The right kind of night for a theatre of the dark absurd, an enchanted evening’s folly for addict-connoisseurs of murder most foul. Shadows were gathering, in the salon, the greenhouse, the library of countless shelves, dread passions soon released in the night, voices raised in anger, three screams, the barking of a dog. Morning would find blood in the back garden, a scimitar discarded on the study floor, the stoked remains of belladonna dreams in the sunlit haze of unaired rooms. On the screened porch the chairs and tables tossed this way and that, broken glass and the residue of spilt drinks scattered across the tiles. Bodies would be trucked to the morgue in the county meat wagon, thick with the scents of death and horror. By noon of the next day the slaughter and wreckage will have streamed away, furniture properly placed, dead bodies resurrected, shifting shadows restored, prepared for one more dark enchanted evening for addict-connoisseurs of murder most foul. *Appeared in Silver Blade Magazine