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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 13h

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#AScareADay Aiken "The Vampire"
Night yields to the rising sun, completing a daily cycle. And the grisly ploughing of the field speaks to an agricultural cycle of a macabre nature.

Perhaps the vampire will return. Again.

But also perhaps, on this October night, my imagination is bestirring me.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 13h

#AScareADay Aiken "The Vampire"
What chaos and temptation might a vampire wreak on conventional order and quotidian rhythms?
The story's structure well conveys the vampiric disruptions. Who is doing what under the creature's sway? The living? The dead? Something else?

But some patterns persist.
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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 1d

#AScareADay Dunsany "Charon"
A ceaseless task lasting an eternity? It reminds me of Sisyphus' punishment.
Yet Charon's task is godly service. And in the story it has an unexpected expiration date.
Sisyphus should be so lucky, for rock apparently erodes more slowly than an unfolding extinction event.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 1d

#AScareADay Dunsany "Charon"
Is Charon smiling b/c his benumbing task of ferrying is now over?
Is he weeping b/c the reason for his eons-long task is now moot?
Whatever the answer, Charon experiences unexpected emotions--perhaps only now possible in a realm where joy and sadness had no place before.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

I had not considered romantic cannibalism.
Hmmm... We devour the ones we love - sucking out their vital juices until nothing but a husk remains, ensnared within the fatal embrace of love.
I guess, at that point, it would be too late to leave the relationship.
Thanks. It's food for thought. [Yikes!]

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

#AScareADay Lindsay "Spider & Ghost of the Fly"
In poems spiders eat flies who write about it.
With human romances one figuratively can ensnare & devour another.
The poem seems metaphorical. It presumes the devourer to have a conscience able to be haunted. Sometimes this presumption is realistic.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 2d

I appreciate your work here, helping me to learn about topics I might never have been exposed to.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

Such a horrible thing to happen! I hope that Bluesky is a more welcoming and understanding place for your work.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

10/10 #AScareADay: Wynne "The Little Room"
[Williams' Note: The preceding is all of the document that I could locate. Maybe I will try searching later. I enjoyed Wynne's story quite a lot. It sparked my own creative processes.]
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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

9/10 #AScareADay Wynne "Little Room"
[Barclay] After much reflection, the research group concludes that the Wynne Report offers no evidence of the supernatural. It is a work of fiction. Imaginative, yes, but fictional to be sure. Reality, colleagues, does not work like that.
Audience: Here, here!

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

8/10 #AScareADay Wynne "Little Room"
[Barclay] In the Wynne report, only some of the subjects observing the phenomenon of the small room retain a memory of said room, even when subsequent visits to the house do not find the room. The testimonies of the other witnesses are, on the whole, unreliable.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

7/10 #AScareADay Wynne "Little Room"
[Barclay] In general, as we all recognize, scientific knowledge of the natural world is based on patterns. And the patterns of phenomena implicate the permanence of those objects observed--a permanence that multiple observers can access and indeed recollect.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

6/10 #AScareADay Wynne "Little Room"
[Elton] Dr. Barclay, also on the team, will now discuss the scientific dimensions of the Wynne Report and relay the conclusions of the research team. Doctor.
[Applause]
Barclay: Thank you. Good evening, dear friends of science and fellow pursuers of truth.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

5/10 #AScareADay Wynne "Little Room"
[Elton] As reported, the house had burned down. Strangely, the Register of Deeds had no record of that building in the county. Strangely still, we returned later, and the same clerk showed us a building permit for that very structure. Maybe it had been misfiled.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

4/10 #AScareADay Wynne "Little Room"
Elton: Thank you, Doctor. Good evening. My team & I had pleasant experiences overall in America, although we were on our own for tea. [Laughter] Diligence was our watchword. Our interviews with the principals discussed in the Wynne Report revealed nothing new.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

3/10 #AScareADay: Wynne, "Little Room"
Clarke: To put this matter to rest, it was decided to send Prof. Elton and a team to America to investigate the account offered by the Wynne Report. The good professor and team returned just last week and wish to present their findings tonight.
[Applause]

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

2/10 #AScareADay Wynne "Little Room"
Clarke: It has come to the attention of this august body that some claim that the Wynne Report provides evidence of supernatural forces at work. Indeed, how can a room, small or not, appear and disappear inside a solid, wooden structure?
Audience: here, here!

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

1/10 #AScareADay: Wynne, "The Little Room"
[Williams' Note: When Googling info on Wynne, I discovered what seems to be the minutes of a meeting of an unnamed British organization of scientists. Yet when I returned to the URL, a "Page Not Found" message greeted me. Weird. That document follows.]

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 3d

One of the Eldritch Cats, it seems.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

2/2 Dawson "An Itinerant Room"

Is the story psychological? The individual members of the group galvanizing Felipa are unable to escape their conscience wherever they go.

Maybe the story is parapsychological? Places can absorb the emotions of the people therein and inflict them on others.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 4d

#AScareADay
Emma Dawson, "An Itinerant Room"
A room, imbued with vengeful emotions, apparently doesn't remain in the same location.
This the narrator/protagonist discovers as he & colleagues try to escape, unsuccessfully, from Felipa, who was resurrected by them from the dead, but not loving it.
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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 5d

#AScareADay
Lionel Johnson, "The Dark Angel"
Moral conflicts torment humans who must struggle ceaselessly against earthly desires to avoid eternal damnation.
Maybe Johnson had in mind Bosch's hellscapes (as I did) where a comprehensive range of human pleasures are mercilessly, foreverly punished.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 6d

#AScareADay
Oliphant, "The Secret Chamber"
Castles were built to keep the enemy out & to protect those inside. But in this story the castle's sturdy walls also trap a few within a generations-old secret that controls the male heirs.
Lindores wanted to find the secret room. And he did.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 7d

#AScareADay
Rhoda Broughton, "The Truth..."
Without a description or a naming of the horror that the housemaid & Ralph Gordon saw in that accursed room, we the readers can only experience the horror of the results of encountering such a horror.
For me that is more than enough horror for one day.

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Robert W. Williams @robtwilliams.bsky.social · 8d

#AScareADay
Mulock, "Last House in C___ Street"

In this sad story, the ghost's appearance heralded the arrival of a new life & bid farewell to another's life well loved & lived.

For a brief moment the physical distance between husband & wife was bridged. But that path could only be walked by one.

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