“Someone once said that life prepares you for what it throws at you.
Man O’ fuck! That’s a very wise and comforting thought for coping.
Tag: family
Banshee by Susan Jean DeFelice
I am Mack. I’m writing a letter to my real dad (not to my foster dad-I’ve had 12 so far and I’m not even 13). I’m writing it carefully with their stubby pencil but these people don’t know where to mail it. I tell them his address. They say that’s not a valid address. I say isn’t it close enough? How many damn zip codes does Yakima have and can’t you guys do some research? They tell me to calm down (I hate that the most). They look at me like I’m about to tear their faces off. When I step back from the thick glass they’re behind, their eyes relax a little and they say the usual: we don’t have time right now (which means they won’t anytime soon). I hear them talking about New Admits, guess a ton of them, so they won’t have any time in probably forever.
Byrd’s Syndrome by Dave Henson
Dr. Simmons studies the results of our daughter’s blood tests. “Mr. and Mrs. Jacobsen, I’ll get right to it.” Glenna leans forward. I try to squint away the words I don’t want to hear. “Your daughter has Byrd’s Syndrome.”
The weight of his diagnosis lands on my chest. My wife gasps.
The Beach by Patrick Alton
A wall of angry clouds threatened the morning light. William Watson hoisted the last suitcase and slammed the trunk.
“Hurry! It’s almost here!” he hollered. “We need to stay ahead of it!”
He adjusted the rearview mirror, smiled confidently at the kids, and wheeled the sedan off the apron of the driveway.
“Here we go!”
Mannie The Moocher by Hugh Cron – Warning – Strong Language.
Alan joined his sister.
“You OK Trish?”
“I’m getting there. I’m no good with this.”
“I know, you can’t handle a hamster dying never mind anything else.
Continue reading “Mannie The Moocher by Hugh Cron – Warning – Strong Language.”
Concerto by Dorian J. Sinnott
Strings
Whenever she heard even the softest draw of a bow across the strings, her heart would break. She knew the music wasn’t his, but she couldn’t escape the haunting melody that repeated in her head. Over and over, without pause. A never-ending minuet bringing her to tears.
Home from the Dead by Tom Sheehan
Earl Chatsby, six years ceased being a father for real, felt an odd distinction coming into his place of being. The newspaper for the moment loomed an idle bundle in his lap the way it stayed weighty and rolled and unread. Walls of the kitchen widened, and the room took in more air. He could feel the huge gulp of it. The coffee pot was perking loudly its 6 AM sound and the faucet drip, fixed three nights earlier at Melba’s insistence, had hastened again its freedom, the discord highly audible. Atop the oil cloth over the kitchen table the mid-May sun continued dropping its slanting hellos, allowing them to spread the room into further colors. Yet to this day he cannot agree to what happened first, the front porch shadow at the window coming vaguely visible in a corner of his eye, a familiar shadow, or the slight give-away trod heard from the porch floor, that too familiar, the board loose it seemed forever and abraded by Melba’s occasional demands to fix it.
The Swans by Hugh Cron
I was too young to remember the day my Granddad past away but the night my Gran died, the swans came.
I don’t mean that she had anything to do with them, it was just that I noticed them that night.
Passion at High Elm by Tom Sheehan
For the first time a daughter had broken the absolutely perfect line of seven generations of newborn Brindamour boys.
Guns by Sean Patrick Campbell
Let me tell you about a few things that have changed since I was a boy.
Back then, there wasn’t a nice big garden outside our house like there is now, only a heap of muck and a puddle of ooze that we used to surf in on the broken-off door of a cement mixer. We’d wreck around in that puddle what feels like all the time, until Ma came out roaring, I’ll brain yiz if ye cross this door mucked! And off we’d dash into the house for tea, kicking off our battered trainers at the doorstep, beating the muck out of them on the wall and leaving them to crust over in the sun.
