I recently announced the pre-release of my book, now available for purchase for under a buck! But why would you want to purchase? Well, I can give you 16 reasons … the 16 short stories in the book. Well, maybe 15. My editor hates one of the stories that I quite like. You can be the judge. Purchase, read, judge.
Here’s a peek inside at the Table of Contents along with some editorializing on each of the stories …
Tale #1 – Doggone – What if God isn’t an old white dude with a long white beard and flowing robes? What if God isn’t human?
Tale #2 – A Monkee to Die For – The year is 1968 and Davy Jones of the Monkees is dreamy.
Tale #3 – Ashalation – Have you ever wondered what to do with cremated ashes?
Tale #4 – Swimming to Eternity – Swimming is normally fun, but maybe not so much in the afterlife.
Tale #5 – A Magical Life – A story for free spirits everywhere.
Tale #6 – After the Afterlife – What happens after your afterlife?
Tale #7 – Return to Sender – How does God feel about mobsters?
Tale #8 – Ask God Anything – God on a game show … what could go wrong?
Tale #9 – Till Death … – Is there dating in the afterlife?
Tale #10 – Save Yourself – Pontificating on prosperity preachers.
Tale #11 – A Sorry State – Apology is good for the soul.
Tale #12 – In Memoriam – Would you want to attend your own memorial service?
Tale #13 – ALEs Well That Ends Well – Visiting the afterlife in the future.
Tale #14 – Project Astral Projection – Astrally projecting to the afterlife, duh!
Tale #15 – Writing a Wrong – A writer’s penance in the afterlife.
Tale #16 – Parable of the Grapes – A nose, grapes, and redemption for a dystopian world.
The beauty of a collection of short stories is that you are bound to like at least one or two, even if they are written by a goof like me. So, place your order. Operators are standing by. Hey, can somebody get those operators some chairs?
And, for a limited time with every order placed around the holidays, I’ll send you an extra Christmas story FREE! It’s called “Everytime a Bell Rings” and is about the iconic holiday Movie called It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. Unlike the movie, my story is dark and disturbing. Would you expect anything less? As if. Here’s how the story begins …
I woke from a fever dream. You know the type I’m talking about? It wasn’t a nightmare. Nothing scary about it. But I awoke drenched in sweat with vivid visions in my mind of what I saw, or dreamt that I saw.
It was inevitable. I had been eating too much rich food and drinking too many sweet alcoholic beverages around the holidays. Herring in wine sauce on garlic crackers with a chaser of chocolate liqueur is never a good idea. And then, that movie had been playing non-stop on cable television since Thanksgiving. You know the movie — It’s a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.
I don’t want to dogmatically declare it is the best Christmas movie ever. It may not even be my favorite Christmas movie if you classify Die Hard as a holiday film. However, I can’t deny that It’s a Wonderful Life is an iconic Christmas movie that I can’t avoid watching when I stumble on it while channel-surfing. That happens much too frequently from around mid-November to just after New Year’s Day. I sometimes wonder if perhaps I have damaged some brain synapses that are now not firing properly, rendering me incapable of not watching the movie when presented to me. Sort of like a Pavlovian response self-programmed into my psyche over many decades. On top of that, I own the DVD and also know the online streaming services that offer it. That is just not normal. The rest of the year, I’m fine. I can go about my life, business, and television watching as if I am a normal person. But for those forty-five or so days …
And it is not that I just watch the movie. I openly weep in parts as the story unfolds on the screen. “Niagra Falls” as the Ghost of Christmas Past tells Bill Murray in his Christmas movie classic Scrooged. I know all the plot twists; the dialog is virtually memorized. That look of eternal love that Mary Bailey gives her husband, George, is forever ingrained in my mind. I can project it onto the movie screen of my mind anytime I want. It doesn’t affect me now as I document my fever dream. But still, at certain points while watching the movie … Niagra Falls.
So it should come as no surprise that repeated watchings of the movie topped with ultra-rich food and drink as a holiday protocol would combine in a less than positive fashion and result in a fever dream from which I awoke with bed linens soaked in sweat. As I changed the salt-encrusted linens to appease my wife and cat, I rewound and replayed the fever dream in my head. Maybe so I could share it with you, or simply because I enjoyed it so much — minus the profuse sweating. I’m not exactly certain, but it opened with Clarence Odbody, the angel from the movie, entering an office.
If you want to know how Clarence fared after he won his wings, then order BEYOND – Tales of the Afterlife and get this added Christmas story … while supplies last!
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 