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Written by H J Higgins
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Wednesday, 19 August 2009 11:41 |
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“I’m counting, for fuck’s sake! I said I’d play.”
I wondered if anyone hid as much as I did, and found that I still couldn’t do it right.
Mostly because, in order to officially play the game correctly, someone had to look. And no one looked, even if he had promised. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 17 September 2009 11:52 |
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She Can't Remember Her Dreams |
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Written by Brad MacDuff
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Friday, 29 May 2009 10:32 |
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She awakens in the grass again – wine stained teeth and tear stained eyes. She wears the juice of kumquats like sticky orange gloves – the same glossy sugar coats her lips. There is a song in her heart, but it is a lament. There is no joy in this dirge, none to kiss the sugar from her lips – from her fingertips.
The day around her is bloodshot – a smeared lens of red wine haze. There is a blanket over her tongue. In the sky above, birds and dragonflies swirl and twitter – she can hear the beating of every wing and every note rings inside of her eyes. Their song, though happy in the morning sun, strikes her senses and explodes like a tree full of bees. |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 August 2009 11:43 |
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Written by Van Wagner
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Thursday, 21 May 2009 22:17 |
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Surrounded on three sides by a dense twisted copse of scrub pine and nestled tightly between the bay to the west and a vast forest of wind swept conifers the cabin has been gradually bleached by the sun and ocean to the color of aged bones. Marshall presses forward through the screen door and steps out onto the porch and into the damp April dawn. As the wooden doorframe slips quickly through his mittened fingers and slaps back hard and sharp against the clapboard a scattering flock of purple herons lifts startled from the weedy black pond to turn in low even circles over the silent marsh. Tall leafy grasses and cattails slant from the still dark water and mist rises slowly from the weedy banks. He watches the birds fly around the pond several times before landing again beside the low beryl thicket of hedge nettle that flourishes along the edge of the stony shoreline. He stands quietly watching the fog rolling inland from the harbor and listens to the meltwater falling steadily from the long lines of icicles that cling beneath the handrail and hang from the snow-filled gutters. He hears the occasional muffled clang from the chains of the bell-buoys in the distance and he moves carefully to the side of the porch, sliding his canvas sneakers slowly across the thin cracking tiles of ice, and he looks down over the edge at his mother's flooded flower beds deeply pooled with dirty meltwater and slushy runoff from the overhead gables and eaves. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 13 August 2009 18:32 |
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Written by Natapee
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Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:04 |
There’s sand in my pocket and a seagull passing by in the orange sky. It’s the day before yesterday, and I am on my very own northern adventure. Fresh from many firsts. Affairs that made my body leap to the moon. Strides with strength sealed at my hips. Satisfaction from toil of making real things happen making my spine straighten with pride.
You’ve not yet appeared in my still cloudless sky.
I’ve not yet returned, refreshed, bronzed and flourishing to see your familiar name waiting for me. Not yet read those words of reverie for Dorothy and her ruby shoes.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 August 2009 11:45 |
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Written by Jerry Ratch
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Thursday, 14 May 2009 15:15 |
It all started a long time ago. September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. His army was moving fast. We lived not far from the city of Krakow. On the third day of invasion a lot of men (civilian) walked through our city, running away from the German Army. There were rumors that men were being run over by the tanks. I still remember how tired these men were. They rested up in our house, drank some water and left. The door was always open, so a new group could come in.
September 5, 1939, we decided to leave. We saw the Polish Army retreating and the German airplanes flying around. I guess they were investigating the situation. My grandfather had a business - a wholesale and retail store with tobacco and cigarettes, and my mother helped to run these stores. The day we were leaving, we packed just a few dresses, and I took my album with pictures. We always had a sleep-in maid and a pretty dog, a Samoyed (his name was Mirusz.) My mother told our maid to take whatever she wants from the house, and the dog, and go to the village where her parents lived.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 13 August 2009 18:32 |
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The Dragon of Rural Route Four |
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Written by Nancy Ames
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Monday, 11 May 2009 19:02 |
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When our boys were babies and we fled the noise and filth of the city to find pastures and forests where they could be free to leap and laugh, we came to live among the hills above a wide river-valley. It was an obscure region of Ontario and it already had a very long history. But of course we were young and sublimely unaware of the powerful influence the past could still exert in such a place. Even in our admittedly self-centered state of mind, however, we couldn’t help but notice the tall black crosses that were standing at almost every cross-road in the district. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 13 August 2009 18:33 |
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Written by Alison Pearce
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Monday, 11 May 2009 19:00 |
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Karen swung her knapsack wearily into a more comfortable position on her back, only problem was there didn’t seem to be one. “Never again!” she vowed to herself, shooting a dark glance at her sister’s hurrying hand motions from where she stood, a good deal further up the path. Shari had been trying to talk her into coming on one of her hiking and camping trips up into the mountains for years. Karen, unlike her athletic younger sister, had never really been into the outdoors lifestyle. Her idea of a holiday was sitting by the beach all day and then retreating to the comforts of a resort unit by night. She’d finally relented for this trip, wanting to take her mind off her recent, painful divorce. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 13 August 2009 18:33 |
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Written by Holly Ringland
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Wednesday, 15 October 2008 00:00 |
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My dearest Pearl, I do hope this letter finds you, and finds you well sweet girl. I was sitting on my verandah on Sunday morning, flicking through the paper when all of a sudden, in grainy black and white under my gardening gloves, there you were. I would recognise those eyes anywhere. It would seem that your life as an artist is an incredible success, though I’m not at all surprised. I knew from the few times I held you when you were born that you were capable of magic things. I remember marvelling at your green eyes that looked as wise as an old owl’s when you were just a newborn. I knew then you’d do something extraordinary with your life. I said to your father, on more than one occasion, that you were the calmest baby I’d ever seen and a baby that calm, would do nothing but make beautiful things out of their days. And here you are doing just that. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 13 August 2009 18:32 |
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Fiction
