It had happened again and bright-eyed, thick-chested Judd Farro, half clad in the yellow foul weather gear of his trade, couldn’t remember how many times it had happened over the years. The sea, obviously, has its own rules and regulations, he thought, its own machinations, and you don’t really count on them. But here, in its own great mystery, the lobster with the bold X on its backside was caught anew in one of his traps, big as life, healthy, and as if daring to say Here I am again. The X was indelible, unmistakable, and struck him with an awed intensity.
Continue reading “The Lobster That Wouldn’t Sleep by Tom Sheehan”
First there was a smaller sail out on the water. And then there wasn’t any sail, as if it had been erased. Bartholomew Bagnalupus did not blink at the contradiction in his eyes. There were things like mist and eyespots and vacuums of sight. Been there, had that, he thought, as he swung his short-handled curled pitchfork into the earth of Mussel Flats. Another bucket of worms he’d have before the tide would drive him off the flats.
Jack Posner, licensed clinical psychologist, PhD. from Berkeley, serviced corporate lawyers and stock and bond traders from his private plant-filled smoke-free office on the fourth floor of the Paulsen Building downtown. He consoled guilty consciences with a phrase he muttered under his breath for his own benefit as well as his clientele’s: EVERYTHING’S O.K., GO BACK TO WORK, over and over, like a Vedic hymn, until even he was fooled by it.
