Albino Coyote

Oklahoma weather is quite bizarre. This year, it is nothing less than weird. Killer tornadoes struck earlier this week destroying more than a hundred homes. Two nights ago, thunder almost rolled me out of bed. Last night, the storms returned, bringing with them unseasonably chilly temperatures and lots of rain. They also brought out a new beast to my front yard.

My beautiful Shepherd dog Velvet is sick. I think she is just getting old. She has arthritis, allergies and is picky, picky, picky. She was lying amid her cedar chips tonight when I heard Patch, my Australian cow dog, begin barking. I went to the front door, expecting to see the young red fox that likes to eat my cat’s left-over food. What I saw when I gazed out the door wasn’t a fox.

I gazed out at an albino coyote. Yes, this is what I think it was. It wasn’t a dog. Its front legs appeared longer than its rear legs. It was almost ghost-like, a creature almost devoid of color. I watched it for a minute and then went to the kitchen for my trusty digital camera. When I pointed it at the beast, it ran away, into the shadows.

I know, no one is ever going to believe me without a picture. I put some more food in the cat’s plate, left the front door open and I am waiting for Patch to start barking again.

Eric'sWeb

Getting No Place Fast

It’s late afternoon and as I glance out the back window at the thermometer I see it is almost eighty degrees. This has been a strange year in central Oklahoma because we had snow on the ground less than a month ago.

Marilyn likes winter and having a fire in the fireplace. This past winter we burned nearly seven ricks of wood, not really for the heat but because a crackling flame warms the emotions and puts you in a mellow frame of mind.

Flowers have bloomed here since the last snow and today the irises, perhaps the last perennial of spring, began blooming. Since Marilyn feeds the birds, our backyard looks like an aviary. The wild ducks that lived here well into the summer last year have not returned. This is the first time in three years but I can hear ducks when I go outside so perhaps they are staying down the block.

The hummingbird vines and clematises are almost ready to bloom, the clematises cloaked in royal blue and the hummingbird vines in bursts of hundreds of trumpet-shaped flowers. This is a signal that it won’t be long before our hummingbirds reappear.

Last night, I sat out by the pool with my two pugs, Princess and Scooter. It was dark and I only had the faint glow of a fluorescent lamp for light. We weren’t alone. An ephemeral light danced across the surface the entire time we sat there. I could pass my hand through the light but I couldn’t touch it or make it disappear. When I went back to the house, I kept hearing a mechanical noise coming from the living room.

I decided that the dancing light was a spirit enjoying spring, rebirth, and the glorious warm night with me and the pugs. The mechanical whir is a different story. I finally dug out Princesses’ favorite motorized rat from beneath her blanket. Marilyn had turned it on earlier and that’s where it ended up. It was still running, but like me sometimes - getting no place fast.

Eric'sWeb

Late Autumn Spirits

It was almost dark when I finished feeding my dogs and returned to the house tonight. The television was off in the front room, only the red pulsating light of a Lava Lamp and our herb grow light illuminating the room.

As I walked toward the kitchen, I saw the shadow of a woman moving around. I assumed it was Marilyn but it wasn’t. She was in the back bedroom, watching television. I’m a sane person, not prone to wild speculation. Still, I had to wonder if the shadow I saw was of Anne, my deceased wife, or my Mother Mavis, futzing around in the kitchen. Things such as this are easy to explain away – an errant shadow, an unexpected flash of light. Maybe!

My faithful readers will probably remember pictures of my magic moonflowers, their blooms usually beginning to wane this time of year. Marilyn and I haven’t had a single moonflower since my Mother died. Tell me what is the problem, Mom? You know I’ve always been a little dense.

The Autumnal Equinox, the first day of autumn, has passed. It heralds the first day of a season filled with spirits. With winter fast approaching, I wonder how many more spirits I will envision before then.

Gondwana

Spirit Children of Tall Oaks II

I began my walk earlier tonight than usual and it was not yet dark when I reached the place where I saw last night’s spirits. I nevertheless approached the bottom where the creek goes under the road with anticipation, and with caution.

I didn’t get a good look at the two beings last night but I think they were boys, about ten or eleven. The more I have thought about what I saw, the more my mind is playing tricks on my memory. I am now convinced that what I saw were two Edmond, Oklahoma ghost boys that use the creek as a conduit to move from place to place without detection.

I had my trusty digital Nikon in my pocket this evening and took a picture of the tree-covered low spot where the creek goes under the road. Even though darkness had yet to totally fall, the picture turned out completely black, except for a few spots of circular light.

What light remained, as I rounded the corner and began walking up the hill to my house, was disappearing fast. There was something sitting in the road in front of me - a large black cat that I had never before seen. The cat ambled into a culvert under the street.

Tomorrow, I will begin my walk a little earlier so I can capture a picture of the place where I saw the two ghosts, or later so that I might catch another glimpse of the spirit boys. Even if I don’t see them, maybe I’ll get a picture of the black cat that lives in the culvert.

Fiction South

Ghosts of Tall Oaks Creek

August in central Oklahoma began as a scorcher, with multiple days of one hundred plus temperatures. It ended with a whimper, days damp and cool, and the nights almost chilly.

Days have grown shorter, darkness falling before I finished my walk tonight. A creek courses through the area, cloaked on both sides by trees and thick vegetation. All manner of wildlife, including foxes, coyotes, raccoons, possums, and even an occasional deer, call the creek home and use it as a conduit for stealthy movement. Tonight, I saw something other than a wild animal.

About a half mile from my house, thick tree cover effectively blocks the moon and stars. As I walked down the gentle hill to the spot where the creek crosses the road, I saw the faint outline of two people walking toward me. I couldn’t tell if they were male or female, young or old. As I strained to see whom it was, one of them darted into the trees.

I was walking at a fast clip down the hill, straining to get a better look at the person walking toward me. As I approached the creek, I realized that the person dressed in ephemeral white was actually moving away from me. The person had a light. At first, I thought it was a flashlight, but they held it over their head like a torch - a torch so faint that it cast only the dimmest of light. By now, I was wondering if the two people I saw were actually real, or perhaps spirits out for a walk.

The entity disappeared for a moment behind a slight bend in the road. I increased my pace, expecting to see two walkers, dressed in white, strolling ahead of me when I rounded the slight bend. Instead, I saw nothing but darkness. There was no place the two beings could easily have gone that I wouldn’t have seen them. I continued toward the house, looking back over my shoulder for the entities, but seeing only flickering fireflies.

The golden moon, nearly full, glowed as I exited the trees. A little voice inside my head told me that I either didn’t see what I thought I saw, or else there is a logical explanation to the mystery. I guess anything is possible.

Louisiana Mystery Writer

Give Me a Bite

We all have benchmarks in our lives that we recognize as signs of our moving in a positive direction. For me, it has always been owning, or at least leasing, a hot tub. I bought my first redwood hot tub in 1979, just before marrying Anne. Since then, I’ve had four more, including the one that I have now.

Following the oil bust in the early eighties, the fortunes of Anne and I took an abrupt downward turn. We lost out house on Ski Island and our three rent houses (yes, I know, we were over-consumers at the time).

The hardest part of curbing your lifestyle is finding a quick way of halting your monthly expenditures. I’m talking about the house payment on your mansion and monthly car payments for your Mercedes and Jaguar (I know, I’m not eliciting much sympathy here!).

Anne and I reined in our lifestyle, still managing to maintain a comfortable existence until 1995. The oil biz was hurting. No one was buying prospects or drilling wells. We found a little rent house and had just enough money left after the first month’s rent, deposits and everything to rent a U-Haul truck.

My nephew Kevin helped me move and we single-handedly transported years of our lives from a five thousand square foot house to a fifteen hundred foot house. Well, not totally alone. Later that night, I finally called my Brother Jack and Anne’s brother David to help us with the last load. To say we were exhausted is an understatement. To this day, I don’t think Kevin knows how much he helped me.

Anne and I lived in the rent house for two years - past the time we learned that she had lung cancer. I finally sold a prospect and made a down payment with it on the house I still live in. Anne died about six months later.

The house had a swimming pool but no hot tub. The oil business dragged on for several more years and I scrapped by, making the house payments, buying groceries and little else. I still wanted a hot tub and the entire time I plotted how I might acquire one.

Three years after Anne passed away, I saw an ad for an eight-foot octagonal hot tub in the Daily Oklahoman. The party was asking two hundred and twenty five dollars. I had the money, called and purchased the shell. Three days later, the owner brought it to me and dumped it unceremoniously in my back yard. It remained in the same spot, through more hard times in the oil biz, for three more years.

I did figure out where I wanted to put it and I began digging a hole in the ground, beside the oak tree where I had buried my nineteen year old cat Chani when she finally died. The hole was long dug, half filled with rain water, and I still didn’t have the money to set the hot tub, much less get it plumbed and ready to use.

Two years ago, my financial fortunes took a turn for the better and I finally got the hot tub plumbed and working. I took my first dip on the night of my birthday and surely it was a birthday present from someone that had gone before me.

My step-son Shane built a gazebo to enclose the outdoor hot tub and I mucked it out after a winter of non-use. This house is my little piece of Eden, Marilyn and I its Adam and Eve. If there’s a snake out there with an apple, well, hey, give me a bite.

Gondwana

Other Inhabitants

My new pup Princess sees ghosts. I have no doubt that there are ghosts in the house. Marilyn and I have both seen the evidence. A few nights ago, Marilyn heard a loud crash. When she investigated she found nothing.

Neither Marilyn nor I are afraid. Ghosts are rarely, if ever, harmful beings. I think they just subsist, alongside of the people that are presently alive.

The house that we live in was built in 1975 and I am aware of only three spirits that might inhabit it – Anne, my wife that died of lung cancer; my mother that died of lymphoma, and Randy, the man that Anne and I bought the house from that killed himself three days later. There could be easily be others.

I admit that I don’t understand the afterlife. I barely understand the present life! Still, my pup sees spirits. When she does, she barks and carries on. She’s just a baby but even she isn’t really afraid of the other inhabitants of our house.

http://www.ericwilder.com