Keepsakes and Hand-me-downs

Over the last few months I’ve been writing a bunch of new short stories. All are loosely in the horror or weird fiction genres, but that’s not the only link between them. Each tale also includes a bequest or inheritance.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that are passed down through the generations. The routes are interesting, whether directly from parent to child, sometimes via more distant relations, or even between friends or found family. And anything can be inherited. Houses and furniture are common. Items of personal significance, like jewelry, too. If we have a choice we usually go for something with a personal connection. A memento to keep the deceased in mind. But do we always want to be reminded of certain people? Sometimes we don’t have a choice in the matter, because we inherit other things from our forebears too. Genetic traits and physical ailments. Attitudes and prejudices.

It’s interesting how bequests can be seen as manifestations of the monumental life changes that occasion them. Not just the death and subsequent process of bereavement, but the sobering self-reflection that we find ourselves engaging in.

I’ve been trying to be the man he was all my life, but I never will.

Or, alternatively:

I promised myself all my adult life never to be like him, but we’re much more alike than I thought.

How do we respond? Sometimes we redouble our efforts to change. Other times we just double down. And from the perspective of story mechanics, it’s been an interesting exercise to turn these bequests into mechanisms by which characters are made to confront their unpalatable truths.

In my new Interzone Digital story, A Little Seasoning, an aspirational but lazy couple inherit a spice grinder from a foodie friend they’d both looked up to. The grinder’s contents have a miraculous effect on anything they’re sprinkled on and soon, lacking the discipline to use only a pinch now and then, the pair find themselves in an spiral of consumption with ultimately tragic (and horrific) consequences. The story revolves on the relationship between the couple, it’s an adoring one but it’s also one of dependancy and enablement and disastrous impulse control. The special salt is the thing that tips them over the edge.

There are several of these tales out in print. Who knows, maybe at some point they’ll be published as a collection, but that’s for the future. For now, if you’re interested, you can find:

A Little Seasoning in Interzone Digital

An Antique Puzzle Chest Of Unknown Provenance in Weird Horror #6

Thirty-Two Tumbling Teeth in Black Static #78/79

Coming soon are: The Salted Bones in Black Static #82/83 and A Folded Letter in Chthonic Matter.

And there are several more still to come.

**FEATURE IMAGE: artwork for A Little Seasoning by Dante Luiz