Fiction: Can’t Shoot ’Em(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

“The imbalance of power between women and men since the Middle Ages correlates precisely to the replacement of worship of Astarte with that of Yahweh back in the dusty middle-eastern misogynist deserts of numberless aeons ago.”

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: The Long Goodbye

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Maik Strosahl

It is estimated that 5.8 million Americans suffer through some sort of dementia. Safe to say, that leads to at least 5.8 million caregivers to watch as the tragedy unfolds, moments evaporating, entire lives rising into a cloud their loved one cannot see through. It is often called the long goodbye.
    Thank you to my friend Theresa Timmons for editing suggestions!

Goines On: Acts of love

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The deadline was barely a week away for the State Library of North Carolina’s Accessible Books and Library Services’ writing contest. Goines was becoming desperate. His ideas for selecting some of his recent writings and shaping everything thematically into a cohesive narrative weren’t coming together. He needed to get organized, oil his brain, light a flame.
    Goines suggested to Mrs. Goines that they have a pot of their favorite tea. She didn’t hear him, because she was sitting at the dining table concentrating on the large jigsaw puzzle of a Paris map she had brought back from France two months earlier.

Interview: Alexandra Dotcheva

The Author of
It Really Is Simple:
A Holistic Approach
To Self-Confidence

Interviewed by Moristotle

Today’s interview was suggested by my son, contributing editor Geoffrey Dean, who discovered and read Alexandra Dotcheva’s book and was so affected by it that he wrote a testimonial for it, which we published here as a “rave book review.” Geoffrey first approached Alexandra about an interview, and we are both delighted that she agreed to participate, because she is a very busy person.

All Over the Place: Faith

By Michael H. Brownstein

Do you see the lights in the distance?

The fog erased outline of the station?

Are you comfortable with your name?

Late afternoon, a spit of sun, sand,
A triumph after the last bloodletting.
Where do we want to go from here?

The temple not destroyed, but desecrated,
Blood graffiti, carcasses of pig,
The ark wide open, spilled oil, broken lamps.

A Poem from Nowhere

By Roger Owens

When I see you, we’ll be past this,

Our little dance with the Devil will be done.

But who will be the one
To say? “Now it is brought to pass.”
Now it is fulfilled, rendered harmless,
Like a serpent that has been killed,
Like an antidote to the poison
We have willed into this world.

Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (82) A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Roger Owens

Friday,
September 5, 1924,
3:43 PM

The payday rush hadn’t really started yet, and Teddy Pendergast had just come on duty as a teller at the Bank of Stuart to service the needs of their customers on the busiest day of the week.

Fiction: Huevos con Chorizo(a short story)

By Pat Hamilton

This Mexican egg specialty, originating, actually, with the Mayans roughly 7,200 years ago, offers not just ease of preparation, but magnificence of taste, especially if you’re a newbie young gringo or African-American or a Lufthansa flight attendant on a stopover at Billy’s house on your way to the Taj Mahal or some similarly exotic destination and Billy begs you to take him with you, to free him from the figurative and literal claws of his wife, Paula, who is trying to kill him, but very slowly, he avers.

Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: Simple Math

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Maik Strosahl

At one time I was a math wiz. Numbers just made sense to my young mind and I loved being the first to complete calculations, slapping my pencil down on the desk—too early according to my teachers, who encouraged rechecking solutions. Even doing so, I still turned my sheet over quickly and, when graded, was found to have the right answers.
    Ah, those were the days—before sine and cosine took me down, before a graphing calculator I defiantly rejected became a necessary tool and my love for numbers diminished.

Goines On: How ever not?

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Goines read legacy.com’s annual reminder of a friend’s passing four years earlier, a friend he had thought of several times during the year without needing to be reminded. Goines had highly valued this friend, and he wondered how this friend, or any friend who died, could no longer be there, not be somewhere else rather than nowhere.
    Of Goines himself, he wondered, How could Goines not be somewhere after he died?
    Goines could not imagine not being.

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (81) A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Roger Owens

Sunday,
February 17, 1924,
2:35 PM

The three boats plowed into West End Harbor, having skirted Indian Cay and the shoals off West End Town. They’d just made it, cutting north of the main peninsula and riding the swells back southwest until they were in the shelter of the northern arm of the bay.

All Over the Place: Within the Shadow of Haiku

By Michael H. Brownstein

The dogs are in the haiku section of light

the aisle blocked by a thickness of sunshine

the shelves overburdened with shame

the banners overwrought by forced rhyme

and the expanse of heaters planning a blizzard of sleet

At Random: A Reply to Acting Citizen’s Defense of FWD

By Paul Clark
(aka motomynd)

James, what a fabulous and informative article (“Old Enough to Understand,” November 26). I had no idea about the history of FWD. After reading your historical account, and having driven a few FWD vehicles, I’m not at all surprised the first attempt at FWD was slow and clumsy and ended in disaster. If only humanity had the wisdom to abandon the sordid concept, then and there, instead of resurrecting it and foisting it on unenlightened and unsuspecting drivers of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Not that the original Austin Mini wasn’t cute and charming, and a thrilling and fairly safe car to drive—at golf cart speeds.

Goines On: Tzitzit

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After Goines raised the shade over the back door, Mrs. Goines stood there for a few seconds enjoying the cold morning view. “Tzitzit,” she said, “those are what those rope ties on the bird feeder remind me of.”
    “Tzitzit?” Goines said. “What’s that?”
    “What are those,” she corrected him. “The noun’s plural. They’re the fringes, or tassels, that Orthodox Jewish men wear on their garments. I remember them from Shtisel.”

Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (80) A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Roger Owens

Sunday,
February 10, 1924,
2:00 PM

“Water,” John Ashley said in disgust. “Those sons of bitches sold us water. And for top prices.” He dumped part of the bottle marked “Gordons London Dry Gin” into the brown waters of the South Fork of the Saint Lucie River. He tossed the remainder, bottle and all, and it sank with a tiny splash.
    Hanford Mobley, Tom Maddox and Teddy Miller all looked down in shame. John thought Teddy, hands in pockets, might actually scuff his shoe on the weathered, uneven dock boards. He was the nephew of Tom Miller, the grocer back in Gomez.