Things and Whatever

    Fire on the Mountain A short story by Stephanie S. Sommers   It was dark when I woke, still the middle of the night. I could hear the murmur of voices and clinking utensils in the kitchen. There were more voices than I would have expected for so late in the night. I got out of my bed and made my way in the opposite direction of the kitchen, for some reason drawn into the dark front room, the only light spilling from the archway into the kitchen but not fully illuminating the furniture, keeping them dark forms in a dark room. I climbed onto the couch and put my face close to the window and could see a bright glow on the horizon. We lived far from town, which was in the opposite direction. I was looking out the window that would, in daylight, show meadows and distant mountains. The glow was not electric light nor was it the setting sun in the deepness of midnight. It was a red, angry light, flickering, consuming. There was a scream then, high and full of a...

 Road Trip a short story by  Stephanie S. Sommers Childhood memories are dim things when one has gone a handful of decades past them. Details become faded and are not made clearer with concentration. There are times when it seems that those very memories are actively evading discovery, like they might be wild animals scurrying through the underbrush, not belonging inside anyone’s head. These are the reasons that I doubt my own experience, that I wonder if what I will swear is a real memory of events is in fact fanciful stories a child told herself long ago. I’ll let you decide.   I was seven or eight years old when this happened. What I know for certain is that I was with my parents and we were transporting our car on a flatbed. I have no idea why our car wasn’t running and I probably didn’t know even then, nor would I have cared. I do know it was a Cadillac bought second or third or fifth hand because we were not a family that routinely owned luxury items. It was dar...