Tenderness Tomb
At conferences we are sometimes instructed to play writing games. So our critique group decided to try one on the blog.
In Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Vonda N. McIntyre suggested an idea she had learned at a writer’s workshop. She said to make two subject lists and write a story using a word from each list.
The WWAT crew chose the categories romance and archeology. Together we constructed two lists and then we pulled a word out of a bag from each category. Lastly, we had to write a short blog story including those two words. I got to go first and my two words were: tenderness and tomb. My story is below.
Alvin Schwartz collected legends and retold them In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories. That childhood book inspired me to want to try to retell haunted tales. Then a couple of weeks ago I went on a Ghost, Murders and Mayhem Segway tour in Pensacola, FL (http://emeraldcoasttours.net/segway-tours). One story told was about the now Children’s Museum and it gave me a tale to try to retell. I hope you enjoy my retelling! Here it is…
It was at 115 East Zaragoza Street
Spouses Eugenio and Fannie took retreat.
An unlucky fire burnt it to the ground.
So they rebuilt upon the ashy mound.
They named their new tavern the Gulf Saloon.
Tobacco, girls, booze and a hidden tomb.
Who was it that’d been bricked into a wall?
An idea was easy to recall.
A decade prior, Eugenio was a convicted killer.
He served very little time for murdering a cigar maker.
But where had he hid it all those years?
Another body? Some had their fears.
Rib remains were found sharply grooved.
Stabbed in the chest was all that proved.
For Eugenio, Fannie’s tenderness had gone.
She said the Arbona marriage did not last long,
He signed over the tavern, and fled to Spain.
Convenient. Dead men also do not complain.
For more hauntings in Pensacola you might want to check out: Brown, Alan (2010). Haunted Pensacola. Charleston, SC: Haunted America. He gives the history of the Arbona House.
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