Richard Schiver

Category: works in progress

  • Weekly Writing Challenge 03/11/2026

    Weekly Writing Challenge 03/11/2026

    We continue the story of J is for Jogah. You may have noticed I’m borrowing a bit from one of the masters when the story delves into an exploration of seeing someone’s ability, Like the shine Stephen King made famous in The Shinning. Of course aren’t we all standing upon the shoulders of giants when we write. I also feel I’ll be expanding the idea of the little people into a novella length work sometime in the future. Without further adieu let’s get into it.

    Continued from 03/04/2026

    As he lay in bed the aroma of fresh baked blueberry muffins reached him. Getting up he passed down that shadowy hallway to the stairs and started down the steps in his spiderman pajamas. When he spotted the movers bringing in boxes and the last of their furniture he retreated to his room to change into a pair of jeans and a tee shirt.

    In the kitchen he found his mom working on the small island while his dad was on the porch talking with the movers who were nearly finished.

    “They’re not done yet,” she said as he entered the kitchen and he turned to join his dad on the porch. As he crossed through the living room he came upon the older man who had just placed a large cardboard box on a pile of similar boxes along one wall. As Jeffery passed through the room his attention was again drawn to that little door as an unsettled sensation filled him. Something could get in that way. Something that might be able to hurt them.

    “If you don’t look at them directly they won’t hurt you,” the older man said,

    “Who?’ Jeffery asked.

    “The little people.”

    “What little people?”

    The older man smiled as he knelt beside him. “When I was a kid growing up, a little older than you, my grandmother told me about the little people. Only she called them Jogah. She was pure blooded Oneida, the native American Indians who once ruled this land.”

    “She was a real Indian?” Jeffery asked.

    “As real as they come, the Jogah lived in the forest and sometimes played tricks on the braves who would go into the forest for food. But they were never mean, not unless you stared at them. I guess they were a little peeved about being so small.”

    “Tell your dad the muffins are ready,” his mother said as she stuck her head through the door into the living room.

    “Just remember that you’ll be able to see them. They don’t mean any harm, but when you do see them, don’t stare.” With that the older man pushed himself to his feet and joined his dad on the porch. He wasn’t sure if he should believe that the older man said. After all his dad told him the door was for milk deliveries back in the old days. One or the other was lying and he was confident his dad wouldn’t lie to him. Maybe the older man liked telling stories to scare little kids. But he’d told him about his talent.

    His mom joined them on the porch with a basket of blueberry muffins while his dad had set up the coffee pot, a thank you to the men who moved them for a job well done.

    Jeffery helped himself to one of the muffins, the aroma making his mouth water in anticipation as he took a big bite. A blueberry popped into his mouth as he chewed, but it was missing the sweetness that would have normally flooded his senses. Instead, a saltiness cramped his mouth and his stomach as he looked down at what remained of the blueberry muffin. Spots of deep blue marked where the blueberries resided in the cake texture. One of the blueberries opened like a tiny eye, watching him with an unnatural stillness as his heart climbed into his throat and he threw the muffin to the floor of the porch with a startled cry. The muffin bounced once before coming to rest with the eaten part exposed while the eye lay there watching him as his mother and father raced to his side to see what was wrong.

    To be continued!

  • Weekly Writing Challenge 03/03/2026

    Weekly Writing Challenge 03/03/2026

    My apologies for not getting anything posted last Friday and Monday. Real life intruded. Without further adieu let us return to J is for Jogah.

    Later that night after supper, and an evening spent watching game shows on TV, Jeffery struggled to claim the sleep he needed. As he lay in bed staring at the ceiling he went over the conversation he’d had with Bill, each time circling back to his statement they could not hurt him. He would have liked to believe it, but he knew Bill had been lying to him about that point. It wasn’t physical pain these errant spirits could bring. What they brought was something far more terrifying. A perpetual gloom that would shroud your soul in endless despair. He had experienced that firsthand in the apartment.

    Boys being boys, it wasn’t long before he tried an experiment. He had grown so accustomed to the old lady’s presence that she didn’t even bother him anymore. He understood that they were merely ghosts, and ghosts couldn’t hit you the way another person could. One night in the old apartment he stood in the way of the old lady’s ghost as she glided through the deep shadows of the kitchen on her nightly visit to the sink.

    Why she was visiting the sink was beyond him, he didn’t believe a ghost could drink or get thirsty, but what did he know, he was only seven at the time.

    He almost stepped aside as she got closer but closed his eyes and held his ground as she came to him. There was no hesitation on her part, and he suspected her spirit could not see him, yet. In hindsight he wished he hadn’t done what he did. As he lay in bed he relived every emotion, ever feeling every sound and sensation that washed through him as she closed with him.

    The first thing he noticed was a slight tickling at the base of his skull as the short hair on the nape of his neck slowly stood at attention. This was followed by a deepening chill as she reached him, a chill that grew as her essence began to mingle with his own. As it did goosebumps spread across the length of his arms him, his shoulders and down the center of his back following the line of his spine.

    His mind filled with memories that were not his own. Brief flashes from her past slid across the screen of his mind. Her saw her as a young child in school, struggling to pay attention to the nuns in class, her knuckle sore from the beatings they took every time her attention wandered. Spring had arrived with the joyous singing of the birds, and she wanted to go outside and experience everything the season had to offer. Yet she was trapped in a dreary classroom, crammed into a small room with twenty other children whose only desire was to escape the hard lessons few believed would serve them in their life after graduation. He saw her meet a young man and fall in love with him. Their hasty marriage as her young man was called off to war and their joyous reunion when he returned safe and sound while so many other wives and parents only ever saw a flag draped coffin.

    They built a life together, raising a family of three boys and two girls. Two of the boys were called up by the government to do their part and she learned the sorrow of a parent outliving their child when the oldest returned in a flag draped casket.

    Weddings followed, along with the births of grandchildren who brought a measure of joy to her and her husband as old age crept up on them. The loss of her husband, and the home they raised their family in when the money started to run out. Moving to the apartment in the city had been the last straw for her and the carefree young woman who had become old and slow, deliberately stepped away from this life. In the wee hours of the morning she took a handful of sleeping pills, washing them down with a glass of water from the kitchen sink. Hence the reason for her nightly visits. It was like she had been cursed to relive her final moments for eternity.

    As the 0ld woman’s ghost emerged from the other side of him, a small part of their mingled essences became trapped with the other. Afterwards Jeffery was filled with a craving for blueberry muffins, something he had never eaten before. Aside from that it appeared his encounter had left him no worse for wear until the following night when she returned. As the moon slowly rose above the city skyline she came gliding into his bedroom, passing through the door as if it didn’t exist and stood beside his bed looking down at him with sorrowful eyes.

    He had taken something from her and she wanted it back.

    Now, in the present, he lay in bed staring at the door, waiting for her return. Sometime after midnight he drifted off to sleep and awoke to a new day to what sounded like a million birds singing beyond his bedroom window. It was the first good night’s sleep he’d had since his little experiment, and while he was hesitant to celebrate, he felt it best to wait and see what happened.

    To be continued!

  • Weekly Writing Challenge. 02/25/2026

    Weekly Writing Challenge. 02/25/2026

    J is for Jogah contd.

    Nothing good he imagined. He was too young to have read anything that might explain the purpose of the door, leaving the only plausible answer open to his imagination. He did not want to see what used that door, but at the same time his innate curiosity filled him with a desire to keep a close eye on it, to make sure whatever did come through, was not going to harm anyone.

    As the afternoon neared early evening the last of the furniture had been placed and the canvas tarps had been removed. His mother was in the kitchen fixing dinner while his father sat on the front porch to share a beer with the men who moved them. Jeffery had come down and was sitting in one of the lawn chairs on the porch as the men spoke quietly about their families, and what had prompted them to move people’s belongings for a living.

    One of the older men who had chosen a glass of iced tea in place of the offered beer was sitting near him and Jeffery noted that he kept glancing in his direction. He also noted that in addition to not wanting a beer, he was different in that his only participation in the conversation was in response to any questions that came his way. Between these his attention kept drifting back to Jeffery.

    As the other men laughed at a coarse joke he turned to Jeffery. “You’ve seen them?”

    The question was to the point and Jeffery immediately understood the context in which it had been asked. Had he seen them? Of course he had, but after that night in the kitchen he never said a word to anyone else about it. His mother’s response to his assertion that he had seen a ghost was to send him for counseling. To an old man who smelled of cigarettes and whiskey. Who kept coughing into his handkerchief that Jeffery noted was becoming spotted with blood. He only went to the counselor for several sessions before his appointments were dropped without reason. Maybe the doctor had assured his mother there was nothing wrong with him short of a child’s imagination, but Jeffery suspected something else had happened.

    “Seen what?” Jeffery responded with all the innocence he could muster.

    The old man smiled, one front tooth gold and glowing softly in the waning light. “You’re a cagey one. But you know what I mean, I can see it, there’s an air about you.”

    “What kind of air?” he asked.

    The old man’s face broke into an even wider smile, his eyes twinkling with merriment. “I like you, you know what’s going on, you’re closer to them than you think. But keep in mind they can’t hurt you unless you let them.”

    “What can’t hurt me?” Jefferey had become unsettled with the old man’s comment, his suspicions growing that the old man knew about his special talent, though he had never told anyone.

    “I was like you the first time I saw one, it doesn’t get any easier, but you can learn to ignore them, in fact I believe that’s the best you can do. If they knew you could see them that would acknowledge their presence and they would never leave you alone.”

    It was all Jeffery could do to shrug indifferently. The old man had hit the nail on the head. The how and why were not important. But the fact he could see it was. What was it about him that stood out?

    “There’s a glow about you, I have it too, but you haven’t learned to see it yet. You will in time, and when you do you’ll be surprised by how many there are of us.”

    By this time the conversation on the porch had turned to leaving and the old man’s co-workers were calling for him to come along. Bill was his name, and he responded by throwing a wink in Jeffery’s direction before placing his half empty glass of iced tea on the table beside him and pushing himself to his feet.

    “Just remember, they can’t hurt you unless you let them.”

    With that he was gone, following the other three to the two trucks parked in the driveway. Vanishing into a cloud of diesel as the silence of the approaching night washed over them.

    “What did he mean they can’t hurt you?” his dad asked as Jeffery joined him at the front door, his eyes drawn once again to the smaller door to the left of the entrance.

    “Nothing, we were just talking about a new school and all that.” Jefferey hated lying to his dad but were he to tell him the truth he was afraid he might end up back in counseling.

    “It’s called a milk door,” his dad said, pointing at the smaller door, “years ago milk was delivered every day and some people built small doors for the milk to be put inside by the delivery guy.”

    “Why couldn’t they just go to the store?” Jefferey asked.

    “I guess that’s the way it was back then.”

    To be continued!

  • Weekly Writing Challenge 02/18/2026

    Weekly Writing Challenge 02/18/2026

    With the conclusion of I AM, we come to the letter J, and the Jogah, mythical little people in Iroquois lore.

    J is for Jogah, the little people.

    Jeffery was doing his best to help his parents move into their new home. But he was only eight and not strong enough to carry any of the boxes his father and the men he hired to move them were bringing into the house. Occasionally they would find a box more suitable to his size, but there weren’t very many, so he spent most of his time just trying to stay out of the way.

    He felt like he’d been uprooted and transplanted to a place he did not belong. While country life looked like it would give them more room to stretch their legs and even provided a yard for him to play in, everything seemed to be so far away. In the city where he grew up everything they needed was within a block or two and they could easily walk to their destination.

    One of the first things to strike him when they arrived at their new home was the silence. There were no shouts, no horns or squealing tires, nor was there any music that always seemed to be playing in the background when you lived in the city. A cacophonous blend of rap, heavy metal, foreign and domestic in languages running the gamut from English to Russian and everything in between that formed a wall of near constant sound in the background. Even during class, when they were supposed to be focused on their lessons, that incessant beat could be heard. Like the heartbeat of sprawling beast that encompassed everything in. On the contrary, in the country, silence ruled and though he was only eight, he imagined it was going to take him some time to get used to this.

    As the focus shifted from the upstairs room to the first floor the men moved their canvas tarps and he was forced up to the second floor to stay out of the way as the rest of the furniture was brought in. As he sat at the head of the stairs, he glanced over his shoulder, into the shadowy length of the hall and felt the first stirring of an old fear he believed he had outgrown.

    An old memory blossomed, and he recalled in terrifying detail the one time he had left his bedroom in the middle of the night and wandered down the hall to his parent’s room. Finding them both sound asleep he ventured into the kitchen, a place he should have been familiar with, but at night with the shadows crowding into the corners it took on a more sinister appearance that caused him to pause. After a fruitless moment of staring into the shadows he crossed to the sink and pushed one of the kitchen chairs close to the cabinets. He’d done this a thousand times before, but tonight with the shadows so close something felt off. As he was filling his water glass he became aware of a deepening chill as the shadows seemed to grow from the corners of the room to reach out and envelope him. As the night deepened around him the scent of lilacs filled his nose as a fear spread throughout his belly.

    There had been stories about the apartment where he lived, whispered tales shared among his small circle of friends. Everyone in the building knew the old lady who once lived there, a sweet old soul who was always baking cookies and offering them to anyone willing to sit for a minute to fill the loneliness her life had become. Without realizing it, as he listened to the stories, he came to feel sorry for the old lady who died in her sleep. But now, as he stood at the kitchen sink filing his glass, he felt anything but sorrow as the cloying stench of lilac threatened to suffocate him.

    He began hyperventilating and struggled to bring his breathing back under control. A scream lodged in his throat as a shadowy arm emerged from the emptiness on his right and reached for the faucet. Chilled fingers caressed his cheek in a loving manner that was anything but in his current state and the trapped scream burst forth.

    His parents raced into the kitchen, flipping on the light and sending the shadows scurrying to far corners of the room. They found him standing at the sink, hands grasping the edge of the counter staring wide-eyed into nothing.

    That had been then, and this was now, his parents had explained away his encounter as the overactive imagination of a child who had listened to too many stories in the neighborhood. But from that night on he refused to leave his room at night. Many nights he lay awake with the blankets pulled up to his chin listening to incessant sounds of the city around him. Drawing some measure of comfort from the presence of life in the loneliness of the night. Beneath that ever-present roar came odd creaks and groans that filled the shadows all around him. At any moment he expected chilled fingers to touch his brow.

    He shook his head to dislodge the old memory and turned his attention from the hallway to what was happening on the first floor. The furniture guys were wrestling with the couch that had only managed to make it hallway into the house before it became stuck. As he watched then work he noticed a detail that had escaped his earlier visit to the house. Next to the front door, a miniature version of the door had been built into the wall on the right side, complete with sidelights and all. It was only twelve inches tall, its presence sparking his curiosity.

    What could possibly use that door? He wondered.

    To be continued!

    Back when milk was delivered daily to your home, many homeowners put in a small door next to the main entrance so the milkman could slip his delivery into the house. But what else might find its way into the security of your home?

  • Weekly Writing Challenge – I Am. 02/11/2026

    Weekly Writing Challenge – I Am. 02/11/2026

    The final segment:

    Brodie sat in a narrow chair built more for function than comfort. For reasons beyond his understanding Doctor Wilberman had asked him to stop by his office. He was sure it had something to do with the clone who had recently confronted him in the men’s room.

    “He didn’t say anything at all?” Doctor Wilberman asked as he worked to keep his pipe lit.

    “They can’t speak,” Brodie assured him, sticking to the proper narrative, it was safer that way, for him at least. He recognized the clone as the assistant manager of a co-op his grandfather used to take him to when he was a small child. Reminding him of a man who went missing when he was a teen. Several years before the restrictions on cloning were lifted.

    “True,” Doctor Wilberman said as he exhaled a cloud of smoke and flipped through the file lying open on his desk. “There are some who believe a bit of the past remains with the cells we use to create these clones. Are you sure he didn’t say anything?” Doctor Wilberman said as he continued flipping through the pages of the report, “according to the foreman’s report the clone in question tried to speak to him in the mess hall.”

    Brodie shrugged, his fingers working along the edge of his hat, hidden below the lip of the doctor’s desk. It wouldn’t do for them to see how nervous he was. While cloning was now legal, it hadn’t always been that way, and he remembered a time when several of the larger corporate farms operated outside the law in that regard.

    “He didn’t say a word sir, he tried to, but nothing came out.”

    “You’re certain?”

    “Absolutely.”

    “Did you recognize him?”

    “Why would I recognize him? Aren’t all the clones taken from the same cell source?”

    “They are, but every so often a mutation occurs, such as it did here.”

    “If you say so sir, you know more about this stuff than I do.”

    “Very well then,” Doctor Wilberman said as he closed the file, “if there’s anything else I need to ask I’ll be in touch.”

    “Can I go now?” Brodie said as he moved to get up, he couldn’t wait to get out from under the doctor’s scrutiny. If he did admit to recognizing this particular batch of clones what would happen to him?

    “You’re free to go,” the doctor said and Brodie got out of the office as fast as he could. He was halfway across the compound when he saw the latest batch coming in from the fields. Each one of them reminded him of that manager who had gone missing nearly thirty years before and he wondered how he was going to keep his mouth shut while working around them every day. On the other hand who could he say anything to? Cloning was now legal, and while it might have been safe to reveal what he knew, there were no absolutes. He’d felt a connection with the clone, a recognition of his plight, and as he watched them moved across the compound he worried another one might try to make contact with him.

    This completes the story I AM. Join me next week when I begin a new short story. I’ve been itching to go a lot darker than the past stories so we’ll have to wait and see what I come up with. The letter will be J, and that opens up so many possibilities.