The Carpet Men

Hey there Badger Fans! I’ve got something a little special for you.

An old friend of mine from university, Allison Saia, launched her brand new online magazine today – here she is looking at some boats with her husband Dan.

Allison has written quite prolifically for Huffington Post and now runs coaching sessions for aspiring writers. Her latest project, Your Truth Magazine, was born out of this experience. It is a platform for people to tell their stories and share their truth with the world.

In preparation for the launch, she invited writers she knows to submit a piece which reflects something of their own personal truth.

Although I do tend to put a little bit of myself into all my stories (you may have picked up on a slight obsession with the 1980s by now), obviously they are fantastical tales (or are they…? Oooh!). However, I decided to write and donate one story, which while still very much in the Weird Fiction/Horror genre, contains a lot more of myself than usual. And I’ve been holding off on writing this until now.

The Carpet Men is quite a personal piece. The majority of the tale is of a man a little bit like me relating a dream he once had as a child to his girlfriend. While everything that happens before and after is well within the realms of fiction, the actual description of the dream is a 100% true recollection of the real nightmare. It was some time around 1980-81 but I still remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday – and it still chills me to the bone thinking about it! Although I have given this story to Allison, it is still very much in the Badgers Crossing canon, and I think I’ll be revisiting Spooner’s department store again – if I dare!

I hope you enjoy the story, as well as the other articles in the magazine and if any of them inspire you to write and share your own story, be it fiction, poetry, an essay or something else, then Allison would love to hear from you!