Inktober ~ Green Fingers

 

greenfingers72bThere once was an old woman who possessed a remarkable “green thumb.” Flowers bloomed, trees bore fruit, the  grass was always green on her small half an acre lot…. and yet the land that surrounded her oasis was barren, dry and void of life. The only interruption in the landscape was the lifeless and cumbersome machinery poised to devour the small Eden she had tenderly cared for.

The man who spearheaded the conspiracy, had many times been dismissed. In his gluttony, he conceived a plan to torture the woman by detaching a part her anatomy each time she denied him access to her property. The intent was not to kill, but to terrify.

The first surprise encounter resulted in the loss of a thumb.

When the ambulance arrived to hasten the woman to the hospital for medical treatment, they found her drenched in blood still tending her garden amidst her great pain. Sadly, the woman died en route to the hospital.

While the villain in this evil ambush remained anxious about the woman’s death, the  glee in his victory absorbed any thoughts of humanity he  had left.

As he surveyed his newly acquired property, he became aware of a  sound.  A familiar mumbling, a quiet sing song voice of adoration. As he moved into the garden he found her… busily  tending to herself in the garden. “You see” she said  “Everything I touch grows…. even me ……..”

Adapted from a story first shown on the television series The Night Gallery, to read the original story, Green Fingers, which is so much better, by RC Cook go Here
Beware it’s a spooky one!

To view the Night Gallery Episode go HERE

A House for a Tink

I’ve been working on some readers that have kept me pretty busy.  Mostly fairy tales which I really enjoy creating. But when work is done and I have a few spare minutes, I let my pencil wander. This is where it goes, to the land of little creatures, where fairies collect the things that go missing in the house, and whose friends are the crickets and the mice in the woods. Won’t you join me?snailshell_House_RobertaBaird_72

Robin Hood

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“Underneath this little stone
Lies Robert Earl of Huntington;
No other archer was so good –
And people called him Robin Hood.
Such outlaws as he and his men
Will England never see again.” 

_Roger Lancelyn Green

Sub It Club Interview with Roberta Baird

sic-badge-square1Sub It Club is a blog/community that supports writers and illustrators to get their work “out there”. Whether you create illustrations or are a writer of kidlit, adult novels, non-fiction, screenplays, or poetry, Sub It Club provides the knowledge and inspiration to keep going strong.

In my interview, I get to talk a little about the process of creating a promotional postcard. If you’re interested, here’s the link!  https://subitclub.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/the-postcard-post-roberta-baird/

post card

HoHoDooDa 2014

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including — which is a bold word — the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven-year’s dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change: not a knocker, but Marley’s face.
marley_RBaird_FC_small
Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot-air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression. ~Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
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