Dreaming Crow
Black branches spread above me, etched into evening blue. The winter tree is leafless and gnarled, yet it reaches, stretching up into an endless ache of sky. Limbs explode into feathers, as crows take flight. Black as the tree, they break from the branches, scattering its silhouette beyond my vision. For a moment I am breathless, full of wonder, caught in the mystery. The phone rings, and I stir toward waking. Panic stabs through me as I surface. I recoil. No! Don’t make me come back here. It hurts too much. I feel torn open, hollowed out. Please, just let me sleep… let me...
Read MoreThe Last Saturday Matinee
The weather was perfect on that Saturday morning. It had rained off and on the night before, and now everything was damp and fresh and somehow renewed. I was excited nearly beyond control because my big brother, Stephen, was home on leave from the United States Army after completing basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. He would leave the following week to fly half way around the world to fight in Vietnam, a conflict I didn’t understand at the time and perhaps still don’t. The year was 1968 and I was just ten years old. Back then, I was more concerned about riding my...
Read MoreAfter the Magic
On the courthouse lawn stood two gleaming statues of golden stone, a man and woman holding hands, smiling at each other. Both stood on no base but their own feet and possessed such detail it seemed they might stroll off. Before them, a mother and little girl stood bathed in twilight; the mother turned to an elderly man on a metal bench alone. “We’ve been admiring the statues.” She lifted her hands. “So life-like…” He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his bald head. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” The little girl looked from the statues...
Read MoreQuiet River
The air was still the day he crossed the flowing border of the town. The air was still, and the sun leaned on this side of the river as his hiking boots rang the dull timbers of the bridge. The gnats and mosquitoes held their convention along the length of the river and shore, and they swarmed a halo around the stranger, but, I declare, not a one touched down on his dusty ball cap, nor lay tiny feet upon the sweat of the man’s face. He came with company that day; a dog the color of dried clay trotted at his side, looking neither right nor left, and moving as a dog...
Read MorePursuit of Happiness
There was a man whose memories of happy moments could be counted on one hand. Food always tasted strangely to him; even his mother’s milk had been slightly off. As a child, he saw nothing pleasant in nature, full as it was of bumblebees, honking geese, and the heartbreaking loneliness of buzzing cicadas. Childish play was a daily exercise in humiliation, intimidation, and defeat. There was something under his bed. His parents loved him, no doubt, but his father frightened him and his mother carried a small tumbler from which she sipped; and as each day wound its uncertain way to...
Read MoreThe Broken Cross, Part 2
2 Early June during my high school years was a time between things. I was not a child now; I was not an adult. No more high school, no more Sunday School until after Labor Day. What would I do in my free time? At fifteen, I was too old to ride my bicycle around town and too young for a New Jersey driving learner’s permit. I was also jobless but expected to “chip in around the house and yard,” as my mother and father expressed it. “Keep those leg and arm muscles strong for football try-outs,” Dad urged me one Saturday morning and pointed to the yard rake and push...
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