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    Strange Attraction
    Strange Attraction
    Strange Attraction
    Ebook60 pages49 minutes

    Strange Attraction

    By Grant Palmquist

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Recently fired from his job, single, and friendless, thirty-two-year-old Glenn is on the verge of losing his sanity. The only thing that might stop his slow descent into madness is the touch of a woman—no easy feat for Glenn, whose last and only success with a woman transpired in college.

    But someone must have a crush on Glenn, because he’s receiving strange texts and pictures from a secret admirer, a mysterious woman who watches him from afar keeps reappearing, and in the small town of Blarney, Texas, there are no coincidences.

    A Strange Attraction is taking hold of Glenn, changing him from the inside out, and when it’s over he’ll never be the same again.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGrant Palmquist
    Release dateMay 11, 2017
    ISBN9781370710676
    Strange Attraction
    Author

    Grant Palmquist

    Grant Palmquist is the author of the science-fiction novel Azure and four horror novels: A Song After Dark, Permanent Winter, Dirge, and The Seer. His short stories have appeared in Chizine, Dogmatika, and Underground Voices.

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      Book preview

      Strange Attraction - Grant Palmquist

      StrangeAttraction_1563x2500.jpg

      Strange Attraction

      Grant Palmquist

      Strange Attraction

      Copyright © 2017 by Grant Palmquist All rights reserved.

      First Smashwords Edition: May 2017

      No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

      The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.

      - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

      Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.

      - William Shakespeare, Macbeth

      1

      W hy don’t you get yourself a good woman and settle down, Glenn?

      Ryan Jordan, the math teacher at Blarney Middle School, had asked the question. Now it was as if a spotlight had been shone upon me. Ryan had a beautiful blond-haired wife ten years his junior and three kids and always wore an annoyingly bright smile. He acted as though if I simply decided to get married, a pretty woman eager to take me up on the offer would appear and everything would work out perfectly, like it was the 1940s and It’s a Wonderful Life was reality, and maybe it was… for him.

      The other teachers burrowed their gazes into me, clearly waiting for my answer. Roy Orbison was singing about a pretty woman on the sound system. The smells of beer, whiskey, and a mix of perfume and cologne hung in the air. I stared at the pink BUD LIGHT sign hanging over the bar. The U in BUD was dying, its light flickering off and on. A thirtyish couple made out beneath the sign.

      It’s not that easy, I said. I… need to find someone—

      We all found someone. Ryan motioned around the table.

      Peyton Mackenzie, Holly Greene, Gretchen Holloway, and Dave Lindeen nodded in unison.

      I sipped my Budweiser, laughed inside, and tried to find a better excuse. I didn’t want to become the old man who constantly got lectured at these gatherings. I had the urge to push myself up from the table and walk out of the pub without saying a word. Luckily, summer was here, and after tonight I wouldn’t see any of these assholes for at least three months. Maybe we’d run into each other around Blarney, Texas, but I wouldn’t get cornered and interrogated like I was now. That was what these get-togethers always devolved into: someone poking me about my nonexistent love life, which was why I hated coming to them. But this was the end-of-the-year bash, although it wasn’t much of a bash if you asked me.

      If we did it, you can too, Dave Lindeen added as if he were some sort of life coach.

      I lowered my eyes. No need for you guys to worry about me.

      We just want you to be happy, Peyton Mackenzie said. Everyone deserves to be happy.

      Who said I wasn’t happy? I asked.

      Perhaps I’d snapped at Peyton without realizing it. I felt like a goldfish in a fishbowl, all eyes at the table fixed on me. I was happy… wasn’t I? My brow furrowed, my face flushed. The room spun slowly about me. The neon lights from the signs were tracers burning into the darkness around me, like shooting stars from a dream.

      Holly Greene said, You never smile anymore.

      You really don’t, Gretchen Holloway added.

      I forced a smile. I’m smiling now.

      "That’s not a real smile," Holly said.

      What the hell was a real smile? Didn’t everyone fake it sometimes, even these sterling examples of bliss that surrounded me? Who were they to try to fix me, to try to fill in the spaces in my life they thought were empty?

      I guess all of you are perfectly happy, I snapped. None of you have any problems.

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