boshmi
I write short stories every few weeks or so, mostly inspired by early modernist literature. These are the ones I like the best.
Those Birds Tumble Through the Sky on Broken Wings Amidst Crackling Thunder
The soldier had always hoped his last moments would be spent among friends and family, a full and honest life lived. No one wants to die alone, and no one wants to be forgotten. There is a catharsis in legacy, an unacknowledged pride which we can only pretend to ignore. Instead, far from home, he dragged himself through mud and rain, where red eddied into brown, and his bones began their return to the earth. Boys will kill, men will profit, and we have heard this story before. War is man’s folly, and unfathomable suffering is the price we pay. These things we know to be true, and truth is the only reminder of humanity when all else has been goose-stepped into the trenches, given a gun, and told to kill. It is not worth restating the obvious.
Hallelujah! Freedom is Come!
It went like this; The ivory towers grew steps, and the lords came down, drugs in their hands and smiles on their faces. They fed us, and they clothed us, and we laughed and loved.
Under the Burning Sky
The temperatures would fall, and spirits with them, as the Chapel steamed its steady course, ever northbound. The putt-putt of the engine and whisper of the wind were all that was to be heard, for the crew lay idle, and their Captain lay pensive.
Vermin
It was said that the Marquis de Lornia possessed one of the finest personal estates upon the Iberian peninsula - a gorgeous holding which sprawled along Eastern Spain’s high cliffs, overlooking the vast, crashing waves of the Balearic sea.
Go Down Moses
Somewhere in the midwest, 1947 When Israel was in Egypt’s land CLANG let my people go CLANG ‘pressed so hard they could not stand
Upon the Writhing Lake
(transcript issued September 2006, excerpt from the pages reclaimed in St. Evelyn's manor) The cove which lay beyond my own abode was a peculiar place in its own right; one shrouded in a tryst between the rumination of townsfolk and the tales of salty mariners, those whom remained cognitive enough to tell them. Regardless, the place had been deserted for some years now and in lieu of any proper occupation I took it upon myself to purchase the land. The man who sold it to me was a peculiar chap to say the least; eyes like dark pearls and a mouth like a gash; unsmiling, unmoving, lest a trickle of gore fall from those lips. His hat was polished to perfection, mustache a charcoal smear on his lip, and throughout the entire affair he never once seemed to take his gaze from my face. He said nought as I signed the deed, though upon reflection, I admit to a change in the air. A shimmer, as though something beyond time and space had nudged itself and thus affected the thread of all reality. Needless to say I am a businessman by trade, and as a fellow lacking in the more… scrupulous of religious virtues, I was disinclined to acknowledge such a shift as anything more than the wind. The encounter ended as it began. He was silent as he exited my quarters, stealing not so much as a backwards glance.
For my Louisa
The hell are you hoping to find out there anyway? The ranger’s words ring in my ears. Not accusatory, more a suggestion of concern. Few come out into this dusty scrubland by choice unless they have a good reason.
