My mother’s a piece of work. She’s an avant-garde throwback to prehistoric times. She’s a ruthless diva of danger. I love her and fear her in nearly equal measure. She has taught me valuable and obscure lessons. The following teachings standout at this point in my life.
“Someone once said that life prepares you for what it throws at you.
Man O’ fuck! That’s a very wise and comforting thought for coping.
It didn’t matter
It didn’t matter
It didn’t matter that she broke out of the embrace and said goodbye.
It was time to meet her friends at dinner.
That was fine.
Really.
I feel the scream rise, but I crush it back down into a solid lump of coal, and then further, harder, until it becomes an imperfect diamond of rage stuck in my throat. I can’t let it out. I can’t swallow it. It sits, laboring my breathing. I shove it down as hard as I can, store it, just like all the others. The rage, the sorrow, the pain. It all goes to the same place.
My life is like a demented fairy tale where the princess barfs jewels and escapes the evil Prince in her shitty Honda. I should be rich from all this.
“Can you tell me what happened today?” Midlin Ambeau’s grandfather said, his eyes as clear as his interest.
-I don’t know why you have to drink so much all the time.
They were sitting at a small wooden table in the kitchen. The dinner was long finished and between them were two empty plates that had been gently pushed aside, and two bottles of wine; one empty, one full.
Continue reading “Put The Cork Back In The Bottle by James Gilbert”
“Completely naked?”
“Don’t worry, my dear, it will be all right.” He cocked his head. “You did promise.”
Mr. Thayer moved to touch Lydia’s shoulder, but she pulled back, wrapping the thick robe tighter. Mr. Thayer – she would never have thought to call him Gregory – stood back from her. Lydia could not interpret his expression. He might have been showing a twist of amusement or contempt around his bearded lips, but mostly she felt that he was studying her as if she were an animal or a specimen. That was what he did, after all, studied and painted.
And she had promised him. She found herself blushing. At the same time, she felt in control, in some way.
I have a lot of guns. Most of them people have given me, and one I stole. Adam bought me a shotgun to hunt grouse and ptarmigan in the mountains, and we would eat the meat carefully, picking out the pellets. The rifle I couldn’t resist taking from the old man who was an evicted hoarder, and I was hired to clean out his basement. It had been under a pile of new shirts with their tags still on them, and I stuffed it with the clothes in a trash bag, carried it out, and put it in my trunk. I never shot deer, so I would lend it to Adam, who sometimes brought home venison that I would cook with carrots and tomatoes in a stew. A friend had given me the handgun. I had been complaining to her about my current job weeding the landscaping for some man who worked for Google, wore silver chains and Hawaiian shirts, and kept trying to touch my shoulder when we talked.
Alan joined his sister.
“You OK Trish?”
“I’m getting there. I’m no good with this.”
“I know, you can’t handle a hamster dying never mind anything else.
Continue reading “Mannie The Moocher by Hugh Cron – Warning – Strong Language.”
Earl Chatsby, six years ceased being a father for real, felt an odd distinction coming into his place of being. The newspaper for the moment loomed an idle bundle in his lap the way it stayed weighty and rolled and unread. Walls of the kitchen widened, and the room took in more air. He could feel the huge gulp of it. The coffee pot was perking loudly its 6 AM sound and the faucet drip, fixed three nights earlier at Melba’s insistence, had hastened again its freedom, the discord highly audible. Atop the oil cloth over the kitchen table the mid-May sun continued dropping its slanting hellos, allowing them to spread the room into further colors. Yet to this day he cannot agree to what happened first, the front porch shadow at the window coming vaguely visible in a corner of his eye, a familiar shadow, or the slight give-away trod heard from the porch floor, that too familiar, the board loose it seemed forever and abraded by Melba’s occasional demands to fix it.
