The Judge’s House by Bram Stoker

Apparently, I am still in the mood for another Perilous challenge

As I have written in my introduction of R.I.P Challenge, I will be reading 2 books, watch some movies (I have watched 2 but have only reviewed 1 so far) and read some short stories. This is my first short story.

I tried reading Dracula by Bram Stoker long ago and somehow I found it difficult to read. I ended up feeling sleepy after reading few paragraphs…in the end, I spent few weeks to read less than 5 pages. That kind of slowness only meant one thing, I have to stop reading it and changed to another book. Well, that was long time ago…I know I have to try reading that book again simply because Stephen King likes it so much and if he likes it that much it must be a good book because the book inspired him in many ways.

Before I give another shot at Dracula, I think trying his short story could be a nice trying out step

The Judge’s House is a 17 pages story. It’s the only short story by Bram Stoker in The Wordsworth Collection of Irish Ghost Story. I didn’t know he was an Irish till I bought this book. It didn’t take long for me to finish it.  The language is not as nowadays kind of book language. It has that old rhyme which often takes you round and round to get to the real meaning.

Short Story: One Of Them

For this time, I want to write something that sets in my homeland even though the picture from Creative writing Ink is clearly not of Indonesian Park. I emphasize more on the woman sitting on the bench.

Without much introduction, here is my 7th short

One of Them

A lady, thought Satrio, what is she doing in the rain like this? She looks like she is waiting for someone. Satrio is thinking whether to say hi or not, his mama told him not to talk to stranger, but she also told him to help people in need and that lady doesn’t look good.

“Hi…” Satrio says. He wants to help but he doesn’t know what else to say but hi. The woman with the strip umbrella is a bit surprise when Satrio said hi, she isn’t expecting anyone to say hi to her ever since she decides to sit there.

“Ow…hi!” she says. She smiles at him, “What are you doing out in the rain? Shouldn’t you be going home?”

My 3rd Short Story : The past will haunt you

This week’s picture in Creative Writing Ink has intrigued me again.

The picture only has small part in the story.

I should warn you that the story is a bit creepy

The past will haunt you

“hff…stupid!” thought  Andy. He was thinking about the story that he heard from Ali about the street near University X. He told him that that street is always empty, it was a perfect place to drive as fast as he wanted to. Andy was quite intrigued with it as he was looking for the right street to try his new car. However, the emptiness of the street was not the only thing Ali had shared to him. He told him that the place was haunted since two years ago, a lot of people had seen something that made them frightened. Andy never believed such stupid things, there was no such thing as ghost.

Two hours later, he was heading to that street. He wanted to prove to himself that the street was just a street.

“So…here I am and that’s the street! And where is the ghost?” sneered Andy to no one particular as he was all alone in the car. “People are often so silly.“

Heart-Shaped Box

Someone told me about Joe Hill somewhere last year, she said that he is a very good writer that people tend to overlook. I never heard of him before. Then I kept reading her post and found out that he is Stephen King’s son…everyone who knows me knows how crazy I am over Stephen King. But being Stephen King’s son is not a guaranteed reading, I mean I once found Tabitha King’s book but I didn’t pick it up and bought it because I still had no idea what kind of writer she is. The same thing happened with Joe Hill, I’m not about to read his book simply based on the fact that he is SK’s son.

I did a little search on him, tried to find out how good he is. And it was quite surprising, he won some awards for his books without letting anyone knew who his father is, he told everyone who he really is after he got his own success by his own talent. He is not trying to live under his father’s wing. That fact made me so eager to read his books.

The problem is…he is not well-known here. I tried looking everywhere…I finally found one of his books last month, it was Heart-Shaped Box.

The story is about a famous Goth rocker who liked to collect mystical stuff. His name is Judas Coyne. One day, Judas received a mail about someone who was planning to sell her stepfather’s ghost. It intrigued him a lot. He started bidding for the ghost and finally bought it for one thousand dollars. He received a black heart-shaped box with a death man suit inside it, along with that box came the ghost. He didn’t believe, at first, till he saw him sitting on the hall. He wanted to send the ghost back to the owner, but both the suit and the ghost couldn’t be returned and he knew that it was a set up.