Prose, Poetry, and Pictures
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Died in a Hot Shop
Old man Jackie had a dry, tacky mouth; made it hard for him to swallow. He worked in a hot shop — you know the name? Hot shop, a name used in the days, call a place a hot shop to say the place makes irons, see? Iron drills, iron arms, and bits, see? Well,…
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At the Old Ball Game
Old Kramer Lindorf struck the mound with his cleated toe — two outs, one batter up. The Baltimore Tigers were closing in on their first victory of the season and it was all thanks to Kramer’s seasoned pitch; twisting over the plate at speeds over 100mph. The only thing he needed to do was keep…
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Bethlehem-3
“What started it?” the dark little boy asks. “Did we attack them?” I don’t know this one. One of Chaz’s new friends? “What are you talking about?” “The war, Chaz told me you saw when it started.” I look around the kitchen. The noise of the birthday party hums in from the front room. “Why…
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To Save a Mother and a Village Part II
This is Part II. For Part I, click here. The young girl walked for many miles in the young hours of the first night, with only the dim glow of a jaundiced moon to light her way. An inconstant gale stirred the low plants of the plain, projecting suspicious shadows in the corner of the…
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To Save a Mother and a Village, Part I
This is Part I. For Part II, click here. Under a perigee sun, in a desert village twelve kilometers west of the great metropolis, Sher’tlaa, in the stoney, black foothills by the sea, there lived a young girl. She had the aspect of the mythic Amazon; tall, tightly muscled, but lean; the hardened body of…
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California Dreaming
I stare into an evening sun; a pebble-sized hole in the reddening horizon. The world stretches towards this sun, as if painted on the inside of an enormous straw; I, standing at one end, the sun the other. All the world curls around us. A boardwalk, wooden fencing, a hill covered in coastal shrubs, all…
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Shame
The house’s front door bangs shut, clipping out the evening sun. I listen from a narrow half-hall on the second story. I recline at the foot of my parents’ bedroom door—an idiosyncratic delicacy much missed this past month—rocking my knees together and flexing my jaw, attempting to relieve air pressure the thirteen hour plane ride…
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Two Lovers in a Field
The afternoon sun has the cowboy squinting his eyes. A woman stands next to him, twisting her hips and smiling into his leather face. Both recline against a gray wooden cow fence. A warm breath lifts from the heat-soaked dirt and grass. The cowboy breathes in the prairie. His scent is rude and distinct; hard-labor…
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World's Heaviest Chili Dog
The diner was a long, yellow train car, permanently set into a cement slab, with a little caboose at the back where the cooks worked and white smoke rose from a tin-hatted vent on its roof, perfumed with grease, salty warm breads, and rich sauces. The middle-aged mother and teenage son tilted their heads to…
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He has bigger issues than what to write.
I need to write something . . . I don’t have anything to say. I’ll ask a couple of questions, but I may have reached the limit today; there’s nothing but dim dusty-space stirring in my mind. Oh here’s something, coming along, but it’s just a dream that I said goodbye to already, before I…