e rathke writes about books and games at radicaledward.substack.com. A finalist for the 2022 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, his fiction will appear in Queer Tales of Monumental Invention, Mysterion Magazine, and elsewhere.
Bark & Bone Contribution
He sleeps with garlands woven in his hair is a piece of weird fiction that follows a young girl as she finds and tends to a slumbering tramp.
Here’s a snippet:
The grass grew around him and the canopy thickened as summer progressed and I invented stories and lovers and histories for him. He was a pirate lost in time who found himself in the future but the shock of technology sent him into a coma. He was a deserter from some war or a criminal or a lunatic. A cursed man waiting for the kiss of his one true love.
That’s one thing that appeared obvious: this dream cursed him and I wanted to know if such a thing was contagious.
Space Cat Press 