THE ODD GHOSTS

THE ODD GHOSTS

A small collection of strange stories by

MAYNARD SIMS

www.maynard-sims.com

in celebration of the forthcoming publication of  

FLAME AND OTHER ENIGMATIC TALES  

By SAROB PRESS

THE ODD GHOSTS

Contents

1. SLEEPING 

2. MAGDALENE 

3. STAR 

4. PRICE 

5. DIFFERENT 

6. NIGHT 

7. FACER 

8. STORIES

All the stories are original to this collection

Cover by Emily Rose Sims

Copyright 2011 Maynard Sims

Published by Enigmatic Press 

3 Cutlers Close, St Michaels Mead, Bishops Stortford, Herts CM23 4FW England 

First published 2011

This collection contains stories that may be about the odd ghost or two.  

There are weird tales, strange stories, and stories of unease

SLEEPING 

By 

MAYNARD SIMS

 His brain was restlessly active, although his body was motionless, breathing slow and steady. He wasn't sleeping. 

Outside, beyond the double glazed sealed windows, the small professionally tended garden that nudged next to the visitors' car park was quiet, currently home to a middle aged weeping woman and two elderly men smoking and regretting. 

It was warm outside, a summer sun free and unfettered from clouds. Grass was green and tidily clipped, sky was as blue as it should be. In his room the temperature was maintained at a constant that was healthy but some degrees below the natural rhythm of the day. 

'It was a lovely day like this the day he was born.' 

The younger woman looked up from the hard uncomfortable chair she had been sitting in for three hours. 'Did you have an easy labour?' 

The older woman made a noise that might have been a laugh, half strangled at birth which is what she had on many occasions wished she had done to her son. 'When did he ever do anything easy?' 

'That's a no then?' Everyone was tired and irritable from the waiting around. 

'Fifteen hours I was pushing him out. Cut from here to there when he finally made an appearance. I was so out of it that when they put him in my arms, the cord still attached, I thought it was his thingy, you know.' 

'You thought he had a big cock?' 

When she was growing up you didn't use language like that and she was still sensitive to most crudity. 'I'm his mother. You'd know more about that than me.'  

'Me and half the women in town.' 

'He always comes home to you, always home to his wife.' 

'Usually because he needs an alibi.' 

His mother turned away from the windows. She was already over familiar with the view, by day and by night. Eight days. It was a long time to wait but in all honesty she had been waiting for her son in some way or another all his life.