family
Keep Your Eyes On Your Boots When You Enter The Barn
When I was a much younger version of the woman I am today, my parents moved my brother and me to my grandparent's ranch on the outskirts of Glasgow, Montana. If you have never heard of this town before don't worry as most residents of Montana don't even know where to find it. The town slogan is "Come Find Yourself in the Middle of Nowhere." They truly mean it. It is 20 miles to any nearby towns, not that you would need to travel to them for anything. Glasgow is where the surrounding townsfolk come for all their needs. It has the post office, courthouse, hardware store, western ag shop for ammo, guns, boots, and more. Although you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere, it truly is the only place to go somewhere other than the lake or farm.
By Crystal Rae5 years ago in Fiction
Beside the Bride
Have you ever wondered what the underside of a table looks like? Not a cheap folding table that folds out every Christmas for your cousin’s four kids and your younger brother who couldn’t fit at the adult table. I’m talking about the underside of a real table. A table with four triangles of wood connecting the legs to the top. One with thick support beams crisscrossing between the corners that didn’t get the glossy finish of the topside, each roughly sanded with sharp points sticking out here and there. A pinch of pain serges through my pointer finger. Great! Because who doesn’t love a splinter.
By Scott Bradbrook5 years ago in Fiction
The List
The day of my father, Steve Sullivan’s, funeral had to be sunny, of course. He wouldn’t have had it any other way. He lit up every room he entered with his bright smile, his kind eyes, and his infectious, silly humor. His Dad jokes were notorious. The only time I ever saw him cry was when my mother died. The irony of her being a neurologist and developing inoperable brain cancer wasn’t lost on my brother, sister, and me.
By Julie Lacksonen5 years ago in Fiction
Arthur "You'll Never Be Broke"
I'LL NEVER BE BROKE Tales of A Young Mulatto Slave “Arthur! Art-h-u-u-r-r-”! “Uh-Oh, Oh Boy” Young Arthur could hear his mother's voice as it carried out and over the yard by a soft afternoon breeze that fooled no one. It was as hot as a grass fire. In the extreme heat and quiet her call was loud and clear. He could hear it from the back of the huge house way over here beyond the “Whistler's walk”. Arthur hurriedly put the hickory nuts, fresh pecans and sweet potatoes he'd been gathering and counting under the porch for safekeeping until he could finish his chores and return for them. All of this was carried out under the watchful eye of that ever present ole barn owl that seemed always watching over him from above. Well, that is except for its disappearance for a month or so every once in a while. Must be better hunting somewhere else Arthur thought. Hurrying and doing the best he could to catch his breath in the stifling summer heat, he raced up a path loaded with toadstools and little rocks that sometimes hurt his bare feet. Running now, kicking one of the toadstools he saw it explode in a powdery spray. Following the direction of his mother's voice, he soon turned the corner and saw her there with outstretched arms and the warmest smile on her face. He ran even harder then into her waiting arms. “You know you still have work to do don't you?” She asked, pretending all the while to be a bit put out with him. With all this, she still expressed a faint smile professing her undeniable love for him. Blinking his distinguishable blue eyes he answered, “Yes, ma'am.” Boy! Was he glad to see that smile on his mother's face. She had the most beautiful green and amber eyes that most always warned him as they seemed to take on a smoky haze behind them when she got upset or angry. Arthur was well aware of the consequences of going off somewhere to do something of his own liking before his chores were done. It was the middle of summer and the sun was hot and close.
By Eudell Watts5 years ago in Fiction
The Pink Hedgehog
I find the pink hedgehog figurine in a flea market. Spiky, spunky, and improbably fuscia, it reminds me of Gracie. Gracie loves hedgehogs. If my parents weren’t diametrically opposed to any animal smaller than an Australian shepherd, we’d probably have five or six of them, with names like Bartholomew or Hazelnut or Jamie.
By Erin Friederichs5 years ago in Fiction
Furlough
The last time Maria's eyes were checked was at the DMV when she was sixteen. Her vision was fine, she thought. Her father had been a naval pilot, and her mother still didn't use reading glasses well into her sixties. Maria had expected the same fortune. But now, at twenty-three, she waited in a white leather chair at the front of a Lens Crafters while the attendant retrieved her prescription from the back.
By Anna Gumberg5 years ago in Fiction
A Tale of Two Mumbais
Kabir dropped his office bag on the floor and sank down onto his luxurious couch, loosening his tie. The huge grandfather clock in the corner of his way-too-big-to-exist-in-Mumbai living room read 11:49 pm. He absentmindedly fingered the platinum cufflinks at the end of his shirt sleeve and let out a deep sigh as his mind constantly replayed the evening he had just had. All these weeks of non-stop work, sleepless nights, files and figures and phone calls.... all for nothing. All to be brought back to square one. He glanced at the huge gilded photo of his parents hanging up on the biggest wall in the room, his father’s face forever looking down on him, forever judging. If this was an 80s Bollywood movie, he’d get drunk on the top shelf whiskey from his bar and give photo-dad an earful, he thought wryly, almost laughing out loud, with the emotion quickly turning into another heavy sigh. Maybe I will have that whiskey, he thought to himself, and slowly made his way to the bar, shedding his suit jacket as he went. He poured himself a drink, a larger one than usual, definitely a larger one than his father would have approved of, and walked out onto the huge sea-facing balcony.
By Maahi Trivedi5 years ago in Fiction
Island Secrets
Christobel was a free-spirited beauty everyone liked. They endearingly called her “Chris,” and she seemed to prefer that. She greeted you with a pearly white smile that sparkled up to her eyes. Snake eyes, her father called them. She had been a mischievous little girl whose mischief matured into something resembling evil. Secrets and lies provided the necessary cover of her true self, but she couldn’t help it. She was born that way.
By Della Jules5 years ago in Fiction
