“We launched the plant conservation study in an abandoned natural reservoir. Fields of sagebrush set against three icy active volcanos. And there I was, naked on the side of the dirt road. Covered in ticks. A poison oak rash burned up my waist. I had four wasp stings.”
Continue reading “A Small Succulent and an Octopus Pot by Anna Lewis.”
The knots in Alexander’s tie were becoming tighter with every twist and loop he made. His fingers moved in rhythm with his jaw, teeth grinding to the furling and unfurling of the silk in his hands. Again and again he coiled the fabric, feeling as it constricted against his skin. He had to admit, the first knots were sloppy, smeared in the sweat of the unstable fingers that made them. But, the further down they went, each became more and more precise. Practically a work of art.
Here we are at Week 180.
You can’t say 180 without thinking darts. Actually whenever folk of a certain age in Britain say that, all they can hear in their head is the commentator, Sid Waddell’s voice. (Look him up on ‘You Tube’)
Jockey Wilson was a legend. As was Eric Bristow and Phil Taylor still is!
Continue reading “Week 180 – ‘Jockey At The Oche’, A Lost Opportunity And Belgium.”
He was thinking if he had a deep jacket pocket he would thrust his right hand into that pocket, hide it. But of course, he couldn’t. His right hand was laying back there on the slab of rock, near the stump of the tree that had fallen back on him, pinned his hand on the rock.
The Interview Before The Pilot
“This is Jason Atkins for ‘Divertissement Dialogue’ where we find out what’s up in entertainment. Our guest tonight is Duke Hanley. Tell us about your new show appearing on Fox starting June 12.”
A course I’m taking at the University received the dubious distinction of being voted “least popular” last semester. The results were based on an algorithm formulated by a group of thoughtless students. I happened to be in Dr. Phillips’ presence when the unwelcome news appeared in front of him on his Feed. I immediately signed up; I felt bad for him. “Que sera sera,” he’d said, a phrase I’d found soothing. I didn’t know what it meant, of course, but it sounded lovely. I’d pulled the definition up on my Feed and it didn’t disappoint. The class, by the way, is called “Say What?: Speeches and Turns of Phrases from the 20th and 21st Centuries.”
I wish you wouldn’t go with him tonight. If you get caught…” Judith’s voice bounced off the yellowed porcelain tiles as she leaned closer to her sister at the counter in the ladies’ room. Judith stared at her own thin, chapped lips as Leda bared her teeth at her reflection in the chipped mirror and painted her lips a bright scarlet.
There it was, in black and white: Cecily VanDeGroot, dead at 88. Rich. Well-known. A good-sized family who’d want a good show. One I could give them.
Damn. “Services provided by Eternal Rest.” Lo’Retta had beat me out again. Early bird gets the worm.
And so do the dead. But we don’t tell the customers that.
Continue reading “To Sleep Perchance to Dream by Stephen J Matlock”
In my quest to find something interesting to say in Hugh’s absence this week I did a quick Google search for the significance of the number 179.
As you can imagine the results were thrilling.
I can confirm 179 is a prime number – an Eisenstein Prime no less as it is indivisible even by complex Gaussian integers, and Chen Prime because it is 2 less than the next prime number.
Continue reading “Week 179 – Borders, gateways and tales to tell our children”
Bailey and I met two years ago. Since then, we’ve found comfort in quantity, since quality failed us before, and so many times. We found each other on the same platform we often fiddled with—two people fighting the conventions of monogamy at the time—fed up with a pattern of receiving the short end of the stick in previous partnerships.
Continue reading “Neither of Us Are Boyfriends by D.T. Mattingly”
literally stories 