I’ve always listened to humming here in this old house of mine, thinking so many times from my early years that it was the universe humming, or the humming of the gods coming to sensitive me, especially in that period around my 12th year when my imagination ran wild.
Continue reading “Behind this Stone by Tom Sheehan”
“We create monsters and then we can’t control them.” –Joel Coen
Looking back through the window of memory with all its scratches, I’m driven to tell my story not to frighten but to enlighten because in the end—that cocky, inescapable end—-it’s truth, not reality, that transforms us. According to Dr. Hornsby, the men shuffling cards at my kitchen table that December at 3 in the morning were part of what he called my ongoing childhood fantasy— except that, unlike all the other fantasies, this one was the first that could be fatal.
“It’s called paracosm, Peter,” he informed me. “None of it is real.”
Continue reading “Hooked by Jack Kamm”
As one of the new faculty members at a small Midwestern college, I used to get the short straw when it came to various off-campus activities, such as ‘community outreach’. Basically, that involved a long drive out to some godforsaken rural township in the middle of nowhere to give a talk on local history to a bunch of bored Shriners. Who never asked questions, never showed any more interest than ‘that’s another event ticked off the calendar’ and who wouldn’t even stump up for dinner afterwards. Which meant hunting down a diner somewhere for a slice of pie as a reward to myself, partnered with a stay-awake coffee and refill.
Continue reading “Gentlemens’ Agreement by Steven French”
Pen Gipperson wasn’t thrilled that he had to visit the attorney handling the lawsuit against him at a fuckhole office in Connecticut. Extremely inconvenient. But because of legal matters there was no way around it.
Continue reading “Mary Mary by Adam Kluger”
Alexander Korda’s 1948 film ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, starring a moustache-less David Niven, was a famous flop, in both Britain and America. At the time, it was suggested by the critics that Niven had been miscast, but Alfredo Epps’ new release, ‘The Last Jacobite,’ implies that there was a deeper problem with Korda’s original movie. Namely, that the main character was at fault, not the main star.
Continue reading “An Appreciation of Alfredo Epps’ ‘The Last Jacobite’ by Michael Bloor”
His wife smiles as she looks over at him, slipping her hand over top of his. They sit in rented beach chairs not far from where their three small children are playing in the sand. Digging up ‘rivers’ for the sea to flow into and filter out of. Sand castles that are hastily built and quickly moved on from. Splashes in the cool surf washing far enough inland to get their ankles wet.
Continue reading “The Wave by D J Roosh”
I sat in Clarice’s office every week. My bedroom closet was bigger. A black leather couch with holes in it took up half the room. White stuffing like cottage cheese spilled out of it. Her pine desk overflowed with files. Clarice had more books on her wall than a library. They were in boxes on the floor. All that knowledge. Nowhere to put it.
Continue reading “Fractured by Lisa Lahey”
It’s been almost a month now since she first became acquainted with pain.
When she’d first glanced at him, half dazed under the strong pull of morphine, she knew straight away, even then, that she would never forget that face.
It was the face of a young man; Plump at the cheeks and lips and sharp at the jaws. Round and soft where one would expect it to be, yet angular in all the right places.
A perfectly balanced face, she thought.
However, it was the eyes –or rather the lack of them- that grabbed her attention, almost by the throat.
Continue reading “When Pain Grew a Beard by Rania Hellal”
Okay. I’m being serious now. Not that I haven’t been serious all along. But this I gotta say. If there’s anything…anything at all that’s important to me, it concerns this matter—this matter of the heart.
So…
Continue reading “Initiation by Fiver”
This is another of those stories that we really wanted to publish but for various reasons it wasn’t a good fit for the usual posts. It was too good to pass over and so – we give you-
Horton Hears You by Rosemary Grant
The paramedics found him in the snow at a bus stop, nursing what they called a Hennepin Avenue cocktail: grape juice and Listerine, mixed half-and-half. When he got to the emergency department, he did nothing but stand at the door of his room and stare through the glass. I walked in and introduced myself as his nursing assistant. He took off his Horton Hears A Who! t-shirt and said he was cold. I asked if he wanted a sandwich. He replied: “I never killed anyone.”
He stood in the corner of the room as I took his blood pressure and temperature. He didn’t look at me. His arms were circled with lines of round cigarette burns, spiraling down his palm and across his hands. Seven on each finger, four on each thumb.
When I left his room, the doctor was at the door talking to his nurse. He couldn’t stay, the doctor said. He was sober enough to walk and talk. He wasn’t suicidal or homicidal. He burned himself and drank—but that was how he lived—and maybe he acted psychotic, but only God could say for sure, and he didn’t meet criteria for admission, and anyway the hospital was full and the hospitalist would spit in his face if he asked for another bed.
“Should I call a cab?” said the nurse.
“He wants to walk home.”
He walked out into the snow as I was checking in a woman who had three children with the flu. I didn’t see him again.
This story really impacted the team here and so we approached the author to suggest we link to a couple of sites that care for homeless and desperate people.
Madison Street Medicine brings together doctors and healthcare professionals to provide healthcare for homeless people in Madison, WI https://www.madisonstreetmedicine.org/about/.
and
MEDiC is a system of student-run free clinics affiliated with the University of Wisconsin that provides free care to underserved populations, primarily homeless people and undocumented immigrants https://www.med.wisc.edu/education/medic/.
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