At the Star Crossed Tales virtual reading, Ruth Connell did a brilliant performance of my short story Dark Ages, which was a 2018 Roswell Award finalist. It felt very fitting to watch Connell, who played Queen of Hell on the TV show Supernatural, read as the seemingly innocuous yet actually conniving narrator of my story.
Read by Emmy Award-winning actress Tamara Krinsky at Litfest Pasadena
“The innkeeper bursts through the door. He yells something about the midwife, I think — these people with their off-brand English are impossible to understand. He shoves a woman through the door and yanks it shut behind her.
Here she is, the woman I time-traveled over 500 years for. Beneath her white cloth hat squats a pock-marked face with gritted teeth the color of nicotine gum...”
“I didn’t look anything like the enthusiastic actors who unboxed Clara Dolls in commercials. The lid didn’t pop off instantly like a gasp but came off slowly, as though it had claws.
The doll lay stiff in a vacuum-sealed bag surrounded by gray packing peanuts. The plastic material blurred her face, which was an exact copy of mine. Her familiar round bulb of a nose pressed against the inside.
When I had asked Parker if he would like me to buy him a Clara Doll before I moved away, he said yes too quickly. I suspected he thought he could get her to do sexual positions I didn’t like, specifically the Farm Girl, which always made my leg cramp. The Farm Girl wasn’t his favorite, though; his favorite was the Divorced Woman, which was me touching myself in the shower as if I were alone...”
illustration by Surian Soosay