Short Horror Stories (Original Works, Mostly)

Burning Portraits (a poem)

Fever, they said,
But she went to bed,
As normal as ever, she lay.
But a cough choked and shook her,
And Death came and took her.
She did not wake up the next day.

What sadness that brought!
Her son was distraught,
He fell down and begged her to stay.
His heart was not steady,
Her gravesite was ready,
And by noon, they'd put her away.

Loneliness came,
He was never the same,
Things were not as they were.
Then he found her paintings,
Beautifully plain things,
These last memories of her.

He framed them in glass,
These things of her past,
And hung them up firm against the wall.
Then he stepped back,
Took out a match,
And without a second thought, he burned them all.

~Ira N. Mahadeo