Merry Christmas, even to the humbuggers. Today we present two in a series we call the Reruns of Christmas. James McEwan began this party yesterday, which will last through Sunday. And there will be no rest for the wicked because the new year begins with new stories next Monday.
Continue reading “Christmas Rerun – A Little Red Wagon, A Long Remembered Face by Tom Sheehan”
This poignant tale by site friend Michael Bloor is definitely suited for November. The Next Morning is a fantastic example of telling a story clearly though indirectly. It allows the little things to build up, and the payoff is tremendous.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Next Morning by Michael Bloor”
here we are just past October, or, Rocktober, as some of us like to call it. There’s something wonderfully reflective about that month (perhaps enhanced with an abundance of mini Three Musketeer Bars); and in such a mood I go all the way back to the Summer of 2016 for this Rocktober‘s rerun.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – When Planet’s Miss by Doug Hawley”
From the two sides to every story department, we present The Last Lost Eye by Marco Etheridge.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – The Last Lost Eye by Marco Etheridge”
Literally Reruns – Walk on By by Jane Houghton
A steady accumulation of the little things can crush the will to go on. A chore once too often; the incessant pecking of the distorted past; a great fatigue, boredom. It’s seldom the big things that move you to check out–but usually the steady drone of dead sins, memories over-handled to the point of nonsense and tired feet that get you.
Continue reading “Literally Rerun – Walk on By by Jane Houghton”
Ah, the month of June. When I was a child June was a magical time. School was out and summer lay ahead like an endless fantasy. It was impossible to believe that something that wonderful could go bad. But it did; when school let me out for the last time I immediately began working at a job I needed but already hated.
So it is fitting that we mark this June with a tale of regret for something wonderful that was lost and always will be, with Dave by Hugh Cron.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Dave by Hugh Cron”
This story has content that some readers may find distressing.
Under normal circumstances, a tale of a violent, animal abusing prick wouldn’t get far with me. But Alex Sinclair is not the usual writer; nor is Paraffin Lamp a usual story. Alex has the tremendous ability to bring forward the least appealing elements in a character and make them interesting and alive. It lies in his effortless mastery of the language and perfect ear for dialogue.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Paraffin Lamp by Alex Sinclair”
I selected this story by Louisa Owens as a rerun in 2020. Louisa intelligently and graciously answered my humble questions. But if episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies must be re-aired endlessly until Armeggedon, then perhaps it is just that a small good thing like Short Straw should appear on the site for a third time.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Short Straw by Louisa Owens”
In this impersonal age of cyber friends (like me), witch hunters who never meet in person and gaining the gospel from unholy sources David Henson’s My Powdered Friend is a satire that is uncomfortably close to being true. As in much of David’s work, he takes a bright, keen, even flippant tone, which intensifies the darker themes. And he has the great knack of making you believe just about anything.
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – My Powdered Friend by David Henson”
This double tribute to his hometown is Tom at his best, and we feel that you will agree with that assessment.
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Walk a ways with me, here by the Saugus River and the Old Iron Works, where I played as a boy, where arethusa bulbosa (dragon’s mouth orchid or swamp pride) waits for spring and new reeds to hide the young of red-winged blackbirds, where indentured Scot servants worked off their passage, where Captain Kidd brought his treasure to bury on Vinegar Hill (not found yet by boy or man), all leading me to say: The Hour Falling Light Touches Rings of Iron (at the First Iron Works of America, Saugus, MA): You must remember, Pittsburgh is not like this, would never have been found without the rod bending right here, sucked down by the earth. This is not the thick push of the three rivers’ water hard as name calling… the Ohio, Allegheny, and the old Monongahela, though I keep losing the Susquehanna. This is the Saugus River, cut by Captain Kidd’s keel, bore up the ore barge heavy the whole way from Nahant. Mad Atlantic bends its curves to touch our feet, oh anoints. Slag makes a bucket bottom feed iron rings unto water, ferric oxides, clouds of rust. But something here there is pale as dim diviner’s image, a slight knob and knot of pull at a forked and magic willow. You see it when smoke floats a last breath over the river road, the furnace bubbling upward a bare acidic tone for flue. With haze, tonight, the moon crawls out of Vinegar Hill, the slag pile throws eyes a thousand in the shining, charcoal and burnt lime thrust thick as wads up a nose. Sound here’s the moon burning iron again, pale embers of the diviner’s image loose upon the night. Oh, reader, you must remember, Pittsburgh is not like this.
(On back cover of the book, “Small Victories for the Soul VII.” Wilderness House Press, 2019 and Back Home in Saugus.)
Image: Banner Pixabay.com
Saugus Honor roll image from Wikicommons images
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