Over the years too, my styles morphed, changed, and shifted. I began to focus on horror stories, weird stories, stories about things happening to people that defied explanation. I even learned how to write a short story instead of believing everything had to be an epic length masterpiece. I learned to tell stories with as few words as possible.
The story below is an example of all those, I hope. It's unlikely to see publication anywhere at the moment, flash fiction being notoriously difficult to sell, so I thought I would give it to you guys, as a thank you for all the years that you've inspired me and urged me to do better.
Hopefully this new thread will find me writing some new poetry that isn't quite so angsty but has that same powerful, dark voice. Thank you all once again!
The Great Maw of the Sky
My father and I are avid hikers. We’ve done nearly hiking trail in New Mexico. We started early, one of my first memories was camping out in the Sandias. My dad is an instructor at the local junior college. He teaches backpacking and camping. He’s the type of man that can disappear into the wilderness with little more than a jug of water and a good pair of hiking boots and reappear a week later at the opposite end of the state with a smile on his face.
Anyways, we were going to go for a backpacking trip to celebrate the new job I had gotten that Friday, I was going to be the head Librarian for the El Paso Public Library System, my dream job. We were going to hike Wheeler Peak and have a glass of rosé at the summit. We hadn’t been able to see much of each other in the last year so I was excited for this trip. I had canceled plans with my girlfriend in order to have the weekend clear. I wasn’t sure when the next time I was going to be able to go off for a weekend like this. I was going to enjoy this.
We started early in the morning. We were going to have a long drive from Lovington to Taos. We were up at 4:00, packed and ready to get on the road by 4:30. For the first hour or so, we didn’t talk. He drove and I sat in the passenger seat and watched the world go by. The country through central New Mexico isn’t really remarkable in the daylight; it’s flat, vast, and empty. Every now and then I could see a great hulking tumbleweed rolling and bouncing across the road. We stopped at a gas station and filled our coffee cups. The sun was came up and finally we began to speak. That was our ritual. We never spoke while the sun was down. I wonder why that is. We never really spoke about anything with substance, no deep philosophical debates or anything We might talk about sports, about the current trend in science fiction, or stories from our last hiking trip.
This time wasn’t any different. Looking back, I wish we had talked about something. Anything. I wish we had talked about my new job, or what my plans with my girlfriend were, or what he wanted to do after retirement. Well…
We drove on for a few more hours, driving through the countryside and Artesia, we planned on stopping on Cloudcroft on the way up to Taos. There’s a restraunt that sells the most amazing pies but the lines are so long you have to get there super early, otherwise you’ll be standing around for hours. We got there, got a cherry pie and put it in the cooler. We were all set for a great trip. Until we came to Hope. Hope isn’t a place most people have heard about. Barely anyone here in Artesia knows anything about it. It’s barely a blip on the radar. Looking back, it’s really ironic name. For my father and I though, it was a great stopping place. We pulled into a parking lot beside the firehouse. It was empty. The whole town was empty. Hope was a single street with a firehouse, a grocery store, something that might have passed for a school, and a few houses. Nothing was open. There were no people. There were never any people. It wasn’t a ghost town, supposedly there were people that lived here, but we never saw them. We made a game of it once, the person who saw a living person in Hope would get to choose lunch and dinner for the entire trip.
My dad stepped out of the car, lit a cigarette, and began walking around to stretch his legs. I stepped out too, finishing off the last few drops of coffee while watching the sun rise in the sky. We talked for a moment about what the plans were. He was like that, he would plan and plan and double check and triple check. We would hike through the morning, set up camp at the base of Wheeler Peak, and make our ascent. We’d be at the summit in mid afternoon and back at basecamp for dinner.
I watched the sky again, it was a cloudless morning so it seemed to stretch on forever. I think I understand why they call it Big Sky Country up north. If you look at it too long, you could wig out and lose your mind trying to understand how big it is. The sky was so blue, bluer than I can remember ever seeing it. I wonder, now, if that should have meant something.
I turned to look at my dad, he was nearly finished with his cigarette. He took a last, long drag on it and flicked the embers out.
Then sky opened. I don’t know how to describe it, saying it opened isn’t right but I don’t know what is right. The sky just opened up behind him. I tried to call out to him but there was a lump in my throat. I couldn’t shout. I couldn’t even breath. I just watched as my father was just swallowed up. That’s not really the right word, but I don’t know the right word for what I saw. You’d think I would, being a librarian, but what I saw, I couldn’t understand, I can’t put it into words. The sky just swallowed up my father. He was there one moment, smiling in anticipation of getting back on the road, and then he was gone. There was no wind, no thunder. There was a whoosh of sound, and then nothing. He dissolved, melted, evaporated. I don’t know the word. None of it is right. It didn’t make any sense. He was just gone.
I don’t know how long I stood there. It must have been just a moment. I was in shock. My father had just been swallowed up by the sky in front of my eyes. How was I supposed to act? Once my shock wore off I searched the area, called, screamed my head off. Nothing. No one came out of anywhere. I was completely alone. I broke down and cried, again I had no idea what to do, I had no idea what had just happened. There was no sign of my father, nothing but the very tip of the cigarette, still smoldering.
I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. I can’t think which is worse.
I can’t look at the sky anymore, I’m afraid of what I might see.
I agree it's reeeeally hard to get that right. It's nice little train ride through rural New Mexico then boom! The sky wants to eat you. It's Weird, but in a good sense. And of course, it's based on a true story. :smiley10: 
A lot of the story is actually based on a trip I took with my dad a few years back through the same "living ghost town" in the story but thankfully the sky did not open and swallow either of us.
In seriousness, I love how you built a rising sense of paranoia and panic throughout The Hidebehind. Like the narrator, I had no idea what was what by the end.
for the sonnet! "Creeping, creeping, slowly it sloughs forward" is *such* a good line!
A lot of stuff in "The Hidebehind" is based on little inconsistencies I see from time to time in my own life, a weird shadow here, a blur out of the corner of my vision there, a feeling of being watched, the not knowing who or where I am has been happening all too frequently so I thought it best to try and de-internalize that trauma and write about. Is it successful? Jury's still out 
