Michael Picco, Author

I felt that this story would've been a good capstone to Scenes… but, due to deadlines and space, I didn't quite have time to squeeze it in. Like the story All of Yesterday's Yesterdays , it deals with the unaware dead and the afterlife — particularly as it relates to the notion of the Bardo {from Wiki: “Used loosely, the term "bardo" refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions.”}.  I found the idea of the Bardo similar to the Christian idea of Purgatory, except that in th...

I was thrilled to see this Four Star review on Amazon for Scenes this afternoon... "Scenes From The Carnival Lounge explores, 17 short stories, the dark and disturbing recesses of what is possible through interesting, and sometimes complex, characters. Each story leads the reader through a macabre passageway into the character’s reality that, with each turned page, becomes more inky until the character and reader alike are unsure whether the character has gone mad or has always been mad. These are quick reads, that are engrossing and visceral." <<happy dance!>>