Like the slightly creepy, strange, weird and shocking? Hmmm? These tales From the Prairielands inhabit the 'shady realm...' the space in the shadows between what people think they do and what they actually do. From the the neon-lit desperation of the city, to the whispering corn fields this is a haunting collection of short stories that redefine the American Gothic. It is not the Gothic of crumbling European castles, instead it is the Gothic in ordinary America. This collection leads with an atomospheric glimpse into a simple, but strange story of a child on a city bus. - A shadow in the night. - The "Baron" of the Russian River: An aging aristocrat in Alaska haunted by the memory of a cult-escapee and the stars of Altair and Vega. - The Man in the Blue Toga: A corporate employee whose stable world dissolves into a surreal nightmare of "Golden Doors" and public humiliation. - Roadkill: The visceral story of Marjorie Gretch, a woman raised in the "ankle-deep pig shit" of a southern Minnesota farm, navigating a world of silent parents and the cold reality of the nursing home. - The Insurance Salesman: A man whose life is forever "stained" by a single, accidental moment of road rage and a cheap pearl-handled knife. Drawing from the "harsh-reality" traditions of Hemingway and the psychological depth of classic Gothic literature, Felix explores the Urban Dread of an unstable world. These are stories of "captured sunlight" and "inky blots of darkness"—strange, humorous, and occasionally brutal tales that leave the reader wondering where the reality ends and the shadow begins.