Introducing Shelley Penner's Random Words
- RCN Media
- Jan 22, 2022
- 15 min read
Updated: Jan 27, 2022
RCN Media is thrilled to announce Shelley Penner's upcoming short story anthology titled Random Words this February 22nd, 2022. We also in this blog post have samples of the book for you to read. A little sneak peek of what is yet to come your way. We are so excited to have another masterpiece by the author of the Haven Hold Series, Natures Wisdom and From the Shores of Eden.
Let us introduce, Random Words.
A desirable young woman harbors a terrible secret; a wealthy man dying alone searches for family connections; a medieval king orders an orphaned young woman to marry a stranger; a philosophy professor trying to engage his students presents an unusual model of the cosmos; a captive wolf chooses compassion over freedom; a foreign immigrant proves himself far more than a common laborer; a world traveler gets lost when he crosses a mystical boundary near his own home town.
Inspired by a random word list writing exercise, these stories and more will immerse you in a wide range of human emotions and imaginative situations.
Introduction From the Author
During the time of the Covid pandemic, the membership of my writers’ group began to dwindle as more and more people went into self-isolation. When our local community hall closed its doors for the duration, we began meeting in our homes. The core group of seven dropped to six. We began a weekly exercise to keep us inspired. Each week we would come up with one word or short phrase apiece to create a list of random words we had to use in whatever we wrote for the following meeting. One of our members also had a set of dice with pictograms on each side, which we occasionally used for image prompts.
The Covid restrictions changed again, and we all had to go into stricter isolation, so we began doing our meetings on Zoom and Google Meet. Another member dropped out because she had no interest in learning to use a computer. As a result, the membership and the weekly word list dwindled to five, and occasionally even to four, when one member or another had commitments elsewhere.
Each week I would use those random words to inspire a short story. Some ended up very short. Others I wrote in sections, each week adding a new segment with the latest random words included. Once, we missed making up our list, and I resorted to the dictionary, closing my eyes and pointing to find a word list. Working with random words wasn’t always easy, but it was always inspiring.
This collection includes the best of my Random Words short stories, plus a few using visual prompts. At the beginning of each tale, I show the given words with which I had to work, so readers can see how each one inspired the direction of the story.
Free Previews
Visual prompts: apartment building, small, faceless man with a monstrous shadow, crescent moon, speech balloon, sunflower, sheep
I Am Nothing
I am nothing. I am so insignificant that people don’t see me. If I remain still, crowds simply flow around me like water around a submerged stone.
With tall apartment buildings looming on either side, I walk the canyon streets, a stranger in this artificial landscape. I have no destination. Nothing looks familiar. I have no memories of this or any other place. In the daylight, a speech bubble hangs over my head like a thunderstorm, containing no thoughts, no words, no purpose, only elemental anger waiting for release. But as the lowering sun glares into my eyes and shadows grow in alleyways and corners, I notice the shade that follows me. It looms large, stretching back and up the wall behind me, looming over me like a monster ready to strike. In the fading twilight, as I pass beneath the neon, the monstrous shadow shrinks and disappears, only to stretch before me when I reach the other side of the pooling light. I hesitate before that menace blocking my path. Should I go back? But the monster will only greet me again on the opposite side of brightness.
As I hesitate, trapped, I wonder, does the moth in wingless caterpillar form also feel drawn to the unreachable light?
Over the rooftops, a crescent moon rises, as sharp and cutting as a sickle. I can feel its razor-tipped claw scratching against the cocoon of my skin, opening wounds that bleed black and join the shadow before me, making it grow larger and stronger. I race toward the next splash of light like a night swimmer plunging through shark-infested waters. But the monster follows, attached to me. Once I reach the island of light, I jump, trying to disconnect from the shadow, but I have no wings to stay aloft, and every time, gravity pulls me back. I finally realize the shadow remains an inescapable part of me, a silhouette of the prisoner within. Since I have no way to escape, I surrender and embrace it. Like a moth emerging from the dark earth, I become. Now I am something. Now I remember who I am, and as much as I long for the light, I know it will never accept me and certainly will no longer protect me.
One with the shadows, I feel safe at last. I observe the sheep-like flocks passing by, oblivious to everything except their own desires. They have become prey, and like a lion on the hunt, I watch for that one among many, the weakest, the most vulnerable, the most unwary. The tastiest. And then I spot her, the one with light in her face like a sunflower. And like the darkness I have become, I want to devour that light.
Given words: his name was Jack, fear, delight, pretend, wolf, twilight, wood-framed house, I swear I’ll get you, what difference did it make.
Blackjack Alpha
His name was Jack — Blackjack to be precise, but mostly the Man just called him Jack. He lived in a prison that encompassed a little over an acre of land filled with trees, a creek and a human-built shelter made of boulders and dirt, a pretend den that saw little use even when it rained. Jack didn’t live alone. Four other wolves inhabited the enclosure. None of the others shared any blood relationship with him. They were not a family, but they did form a pack of sorts. As the alpha, Jack accepted the job of keeping them all safe, though this space, limited by wire fencing, held little to cause fear or excitement. Nothing to hunt. Little with which to play. Libby’s puppies last spring had provided the greatest delight and stimulation they’d ever known. But once the pups grew large enough to learn the ways of the pack, the Man took them away and never brought them back. The pack mourned for months.
Many times, Jack had attempted to dig out of their prison, but the chain-link went too deep into the earth, even where the creek passed through the wires.
The Man fed them carrion, pieces of meat long dead, sometimes half frozen. The pack never went hungry, but Jack longed for something more satisfying. He longed for the hunt, longed for the freedom to explore, to fight for survival and embrace life on his own terms.
Every day Jack paced the perimeter, scent-marking his territory, an instinctual habit that served little purpose here. Oddly enough, the Man sometimes copied this behavior just a foot outside the fence, as if to claim all the land outside the cage, forming another, less certain barrier. Jack knew the Man’s territory could be his if he could only escape this fence. For months now he had smelled sickness on the Man, sensed his growing weakness, the stealthy approach of death.
Jack made his evening rounds, a black shadow in the twilight with yellow eyes gleaming. At the south-east corner he paused to stare at the wood-framed house where the Man lived. Jack’s ears twitched as he listened to the faint sounds of movement inside the building. He sampled the smells of wood smoke, cooked food and freshly chopped firewood. Fainter and farther away, he detected the scents of a rabbit raiding the Man’s garden, a doe and her fawn crossing the stream just five hundred yards from where it entered the caged area and the faint smell of blood from where a fox had recently made a kill.
The black wolf waited, knowing the Man would soon bring food for the pack, as he did every night. Like silent ghosts the other wolves gathered under the trees — the pale pair, Luna and Casper, then Libby, Jack’s mate. Last to appear, Bruno circled the group once, then settled behind Libby. Young Luna danced in anticipation and Libby gave her a warning nip. Luna remained the clown and peacemaker of the group, her puppy foolishness easing tensions and defusing conflicts. But as beta, Libby insisted on discipline and decorum, especially at mealtimes.
The door of the house slammed, and the Man approached, walking slowly, his breathing heavy and painful. The wolves waited. The latch lifted, the gate squealed as it opened, and the Man entered, pushing the gate shut behind him. Jack could smell the half-thawed haunch of venison he carried and hear the uneven rhythm of his laboring heart. It fluttered and seized like a dying bird. The Man staggered and fell to his knees, clutching at his chest. The meat rolled away, and Luna pounced on it. The pack fed, growling and tugging, gulping chunks of meat as if they hadn’t eaten in days. But Jack ignored them. He approached the Man and circled him warily.
Once Jack and the Man had been friends. They had played together and treated one another with respect, though the Man had always remained dominant. But then Jack grew up, large enough to threaten that dominance, and the Man became cautious. So now he kept Jack in a cage. The Man smelled of fear, lying on the ground, helpless and vulnerable, just feet away from the snarling wolves. His eyes followed Jack, filled with dread. Their eyes met, and they measured one another, each knowing that things had changed between them once again.
Jack placed a paw lightly on the Man’s chest, testing to see if he would reject that gesture of dominance. The Man groaned. The black wolf bared his teeth and uttered a low growl. He leaned closer. The Man sobbed. Jack closed his teeth gently over the Man’s throat and waited. The Man shuddered and sighed, relaxing in resignation. Jack licked the Man’s throat and face tenderly, letting him know his surrender had been accepted.
The pack had finished their meal and now lay beneath the trees digesting. They watched Jack and the Man but didn’t try to approach or interfere. Despite the distraction of food, they hadn’t missed either the interaction or the fact that the Man, who had dominated their existence for years, had surrendered to their leader. One by one they retreated to their favorite resting places. Jack remained lying beside the Man, keeping him warm as he would any sick member of the pack. He heard the Man speak in a whispery sigh, faint words that meant nothing to Jack.
“Damn, I just can’t figure you out. I don’t get you. I swear, I’ll get you . . . if it’s the last thing I do.” He panted, in pain. “Too late now, I guess. Not gonna make it.”
The Man stirred, struggled to his feet and staggered to the gate. He could not leave the wolves imprisoned to starve. He swung it wide and then collapsed beside it, groaning, his heart lurching and clenching spasmodically. The pack heard the clashing of metal and came trotting back, curious. They eyed the open gate nervously. Libby gave the Man a sniff, then bravely led the way out of the cage. She huffed to Jack questioningly, but he just lay down beside the Man again. Though the mysteries of the wilderness called, what difference did it make if he explored them now or later? He had an obligation to fulfill. The wolves bounded away into darkness.
All through that long night Jack remained beside the Man who had raised him, waiting.
“Go, Jack,” the Man whispered. “You’re free.”
But Jack just rested his head on the Man’s shoulder and waited. Shortly after moonset, warmed and comforted by the presence of the wolf, the Man took his final breath. As the sky began to lighten, Jack inhaled the Man’s scent one last time. Then he lifted his head and howled. In the distance, Libby answered. Then the rest of the pack joined her in a harmonious paean to freedom, calling him home.
Given words: cattywampus, flat white, stupendous, rambunctious, global warming, mule deer
The Voodoo World
The old woman sat on her covered porch in a rocking chair as the young researcher approached. She watched him walk up the trail but made no move to get up and greet him. He thought she looked as old as the surrounding hills, weathered by time into a brown, wrinkled raisin.
“Mrs. Catherine Ann McFee?” he questioned, not entirely certain he’d found the correct cabin, since the mountains seemed riddled with ancient homes in remote locations, with no street addresses and often no roads leading to them.
“It’s been Catherine Ann McPherson for nigh onto fifty years now.”
“Ah, yes. My apologies. Mr. Rutledge down at the general store gave me directions here, but he must have given me your maiden name. My name is Glen Mason. I’m doing research for a book, gathering stories and original songs of the mountain people. He said you are one of the oldest surviving inhabitants of the area, and you have a million stories to tell. Do you mind if I sit and visit for a while?”
She smiled. “Not at all, young man. I don’t get many visitors these days. Just my nephew, comin’ ta check if I’ve gone to my maker yet so he can turn this place into a waterslide tourist trap. Heh, heh,” she cackled. Then she rose with surprising agility, saying, “I’ll go put the kettle on. Talkin’ always makes me thirsty. You prefer tea or coffee?”
“I’m fine with either. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
Once the tea was ready, she settled back into her rocking chair and asked him, “Now what would you like to hear about?”
“Well, for starters, I heard you have a very unusual nickname. Would you mind telling me how you earned it?” He discretely clicked on a recording device and waited for her to begin.
She cackled again and told him, “Oh, that goes way back to my childhood. I was an awkward child, always tripping over my own feet, spilling things and breaking dishes. My mother died young, so I grew up with just my father an’ me in this old cabin through the Great Depression.” She shook her head. “That was a sad time for a lot of people. So many folks out of work, losin’ their homes, an’ often each other. But for us here on Mount Bunsen, not much changed. Or perhaps, as children, our parents just protected us from the harsh realities. The community was smaller then. We had just a single room schoolhouse, an’ all the children in the area attended, whether their family had pots of money or none at all.
“Tommy Carson’s daddy owned the Bunsen sawmill, where most of the men worked, an’ because of it, Tommy seemed to consider himself better than most of us. He was a year older’n me, an’ from my first day of school he did his best to make me miserable, pointing out my every stumble, deliberately tripping me as I walked down the aisle to my desk, laughing at my hair, my ragged clothing, my lunch that was often little more than an apple. I wasn’t the only one he picked on, but that didn’t make it any less hurtful.”
“Does he still live in the area?”
“Oh, no. His daddy died of a heart attack in the fifties, an’ Tommy took over the runnin’ of the mill. By the late sixties, the sawmill went broke an’ had to shut down. Tommy sold the land an’ left for parts unknown, an’ we haven’t heard from ‘im since.”
A magnificent mule deer stag stepped into the clearing that surrounded the cabin, and they paused to breathlessly admire it. The buck stared at them tensely, then suddenly lifted its tail and bounded back into the surrounding forest. Catherine smiled.
“That’s one of the reasons I stay here, livin’ alone even though my nephew wants me to move into town to some retirement home. Sights like that are priceless.” She went on with her story.
“In the fall of the year I turned eleven, our teacher’s name was Miss Miller. We had a lot of different teachers over the years, an’ I can’t for the life of me remember most of their names, but I’ll never forget her. That was our first year with her, 1940. She arrived with this big world globe the size of a beach ball and a sort of metal cradle to hold it. We didn’t have much plastic in those days, so it was made of cellulose, steam-compressed into a mold, then painted with a map of the world, all the countries and their capitals in different colors. That globe opened up the world for us. A few families had radios and shared the news of the world with the community, but it all seemed very distant and removed from us, even though most of us still had relatives in the old countries. The rising war in Europe, the invasion of Austria, the rounding up of the Jews. For us children, it was like hearing news from another planet. Until Miss Miller introduced us to that globe and the world suddenly seemed to shrink.
“She showed us where Germany was, Austria, Poland, France, Holland and England. She showed us photos in books of the people and the countryside. Suddenly it didn’t seem so far away. On the globe, distance was a matter of inches, and even though we knew those inches represented hundreds and thousands of miles, seein’ the pictures and hearin’ about the inhabitants made it seem so much closer. Suddenly the war in Europe felt more threatening, more personal.
“I didn’t hear what set the whole incident in motion until much later, after I’d married Jaimie McPherson. Jaimie and Arthur Menzies were Tommy’s closest friends. The way Jaimie told it, Arthur’s uncle had visited New Orleans and came back with stories about voodoo and witch doctors, who could make a doll that looked just like you. Then, if they took a dislike to you, they would stick pins in the doll, an’ it felt like they were stabbin’ you, or they could even kill you. That story tickled their fancy, those boys. They were a mischievous, rambunctious lot to begin with, then tell ‘em a story like that an’ it was bound ta cause some sort of mayhem. Tommy got this idea that our classroom globe was like a voodoo doll of the world. They decided to experiment with it. So they snuck into the school one Saturday after church and stuck a pin into London, England. Why they chose that location, I have no idea. The next day, September 8th, we heard the news — the Germans had bombed London and killed thousands of men, women and children, destroyed millions of homes.
“Jaimie was devastated, and for years afterwards, all three of them felt convinced they had caused that destruction and loss of life. It took several months, but Tommy finally convinced them to go back on a Saturday, when there was no school. No one bothered to lock their doors in those days. The boys stuck a dozen pins into Germany. I’m surprised Miss Miller never noticed all those holes. We began to hear news of successful bombing raids by the allies, and the boys became even more convinced that cardboard globe had some sort of magical power.” She snickered and shook her head ruefully.
“That winter seemed to go on forever, especially here in the mountains. When March brought a blizzard that buried the crocuses and went on for days, dumping two feet of snow, everyone felt fed up and ready for spring to arrive. Then Tommy got this brilliant idea — maybe if they warmed up the globe at school, it would get spring started for real.”
Glen Mason grinned and took a sip of his tea, then suddenly realized it had gone cold while he listened with amused fascination. He drank it anyway to avoid insulting his hostess.
“On the day of the Great Global Warming, I had promised to stop by the school to water the lettuce seeds we had planted in tiny pots on the windowsills. They would dry out over the weekend, and the seeds wouldn’t sprout unless we kept them moist. I opened the school door and saw Jaimie and Arthur watching while Tommy held a burning torch close to our beloved globe. ‘What are you doing!’ I shouted. The boys gave a guilty start, the torch wobbled, and suddenly, the world was on fire! I screamed, then ran forward and snatched the flaming globe out of its cradle. I ran outside and threw it down onto the flat, white snow. It rolled and burned until the fire melted the snow into a puddle that held it in place and put the flames out. Our beautiful globe lay broken and disintegrating as it soaked up the water.
“Tommy cried, ‘You stupid, clumsy girl! You’ve killed the world! Now we’re all gonna die!’ I felt so scared and angry, I just hauled off and smacked him with every ounce of strength I possessed. He lost his balance and sprawled backward on top of the charred mess and just lay there, stunned. ‘You could have set the whole school on fire, you stupendously stupid boy!’ I screamed at him.
“Jaimie told me later, that was the moment he decided he had to marry me,” Catherine chuckled, her wrinkled raisin face wreathed with laughter at the memory. “And that was the moment when I earned my unusual nickname. When the boys told the story later, they laughed and said, ‘Cathy whumped Tommy good and knocked him ‘cattywampus’.’
“The boys earned a stern lecture for their mischief and had to do odd jobs all summer to earn enough to replace that globe. Tommy never dared to bully or tease me again. The tale spread around the community, and I have ever since been known as Cattywumpus.” The old woman winked at the young story collector and added, “I’m tired now. Need a nap. But if you come back to hear more yarns, you can call me Miss Cat or Catty.”
Glen turned off the recorder, delighted with the story. “Miss Catty, it’s been an honor. I would love to visit again, as many times as you’ll have me. I have a feeling your stories will make my book a bestseller.”
Available everywhere and at the RCN Media Store
Preorder today to get your signed copy
About Shelley Penner
A long time ago in a town far, far away, Shelley came into the world, and neither she nor it have ever been the same since. Shelley has always been a creator in many disciplines -- drawing, painting and photography as well as writing. She says, “I have always had a head full of stories. As a child I would put myself to sleep by living scenes in my imagination until I dozed off. I didn’t just make up stories, I became a part of them, I felt all the emotional nuances of the characters. Eventually, my head became so full of those imaginary people, demanding their chance to be made real in words, that I just had to start writing.” Early literary influences include the queen of Sci-Fi, Andre Norton, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Both of whose novels still maintain a permanent place in Shelley’s personal library.
Comentarios