Some time ago, I presented myself with a challenge to write a fictional short story because I’d never written one before and I wanted to see if I could.
The result was rejected by at least three magazines and lost one contest, but I think it was a success.
I proved something to myself, which was enough.
Since Sue’s prompt today is “story,” now seems like a good time to post this one.
I guess it’s a tale about how some things change as years go by, and some things stay the same.
They laid him below the hard ground of a hill.
The most notable feature of the hill he rests below is an ancient live oak.
He found shade beneath its branches and up against its trunk, which to a boy looks like it might touch the sky.
I was a boy in those days, but they’re long gone now.
They say time can take a man’s memory, but you coulda fooled me.
(more…)Some people take pride in every chance to relive their glory days, to tell their children tales of days gone by and often remembered.
Some tell stories of incredible athletic feats of yesteryear, and back them up with testimonies from old teammates they see in Wal-Mart or moments frozen forever in framed photographs on the walls of hometown restaurants.
Those stories take them to a time before their backs hurt, before they worked long hours to pay for mortgaged houses.
They take them back to when they had all of the time in the world, when they lived for Friday nights and thought they were invincible. (more…)
It’s been a more than a week since I met Josephus.
Come to think of it, “met” might be the wrong word since we weren’t introduced and our one conversation was short. (more…)
For the second time in four days, Kentucky flies by me in a blur of white lines and road signs.
Road trips are another story for another day, though, because today is someone’s birthday. (more…)
I went to watch a play Saturday night.
It was the first time I attended a live play put on by professional actors since a school field trip to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
The trip I took to Montgomery with the rest of the ninth-grade class is a pleasant memory except for one thing.
This story begins in a pool hall and ends in a goat pen.
The middle is quite messy. (more…)
I grew up in a chicken house.
I don’t mean literally, of course, though when the wind is right I can smell five of them.
What I mean is, when I was a kid, I had it made. (more…)
