Leila has gone back to the very early days with this choice and it is one of the editor’s favourites and we still talk about it sometimes – late at night over the whisky and that. This is what Leila said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Friday by Jane Dougherty”
Well here we are at Week 243.
I was watching The World Athletic Championships on Sunday.
Qatar doesn’t do spectator sport very well. The final of the Woman’s 100 meters was a brilliant race and it did your heart proud to watch the athletes perform to the best of their abilities. What didn’t make me happy was watching the winners do a lap of honour for around 27 people. At one point there were more people on the track than were watching. This was a travesty.
Continue reading “Week 243 – Greasy Pies, A Bloody Birdie And Hiding Tom Of Finland’s Toys.”
It was a big box joint, out on a low overhead stretch of highway. The pink neon sign arching over the entrance to the parking lot read CRYPTS, a division of Marshal Memorial Inc. Below that was a flashing white neon sign reading Drive-Thru. I drove on, and waited in line for the order window. There was only one car ahead of us, a red Cadillac, circa 1975. The driver had been talking into a speaker next to his driver’s side window for several minutes, before two men arrived at the passenger side of the car with a gurney. Opening the car door, they pulled the body of an elderly man out of the car. He wore a rumpled brown suit and only one shoe. The two men placed his body onto the gurney, while the driver watched and waved a slow, sad good-bye. Then the dead old man was wheeled away, as a slot below the speaker spat out a paper tape and credit card that the Cadillac man took, before he drove away.
The woman just turned up at the house one morning. That was not unusual in itself. People turn up at other people’s houses without invitation or warning. All the time. It is even more usual in Dhulivadzimu, being so close to the border post. It was little wonder that the VhaVenda gods and ancestral spirits had chosen this dusty, barren gorge as their dwelling place. It is as if they had known that this is where all their benevolence and guidance would be most needed. Always.
‘It’s been many a year since we had a day like today! It was a lovely wedding. You looked beautiful. It was an absolute pleasure dancing with you.
All day long is about Roxxi’s wants and needs. Mrs. Lombard watches the sun stream through translucent curtains in her kitchen, feels a pliable breeze. She reflects the day: Roxxi believes there’s a syringe lodged in her cervix. Mrs. Lombard and all the staff had laughed. It’s crazy Roxxi’d say such a thing. But here, comforted by early evening light enveloping her home, while Roxxi shoots heroin “made from tar and apple cider vinegar” (Roxxi reports) into her fifty-something veins, Mrs. Lombard’s thoughts on her reflective pedestal stream in like the light traveling through the kitchen: Well Roxxi is a product of the system. Yes she is an intravenous drug user. But she is a product of The System that got her addicted in the first place.
For the first time a daughter had broken the absolutely perfect line of seven generations of newborn Brindamour boys.
Really great to see one of Leila’s stories having a second outing. Thanks so much for this Dave Henson. This is what he said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Learning to Fall by Leila Allison”
And following on from Week 241, here we are at Week 242.
That number is a palindrome.
That’s not very interesting but it makes you wonder why palindrome is spelt that way.
The handsome interviewer smoothed his shiny red tie. “Says you’ve worked at the docks for practically your whole life,” he said, scanning Gwen’s resume on the other side of the desk. “That your crew unloads—whoa—a hundred ships a day? Is that true?”
Continue reading “The Womb is a Careless Weaver by Mark Benedict”
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