Dear Reader,

As you would know, when you sign up for a newsletter you might receive a series of welcome emails. It all depends on how the newsletter was set up. I have not paid much attention to it and have, I think, only had a welcome email that confuses more than anything else.

I have a collection of short stories I have written over a time period of about fifteen years and I have decided to send these all out as a long running free fiction welcome sequence.

Not all of them really, one of these stories, Strawberry Bites, I use as a reader magnet and so you might already have come across it.

However, subscribers that would have joined my list before I am setting up this sequence would be missing out on these. And that is not right.

So, for the foreseeable future I will be sending out one of these stories as part of my newsletter. This month the story is Way Up Here.

In the short story Way Up Here the unnamed narrator muses about his place in the world. Sitting in an unnamed stadium, waiting for an unnamed event. Are these experiences the same for all of us? As well as the need for being a sports fan, or not. While he is doing this he suffers under the mundane conflicts of the perpetually bored.

You can read the complete story at the bottom of this email or download it here to read on your preferred eReader.

​Way Up Here download​

If you have any feedback or a review on this story please just reply to this email and let me know.

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The other free story

When you signed up for my newsletter you downloaded one of two free stories. Whichever you got, here are links to both so you can also get yourself the other one.

​Strawberry Bites​

​A Fading Memory​

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My Novels available on Amazon/Wide

​When Oceans Dream​

​The Seventh Kill​

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This Month's Reading Promos

The Beekeeper's Bad Day: A Ben Perkin's Novel

by Michael Cardwell

Ben Perkins wanted a quiet life. Bees. Honey. A rundown farm in rural Indiana and enough isolation to avoid people asking questions about his military record or his failed marriage.

It was going pretty well right up until somebody tried to shoot him in his own field.

Now there’s a dead man at his feet, a detective from Chicago asking questions, missing millions nobody can explain, and his own father thinks he's guilty. Ben doesn’t know what’s going on, which would probably bother him more if people would stop trying to kill him long enough to think about it.

​Universal Book Link to Buy the The Beekeeper's Bad Day (Kindle or Paperback)​

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The Void: The Stone Legacy Prequel

A prequel to an action-packed magical adventure

by Luna Fox & F Lowberry

Ludovic Stone was the arms-bearer and right-hand of Archmage Alastor an Ulbrecht and Sorceress Lianna; protecting them throughout the years from political threats and standing by their side through the hardships they faced due to their stature.

A failed assassination attempt against Lianna prompted Alastor to act and perform a grievous ritual to tap onto the power of the Void, the dark forces beyond the universe. Has he betrayed his friends and family to gain power? Can Lianna stop Alastor before it’s too late? Will she and Ludovic be able to save the world from the evil warlock he has become? What if it was all just a lie?

​Download a free copy of The Void: The Stone Legacy Prequel if you sign up to Luna Fox's newsletter​

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Free Stories to Read

Here is a promotion for short stories, novellas, or even full novels to download when signing up to the author's mailing list.

​FREE Sci-fi, Fantasy, & Paranormal​

More than 60 stories to read and enjoy. Get these books fast. This promotion ends Aug 2, 2026.

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​The Fiction Giveaway Extravaganza!​

More than 50 stories to read and enjoy. Get these books fast. This promotion ends Aug 8, 2026.

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​Freebie Finds, an all-genre giveaway​

15 stories to read and enjoy. Get these books fast. This promotion ends Aug 31, 2026.

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Keep on Reading

Thank you for being part of this journey. Whether you've been with me from the beginning or just joined, your readership means everything as I keep on writing.

Best regards,

Gerhi Janse van Vuuren

​Author of When Oceans Dream & The Seventh Kill​

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Way Up Here

(a complete short story)

Sometimes the stands are full. People are packed in regulated layers of shouting flesh. The curvature of the stadium full with a writhing mass of humanity.

When this happens, a wave can make it all the way around the stadium in one minute and fifty-nine seconds. Always one second short of two minutes. One hundred and nineteen seconds.

Sometimes, such as now, the stands are more than half empty. The stadium sounds hollow with an intermittent lone cheer.

I can see sections of seating clearly demarcated in faded blue and red. The scraps of humanity bundle together, marring the rhythmic pattern of the seating.

There is a moment between. One moment the stadium is half empty, the next filled. I never catch that moment.

I take a section of the stands and fix my eyes on it, staring at the empty seats until my eyelids feel gritty. Then I blink, and when I look next, there are people filling those same seats.

I don’t know how they come, or how they manage to leave.

I am sitting where I always sit, Block G, Row 32, Seat 12.

There is no seat 13 in row 32. I can stretch my legs out to the side. Not that it matters. This time I am the only person in Block G.

Block G is always the first one to empty from people. While Blocks A and D would still have filled seats, being directly on either side of the pitch, Block G would long since have emptied out.

Except for me.

What I hate most about these half-empty times is that the guys with the trays of snacks never bother to venture up here. What are they called again? For the life of me, I can’t remember right now.

They don’t come all the way up here when I am the only one here. Maybe they don’t see me.

When they do get up here, I always buy a hot dog. One hot dog.

That is the money I have in my wallet. Always the same amount. Never more, never less.

Even if they don’t come now and I don’t buy a hot dog, next time I will still have the same money. Enough for one.

There is a cheer from the sidelines. I do not know what happened. I cannot say that I care.

I keep searching the stands for a hot dog guy. Maybe if I wave, one will notice me and come up here.

I can never finish the hot dog. The bun is always dry, and the sauce would have leached into the wrapping, smearing stickily across my palm.

I will leave the half-finished bun on my right, where seat 13 should have been. There is only a flat piece of concrete with the bolts exposed, as if they intended to put in a seat 13 but forgot at the last minute.

The sun shines right into my face as it lingers just above the stands on the opposite side. If there was a seat 13 and I could have leaned over to my right, I would have been in the shade, not blinded.

I lift my hand up to shade my eyes and search Block A. There does not even seem to be a vendor, even amongst the people down there.

Vendor. That is the word. When did it come back to me? I can’t remember when I remembered it.

Why didn’t I bring a hat? I do not feel like the kind of person that would come without a hat. Even though the sun may dip soon, I should have known that I would sit in the sun for a while.

I have a pre-booked ticket. I knew before where my seat was. Before…

I take my ticket out of my pocket.

“You prepared well enough to buy a ticket in advance, but nothing else,” I say. “Why didn’t you bring anything else? And just enough money for one hot dog?”

The ticket doesn’t answer back. I am not surprised. It is worn down. As if I bought it years ago. Or maybe I thumbed it a lot in anticipation of the game. I don’t know.

I don’t remember before.

There is a light groan from next to the field.

I look up, but I cannot see what happened. It is a pity that the field has no big screens with instant replays.

Not that I would have seen anything, even then. The screen would most likely have been placed behind and above me.

That is where I would have put it.

You put the screen where the most people can see it. If you don’t, you won’t even get enough advertisers to pay for the install, never mind make any money.

Clearly these games don’t draw enough attention to go for the expense. I guess somebody sponsors some other big game, and this one gets a pittance.

It feels like an amateur field.

I think the game is finished. Or it just started again.

I can never tell.

All I know is that I can see more people now. Nowhere close to stadium capacity but close to two-thirds full.

There are even a few stragglers sitting in the bottom rows of Block G. That means that a vendor might make it up here.

But he won’t come up to row 32. I’ll have to walk down as soon as he gets up here.

I hate walking down. Alone on the steps, I feel exposed.

Not that I feel part of the crowd, even if the stands are full and I am surrounded by elbows and flags and hoarse cheering.

I’ll have to walk.

I decide not to. Back in my seat, I will only be disappointed. The hot dog will be a greasy mess. Probably from the bottom of the pile, squashed sideways with the sausage burst on the one end, flapping like a loose cuff.

I shade my eyes. The edges of the field are a dull green, tainted with yellow spots.

They need to take better care of the grass. Water it frequently, and then let it soak. But I guess they can’t. It seems as if there is always a game to be played.

Now the stands are full. Up to capacity.

I wave my wallet the moment I see a vendor. I have enough money for a hot dog.

He runs out before he gets to me, and he slings an empty tray across his shoulder, bouncing down the stairs. I can hope that he will fill the tray with fresh hot dogs and then come back.

But he, the hot dog guy, never does. What do you call them again?

I look at the flat concrete where seat 13 was supposed to be. A sliver of sunlight lit it up brightly. I left the last hot dog right there, in that sliver of light.

If it was still there, I swear, I would try and eat it. But the concrete is swept clean.

The crowd jumps up in a loud cheer. I can feel the stands vibrate below me as they stamp their feet in jubilation.

I look at the field. There is no way to see what happened.

I can never see what happens from way up here.

I sit right behind the eastern floodlight pillar. The column blocks out three quarters of the field.

Not that it matters.

I don’t even know what they are playing down there.