The Lark, Gone Wrong

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Oh, he was a card. You might say that jokes were his mother tongue. He couldn’t see a ladies hat without donning it an prancing about, pretending to drink tea with his pinky out. He was always hilarious.

That’s what must’ve happened. He slipped away freshen up and came upon Lord Hastings’ diving apparatus. I imagine he thought he’d have a lark by putting on all that gear and walking slowly thorough the parlor like it was the bottom of the sea. What fun!

When we found him hours later his face was a lovely shade of cerulean, poor dear.

 

Beneath the Floor

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Look, she said she wanted to. It’s not like I made her. Things just got out of hand, that’s all.

Maybe I handled it bad. Sure. I admit it. I ain’t perfect. I never meant to hurt her. Honest. I just wanted her to quit hollering.  And then, like I said, it got out of hand.

It was over before I knew it. Seeing her lying there like she was just sleeping made me sad. I had hoped so much this would be perfect. Then she had to go and ruin everything by hollering.

But they won’t never find nothing.

 

Strays

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I was down to the shoreline crabbing and it wasn’t so good. When the water murks up like that the crabs stay away. Ones that wash up dead ain’t worth the trouble. Nobody I know ever eat one, but you hear the stories about what happens. That’s enough warning for me.

I saw that man with a gunny wade in up to his thighs and toss the sack far as he could. He was in a hurry to leave. I could see that sack moving like it was alive.

Soon as the man was gone I waded in after it.

 

Friday Fictioneers

Us Road Joes

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Me and Shorty Jim pulled into Mt. Pleasant on the Burlington about three in the morning.  It was flat January, needle snow blowing cold enough to freeze your words right to your tongue so you had reach up and break ’em off to say anything. Usually we don’t go near a station, but it was that or die in the blizzard. In big cities like Chi, us road Joes ain’t welcome indoors, but little towns tend to be a might more friendly, especially when it’s life and death like it was that night. Stationmaster had that potbellied stove glowing red.

 

 

Tick tock

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He sat on the river bench going over all of it again, wondering what he had missed. He had of course checked the timers, tested them until he was sure. He knew that the failure could not be because of the timers. The explosive, then. But he had tested that too, made certain the ratio was correct, double-checked and even done a trial run out in the country, far from curious eyes. It wasn’t the explosive.

He was interrupted by a series of blinding flashes across the river, silent for the split second it took the sound to reach him.

 

Friday Fictioneers

Jimmy Jimmy

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Jimmy Jimmy saw messages in the way them birds would clot together on a wire above our head, say they spelled out messages only he could read and that them messages was all full of death and bad futures for anyone who saw it whether they could read it or no and he wasn’t shy about telling me often as he thought I needed to hear it, point at the birds on them wires and shake his head and tell me that if I could see what he saw I might think twice about ever getting up in the morning.

 

Friday Fictioneers

Earl

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The Goodwill don’t hardly ever have clothes big enough to fit Earl.

Since he hurt his back, he ain’t been out at all.

That leaves me to pretty much do everything.

Most our spending goes to keeping him fed, of course.

There’s my Social Security and Earl Senior’s pension, but usually there’s too much month and not enough money.

Earl complains if it’s mac and cheese more than twice a week.

The boy always had an appetite, and it  seems to get bigger right along with him.

His uncle Bill made him that bed.

Made it out of rail ties.

 

Ypres 1916

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Dear Da,

Cold here still, but that’s April for you. Ha ha. Thank you for the stockings, You have no idea how we covet them here. I think the last time my feet were really dry was at Christmas. 

He stopped, pen poised. He was out of topics.

He wouldn’t describe the hellscape of mud and splintered trees and rotting corpses, of the trenches filled with icy water long after the rains ceased.

He would not write of the soldier, his friend, caught in the wire of no man’s land, every night screaming for someone to please please kill him.

 

Pearls Before Swine

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I’ll tell you what was in his godddamn vault. A book.

No money? No jewelry?

Like I told you. Just a book.

Well, what kind of book?

I can’t make it out.

You don’t know how to read?

There ain’t no words in it.

What then? Pictures?

No, they ain’t pictures exactly. It’s more like… I don’t know. Symbols or something.

Symbols? How do you mean?

Maybe you better come over and look at it.

You bet your ass I’m coming over. If that old bastard had it locked up in his vault it’s got to be worth a fortune.

 

France

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“You’re on point, Private.” The lieutenant grins.

“Point, sir?”  The boy looks  confused. “But they’s only the two of us.”

“I was joking, Private. How much ammo you got?”

“Only what’s on my belt, sir. The leg bag with my spare clips got tore off in the jump.”

“We came in too fast,” agrees the lieutenant. “Slipstream. Can’t do anything about it now. We’ll get more at Division CP. When we find it.”

The private’s face is a pale slash in the summer darkness. He blinks.  “You got any idea where we’re at, sir?”

“France,” the lieutenant says, grinning again.