The summer I turned eleven the tiny fingers of creeks that ran off from the river went bone dry. It turned the red Georgia clay into a cracked mud, and the water line in the wells fell to a frightful low.
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Category: All Stories
Sorting Apples by Ann Marie Potter
“One of his girls, the youngest I think, got killed by that thing a few years back. Got her scarf caught and strangled.” Like many of her father’s words, poorly formed and slick with alcohol, these came with a belch.
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Simian Revenge by Marco Etheridge
Cling mama fur. Green tree. Blue sky. Rain, mud, vine, climb. Chase, run, catch, tickle, roll-roll-roll. Run, catch, tickle, Hoot! Hoot! Eat warm fruit. Sleep high, night breeze. Morning sun. Hot sun. Little bugs, itchy. Fingers in fur. Bad bugs. Find, bite.
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The Elephant in the Room by Barbara O’Byrne
Across from her, Mabel was spooning her poached eggs while Emily rambled through a litany of complaints. Today it was the eggs, over-cooked, the night nurse tapping on her door at night, “You can’t hear her, can you, Frances? So annoying.” Frances nodded. Anything else would invite more exchanges with Emily, who laced every conversation with a side order of disdain. A smoke. She needed a smoke. Where was Jerome?
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Two African Lessons by Michael Bloor
All through the eighteenth century, Britain had profited from the slave trade more than any other nation. Finally, in 1807, an Act of Parliament was passed prohibiting the slave trade. The act also established a squadron of navy ships to patrol the West African coast and intercept slave traders of all nations, not just British traders. Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron intercepted an estimated 1,600 ships and freed an estimated 150,000 slaves.
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Auld Author – The Library Of The Dead by Glenn Cooper by Hugh Cron
As always, don’t expect an in-depth character review or story synopsis. I try, with these, to tell whoever wants to read, what has stayed with me and to a lesser extent, why.
I’m writing this review just after I’ve written the review for ‘The Bad Place’. This story is also a bit random and that is why it came to me. It is unique and very entertaining.
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The Evening of the Black Dog Lavinia Andrei Jennings
The dog scrutinized her through the glass door of the high-rise building. His wet pitch black coat shone smooth as glaze over metal, and for an instant she perceived him as a bad omen, a gigantic raven, haunting her. And yet, his gaze was benign, his attitude tentative and curious at the same time. Flakes of snow settled continually on his muzzle and shoulders, shriveling and melting, like grains of sand measuring his time out in the cold. Irene, still and uncertain, eyes squinting from the sunset glow, met his gaze, then promptly switched her attention to her own reflection in the door, her curly hair in disarray, her arms hanging pointlessly along her body. She had nearly tripped over the dog who approached her unexpectedly as she arrived home earlier, lost in her usual musings. Their eyes locked for a moment, in a question and answer one-two. She moved away, though, determined to ignore him.
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Loving You by Simon Ashton
They hadn’t touched her daughter, the crowd outside. They had wept at her in holy resignation and punched fists of beads at the air, hostile with certainty, but Bec had drawn herself wider and taller, a linen sailcloth harnessing the crackle of hostile air, propelling them forwards to the safety of the car.
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Things You Shouldn’t Say to Your Mother with Dementia by Maggie Nerz Iribarne
“I’ve just told you that.”
When things became worse, I brought my mother to our abandoned-since-Dad-died beach house for the summer. A sabbatical and a newly west coasted daughter freed me to lug Mom like a bag of silent, bewildered groceries into the passenger’s seat of my car. We sped along the highway from the city to the coast, chasing the rickety car of Mom’s memory, lumbering just ahead. I savored the hopeful sensation of control and the encroaching smell of sulfury sea air.
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Week 456: Black and Blue Christmas
It was Thanksgiving in the United States this week. It used to be a major holiday until the monstrosity called Black Friday relegated Thanksgiving to the holiday second division.
Growing up, I recall the day after Thanksgiving being a busy shopping day, but it certainly was not more important than the holiday nor did anyone camp out in front of Kmart awaiting the doors to open at hell o’clock the next morning. The only downside of the holiday was spending time with relatives that you did your best to avoid all the other days of the year–but our friend alcohol usually solved that, one way or another.
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