Flowers of Terror (Sort Of)

It's October, for many a month devoted to stories that scare, unsettle, shock. I figured for the season I'd share a story (not by me) that sent a distinctive chill through my body. It's called "The Blue Bouquet", and you can read it in five minutes. It's a textbook example of how good horror can be when short, a story that has a brief but thorough set-up for the jolt to come. In the shortest time, everything in the story builds towards one climactic effect in a way that Poe himself would have liked. The surprising thing about it -- I found it surprising -- is the person who wrote it: the great Mexican writer Octavio Paz, best known for his poetry and essays. It's a story that's been widely anthologized, and Sam Shepard even wrote a full-length play, Eyes for Consuela, inspired by it.

Can a night that starts well for a traveler, in peace and with optimism, turn in a flash, in a second, into terror? It can, and in the "Blue Bouquet", it does. It's hot and humid in the story, and all the traveler wants to do in his boardinghouse is take a walk to cool off, but...

For a quick delve into fear, if you want that, you can read the story here: The Blue Bouquet.