My intense intents indent the bubbles
My intense intents indent the bubbles of possibles, at times a severe pop reports a part of the future is dropped, or its dilatory delivery retreats with reproach from my untimely approach, hissing away escapadely.
Read MoreOld Clyde and Mrs. Hill
When I was a young man, Dad lost everything to the bank: Jet Cleaners, a marriage, our home on Glenn Road, our predictable, idyllic, suburban routine. When we moved to town, my little sister and I were decrepit, worn out after the catastrophe. Now everyone was too close together. We staggered up the broken, treacherously icy stairs, careening like Laurel and Hardy in winter to the apartment, the sagging, exhausted house on West Gambier Street. Jo’s Chateau of Beauty was in the back, Hyle’s Typewriter Repair in the front, Kenyon and civilization five miles east, the flat, monotonous...
Read MoreDissolution
“We can’t help you, sir.” The smartly-dressed paralegal’s smile was fixed as she rose to show the conversation was over. Kemp resignedly gathered up his files and walked out past a sign reading “Discount Divorces. Egress for Less!!” Inside, he fretted. How difficult could it be? It was an uncontested divorce, no custody disputes. . . “And, heaven knows,” said Jillian, ever mischievous, “we won’t be fighting over the furniture.” Kemp ignored her and kept turning the matter over in his mind. Nothing hard. Just one unusual factor. “Oh, yes. Just that...
Read MoreThe World As It Could Be
They lay on the hood of Joe’s car, Joe and Tom, and stared at the cloudy sky. Shapes rolled past overhead, spirals and angles of white, words written across the dawning blue. They read what the sky had to say, content for a time just to lie still. After a while, Tom spoke up. The dreams were troubling him again. Joe was the only one who would even listen. If Tom didn’t say something, he would burst; if he said something to the wrong person, they’d label him crazy. “I had more dreams, Joe.” “Why am I not surprised? Weird ones, like...
Read MoreThe Church of Los Corales
The cold wind was unexpected. After all, it was the middle of July, and this was the Caribbean. The church of Los Corales was cemented into the side of a mango-covered mountain just west of Santiago. It was not nestled like most mountainside churches; rather, it was cemented. A new building for an old generation. White painted cement, a slate porch, and frosted white doors. Around the church, there were a few strikingly new houses owned by returning Americans, and a bodega that filled at eleven in the morning and was empty again soon after. On that day it was raining. A heavy downpour...
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