R.E. Dyer

Around Halloween 2020, I wrote a supernatural short called “Walk Me Home” for a Reedsy competition. It didn’t win, but it sparked some nice conversation among the group of friends I had there. We swapped criticisms and encouragement as each new competition rolled out, trying to make each story a little better than the one that came before.

From one perspective, it’s the story of a confused kid wandering down a dark city street, knowing the places around him should feel familiar but not quite sure why it all seems so alien at the same time. Back in late 2020, I think that described a lot of us.

A short while later, I received a request from After Dark Fairy Tales asking whether I would approve of them recording “Walk Me Home” for their YouTube channel. Then, like now, After Dark Fairy Tales provided a constant flow of content curated from sources across the internet, and frankly I liked the way he read. So, I said yes, even with the understanding that they would change the title to something they felt more engaging: “Brad & Constance.”

The result was my first experience with a short story on YouTube:

While preparing to write this article a couple months ago, I did a search for my story on YouTube, and I was surprised to find not one hit, but two. As it turns out, another channel, also prolific and still going today, found “Walk Me Home” and created their own recording of it. The voice here is very different from After Dark Fairy Tales, but for a story that I thought had died on the vine at Reedsy four years ago, it was a pleasant surprise.

Here is “Walk Me Home,” the Black Cats remix:

Listening to these recordings took me back four years, to a time when lockdown was a very real concern, and a lot of people were exploring hobbies and occupations alike that didn’t require leaving their keyboard. I met a lot of fine folks over on Reedsy, and remain in contact with some of them to this day. The competition there has changed, and we all continue to grow and stretch our wings–but the memories are good and the friendships remain.

Good times from a pretty frightening era in our collective past. I hope “Walk Me Home” (or “Brad & Constance”) might send you a shiver tonight, or maybe a memory of a time when we all needed a light in the darkness and the promise that tomorrow could turn out better if we keep putting one foot in front of the other.