In ancient times, when the winter winds blew early, wolves would come down from the hills looking for the easy prey of domesticated animals. In gathering places, the people would cluster together for security, and stare off into the darkness beyond the bonfire light, watching for movement in the shadows . . . When he… Read more »
I know what the world is, he says. The world is a hospice disguised as a discotheque. Under mirrored ceilings, we drink electric-blue cocktails. Blobs of reflected glitter-ball light swoop and fly like phosphorous moths, like phantoms, about our ears. Our bodies are glazed with fever-sweat. Our knees are weak and we are out on… Read more »
The world wants to give me a name, but I have no name in the sense that you mean. My name, my true name, is the sound of a thousand bats wheeling across the surface of a harvest moon. My true name is the sound of wind blowing through corn, of waves crashing against rocks,… Read more »
One good thing I owned one time was this bone-handled penknife. It had a picture of a Mountie and a bright silver blade. With that blade, I could slice through sour green apples when I was trespassing in Rowbottham’s orchard, sitting way up high in a tree. With that blade I could remove splinters from… Read more »
In the middle of the night, my cell phone began to ring. Half asleep and afraid someone close to me had died (the ominous shadow behind every late-night call) I stumbled downstairs and retrieved it with fumbling hands from my jacket pocket. On the other end of the line, there was a vast crackling and… Read more »
I made this mask out of sycamore bark and my grandfather’s silver hair. It is the one I wear to all official public functions–banquets, weddings, funerals, hangings. I stole it from his face when he was inside his coffin and no one was watching. With this mask, I always wear a golden pocket watch, and… Read more »
Mama always said ‘Life is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get”. ?Forrest Gump Turkish Delight: the dirty, drunken, drunken, dangerous liaisons in the back of the ’76 Duster on the side of Mount Seymour Parkway. We were wicked and wanton. We were lonely and stupid and stoned and afraid of… Read more »
Well, naturally, when I said I would “keep my word,” I didn’t specifically mean that I would “keep it exactly to the letter.” What I meant was, all things being equal, etc., etc., I would try very hard to do what I said I would do. It’s just that things don’t always turn out just… Read more »
I’ve always loathed the notion of “living on borrowed time,” even though I’m confident that God wears a watch as big as the moon and with no dials. ~Jim Harrison I went to the doctor, and he told me I have no more than eighty or ninety more years to live. I can’t tell you… Read more »
When we were very young, we would stay well away from that lake. We would avoid it like the plague. We would stay away, because it was the place where Old Man Thibeault would drown kittens in a wool sack. Because it was the place where fish with human faces swam in the shadows and… Read more »