miniStories: “Buried Treasure” by Damian Sheridan
Read "Buried Treasure" by Damian Sheridan, a small but big-hearted yarn about the stark consequences of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and one of the summer 2008 winning miniStories.
Buried Treasure
That was how he became a laughing stock.
That was why we buried him behind the old barn. Buried in the tender soil, his body fed grubs, gem sparkling. Whispering below the grass, his beaming fool face turned sunward. He was warmed by the earth. His gentle eyes ran and his body expanded, then collapsed, a rotten peach.
When summer came, a new lilac bush in a quiet place, smelling of rotting matter. Leaves gently sawed in the wind. Doves built tidy bowers over the cathedral of his moldering bones. Only lilacs could grow so sweet in the long shadow of that barn.
If he could see them, he would smile his joy.
He laughed loudly
and once too often.
Men from a distant town put a stop to that.
About the author: Damian Sheridan has worked in the community on local writing and editing projects for several years. He still keeps his first official rejection slip from Twilight Zone the Magazine in a very special place. He received it when he was sixteen years old. He has studied at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis as well as the University of Minnesota. Recently, he was recognized at an award ceremony for the 2006 CONvergence Science Fiction & Fantasy convention for his submission to the Misfits Writing Contest entitled In the Weft and in 2007 for the short story Other Magic and the poem Story. Later, in November 2007, he was invited to be a presenter at the Fantasy Matters Literary Conference held at the University of Minnesota.