A cast of Several: Morn & Sonny

For reasons… I’ve been playing around with character cameos for Instagram… Which admittedly is partly procrastination. As I am making them anyway, I’ve decided you, dear readers, may enjoy seeing them, with a little background on the characters featured.

Today’s offering is a double offering of major characters from Passing Place, both of which are members of staff at Esqwith’s Piano Bar and Grill, the passing place of the title.

Morning That Brings The Joy Of Delicate Sunshine Through The Leaves Of The Forrest In The Late Spring In The Ever Dale When The Gentle Wind Blows From The East And Unsettles The Blossoms Which Flutter In The Breeze, the green haired occasional barmaid at Esqwith’s who doesn’t mind that everyone just calls her Morn, as he given name is a bit difficult to remember when translated into English. She tends to be a little erratic and diaphanous, but spends most days behind the bar or serving tables, with the brightest of smiles and expounding on her admittedly odd view of the world. Otherwise she can generally be found in her tree, which resides in the garden behind the bar. She is really fond of her tree and trees in general, and woe betide anyone spilling a drink on the bar top…

Sonny Burbank was once a american soldier with the Harlem Hellfighter’s back in WW1, an aficionado of Jazz, a Francophile, and the font of all worldly wisdom and esoteric philosophy for all his prostrations that he is ‘just a doorman’. Sonny is like everyone’s favorite uncle, fiercely loyal to his friends, and always happy to give advice, provided you don’t try to drink brandy the wrong way.

Morn and Sonny in particular are firm readers favorites, as well as my own. They were written as important linchpins in helping Richard the Piano Player come to terms with the strange new life he has stumbled into when he walked through the doors of Esqwith’s Passing Place, but they are far more than that, fully fledged characters in their own right with their own stories much of which is still to be written.

As well as Passing Place Sonny and Morn appear in the Hannibal Smyth novella ‘A Scar of Avarice’ and in a short story in the 3rd volume of the Harvey Duckman Presents anthologies.