Felicia sat down on the boulder at the edge of the mountain. She thought about a thing or two, then thought about God.
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What’s Left by Todd Dodson
He settled the last of the old Amazon boxes in the bed of the pickup, an intractable, unstrung guitar neck poking out from the middle, with the faded moon looming eerie in the midday sky like the cover of some science fiction paperback. He threw a blue tarp over the mess, then took his time stitching a length of twine through the grommets, around the cleats, a clever hitch knot at the end, even opening the driver’s side door before finally, finally turning to me standing in the hot pea gravel, glass of ice tea melting in my hand, before saying, “Well, that’s it.”
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The Yellowing Yellow Room by Colby Loucks
I am sitting in a windowless room in Africa’s Congo Basin wishing I had taken French instead of Latin in high school. My mom forced me to take Latin, saying it would help me become a doctor. What a load of crap! Or as they say in Latin “Quid onus crap!” Also, I am not a doctor but a middling middle-aged ecologist who is at this very moment sweating through my t-shirt, sharing a room not much bigger than gas station bathroom with one Congolese priest and one Spanish priest. They are not praying but discussing bribery. I know this because I did end up taking four semesters of Spanish in college, and heard the Spanish priest say “Quanto dinero?” The Congolese priest whispered back to him in French with something that sounded like “Quanto dinero?” But it is definitely French. I know this because his earnest whispers are as soft as crushed velvet, the syllables gently rolling over each other. No other language but French does this.
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AI Husband by Claire Massey
Madeline tells her virtual assistant to play the invitation again. Did she really hear the antiquated phrase, in-person? Pandora says, “repeating anniversary party details from George and Lydia” and yep, there’s cousin George’s avatar, declaring he’s 40 years married in 2040 (!) and guests can attend the celebration by holographic teleportation or in-person.
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Auld Author – A Bard of the Old School
Week 492: Parental Wisdom; August Reading; Food and Fodder
Parental Guidance
There’s one bit of advice that my late father gave me when I was too young to scrutinize advice, yet it remains something I’ve neither forgotten nor defied: “Don’t eat canned stewed tomatoes.”
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Ray by Ted Gross
When the shock of the diagnosis wore off, I figured if I was going down the tubes anyway I might as well take some people with me. So I made a list.
On top of the list was Ray, who beat me up good in junior high school.
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We Were Everything and Nothing by Lydia Baham
It was the second day of our trip to Madrid. We were in a restaurant not far from Plaza Mayor with the massive stone walls whispering the secrets they knew, trying to eavesdrop on ours. We had almost finished the bottle of Cava, I was a little dizzy from the alcohol and too high on you, my friend. You watched me with those magnet eyes of yours, a wicked smile played on your lips, and I was asking myself if you’re even real.
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When the Poor Have Nothing More by Sparrow Grace
Warning Adult Content – see tabs.
When the poor shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat their children.
Or starve, was the unadded addendum. Many had chosen to starve. Many had not.
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It Had to Be Ewe by Leila Allison
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Beezer and Barkevious claim to be brothers. That’s unlikely in the physical sense–Beezer is a British Bulldog and Barkevious is a Scottish Terrier; but nowadays you can be anything you want to be until you try to buy life insurance. Then again, since they are talking Dogs who live in the make-believe realm of Saragun Springs, such a claim remains possible. Regardless, the boys were wandering the realm’s countryside sniffing for rancid stuff to roll in when they saw Conrad the Blackface Ram headed their way.
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