Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974

For my first snippet of the year, a bit from my New Year’s story “The Year Is Gone Beyond Recall,” https://authorjeffbaker.com/2023/12/26/the-year-is-gone-beyond-recall-a-story-for-new-years-by-jeff-baker-december-26-2023/ we meet a happy couple ensconced in their cozy house. But this IS a ghost story…

The house had originally been owned by a man named Peregrine and there had been a stone falcon set into the concrete of the low wall at one end of the spacious, welcoming front porch until it had been worn away by generations of young children and toppled by a falling tree branch during a storm. It had been part of the Rawley family since the late 1950s when it had been bought by the patriarch and then inherited by the younger son, Gus Rawley, along with a lot of money and Gus lived there, wrote articles for magazines there and was happily ensconced with “Bertie,” really Bertram, the man he had met at a party and they were the rare couple in that generation of the family who actually stayed together over the years. They were, in fact, together in the house for just over forty years before they both passed away.

“I don’t like ‘Passed Away,’” Gus had said at a family Christmas at the house. “It makes it sound like someone just farted.”

Okay, that one sentence was waaaaay too long! (Bad habit of mine!) Next week, something a little more adventurous! Until then, pleasant dreams! —-jeff