First rule of working with Brad Blackwood: improvise.
Second: get into your character’s skin.
Both hard to pull off–Brad Blackwood never shoots light flicks. Brad says, the plot should write itself. If so, the plot is one shitty writer. Anyway, Brad doesn’t write screenplays, so maybe it’s just an excuse.
Continue reading “Counting Feathers of Life by Sergei Walnisty”
The busted passenger-side wiper flops across my nice new windshield. It started hailing about an hour back, before Albuquerque. Then, on a mountain curve, one-inch ice balls became grapefruit sized, smashing into the windshield of my brand new 1975 Buick Skyhawk like big slushy softballs hurled from the blackness. I honestly don’t know when the wiper broke.
They pummel the glass with a splat. I flinch when the larger slushballs smack the driver’s side. Do I pull on the shoulder? Keep going?
Continue reading “You See, I’ve Been Thru the Desert by Carol Jones”
Taos is huddled between two states, New Mexico and Colorado, holding dear to its heart the Pueblo Indians and mountain filled streams of daring rainbow trout. The forest dots the landscape like an eco-green peace bonnet.
The Indians moving west had found a home. But, progress came and brought with it pioneers. And before much time had elapsed this hideaway became an urban tourist attraction for the wealthy and tradesperson alike.
Gerald Xavier Kilmer placed his cell phone on the corner of his walnut desk, breathed deeply, exhaled, looked down from his fourth story window, and saw for the second time that day, what he had experienced more than thirty-five years earlier. Kilmer turned, his eyes followed the long corridor connecting other executive offices, then he turned toward the window again. When he looked down, it was gone.
Continue reading “A Place for Those Without a Place by Thomas Elson”
Ask any shrink or probation officer, “What is the most troubling kind of client?” You will hear the same answer every time: stalkers. Not the run-of-the-mill stalker—the jilted boyfriend type—but the schizo who obeys no authority save the voice inside his head. Lecture him, he will not listen. Warn him, he will not be impressed. Put him in jail and when he gets out he is likely to stalk you.
One day I plan to dance on that asshole’s grave. The thought of twirling to music in celebration of his death soothes my soul. Sometimes you see men in movies peeing on graves of people they don’t like. I could pee on his grave, but it’s harder for a woman, and a little undignified. Dancing, having a party, celebrating life that still courses through my body while he is buried beneath me seems more of an affront. If I peed on his grave I would leave part of me with him.
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.
Continue reading “The Boy Who Dug Worms at Mussel Flats by Tom Sheehan”
Billy was upset that no-one spoke to him.
“Hi Billy, how’s your mum?”
“She’s fine, fine, she’s fine.”
“And how about you? Are you behaving yourself?”
“Yes. I’m doing fine, I’m fine, fine, I’m fine.”
“Tell your mum I was asking for her.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I’ll tell her, yes.”
December 24. It began today. At the grocery store, I saw a man whose hands had disappeared seem to levitate a cantaloupe into his cart. Looked through a woman’s head in the bread aisle. Haven’t run out of SeeMe myself, so no invisibility infection yet. Going to write in my journal every day. Think it’ll help get me through this.
“I do not like Indiana. I do not like the weather or the politics or the terrain. Listen, Bubbles, when your Mom comes home we’re going to have a family council. All three of us and the only item on the agenda is, should we get the hell out of Indiana ASAP. Are you with me? Can I count on your vote? Alright! I knew you had my back.”
literally stories 