As of today I’m participating in the 100-word #adventghosts2023 flash fiction event run by writer Loren Eaton. You'll find links to all the stories participating in this event at his blog, I Saw Lightning Fall. Here’s my piece. Loren will be adding links to more stories as we get closer to Christmas, and as writers submit them. So be sure to check back. Here’s my story:

MINNESOTA WELCOMES MR. FROST

Shotgun in hand, Del crept over russets and umbers in the woods behind his farmhouse. Farther he trod, the more his nostrils numbed.

“Whatcha doin’?”

The swaying, humming man turned. His brush hovered. A thumb gripped an artist’s palette daubed with ceruleans, azures, and chalky whites.

“Painting,” the stranger said, flicking his brush at Del.

“Painting what?”

Del’s last breath clanked as it hit air. Blue and white limned his flesh, right to the tips of his boots and his Remington. A statue of a rugged frontiersman, rendered in frost.

Icebound, Del never looked so beautiful. At least till spring.

Copyright 2023 Joseph D’Agnese

My previous contributions to the Advent Ghosts events are here: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2019.

I’ve written often about Jack Frost for these Advent Ghosts events. And somewhat unwisely, I spent a huge number of years envisioning his adventures among mortals.

Five hundred thousand words later, however, I chucked Frost as the first-person character in favor of the female Santa character instead, hence the Kris Kringle book in my catalog. I haven’t trashed the Jack Frost material, of course. He’s too ghoulishly attractive to abandon entirely, and he will return in a prequel of his own.

The sculpture of Frost you see above actually inspired this story. It is a photo I took of one of the winners of the annual Gingerbread House competition held in my town at the nearby Omni Grove Park Inn. Talk about serendipity. I see Frost everywhere. That said, everything you see in that sculpture is edible.