“My father, Franz Josef Schennach, was a gendarme, Hauptmann, in Tirol. After the Nazi took over, he had to prove that he was Arian. He could not prove this,” Anna Stenson said. She looked across the room from her chair.
“Brown eyes go to Africa… They taunted me. At school. Only the blue eyes would stay in Europe, if Hitler won. I was hoping he would not,” she said adjusting the hem of her skirt.
Continue reading “Swords Hanging on the Walls by Richard Mark Glover”
Even though nothing was said. Nothing was mentioned. I am still sure that my fellow editors were sniggering in the corner when I agreed to write this…Thanks guys!
I can be mature without a second thought! It’s not a problem! I can be serious and focused straight off the bat…So here is my 417th version of this posting.
The Land Rover is making an awful grinding sound because Dave took a bump on the beach too fast while staring at his reflection in the rearview mirror. I hear a splat and look behind to see we’ve run over another jellyfish and Dave’s back staring at his reflection again.
“I look good don’t I?”
His face is gaunt and hollow with bags under his eyes from a sleepless night in the tent; his hair is greasy, unkempt, and longer than I’ve ever seen it; he is unshaven with the patchiest beard I thought possible; but he is tanned, I’ll give him that.
We are quiet, motionless and sad faced at home. Sometimes I smile just to startle you. I wonder if you still love me or if I am a particle you depend on to avoid the throb of loneliness.
We once argued, both of us so angry murderous thoughts surrounded our minds. You smacked me until I stumbled backwards against the wall, my eyes malicious with hurt and resentment. When the shock was over, I giggled and staggered towards you. “Do that more often. I love the devilish feeling it provokes.”
Hi folks!
Just like trying banana on toast with pepper, flat sausage with beetroot and salad cream and of course, tuna, egg mayonnaise and a touch of red sauce, we are doing something a bit different this week for one day only. No, we haven’t diversified into a food site. (Doesn’t ‘Diversifying’ and ‘For one day only’ sound like the demise of Woolworth or a desperation concert from an old singing has-been?)
Anyway, for any avid readers of the site, you will know that Mr Fred Foote has given us many a wonderful tale. Please check out his back catalogue. In fact, check out as many back catalogues as you can, it keeps the stories breathing and the authors proud!!
So just for a change, on Monday, we are going to publish a revision to his ‘Author Part 2’ story. Fred sent this into us and we felt that it was a very clever and satisfying conclusion to his previous version and we wanted to give you all the chance to read it.
With that in mind I thought I would use revision as the inspiration for this post.
I met an old fellow years ago and he told me that he was a writer. Now to be clear, I am not sure if this was true or not. You see, I have met many people who have claimed that they were professional footballers, hitmen, spacemen, artists, famous chefs etc. This doesn’t mean that I am a sophisticated man about town who draws the interesting and beautiful people to me…It just means that I have met some moon units in my time. I hope the old guy wasn’t one! He stated that he had some writing success and he also told me that he was updating some fairy tales with a Scottish slant. That in itself was interesting. If fairy tales aren’t mad enough, having the characters out their faces on Super Lager or heroin would make Mr Disney spin in his grave. Oh, that was the same Mr Disney who made the Brothers Grimm spin in their graves!
Sorry I am getting off point. I was talking to this old fellow and I told him that I couldn’t look back at any of my stories without tinkering. I asked him when you should stop. He told me that anyone who writes stories or poetry would always tinker. He said that perfection was an arrogance that a writer should never have the luxury of. He went onto talk about leaving as is but always expecting to see something no matter when you went back to it. His idea of a deadline was to accept the completion, only to look at it later and want to change the damn thing yet again!
So it is interesting to think that no matter what, once we have got a story to the end, it is the nature of writing that will never allow you to accept that it is finished. I have the same thoughts with a bottle of whisky…I can never accept that it is finished…It makes me sad!!
Now whether or not the fellow was a moon unit was besides the point, I think what he said had some merit and it is something I think on when looking back!
As always, we have had a diverse mix of subjects this week from our growing list of talented authors. Topics such as stages of life, childhood, acceptance, cancer and assassination were all covered in these five excellent stories.
I still haven’t embarrassed any of my fellow editors by publishing their initial thoughts, so here’s hoping for this week!!
Chris Wight sent us his thought provoking, ‘Wake Up Jerry’ which we published on Monday.
‘A really simple story premise but very neatly done.’
‘The style / voice is recognisable / distinct. This is the hardest skill to do in writing.’
On Tuesday we had Steve Sibra’s very memorable, ‘The Dope Shack’.
The story will invade your thoughts every time you have a bottle of beer!
‘A strange coming of age story.’
‘Quirky ideas done in an age appropriate voice’
Jack Coey was next up on Wednesday with his minimalistic stylish offering, ‘Oblique Lines’.
‘It sucked me in and kept me hooked.’
‘I think the style is excellent’
Thursday gave us the very emotional and touching ‘Can I still Work One Day A Week’ from J.W Kash.
‘I think this story will instigate thoughts in whoever reads and these thoughts may be a hundred different points of view.’
‘Briefly told but different enough to tick a bunch of boxes for me.’
And that was just about us. We had the return of an old friend for Friday’s offering. It was so good to see dm gillis back on site. He gave us an action packed story with some very sharp observations in his tale, ‘Little Rules Of Engagement’.
‘Very strong, satirical and sharp.’
‘Great description and good set pieces.’
We thank all these authors for their input.
Well my friends, that is us for Week 68. We are already reading and deciding for Week 69. It is a pleasure and we hope to continually hear from new writers as well as our supportive old guard.
So eat something weird and send us that piece of perfection that you will want to change again and again and again and…
Hugh
Day #16
The Little Rules of Engagement Handbook—Rule #1: Once you have arrived at your assigned location, hunker down and wait for ancillary instructions from your Assignment Coach.
4 a.m.
The crows quarrel over dead rat scraps in the gutter.
CNN, I haven’t turned it off for two weeks. Images of desert proxy-wars, percolate through the cable; ISIS driving US Iraq-abandoned Humvees and armoured vehicles; teenage recruits firing AK-47s into the Mosul sky; American Republican Party candidates debating penis size.
The assignment is to instigate a shakeup, by diverting the ginger haired sociopath’s motorcade down the street below my window. I have his picture taped to the wall, a smug man orbiting himself. He’s been granted Secret Service protection. That may complicate things. There’ll probably be revolution if I accomplish my assignment. A master class in failed democracy, for all those who care to attend.
Continue reading “The Little Rules of Engagement Handbook by dm gillis”
It was a day he learned too much about himself when the judges announced his drawing, 1st Place, and he heard the applause, and that night at the party, drank whisky for the first time, and loved how it made him feel. He was eighteen, and in a few more years, he flunked out of community college, and kept drinking anyway, until his wife, a local girl who gave him a son, left him after tolerating more humiliation than most women, but oh, he wasn’t done yet; it took until he lost his job as a used car salesman even though if he’d been sober til noon it would have been overlooked. He had nothing left, and sat in the common, and told passerby’s that life was unfair, and the townspeople knew who he was, and his story was nothing new.
My parents gave me a horrible name and I decided I had to get them back for it. They were old hippies; well I guess not that old but when I was twelve they seemed pretty ancient – probably like thirty-five or maybe even forty. To get revenge I got one of my pals to go in with me and we set out to make ourselves a dope shack; a hang-out where we did everything that was wrong and pretended that it turned out right.
That morning, a May Saturday, when Fernando “Fred” Norstrand first put on the police uniform, solid blue deep as a line of defense, bright buttons shining gold-like running down the front straight as ideas cemented in his mind, his wife stood in the bathroom doorway in open admiration of the new spectacle. He had only recently taken off a Navy uniform, discharged from service because of injury. They loved each other that morning with a new and silent abandon, their baby son still asleep, the day already lopsided in their favor, and the man of the house about to start a new job. He had been appointed as a special policeman of the town, assigned to the lone local theater to keep the kids in line, Saturday being the toughest start of all; popcorn, noise, kids away from parental control, let loose from their homes, very different from the few homes he’d visited during Pacific duty and the home he had grown up in.
Ellie awakens from a bad dream. While the gentle pre-dawn shadows fill her bedroom and strive toward a sense of pastel, she attempts to examine the details of her nightmare, but has only partial success. The only thing Ellie can recall for certain is being lost inside a terrible fog composed of tedious sounds and loneliness; a fog in which just being had been the worst thing possible.
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