."

"Cool war story, bro."

"You don't fucking get it, and that's why we can have this little chat. I can't exactly tell this story to anybody else. So I picked you. You're a shitty little man in a shitty little trailer in a shitty little part of the world nobody will ever notice you're not in anymore, and I know what you really are. Monsters know our own, but some are much scarier than others."

"How's that?"

"Oh, at minimum? I know why your sister doesn't invite you to her house.

Ever. She loves her kids."

The bubbly, wheezy breathing from the man on the couch stops for a beat.

"Yeah. Uh-oh, cats outta the bag, Chester. But don't worry, your secret is safe with me, just like I know my secret is safe with you."

"Ah shit man. Shit. Shit man, take me in, skip the lawyer I'll sign whatever you want. Shit man, what're you doin?"

The detective has finished his last cigarette that he'll smoke in this trailer. He stands, flicks the butt at the man on the couch, and slowly steps over, squats down in front of the prisoner. Leaning in, his voice becomes a whisper. "To this day I'm not sure who killed those men who were with me when I went into the jungle. Hell, I reckon the old me died, too. All I know for sure is that everyone around me ended up dead. I can confess that I was disappointed when we left in '75. Find something you love and you'll never work a day in your life, right?"

The prisoner's one good eye widens in horror as the detective's eyes glow amber and seem to flash. The change only takes a scattering of heartbeats, but where there was the smoker's-tooth grin of an old man there is now a mouthful of yellowed wolf's teeth, complete with snarling snout. Hands that end in razor-sharp claws reach, grasp, and tear as a gurgling scream is cut short.

No one is nearby to hear or care, anyway.