WANDERINGS ON DARKER SHORES

 I was frowning at my keyboard, writing my latest WIP at Meilori's, 

when a paperback was placed besides my computer.

I looked up.  It was the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe.  He sat down beside me, his eyes hollows of scenes best left unseen.

 “There are moments when even to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad humanity may assume the semblance of Hell. ” 

"Uh, Mr. Poe, does that mean you like or dislike Cora Pop's book?"

"Indeed," he said, clarifying nothing.  I just hate ghosts sometimes.

Another writer sat down on the other side of me.  The air in Meilori's actually grew colder.  

I sighed.  H.P. Lovecraft.

 “I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.” 

I sighed deeper.  "Thank you for sharing."

  
Victor Standish sat opposite me.  "You know Alice tells me that blood is really warm.  It's like drinking hot chocolate ... but with more screaming."

Lovecraft raised an eyebrow.  "Really?"

"Victor," I said low.  "You are NOT helping."

Edgar Allan Poe said, "You can tell that this young lady, Cora Pop, has had a lifelong love of spinning tales of the fantastic and the horrific. 

I am quite taken with her command of evocative prose."

Lovecraft nodded in agreement.  "I can tell that in her heart of hearts she feels an outsider, a stranger in this century and among those who are still men."

Victor made a face.  "I don't know about that: 

I just think she writes as if the world were a dream and nightmare was real.  There are echoes of dark nights and whispers from the crypt in her stories."

Poe said, "Mrs. Pop's plots, themes, and protagonists are artfully arranged so that each story and poem has a unity of effect.  

Her stories are short enough so that they can be read in one sitting and thus avoid the affairs of the world from intervening."

Lovecraft intoned, “There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect, 

and once in a while man's evocative tales calls them just within our range  Mrs. Pop's tales do just that.” 

Victor flashed a gypsy smile.  "And she writes good, too!"

I said to them all, "I think my blogger friends would love her book."

Lovecraft nodded, "Yes, indeed.  Mrs. Pop's prose is eerily evocative, so black, so immense that within it 

you can brush against appalling things and feel roaming and prowling around a strange, mysterious horror.” 

Victor sighed, "Well, there goes my good night's sleep!"