The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Old Gramaphone 
by Marge Simon 

Welcome, Mrs. Bitefester! My, don’t we look stylish today, love the hat! And how are we feeling after our little ferryboat ride? Scenic, yes? Now do hurry up. We’ve created a special parlor for your stay. Here are two comfy chairs, see? Pick the one you feel best sitting in. They are identical, but you would argue that fact, and we don’t have time for such complaints, mind you. Time has a whole new meaning here, Mrs. B. Now, may I remind you how you wouldn’t tolerate your children having any music of their own, growing up? Well, we’re making sure you continue to have a monopoly on music nobody else will hear or would ever want to hear.  We’re chaining – er, I mean seating you right next to a special old gramophone. We want you to get the full enjoyment of hearing Rudy Valley, your own great grandmother’s teenage heartthrob. The best part is near the end, as he sings using his megaphone, “Has Anybody Seen My Gal?” The record has a wee little scratch just at the end. Yes, it sticks on that one. Sticks forever, actually. Welcome to Hell you nasty old bitch.

Fiction © Copyright Marge Simon
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

More from Marge Simon:

Victims
by Marge Simon and‎ Mary Turzillo

The title of this collection sets you up for the surprise of lyrical stories of victimizations with unexpected endings for the villains. Be ready to have your heart opened and cheer for perceived victims, human (made and unmade) and other life forms, victorious in the hands of these two award-winning poets. —Linda D. Addison, award-winning author, HWA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and SFPA Grand Master.

Across histories and cultures and from Auschwitz to Babylon this book leaves you questioning who are the victims, and regardless of your conclusion you’re likely to get throat-punched. This is horror where everyone has a knife, and is ready to deliver this message: “Remember, you are always guilty. —Herb Kauderer, author of Fragments from the Book of the After-Dead.

Simon and Turzillo have only gone and startled me again. What a collection! Brutal. Beautiful. This quiver of poems strikes with the unflinching truth of persecution and oppression as seen through the lens of feminism. Prepare to come away bruised and yet strangely bolstered by Victims, a symphony of sadness orchestrated by two masters of dark poetry. —Lee Murray, Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-winner.

This is one of the braver dark poetry collections I’ve seen in a while. Horror poets generally employ victims in their work, but the focus is generally on the Evil. Turning the camera the other way is unusual, unsettling, emotionally risky, and surprisingly effective. From their stark opening take on Pygmalion, to the ending poem about the wasted life of Stateira of Persia, this powerful collection teases apart an impressive number of the threads of victimhood. Some are the usual cases, but quite a few are surprises, or reversals, or cases with unexpected layers. There is nothing repetitive about this collection. —Timons Esaias, winner of the Asimov’s Readers’ Award and the Winter Anthology Contest

Available on Amazon!