A boy walks into a room and crosses to a desk with five open books and a lithograph of a carriage house in a rural county near Nice. Outside the window hang the branches of poplars old beyond remembering. On a bench sits a girl, engrossed in one of the books: a collection of melodic …
Category Archives: Prose
Adam & The Ancient Mariner
A brief dialogue for students of the Fall Scene Adam & the Ancient Mariner are standing in Adam’s garden, the Mariner having just told his tale. Adam But what I don’t understand is, what brought you to kill the bird in the first place? I mean, what outside force was involved? I just can’t imagine …
August Pastry
In this house are many fans but none wants his autograph. He walks, for love, to the corner. On a porch are six couples. They stop laughing. He calls for chocolate cake. One slide please to prevent sweet darkness. He won’t fall this close, they wager. No thrills offered, no heart attacks, they reason while …
Bee Politics in Samoa
A medley of Bee Gee songs rings rhapsodiously through this tender grove of coconut trees. Suddenly I remember I am not here only due to the lack of primates. It is more, more than the heartless cribbage games played by God, more than the slimy toenail paint on which He nibbles. There are vicissitudes of …
from “The Other Landscape”
In the Cultured Area: They raise pigs. Every Saturday afternoon, the family unity ritual occurs. From each stock, the finest porker is chosen and removed from his friends. The family sits with the animal and plays with it until it smiles. The first person to notice the smile grabs the pig and slits its throat. …
My Old Flame
For some time, the prevailing addiction around which my life turned was White Castle Hamburgers. I spent whole afternoons and evenings consuming one after the other. I would buy them by the sack, precooked and frozen, in order to save myself trips to the restaurant. Not that the restaurant was unpleasant. Its minimalist furnishings, its …
Counter Seen
Jerry sitting. Wipe the sweat from his brow. Maria in her colorform apron wipes some sticky residue from the worn formica countertop. Steam rises as the Bunn-O-Matic steeps its 60,000th cup of joe and its frayed cord will not catch fire yet. Jerry watches. Maria bends. Lean haunch, bovine demeanor. Insider her somewhere—perhaps in the …
Untitled Legendary White Dog Story
Morgan really loved it when it would rain. He enjoyed feeling the large drops of water that came crashing down on his back and he couldn’t help being refreshed as he wiped the water out of his eyes and ran his wet fingers through his wet hair. But most of all, he got immense pleasure …
Today Mr. Reagan Did What He Had To Do (?)
Today Mr. Reagan did what he had to do (?) – oh, ok Ron, sure Today we have done what we had to do – yeah Ron, i understand if necessary we shall do it again . . . – don’t say “we” Ron, say “me,” “i” Despite our repeated warnings – i sent no …
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About Colleen
by Remington Murphy One of the new recruits in my crusade against the Department was Colleen Hughes, a teaching assistant for the Remedial Reading Pogrom, a sort of School of Liberal Arts/Education joint venture (actually, a scam might more accurately describe what it was) meant to sustain the languishing Education faculty, whom the university, thanks …