Across from her, Mabel was spooning her poached eggs while Emily rambled through a litany of complaints. Today it was the eggs, over-cooked, the night nurse tapping on her door at night, “You can’t hear her, can you, Frances? So annoying.” Frances nodded. Anything else would invite more exchanges with Emily, who laced every conversation with a side order of disdain. A smoke. She needed a smoke. Where was Jerome?
Continue reading “The Elephant in the Room by Barbara O’Byrne”
All through the eighteenth century, Britain had profited from the slave trade more than any other nation. Finally, in 1807, an Act of Parliament was passed prohibiting the slave trade. The act also established a squadron of navy ships to patrol the West African coast and intercept slave traders of all nations, not just British traders. Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron intercepted an estimated 1,600 ships and freed an estimated 150,000 slaves.
Continue reading “Two African Lessons by Michael Bloor”
As always, don’t expect an in-depth character review or story synopsis. I try, with these, to tell whoever wants to read, what has stayed with me and to a lesser extent, why.
I’m writing this review just after I’ve written the review for ‘The Bad Place’. This story is also a bit random and that is why it came to me. It is unique and very entertaining.
Continue reading “Auld Author – The Library Of The Dead by Glenn Cooper by Hugh Cron”
I wanted to write something ironic about writing something ironic.
Ironically fuck all came to me!
…Wait a minute – Did I just do it??
I absolutely hate that phrase for having sex. ‘Did they do it?’
Continue reading “Week 457 – Fornication Is Even Fucking Better, What Would They Call The Kid And Claude Raines Rocks!”
The dog scrutinized her through the glass door of the high-rise building. His wet pitch black coat shone smooth as glaze over metal, and for an instant she perceived him as a bad omen, a gigantic raven, haunting her. And yet, his gaze was benign, his attitude tentative and curious at the same time. Flakes of snow settled continually on his muzzle and shoulders, shriveling and melting, like grains of sand measuring his time out in the cold. Irene, still and uncertain, eyes squinting from the sunset glow, met his gaze, then promptly switched her attention to her own reflection in the door, her curly hair in disarray, her arms hanging pointlessly along her body. She had nearly tripped over the dog who approached her unexpectedly as she arrived home earlier, lost in her usual musings. Their eyes locked for a moment, in a question and answer one-two. She moved away, though, determined to ignore him.
Continue reading “The Evening of the Black Dog Lavinia Andrei Jennings”
They hadn’t touched her daughter, the crowd outside. They had wept at her in holy resignation and punched fists of beads at the air, hostile with certainty, but Bec had drawn herself wider and taller, a linen sailcloth harnessing the crackle of hostile air, propelling them forwards to the safety of the car.
Continue reading “Loving You by Simon Ashton”
When things became worse, I brought my mother to our abandoned-since-Dad-died beach house for the summer. A sabbatical and a newly west coasted daughter freed me to lug Mom like a bag of silent, bewildered groceries into the passenger’s seat of my car. We sped along the highway from the city to the coast, chasing the rickety car of Mom’s memory, lumbering just ahead. I savored the hopeful sensation of control and the encroaching smell of sulfury sea air.
Continue reading “Things You Shouldn’t Say to Your Mother with Dementia by Maggie Nerz Iribarne”
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Shig Sagimoto appears to me in one short image, a slim, fedora hatted old fellow on a bicycle coasting down Carlin Hill, both hands on the handlebars. As I observe him, he raises one arm upright into the blue sky of summer, then holds down the top of his hat, and for a few slight seconds, raises high his other hand, and balances as his bike wheels fly downhill through the hot afternoon air. Then, he sees I’m watching. Both hands press back to the handlebars, and he moves his head down as he pedals into the Tappen Esso parking lot.
Continue reading “The Bicycle Man of Carlin Hill by Harrison Kim”
Behold the little god of half-assedness
Officially nameless, Charleston’s “Alone Park” was once part of neighboring New Town Cemetery. “Once” because In 1973 two-hundred square feet of graveyard property was accidentally left out when chainlink replaced New Town’s original fencing. Upon discovering the error, the city council refused to cough up another cent for link-fencing, but it didn’t want an inch of their property left unconquered, either.
Continue reading “From the Files of the Alone Park Project By Leila Allison”
This poignant tale by site friend Michael Bloor is definitely suited for November. The Next Morning is a fantastic example of telling a story clearly though indirectly. It allows the little things to build up, and the payoff is tremendous.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Next Morning by Michael Bloor”
literally stories 