A Prayer For Owen Meany
John Irving
1989
I found this novel lying outside my door about ten years ago. I still don’t know who put it there, but whoever did it had a unique taste.
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Category: Short Fiction
Week 530: Tuncking; A Warning From Diane About More Corporate Slime Trails; Six Gems and Some High End Funny Bizness
A Word is Born
Human friction is often caused by a powerful negative response to something another person says is true. An exchange of loud exchanges of not listening to the other person occurs. You see it in bars all the time. Words spill from mouths, fists fill the temporarily emptied maws and loosened teeth are the innocent victims. Dentists prosper. Yet the situation is usually considered resolved.
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The Boy by Clayton Korson MD
Disclaimer: This story is an entirely fictional reimagining loosely based on a true case from the ER. Names, characters, and details surrounding the case are entirely products of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to real persons. Any similarities to true events are purely coincidental.
***
Red lights cut through the night as the old man gazed ahead. He sat in his truck, staring, stopped at a traffic light. He sighed. The weight of the world lay on his shoulders. Exhausted, the man was at wits’ end. The preceding weeks were unrelenting. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it all. He was tired. His bones were dust, and delicate mind warped with hardly a coherent thought remaining.
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Week 529 – A Nice Bit Of Alcohol Enhanced Pastry, Letters With Crayons And We Still Hate Zombies.
Last weekend I did something that I’ve never done before – I went for an Afternoon Tea. It was a mother’s day present for my mum.
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Week 528: What’s in a Title; The Votes Are In and Genre Overkill
Naming Stuff
I like interesting titles. Now, these are not items to be confused with lying “clickbait” nonsense, but titles of books, movies and songs that stray from the norm. Often, as is the case of the cheap 60’s Spaghetti Western God Forgives, I Don’t, the item fails to live up to the title (but, to be fair, it is an interesting little film regardless). And sometimes certain interesting titles almost guarantee a good picture. The two Sergio Leone “Once Upon a Time…” films are classics, as is Quinton Tarantino’s exceptional Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. There is also one called Once Upon a Time in Mexico that I’ve heard good things about (starring Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz, both excellent performers), yet I’ve somehow yet to see it (I hope to fix that someday soon).
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The Margin of the River by Mitchell Toews
I finished shaving. A $10 coffee shop gift card was in the car, and although I knew I should hit the weights and take my usual morning walk, I also felt like a lazy day was not a bad idea.
Janice nudged me aside on her way to the ensuite.
‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘Dunno,’ I said while pawing through the underwear drawer for just the right pair—supportive but not too bossy.
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The Cave by James W. Miller
The hollowed out and exhausted mother followed by a descending parabola of thirteen brown-haired heads crossed the already dark movie theater, the family that does that, that walks in late through everyone’s view. The animation had already leapt to life, and the children groped behind themselves to find their seats, eyes locked on the towering screen. In a short moment, the mother was asleep, having provided the only rare, small gift she could afford to give to this desperate and fatherless brood.
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Eighteen Ninety-Seven by Pauline Shen
I run my finger along the marker at the edge of our farm. Its wood is parched from time and weather. A locomotive’s soprano voice carries across the prairie. I picture that engine puffing into a station where the platform swirls with a symphony of tongues. I think of families boarding with slumped shoulders and weary eyes. I recall how we, my parents, my brothers and I, stepped onto the colonist car with its sunlit windows and faintly sweet fragrance. Around us, men snored while mothers cooed at young ones latched to their breast. I witnessed my older brother, Wasyl, rub his teary eyes as the train pulled us westward.
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Week 527 – Buddy Love, All Carry On Included And Millions Are So Difficult To Budget With.
Here we are at Week 527!
Before we begin, I’d like to mention an actor who passed away this week and was in three of my favourite films that I have watched numerous times; ‘The Towering Inferno’, ‘The Count Of Monte Cristo’ and ‘The Man In The Iron Mask’.
R.I.P. Richard Chamberlain.
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Low Visibility by Matt Harrison
My wife was born invisible, but she told me that it’s only at my high school reunion that she feels invisible.
A small percentage of Americans are born invisible each year. Naturally, this number is very hard to track.
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