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Week 98 – Sawdust, Alterations And What’s Missing?

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We have every now and then done things a wee bit differently. This is one of those times.

So with that in mind, I hand you over to Diane who will explain more about the story and why we are publishing it.

On occasion we receive submissions that miss the guidelines by miles but for whatever reason they catch our attention and demand an outing. We thought that this story Sawdust was in that category so here is a little extra treat for our readers.

Diane

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Back Side of Sight by Tom Sheehan

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In the bedroom, upstairs, front corner, blind amid the toss of linens he had known intimately for seven long years, in touch with passing traffic and summer conversations when the windows were open, Jack Derrick lay in the middle of sound, in the middle of darkness. His left leg, or most of it, set upon by diabetes and the perfection of the surgeon, was elsewhere; his right hand was stained by nicotine, the index finger and close companion yellowed as shoe leather, and those fingernails bore fragments of that same deep stain. Gray, thin hair, most of it about his ears except for one thatch above his forehead as if an odd bird, at length, would roost there, drooped like fallen stalk. The stubble of his beard sprouted as off-white as an old field of corn waiting the last reaper.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Ghosts by Terry Sanville

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Nathan Bellamy hunched over a cardboard box on the floor of his bedroom closet. He sorted through a stack of yellowed papers: insurance policies for cars long sold; records of mortgage payments that Loraine filed away during their first years of marriage. They’d lived in the house on a quiet street in Pacific Grove for more than four decades. Nathan felt her spirit in every room that he’d cleaned out, even in the musty closet with its dark corners filled with old shoes and empty suitcases.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Workplace Harmony by Rebecca Field

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Eric slammed the fridge door in disgust. It had definitely gone. He’d been looking forward to that can of cherry cola all morning and somebody had taken it. It was the audacity of it that really got to him; who would be so brazen?

 Clutching his plastic clip-top box of ham sandwiches closer to him, he slunk back to his desk, eyeing up his co-workers with suspicion as he went.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Short Fiction

Frivolous by David Henson

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“You should’ve just popped in, Mathis,” Mrs. Kelly says opening the door. “You know we’re waiting for you. Come, come.”

“I never like to presume, Mrs. Kelly,” Mathis says entering the small home. “It’s nice to see you again.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Body in the Bay by James Hanna

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Nietzsche’s cutting quote, “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you,” is by now a redundancy.  And so, when I became a San Francisco probation officer, I prepared myself to keep company with the abyss.  But I had not quite realized how extensive the abyss was.  I saw it in the eyes of the senior probation officers, so exhausted by massive caseloads that they were counting the months to retirement.  I saw it in the faces of deputy jailors, disaffected shift workers who were all but deaf to the human clamor of the cell ranges.  And, of course, I saw it in my clientele: hollow-cheeked crack heads, asocial gang bangers, vagrants with thousand mile stares.  But at least the abyss could be mellow where probationers were concerned.  It was mellow in the case of Joseph Shepherd, a middle-age drug peddler on probation for choking his girlfriend.  Entering my office for his intake interview, he glanced at the tower of case files on my desk and chuckled.  “I know you have it rough,” he remarked in a voice that could be poured over waffles.  “So I plan to make it easy on you, sir.”  He smiled with the insular charm of a sociopath then shook my hand with a python grip.  He seemed to be a man of elemental strength—a brawn with a life of its own—yet his broad open face and puppy dog eyes set me completely at ease.

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All Stories, Short Fiction

Post by Tina Parmar

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Gus is barking his tiny brown head off, Mr. Thomas must be near. Gus came along four years ago, a pint-sized wolf in mongrel clothes. I glance down at my flour-dusted trousers and open the door a crack to greet Mr. Thomas. But I see it’s not Mr. Thomas, but a stranger. I quickly slam the door, hoping that he hasn’t seen me. There is a violent crashing sound as the mail is forced through the letterbox. Gus chokes himself trying to grab the hand, but he’s too late. I finally let him go and he gives me an angry scowl. I probably shouldn’t have slammed the door, but you never know, better safe. Lock the door. Check. Locked? Locked. Locked? Locked. Final check: locked? Locked. It’s locked.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Frozen Tag by Mitchell Toews

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SHE HAD ONCE BEEN A SHOW PONY, sleek of shank and withers. Now she walked the pool deck, eyes forward and a neutral look on her face. I watched her for a moment and noticed that her head described a perfectly level line as she strode along, barefoot and bikini-clad.

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All Stories, Science Fiction

Towers of Grass and Clay by Kip Hanson

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Li Tsai stood beside the groundship and studied the ruins of the ancient city. She’d learned in school that the inhabitants of that unhappy place called it Denver, in honor of some forgotten politician. Today those people were naught but dust and troubled memories, she thought, shifting her glance towards the new city standing alongside the bones of the old: Deng Xiaoping, city of the people.

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