Archive for the ‘November 2007’ Category
Poppies and Ghosts
| by Len Bains |
“No!” Ernest managed to push away the poppy. It reminded him of a wound, the image came to him again, a face opened like a red flower. Poppies! He’d spent two years in the trenches and never seen one damned poppy. Armistice day again. Another year rolled around, and they’d wheeled them out once more.Read more…
Picking Up the Pieces
| by Jeanne K. Svensson |
Ruth came stamping down the back steps into her father’s kitchen, her hair frizzed out from her normally tight bun, the top button of her housecoat sticking up alone above the unironed lace collar. “Dad, have you been upstairs?”
Dry Season
| by Nora Wall |
Dove shaded her eyes against the sun and surveyed the street. Walnut looked much like it did twenty-six years ago. Once kids played in the street and parents didn’t give it a second thought. No one does that anywhere now.
Responsible
| by Eric Bailey |
Billy Callahan, thirteen years old, stood quite intently on the edge of the bridge, staring straight down between his sneakers at the water rushing underneath. Dirty Pig Creek was running pretty low this season; he could see the tops of large rocks jutting through the torrent. He never felt the rain pitter-pattering his dark headRead more…
The October Man
| by Dave Bara |
Ballantine sat in the field, spinning a long blade of grass between his fingers. Around him were things of familiarity, things of strangeness. Behind him stood tall pale trees filled with golden fruit and amber leaves. A silver shower rained on the trees from time to time, but never was he wet. In the distanceRead more…
Hollow-bellied Jack
| by Tom Conoboy |
Jack is a farmer, an Irish poet who has never written a poem. His farm, little more than a few fields with a house and a byre, is down a track that no-one walks but Jack. It is a ghost road, some say, a bridge between the us and the them, and Jack, in theRead more…