Justin and the campesino, Santos, spent the morning hiking deep into a ravine, carefully picking their way down narrow goat paths and occasionally chopping through vines and thickets. Now they were at the bottom of the ravine and sitting on a boulder that sloped into a stream snaking around gray rocks and lush vegetation. Santos was tired, a man who had lived well past fifty, pushing sixty maybe; it was difficult to tell. He had been evasive about his age, gesturing with his callused hand and saying, “Viejo. Old.” The younger man Justin had stated boldly without shame that he was twenty-seven.
Tag: fiction
Week 98 – Sawdust, Alterations And What’s Missing?
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
Continue reading “Week 98 – Sawdust, Alterations And What’s Missing?”
The Back Side of Sight by Tom Sheehan
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.
Ghosts by Terry Sanville
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.
Workplace Harmony by Rebecca Field
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.
Frivolous by David Henson
“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.”
Post by Tina Parmar

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.
Frozen Tag by Mitchell Toews

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.
Towers of Grass and Clay by Kip Hanson

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.
The Unsynchronized Death By Titus Green
September 24th, 2014 10.15am
He sits on the comfortable sofa and assesses his surroundings. He is in a spartan, minimally furnished room on the second floor of a nondescript Syrian apartment. There is a lamp-shade to his left, and a small coffee table in front of him, on which there is a bowl containing some dates. Somebody has tried to insert some signs of civilization, and he appreciates this. Outside, staccato gunfire is the false fire-cracker sporadically popping in the distance. The automatic bursts have an industrial sound quality, as if the trigger-happy fanatics shouting their devotions are contractors hired to destroy the city incrementally by hosing it with their bullets, and their RPG rounds.
“You want?” asks one of his swarthy captors unable to develop the question any further, because of limited English.
