The only thing fake about me is my name. Everything else, from the leather of my riding coat, to the bullets in my revolver, to most importantly, the intentions in my heart, are very real. To the world, I will soon be known as Simon Bolter, but to one currently unsuspecting soul, I will even sooner be known as “the man who robbed me.”
Continue reading “The Ballad of Simon Bolter by David Ford”
Diagonally, out my back window, pal Buzz Chadsy’s house sits like a white peppermint on the side lane, one house between us. In winter’s Christmas snow, it celebrates life and color, at Easter the calm is newly evident, at night a single bulb lights the living edifice. Many late evenings, it is the last sign of life as I trod to bed, to a deep sleep, or a night full of dreams on the run.
Continue reading “Smoke from the Chimney by Tom Sheehan”
The interrogation room is like any other. This one happens to be inside the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville. A steel table occupies the middle of the room, legs bolted to the floor. Two chairs face each other across the scarred tabletop. The chairs are secured to the floor as well, for good reason and from accumulated bitter experience.
Continue reading “For Love of a Three-Legged Horse by Marco Etheridge”
I first saw the sculpture about a month ago, walking to the Cumberland Farms with Matt to get beer and some papers. It was shimmering under the late day’s sun in the back of a fenced-in yard. Even from a distance, I could see the long spindly legs of the black metal spider clinging to the delicate netting of its web, waiting for prey. I was mesmerized.
Somewhere along the line it all got out of hand. Somebody was robbing graves at Riverside Cemetery, sitting just above the Merrimack River on a flat hilltop. Stealing coins, too, strange as it seems. That’s the kind of thing can jerk a town right off its feet, even if the spread of the cemetery was closing fast on its capacity and a new site required.
April counted the change into his hand – it was shaking. He pocketed the money, then leaned his backside against the smudged glass door, pushing it open, his gloves held against his side with his elbow, all while fumbling out and lighting the Marlboro.
literally stories 