Printed by Permission of Punkin House Press

Photography by Alex Taylor

EXCERPTS

 

GREEN SHEEP

     

        'Sooooo, let me get this straight,’ Sergeant Porter said to the tiny woman folded into the corner of her sofa with a thick wool throw. Soft tones glowed in the room:  peach, maybe salmon. Porter didn’t know from paint and fabric, but he knew ugly, and the cane propped beside this little lady was ugly—a knobbly black excuse of wood with a crooked question mark for a handle. In fact, the whole thing was much too big for this little lady with the tight curly hair and the bright, sharp eyes.
         ‘Your name is Bonnie, did you say, Bonnie Peeples, spelled P-E-E-P . . .’ He winked at his partner. ‘And you’ve lost your sheep. . .’

 

Published in Summer, 2012 in The Republic of Ireland journal, The Linnet’s Wings:  Green Sheep

 

Also available from Amazon at Green Sheep

 

 

TORNADO

 

          ‘It’s beginning,’ her father said and pointed out the window.         
         When she stood to look, she saw the wheat collapsing in waves, cringing from the prowl of the wind. The sky had changed moods and smudged from sepia to brown to black. Over at Lyle Hawkley’s place, a chimerical wind chimney jerked a mad polka.
         ‘Doesn’t look good,’ her father said. ‘Lyle has the oldest barn in the county. It’s a wonder that tough old building is still standing.’     
         Above them, the bones of their old house creaked and groaned. Even down in the cellar the air felt as if it could snap at any moment. Anne wondered if the ceiling would cave and trap them. Then came the sound of glass shattering upstairs, and she felt her knees turn to water. . .

 

Read more in the nineteenth issue, Vol. 5, no. 3, of the USA journal, The Wilderness House Literary Review:  Tornado

 

 

CARAVAN

         The fat bundle in the man's hand stretched to Tommy like a gift. He could taste the sweet and salty fat of the wiener, the sugar of the ketchup, the juice of the relish. Even onions he wouldn't mind. He climbed down and took the foil package from the man, taking care to thank him. His mother had always said you should show city people that you know your manners; you don't want them to think country people are ignorant.
         ‘You're welcome, sailor.’ The man sat down and watched him eat. When the hot dog was gone, Tommy picked the relish bits from the foil.
         ‘I like a hungry boy,’ said the man. ‘Would you like more? Come, little man, I'll show you more.’ He smiled at the boy and his teeth glistened like Chiclets. Then he put one soft shoe on a stone and jangled the coins in his pocket. . .

Read more in the September 9, 2010 issue of The Piker Press: Caravan

Or in Vol. XVIII of the Canadian journal, Ydgrasil, May 2010:  Caravan

 

THE TURNING

 

          ‘. . . she has this book club, you know? They sit around each Thursday in a circle and talk. It’s so irritating. She always wants me to ‘contribute,’ as she puts it:  ‘Your turn, Hazen, now it’s your turn.’ She has this obsession that people have to contribute. 

         . . . Steady, predictable, orthogonal Norma, … always at right angles to his tangents . . .

 

This story is available in print from The Evansville Review, Volume XX, 2010. 

"The Turning" is also available in print in the Vol. 23, no. 1, Spring 2011 issue of THEMA Literary Journal, under the theme, The Trip Not Taken.

 
 

A GOOD BELIEF IS HARD TO FIND

 

     ‘So what are you working on today, Ben? Something for Blind and Faith?’
     She marvelled at his thin frame draped in its wrinkled denim, so unlike her hearty plumpness.
     ‘What is it again, Blind Faith?’
     He slumped inside the pile of denim. ‘Not Blind, mother, Mind. Mind and Faith.’
     Her only child, Ben had come scuffling home after a hiking tour in South America last year, towing duffel and dog. The trek for Ben and his best friend Peter Bruckner had been, she supposed, the 2006 equivalent of the Grand Tour for her and Claude twenty-five years ago. But she had not been seeking to 'find herself'. She had never been lost. . .

The Piker Press said of this story:  “Science and reason can explain much, but which perceives clearly, the mind or the heart, when something has no reason at all?”

 

Read the story in the November 15, 2011 issue of the USA journal, The Piker Press:  A Good Belief

 

NIGHT CLASS

 

         The teacher did not enter the room so much as glide, all lean and languid, dressed in black, hair in the hue and texture of bread mould. Somebody was already there, a lumpen type in gray polyester, taking root in one of the chairs, an unimaginative pudding of a man, a man whose idea of formal dress was a shiny suit and canvas sneakers with brown laces. He looked like a man who had settled into a simple existence of predictable projects and humble endings. . .

The Piker Press asks: “Is it what you learn from a teacher of writing, or does the class show you what you need to learn about yourself?”

 

Read the story in Issue 18, September 2010, of The Istanbul Literary Review, Turkey: Night Class.

 

PUZZLES

 

         Dan Webb had been dead less than a month when his wife Nell came down for breakfast one bright morning and found him sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her.

          This was the real Dan, in his finest sweater and slacks, not the wasted stranger in a hospital or the waxed exhibit at the funeral parlor. This was courtly and contented Dan, sitting with a straight back,

smiling at her. . .

  
Read more in the March 2010 issue of the USA journal, Menda City Review:  Puzzles

 

 

This story was reviewed November 30, 2011 by Short Story Reader

 The last six stories are available as a collection:  Tornado and Other Seasons

 

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