Finding the Lost County: The Life of
William Gay by
J. M. White
Born in 1939 and raised in the rural south, other than his time in the Navy and a brief sojourn working in the factories in Chicago, he spent his whole life in middle Tennessee. He was raised in a sharecropper's shack with no electricity and no running water. His father never owned a car or a house. Tennessee ranks near the bottom of all the states in the union in terms of education and Lewis County ranks very low among the 92 counties in the state. He graduated from the Lewis County High School but was completely self-educated as both a writer and a painter. He was inspired by the writings of William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe and Cormac McCarthy. He studied and wrote until he could match the great writers in the Southern literary tradition in the aesthetic power and intensity of their prose. He passed away at the age of 71 in 2012.
William Gay was born to be a writer. For as long as he could remember he was fascinated by the written word and wanted nothing other than to write. He faced incredible odds but there was simply nothing else that he wanted to do and nothing else that he would do. He lived a hardscrabble earthly life, rugged and simple. He served his art and let his art serve him. He was creating something original, something high energy, cut to the bone, coming out of the dark with an element of danger, exploding on the page. He wrote prose that is heartfelt and melancholy, imbued with beauty and concern for all living things. In a world that didn't seem to care, he was an earth angel singing from some imaginary corner of the universe. His life and the books he created are a master class in the art of writing.
Mona Moon adores Kentucky Derby week, enjoying all the festivities. She is hosting a ladies’ tea and a Derby breakfast herself. The celebration at Moon Manor will include her former professor and mentor, Dr. Beryl Farris. Mona is delighted to have an old friend visit, but is concerned when Dr. Farris confesses that someone has been threatening her. Worried, Mona assigns Pinkertons to protect the professor.
The night before the Kentucky Derby race, Mona is preparing to attend Ed Bradley’s famous Derby Ball. The entire Mooncrest Farm is aflutter with excitement and gaiety for the upcoming event. Celebrities, politicians, and prominent citizens will be enjoying shrimp grits, burgoo, cornbread, country ham, and mint juleps while dishing the latest gossip at this yearly event. Mona’s anticipation is dashed when she discovers Dr. Farris is missing! And Mona fears the worst!
Murder Under A Bitter Moon: A 1930s Mona Moon Historical Cozy Mystery Book 15
by Abigail Keam
Set against the lush yet turbulent backdrop of Nepal during the COVID-19 pandemic, Like Water on Leaves of Taro weaves together themes of loss, resilience, identity, and hope. The memoir honors sacred rituals and everyday heartbreaks, from the thirteenth-day death feast to a father's wish to spare his daughter further grief. Through poetry, reflection, and memory, the author invites readers to witness the quiet strength of family, the complexity of Nepali culture, and the universality of sorrow.
This is not just a story of illness and loss-it is a meditation on what it means to be human, to mourn, to endure, and to carry love forward in a world that feels constantly in flux.
For readers of When Breath Becomes Air, The Year of Magical Thinking, and The Long Goodbye, Like Water on Leaves of Taro offers a moving cross-cultural perspective on grief, devotion, and the enduring lessons of death.
In October of 1918, the world, still in the midst of a massive war in Europe, is experiencing a new challenge— a pandemic of what came to be known as the Spanish flu. But Cotella Barlow, living in an isolated county in Appalachian Virginia, has only heard rumors about it. Cotella, known as "Telly," makes her way in the world taking care of the families of new mothers who are "lying in" after their labors and deliveries. She travels home to home, eeking out a living, loved by many but always conscious of the stares and winces caused by her disfiguring condition.
Until she enters the home of her next "momma," who, days before delivery, is dying in a strange new way, her husband missing, and her four other children frightened, uncared for, and hungry. Telly must meet the challenge with no knowledge of the outside world that is shutting down while people suffer, die, and quarantine. Winter is coming, and there is no one to help, or so it seems.
This is a story of devotion, courage, strength, and love with iconic characters readers will come to cherish.
"Freedom's Eve" is a historical fiction children's book that follows Layla, a little mouse living in an antique shop, who is magically transported back to a South Carolina plantation during the Civil War era by the spirit of Hawa, a young enslaved girl. Through Hawa's guidance, Layla witnesses the realities of slavery from New Year's Eve 1862 (when theEmancipation Proclamation took effect) through the eventual freedom that came in 1865. The story explores the daily lives, struggles, and resilience of enslaved people, their rich Gullah culture and language, and their journey to freedom. Written by Dawn Caldwell with illustrations by Bryce Caldwell, the book aims to teach honest history about slavery while honoring the strength and cultural heritage of the Gullah people.
At Colorful Crow Publishing, our mission is to amplify diverse voices and champion stories that resonate across communities. We believe every story matters, and we are dedicated to creating a welcoming, supportive platform for authors to share their unique perspectives. By fostering a collaborative environment, we aim to publish works that inspire, connect, and make a lasting impact on readers everywhere.
Agenre-bending work similar to Edgar Lee Masters’ A Spoon River Anthology, this “miscellany” is a portrait of a fictional New England small town over the past several hundred years, celebratory and insightful, its stories recounted by more than a hundred voices, those of the living—white, Black, NativeAmerican, male, female, gay—and of the dead, and also of inanimate objects—a neglected upright piano, a bench along a nature trail—in poems, dialogues, roadside markers, tombstones, business brochures, newspaper articles, a playlet, diary entries, oral history transcripts, a stitched sampler, and even a nursery rhyme. Some tales are of quiet happiness, others of roiling passions, moral quandaries, tragedy and comedy; above all they speak to the centrality of community and continuity in our lives.
An invitingly varied and intimate look at what makes a small town tick. —Kirkus Reviews
Small Town Witch by Deborah ZAdams
Small Town Witch, a new chapbook from awardwinning author Deborah Z Adams, is a collection of spell-binding tales about the witches we meet every day. Written with warmth, humor, and a little bite, Small Town Witch is packed with more substance than meets the eye.
“Adams’s witches may inhabit a small town, perhaps your small town, but they are not small women. They are powerful and empowering. You’ll root for these women, these coven leaders and elementary school teachers. Two parts poetry, two parts prose, with a healthy pinch of feminist indignation, Adams’s tales will surely charm you and remind you that you’re “not in this fight alone.’” —Joanna Grisham, author of Phantoms (Finishing Line Press, 2023)
Available from your favorite bookseller!
All proceeds from sales of Small Town Witch are donated to organizations that do good in the world.
You can sample Small Town Witch stories here.
“I’ve lived my life surrounded by women who wield their powers quietly but effectively,” saysAdams. “They’re everywhere, but especially prevalent in small towns.”
Deborah Z Adams is an awardwinning author of novels, short fiction, CNF, and poetry. She served as executive editor of Oconee Spirit Press for ten years, and is currently a reader for Boomerlit. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Roanoke Review, Litmosphere: a journal of Charlotte Lit, WELL READ Magazine, Dead Mule and other journals.
Bringing Gills’ Go Love novel sequence to a fiery close, BC1 lays down the Harvell grudge of Mountain Meadows and aims, finally, at healing for all involved. Lara Luce Harvell has been charged with carrying her late father’s prized Martin D-28, handmade in Nazareth, Pennsylvania in 1998, the same year she was born, to Mr. Edgar Paris in Dinnehotso, Arizona. Such is repayment to him for saving Joey’s right index finger when it got bit off in an Arkansas fight. The resulting journey, part dynamite, revenge, and the tenderness of love, wanders into the lands of the woolly-headed Washers, a whole tribe of wandering relatives who “…inhabited the desert, living in trailer parks from Tuba City to Las Vegas, pumping five dollars’ worth of regular at a time into jalopies that overheated and ran on threadbare tires.”
Acollection of magically real stories and a novella set in theAmerican south.
“Only a poet of Braggs’ talent and sensibility could bring us stories of such lively language and lost-andin-love characters. He tells their truths but tells them at a slant that is joyful to read and heartbreakingly beautiful to apprehend.” —Anthony Grooms, author of Bombingham and The Vain Conversation
The Hummingbird War follows events of Bicycles of the Gods, in which Jesus returns to earth with two celestial pals with a mandate to destroy the earth. In that volume, Jesse (Jesus) and his two friends Xavi (Shiva), and Mikey (as in the Archangel) decide not to destroy the world quite yet. But the battle continues in The Hummingbird War.
MADVILLE PUBLISHING seeks out and encourages literary writers with unique voices. We look for writers who express complex ideas in simple terms. We look for critical thinkers with a twang, a lilt, or a click in their voices. And patois! We love a good patois. We want to hear those regionalisms in our writers’ voices. We want to preserve the sound of our histories through our voices complete and honest, dialectal features and all. We want to highlight those features that make our cultures special in ways that do not focus on division, but rather shine an appreciative light on our diversity.
Twenty Years of PoemoftheWeek.com is a compilation of the best of the poems that have been featured by PoemoftheWeek.com over the course of the past twenty years. PoemoftheWeek.com was founded in 2006 and is updated weekly in the Fall and Spring. PoemoftheWeek.com supports writers of all backgrounds—quietly and without self-congratulation. Each semester they have a “silent theme,” i.e. writers of color, indigenous poets, disabled poets/poets with disabilities, poets we just like, upon whom we shine a spotlight without the bullhorn.We don’t announce what we are doing. We just do it. No tokenizing. No patting ourselves on the back. Over time, our audiences figure it out all on their own and are delighted by the discovery.
Each celebration includes interviews with the poet, reviews of the collection, readings from the book, and other supplementary material that broadens the scope of the conversation between the poet and their work with the general public. PoemoftheWeek.com is an essential resource for writers, teachers, and anyone interested in contemporary American (mostly) arts and letters. For more information, contactAndrew atAndrew@PoemoftheWeek.com.
In the Best of 2024 Volume One, you’ll find fifty-one submissions written by a fantastic mix of awardwinning authors and poets plus new ones to the scene. Three submissions in this volume were nominated for a Pushcart Prize: The Hanging by Doug Gray, Sandy Tells Me About Dead Pine Trees by J.D. Isip, and Wilma by Phyllis Gobbell. The cover art is by artist, Lindsay Carraway, who had several pieces published in February of 2023.
Contributors: Carolyn Haines, Doug Gray, Angela Patera, Kimberly Parish Davis, Michael Spake, Jennifer Smith, Ashley Tunnell, Ken Gosse, Dr. Elizabeth V. Koshy, Ann Hite, Ellen Notbohm, Micah Ward, Malcolm Glass, Katie Crow, Lorraine Cregar, Patricia Feinberg Stoner, John M. Williams, Michael Lee Johnson, J.D. Isip, Casie Bazay, Jacob Strunk, Ann Christine Tabaka, Joan McNerney, Fhen M., Steven Kent, Peter Magliocco, Mark Braught, Rita Welty Bourke, Loretta Fairley, Barbara Anna Gaiardoni, S. Dodge, DeLane Phillips, Candice Marley Conner,Arvilla Fee, J. B. Hogan, Ramey Channell, Hope Kostedt, John Grey, Martha Ellen Johnson, Nancy Chadwick-Burke, Mike Coleman, Margaret Pearce, Nicole Irizawa, Donald Edwards, Janet Lynn Oakley, Mandy Jones, Phyllis Gobbell, and Suzanne Kamata
In the Best of 2024 Volume Two, you’ll find fifty-two submissions written by a fantastic mix of awardwinning authors and poets plus new ones to the scene. Three submissions in this volume were nominated for a Pushcart Prize: Hanging Pictures by Micah Ward, The Lone and Level Sands by James Wade, and American Chestnut by Candace Connor. The cover art is by artist, Lindsay Carraway, who had several pieces published in February of 2023.
Contributors: Candice Marley Conner, Kaye Wilkinson Barley, Mike Ross, Will Maguire, AJ Concannon, Patricia Feinberg Stoner, Gregg Norman, Robin Prince Monroe, Ramey Channell, April Mae M. Berza,Anne Leigh Parrish, B.A. Brittingham, MikeAustin, Sara Evelyne, Jennifer Smith, Loretta Fairley, J.L. Oakley, Celia Miles, Kris Faatz, Ed Nichols, Linda Imbler, Annie McDonnell, Mike Turner, Micah Ward, James Wade, Ashley Tunnell, John M. Williams, Robb Grindstaff, Stevie Lyon, Laura McHale Holland, Saeed Ibrahim, Nancy Julien Kopp, Julie Green, DeLane Phillips, Shayla Dodge, Edilson Afonso Ferreira, Chris Wood, Jasna Gugić, Fhen M., Hubert Blair Bonds, Ellen Birkett Morris, Margaret Pearce, Ellen Notbohm, Kimberly Parish Davis, J. B. Hogan, and Royal Rhodes
In Volume One, you’ll find thirty-eight submissions writtenbyafantasticmixofawardwinning authors and poets plus new ones to the scene. Three submissions in this volume were nominated for a Pushcart Prize: Miller’s Cafe by Mike Hilbig, Sleeping on Paul’s Mattress by Brenda Sutton Rose, andAHard Dog by Will Maguire. The cover art is by artist, Lindsay Carraway, who had several pieces published in February’s issue.
Contributors: Jeffrey Dale Lofton, Phyllis Gobbell, Brenda Sutton Rose, T. K. Thorne, Claire Hamner Matturro, Penny Koepsel, Mike Hilbig, Jon Sokol, Rita Welty Bourke, Suzanne Kamata, Annie McDonnell, Will Maguire, Joy Ross Davis, Robb Grindstaff, Tom Shachtman, Micah Ward, Mike Turner, James D. Brewer, Eileen Coe, Susan Cornford,Ana Doina, J. B. Hogan, Carrie Welch, Ashley Holloway, Rebecca Klassen, Robin Prince Monroe, Ellen Notbohm, Scott Thomas Outlar, Fiorella Ruas, Jonathan Pett, DeLane Phillips, Larry F. Sommers, Macy Spevacek, and Richard Stimac
InVolumeTwo, you’ll find fortythree submissions written by a fantastic mix of award-winning authors and poets plus new ones to the scene. Three submissions in this volume were nominated for a Pushcart Prize: A Bleeding Heart by Ann Hite, A Few Hours in the Life of a Five-Year-Old Pool Player by Francine Rodriguez, and There Were Red Flags by Mike Turner. The cover art for Volume Two is by artist, DeWitt Lobrano, who had several pieces published in November’s issue. Enjoy!
Contributors: Ann Hite, Malcolm Glass, Dawn Major, John M. Williams, Mandy Haynes, Francine Rodriguez, Mike Turner, Mickey Dubrow, William Walsh, Robb Grindstaff, Deborah Zenha Adams, Mark Braught, B. A. Brittingham, Ramey Channell, Eileen Coe, Marion Cohen, Lorraine Cregar, John Grey, J. B. Hogan,Yana Kane, Philip Kobylarz, Diane Lefer, Will Maguire, David Malone, Ashley Tunnell, Tania Nyman, Jacob Parker, LaVern Spencer McCarthy, K. G. Munro, Angela Patera, Micheal Spake, George Pallas, Marisa Keller, Ken Gosse, and Orlando DeVito
TheyAll Rest in the Boneyard Now by Raymond L.Atkins (Author), Evelyn Mayton (Illustrator)
“Raymond Atkins writes with intuitive wisdom, as he channels those from beyond the grave. His poetry gives voice to those who once mattered, those who time wants us to forget. In They All Rest in the Boneyard Now, Atkins wrestles death from the dusty clay and breathes life into dry bones while reminding us that every soul who once had breath is worthy of being remembered. These saints, sinners, socialites, and the socially inept are all victims of time, or circumstance, as we too shall one day be. Atkins offers salvation to all who are tormented, and solace to those who seek eternal rest.”
– Renea Winchester,Award-winning author of Outbound Train
The Cicada Tree by
Robert Gwaltney
The summer of 1956, a brood of cicadas descends upon Providence, Georgia, a natural event with supernatural repercussions, unhinging the life of Analeise Newell, an eleven-year-old piano prodigy. Amidst this emergence, dark obsessions are stirred, uncanny gifts provoked, and secrets unearthed.
During a visit to Mistletoe, a plantation owned by the wealthy Mayfield family, Analeise encounters Cordelia Mayfield and her daughter Marlissa, both of whom possess an otherworldly beauty, a lineal trait regarded as that Mayfield Shine. A whisper and an act of violence perpetrated during this visit by Mrs. Mayfield all converge to kindle Analeise’s fascination with the Mayfields.
Analeise’s burgeoning obsession with the Mayfield family overshadows her own seemingly, ordinary life, culminating in dangerous games and manipulation, setting off a chain of cataclysmic events with life-altering consequences—all of it unfolding to the maddening whir of a cicada song.
IAm a Georgia Girl: The Life of Lucille Selig Frank, 18881957
byAnn Hite
Twenty-five-year-old Lucille Selig Frank's whole life changed on April 26, 1913, as the Confederate Memorial Parade marched through Atlanta, Georgia. Lucille was attending the opera matinee with her mother. Her husband, Leo Frank, sat in his office in the National Pencil Company, where he was superintendent, working on a financial report. The brutal murder of fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan, an employee of Leo's, took place in the pencil factory that day. Lucille's husband would be the last known person to see Mary alive. While much has been written about Mary Phagan's murder and Leo Frank's subsequent trial over the past 115 years, very little has given voice to Lucille Selig Frank and other women connected to the horrific events that took place between 19131915. Lucille was part of a mission to make Governor John Slaton aware of the antisemitism being shown to Leo during his arrest and trial. She paid a heavy price for her courage. The story of Lucille and the women connected to this case is as timely today as it was in the early 1900s. This book has many diverse characters, including place which influences the outcome. Within this complexity, Hite's telling of Lucille's story will help others see that antisemitism, the marginalization of women, and mobs taking justice into their own hands cannot be tolerated. How many people were complicit in Leo and Lucille's journey? Was justice truly served? This book leaves the reader to answer these questions.
Red Clay Suzie by
Jeffrey Dale Lofton
A novel inspired by true events.
The coming-of-age story of Philbet, gay and living with a disability, battles bullying, ignorance, and disdain as he makes his way in life as an outsider in the Deep South—before finding acceptance in unlikely places.
Fueled by tomato sandwiches and green milkshakes, and obsessed with cars, Philbet struggles with life and love as a gay boy in rural Georgia. He’s happiest when helping Grandaddy dig potatoes from the vegetable garden that connects their houses. But Philbet’s world is shattered and his resilience shaken by events that crush his innocence and sense of security; expose his misshapen chest skillfully hidden behind shirts Mama makes at home; and convince him that he’s not fit to be loved by Knox, the older boy he idolizes to distraction. Over time, Philbet finds refuge in unexpected places and inner strength in unexpected ways, leading to a resolution from beyond the grave.
The Smuggler's Daughter by
Claire Matturro
Ray Slaverson, aworld-weary Florida police detective, has his hands full with the murders of two attorneys and a third suspicious death, all within twenty-four hours. Ray doesn’t believe in coincidences, but he can’t find a single link between the dead men, and he and his partner soon smash into an investigative stonewall.
Kate Garcia, Ray’s fiancée, knows more than she should. She helped one of the dead attorneys, just hours before he took a bullet to the head, study an old newspaper in the library where she works. Kate might be the only person still alive who knows what he was digging up—except for his killer.
When Kate starts trying to discover what’s behind the murders, she turns up disturbing links between the three dead men that track back to her family’s troubled past. But she has plenty of reasons to keep her mouth shut. Her discovery unleashes a cat-and-mouse game that threatens to sink her and those she loves in a high tide of danger.
The Bystanders by Dawn Major
The quaint town of Lawrenceton, Missouri isn’t sending out the welcoming committee for its newest neighbors from Los Angeles—the Samples’ family. Shannon Lamb’s “Like a Virgin” fashion choices, along with her fortune-telling mother, Wendy Samples, and her no-good, cheating, jobless, stepfather, Dale Samples, result in Shannon finding few fans in L-Town where proud family lines run deep. Only townie, Eddy Bauman, is smitten with Shannon and her Valley Girl ways. The Bystanders is a dark coming-of-age story set in the 1980s when big hair was big, and MTV ruled. In a quiet town of annual picnics and landscapes, the Samples’ rundown trailer and odd behaviors aren’t charming the locals. Shannon and Wendy could really use some friends but must learn to rely upon themselves to claw their way out of poverty and abuse if they want to escape Dale.
The Bystanders pays homage toAmericana, its small-town eccentricities, and the rural people of the Northern Mississippi Delta region of Southeast Missouri, a unique area of the country where people still speak Paw Paw French and honor Old World traditions.
The Girl from the Red Rose Motel:ANovel by Susan Beckham Zurenda
Impoverished high school junior Hazel Smalls and privileged senior Sterling Lovell would never ordinarily meet. But when both are punished with in-school suspension, Sterling finds himself drawn to the gorgeous, studious girl seated nearby, and an unlikely relationship begins. Set in 2012 South Carolina, the novel interlaces the stories of Hazel, living with her homeless family in the rundown Red Rose Motel; Sterling, yearning to break free from his wealthy parents' expectations; and recently widowed Angela Wilmore, their stern but compassionate English teacher. Hazel hides her homelessness from Sterling until he discovers her cleaning the motel's office when he goes with his slumlord father to unfreeze the motel's pipes one morning. With her secret revealed, their relationship deepens. Angela-who has her own struggles in a budding romance with the divorced principal-offers Hazel the support her family can't provide. Navigating between privilege and poverty, vulnerability and strength, all three must confront what they need from themselves and each other as Hazel gains the courage to oppose boundaries and make a bold, life-changing decision at novel's end.
MOUNTAIN MAGIC with ANN HITE
Just the Mountains
Just the Mountains
There comes a time when the noise of living stacks up so high you can’t see over it. Not just the kind you hear, but the kind that hums low and steady inside your bones—the deadlines, the emails, the dishes in the sink, the words that won’t come though you sit there and beg them like a sinner at the altar.
That’s about where I found myself before I packed a bag and pointed my car toward Dahlonega. Dear Reader, I needed me some Mountain Magic.
I had been living elbow-deep in my new book, I Am A Georgia Girl, and loving it the way you love something that also wears you clean out. Writing will do that. It’ll give you purpose in one hand and take your rest with the other. I didn’t realize how thin I’d stretched myself until the road began to climb and curve, and the world fell quiet in that particular North Georgia Mountain way. You don’t just arrive in Dahlonega—you ease into it. The air shifts first, then the light. By the time I reached the square, it felt like I’d stepped into a place that knew stories before I ever thought to tell one.
I wasn’t alone on that road. My husband rode with me, camera close at hand like it’s just another part of him. He sees the world
different than I do.Where I chase words, he chases light. He’ll stop for the way it slips through a stand of trees or settles soft on an old building like it’s remembering something. An artist through and through, he don’t rush past a thing.And in that way, he slowed me down before I even knew I needed it.
Speaking at the Dahlonega Literary Festival ought to have made me nervous, but it didn’t. Not in the way I expected. There’s something about being among people who understand books—not just reading them but carrying them around inside like a second heart. Folks leaned in when I spoke. They nodded in that knowing way. Some of them had their own stories tucked behind their eyes, waiting their turn.
And I thought, well now, this is why we do it.
While I was talking, my husband was working in his own quiet way—capturing corners, shadows, faces lit up with curiosity. Later, he’d show me what he saw, and I’d be struck by how much I’d missed standing right there in it. That’s the gift of an artist.You get to see the world twice.
But the real gift of that trip didn’t happen on the stage. It happened miles out, where the road narrows and the world lets go of you.
We stayed at Lilly Creek Lodge, tucked back far enough that you start to wonder if you’ve missed your turn, and then you realize you haven’t, you’ve just finally found somewhere that isn’t in a hurry.
No television. No constant chatter. No glowing screen pulling at your attention like a needy child.
Just quiet.
The kind of quiet that ain’t empty, but full. Full of wind moving through the trees. Full of something old and steady that doesn’t require a thing from you but your presence.
The first night, I caught myself reaching for noise. I nearly turned on music out of habit. But I stopped. Sat there instead. Listened. We took a walk around the grounds, soaking the peace that surrounded us.
My husband didn’t seem to have any trouble spending an evening unplugged. He stepped out with his camera, drawn to the fading light like it was calling his name. When he came back, The sky had turned dark and the stars shown in the sky. He carried the night with him, the stars slipping into blue, the last hold of day clinging to the hills. He set those moments down in images the way I try to set them down in words. I opened the curtains over the windows and watched the moon rise. I used this time to think, just think.
You’d be surprised how loud your own thoughts can get when there’s nothing left to drown them out.
By the second morning, something in me had settled. The tight place in my chest eased.The words I’d been chasing came walking back on their own, like they’d just stepped outside for air and now were ready to come home.
I didn’t realize how badly I needed that kind of stillness until I had it.
And then there was the laughter.
We gathered for lunch—fellow Mercer University Press authors, all of us carrying our books like kinfolk.You’d think a table full of writers might be quiet, but you’d be wrong about that. Stories bounced from one end to the other. Somebody always had something to add, to top, to twist just a little more. There’s a particular joy in sitting with people who understand both the burden and the blessing of putting words on a page.
My husband fit right in among us, listening close, offering a thought here and there, seeing us the way he sees everything— through that careful, observant eye. Later, he’d tell me things I hadn’t caught, little moments and expressions that slipped past me while I was caught up in the talking.
We talked about writing, yes—but also about life, and where the two tangle up so tight you can’t tell them apart.
I left that table fuller than I’d arrived, and I don’t mean from the food.
By the time we packed up to head home, I carried something different with me. Not just the memory of speaking or the kindness of readers, but a quiet kind of strength.The kind you only get when you step away long enough to remember who you are without all the doing.
Husband carried it too, I think. Not in words, but in the way he lingered a little longer before getting in the car, taking one last look like he was putting it away somewhere safe.
The road back felt shorter, though I reckon it wasn’t.
When we pulled into the driveway, the noise of life was still
*Photos taken by Jerry Hite
there waiting—same as before. But it didn’t feel quite so heavy. I had space in me again.
And I’ll tell you this much: if you ever find yourself worn thin, with your thoughts all tangled and your spirit dragging its feet, you might do well to head for the mountains. Let mountain magic do its work. Take somebody who sees the world a little different than you do. Find you a place with no television, no distraction, and sit a spell.
You just might hear yourself again.
Red
Ashley Tunnell
It was Burning Day in Benevolence, and the color of fire was illegal. Ruby averted her eyes from the glow of the embers and fixed her gaze on the plumes of gray and black smoke as they snaked their way through the skin of the sky and coiled around the wrought iron gate that bore the town’s amicable name. Benevolence’s old tornado siren had been droning since dawn. Some of the old-timers said it used to mean something different—back when folks still believed in things like shelter. Ruby found it hard to imagine that the same dull noise once sent people scrambling for cellars, clutching old Bibles and whispering to a God they still feared. Now, the siren was ceremonial—marking time, rather than danger.
The tornado siren had settled into Benevolence’s bones alongside the dogwood trees that no longer bloomed in the old library courtyard. The houses lining the streets had become husks of their former selves. Porches slumped like tired old men, and paint curled and flaked like sunburnt skin. Windows wore a permanent coat of
soot that was too thick to see through and too settled to clean.Trees rose from the dirt like burnt-out crosses, their skeletal branches offering neither shade nor salvation.
Ruby stood in the courtyard of the old library, shoulder to shoulder with the only two women who ever seemed to find her on days like this. It was never arranged, never spoken aloud, but they always ended up side-by-side—drawn together like threads pulled tight in the same worn quilt. Miss Rosie stood to Ruby’s left, smoothing the sleeve of her coat with the kind of care that didn’t ask to be noticed. Her fingers moved slowly, not out of frailty, but with the rhythm of someone who’d spent years tending to things that frayed quietly: hems, tempers, hope. Miss Rosie wasn’t Ruby’s mother—not by blood, or by law, or by anything that you could write down and stamp official—but one morning, as Miss Rosie dabbed soot from Ruby’s cheek with a rag that smelled faintly of lye and lavender, Ruby had murmured the word “Mama” in her sleep. Miss Rosie didn’t react, but something in her posture shifted—just barely, like a thread pulled tight and then let go. She never brought it up. That was her way. She didn’t hold onto moments. She measured them by letting their weight settle into the way she folded towels with corners aligned, into the pause she took before casting anything into the fire, and into the way her gaze lingered on Ruby a heartbeat longer when the siren began to wail, as though silently calculating what that sound might cost. She didn’t talk about the past. She didn’t need to. It lived in her gestures, in the way she moved, and in the way she touched things gently even
when they were meant to be discarded. Things had a way of staying with her—like the scent of lavender and lye in old fabric.
Mrs.Verma stood to Ruby’s right and was as rigid as a headstone that had outlasted the names carved into it. Her body held the kind of tension that came from years of bracing for bad news and never being surprised when it arrived. The skin around her eyes was etched deep—not just by time, but by the kind of Southern heat that doesn’t just peel paint but people, too.
Her mouth was set in a line so tight it looked like it had forgotten how to open for anything but judgment. She had taken Ruby in the way she took in the laundry—without ceremony and without softness—like it was just one more thing that needed doing before the sun went down. Ruby had never called her “Grandmother.” Even if Mrs. Verma had allowed it, the word felt too gentle. It was a word that reminded Ruby of porch swings and bedtime stories, and Benevolence didn’t have room for that kind of tenderness anymore.
Mrs. Verma’s eyes didn’t just watch people. They recorded, like she was keeping a ledger for a God who’d stopped listening to her a long time ago. She didn’t speak often, but when she did, her words landed like stones in a dry well:
“You’re staring at them flames again,” she muttered to Ruby, her voice low and clipped. “You know that’s how people get burned.” Ruby looked back toward the tree line without answering. Standing beside Mrs. Verma always brought a familiar chill. It was the kind that came from being silently judged and found lacking.
Mrs. Verma didn’t believe in rebellion. She believed in surviving the way women do when softness becomes a liability: by folding her hands and biting her tongue until the taste of blood felt more familiar than the sound of her own voice.
Ruin had a way of stitching people together: Miss Rosie, with grief folded into hands that remembered more than her voice ever did; Mrs. Verma, all silence and sharp edges, shaped by years that taught her endurance was safer than softness; and Ruby, caught between them, heart flickering with a heat she hadn’t yet learned to name.
They stood silently by the pyre, clutching remnants of a world that no longer existed tightly to their chests. Ruby adjusted the burlap sack slung over her shoulder and pulled the cloth wrapped around her head down over her ears before shuffling toward the fire.
Ruby’s fingers sifted through her bag until they brushed against something soft and brittle. She paused, then gently lifted it out.The strands spilled into her palm—copper faded to rust, dulled by time and absence. They no longer shimmered or held any warmth, but they still curled with a memory of motion. Ruby stared at them, unsure if they belonged to her now, or to someone she used to be. She drew in a breath, but the smoke bit back, scraping her throat raw and dragging a cough from deep in her chest.
“It’s just hair, child,” Miss Rosie murmured. “It’ll grow back.”
But Ruby knew better. They’d shaved her head after pulling her from the rubble of her old apartment, and it hadn’t grown back the
same since. The texture was different now—patchy and stubborn, like even her scalp had learned to distrust softness.
“You gonna stand there all day?” Mrs. Verma snapped at Ruby as she hesitated. “Or you gonna let it go?”
Ruby stepped closer to the fire. The heat licked at her cheeks as she loosened her grip and dropped the bundle in. It crackled, hissed, and curled inward—twisting like fingers reaching for something they’d never hold again. Then it was gone. Just ash, and the faint scent of something that was once alive.
Ruby reached into the burlap sack and felt the cool curve of ceramic beneath her fingers. Her grip tightened around it instinctively. The vase had been a gift from Reed. He had given it to her on a winter morning when the world was quiet and still had color. He’d handed it to her wrapped in newspaper, and he was grinning like he’d stolen something precious just to see her smile. It was the exact shade of a ripe pomegranate with gold designs dancing around its center like lace. Back then, it had held poinsettias, and Ruby had marveled at the way bright, wild things could bloom so defiantly in the cold.
“Shame,” said Miss Rosie. “It’s real pretty and looks like it could hold a lot.”
“Pretty don’t last,” Mrs. Verma said. “Pretty gets you seen.”
“Suppose you’re right,” said Miss Rosie. “Ain’t no use in holding on to what’s already gone.”
With a swift motion, Ruby hurled the vase into the flames. She watched as it crashed against the burning wood and splintered into
fragments and dust. The crackling embers swallowed the pieces greedily, and for a fleeting moment, Ruby caught the scent of burning poinsettias. A wave of nausea twisted through her stomach, heavy and unrelenting, but she forced it down as she dug into her bag once more.
Her fingers brushed against pages worn brittle, thin, and soft as cotton. The book had survived far longer than it should have. Its ink had faded, and its spine felt fragile beneath her touch.
“You should’ve let go of that a long time ago,” Mrs. Verma’s voice cut through the smoke. “It was foolish to hang onto it.”
Ruby heard Mrs. Verma scoff as she dropped the book into the fire. Its brittle pages curled inward, and Ruby watched the cover crack apart as the heat licked at its fragile spine. The Scarlet Letter, which used to be stamped boldly across the front, was barely discernible now. It had been worn into obscurity by time and touch. Ruby had never read it, had never even fully recognized the name. She knew only that it had once belonged to Reed’s grandmother.
“Maybe things will be better now,” Miss Rosie murmured to Mrs. Verma.
“Books like that polluted people’s minds,” Mrs Verma said, watching as the book darkened and crumbled into embers. “Made ‘em restless and allowed the devil to get in.”
Ruby swallowed hard as she tightened her fingers around the strap of her bag. The fire crackled louder now, hungrily devouring the last remnants of paper and ink. She didn't know what the book
had once said. Its words had long since faded, erased by years of neglect.
“I don’t think the devil was in the words,” said Ruby “Think he was in all the things we didn’t say.”
“The devil don’t need much these days,” Mrs. Verma said sharply. “Just a voice too loud and a girl too slow to learn.”
“I remember how stories like that used to unravel people,” Miss Rosie said as she brushed a thin layer of soot from Ruby’s sleeve. “You can’t stitch someone back together after reading something like that either.”
Stitch. Ruby exhaled slowly, watching the last fragments disappear into the flames. Stitch was just another word for bind. Better was just another word for controlled. Whatever message had once lived inside that book, whatever warnings it had carried, were now lost to the fire before she’d ever had the chance to understand them.
The book took a while to burn. The cover was thick, and the pages clung to each other as though the outer pages wanted to keep the inner ones from curling away from their spine. Eventually, the book became too brittle, the pages reduced to embers, and the wind scattered them over Benevolence like a baptism. Ruby rested her hand on the swell of her stomach and wondered what words would be found in the ashes come morning.
Mrs. Verma and Miss Rosie had watched Benevolence fade, not in a blaze, but the way a porch light slowly dims. They watched as the town traded its colors for quiet, one choice at a time. The shutters were painted over in slate. The bright quilts were folded and
stored in cedar chests. Even the flowers, once bursting with lilies and snapdragons, were replaced with pale arrangements that didn’t draw attention. It started with a new rule here and there, but it eventually became a rhythm that folks fell into, like brushing dust off the porch or boiling coffee too long. They didn’t speak of what had been lost, and they didn’t ask for it back. They didn’t need to ask questions because when the world began to dull itself down, they simply adjusted their eyes to match.
On Burning Day, they stood as they always did: one with her arms crossed, one with her hands folded, both watching the fire with the kind of stillness that comes from years of having seen too much and saying too little. Ruby didn’t think they were cruel or heartless. They were just tired in the way only women who’ve buried too many versions of themselves can be.
Ruby’s fingers trembled—not from the weight of fear and cold, but from the pull of something new that she could not yet name. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat and ran her fingertips along lining that was stiff from the cold. Her fingers found the cloth—a faded scrap sewn into the seam. She wondered briefly where it had come from: a curtain, a shirt, maybe even a flag from a place that no longer existed. Folks like Mrs. Verma and Miss Rosie liked to assign meaning to things and pretend every thread had a story worth saving. Ruby wasn’t sure if she believed that. Maybe the scrap of fabric had meant something once. Maybe it didn’t. Either way, it didn’t have to mean the same thing to her. She
held onto it more tightly, not for what it was, but for what it could be.
The first snowflake of winter fell on her cheek, and Ruby embraced the sting of changing seasons as it bit into her skin. She returned to her place beside Mrs.Verma and Miss Rosie, their silence pressing against her like the weight of stone. The fire before them crackled and devoured what little remained of the past, but Ruby felt something stir in her chest that refused to be smothered. She knew her time would come eventually, and she knew that when the embers sparked into flames, she would be ready—and she would burn in a way Benevolence had never expected.
Ashley Tunnell is a writer from Blairsville, GA. She is completing a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of North Georgia, and she intends to pursue her master’s degree in the same field with a concentration in creative writing. Her work has been published in UNG’s literary magazine as well as the Southern Literary Festival’s anthology of poetry and short stories. When she is not reading, writing, or studying, Ashley enjoys spending time with her family and singing in her local community choir.
The Caretaker’s Lot
Mary Kendall
Colorado, 1932.
Ralph stood poised at the railroad car’s open edge, gauging when to take the leap. He jumped off the slow-moving vehicle at a sweet spot before it could pick up speed again.
The boy curled into a roll as he hit the ground, a dusty endeavor after a dry spring season out West. Popping up like a prairie dog to his whole five foot, eight inches, no worse for wear, he swiped at the dirt on his torn and tattered clothing, to little effect.
His appearance reflected what he was: a hobo, riding the rails since the world had flipped over, no work to be had, and also, a kid from Kansas City with an eighth-grade education and no family left.The Depression they were calling it. But he just knew it as life.
Pushing his mop of dark, curly hair from equally dark-colored eyes, he slugged a sack of meagre belongings over his shoulder and loped along the tracks back towards the station. The sign dangling off the run-down, one-story train station got clearer: “Sidewinder”.
The place was empty with the exception of one man propped against a carriage, a lit smoke in hand, who eyed Ralph’s approach then spoke up. “You huntin’for work, fella?”
Ralph took in the man, his face delineated by a salt and pepper handlebar moustache. It seemed too good to be true. Usually, getting work involved groveling and then begging. If luck was with him, he might get a space in a barn for a night. Ralph cleared his throat, dry from the dust. “Yeah, I am.”
“Got a spot needs filling at the Overlook.Ano show here.”
“What’s Overlook?”
The man stared at Ralph with astonishment saying, “You never heard of the Overlook? It’s only about the finest resort ever built on God’s green earth! Up in the mountains.” He waved vaguely towards the west.
“Oh.”
The man pressed him. “Well, you want work or not? Running tables, doing dishes and the like.”
“How far?”
“Around twenty miles or so—as the crow flies.”
Ralph wondered how he would scram if need be; the railroad being his lifeline. The man added, “We got it supplied up with all anyone could ever want. It’s a place for the richest of the rich, like their play palace.”
When Ralph finally nodded, the man said, “Hop aboard.”
Heading away from pokey Sidewinder with its few scattered houses and a mercantile store, Clarence (as he introduced himself)
chatted up a storm, talking two meals a day, lodging and all the rest at the Overlook. Hard for Ralph to believe, but, if nothing else, he’d get a meal in his belly and a place to lay his head for a night or two.
Eventually, Clarence wound down his chatter and their bumpy journey continued into the mountains. The jarring of the wagon’s motion had Ralph nodding off, a strange comfort in the sensation. He jerked awake when Clarence thwacked him on the shoulder. “There she is! Not much longer now.”
With blurry eyes, Ralph looked where the Overlook staked its claim, glistening in the sunlight atop a mountain. A sprawling, pearly white edifice with wings on each side took up the better part of the distant view, an astonishing sight to the boy from Kansas City.
Around it, hills rolled out like the ribbon candy his mama used to make at Christmas time, except with different hues. He felt a pang in his heart at the reminder of his mama taken too soon from her brood, leaving them without anchor.
Soon enough, the carriage plodded up a tree-lined drive as Ralph gaped in awe at the majestic building rising up to greet them.When it drew to a stop, Ralph lit out, mouth still agape.
As they climbed the generously-sized entrance stairs, Clarence said, “We’ll go through the front for a quick look-see. Don’t get too comfortable though. Help stays out of view.”
Clarence pushed Ralph through the Overlook’s main hall as opulence swirled around them; lighting fixtures dripping with crys-
tals, richly burnished wood floors and fancy seating areas of brocaded upholstery. They ended up at open doorway of an office affixed with a gleaming brass nameplate: “Mr. Perkins, General Manager”.
“Got that hire from the station, Mr. Perkins,” Clarence announced to the man seated behind the desk. Ralph shot a furtive gaze at Clarence, catching on quick his “hire” was a lie.
Mr. Perkins, dandily dressed with a silk handkerchief stuffed in his breast pocket, rose up studying Ralph with a frown. “You couldn’t dress any better than that, boy? Well, never mind. We’ll get you fixed in a uniform soon enough. Follow along.”
Back through the hall, Mr. Perkins darted a curious look Ralph’s way. “What’s your name again? Harvey Wall sent you up, right?”
Clarence shot Ralph a pointed glance.
“Um…it’s Ralph.And uh…yes. He sends his best.””
The frown crossed over Mr. Perkins’face again as he said, “That doesn’t sound like the name Harvey—”
“Anickname,” Ralph quickly interjected and blurted out a question to change the topic, “What’s all that on yer walls?” Artwork filled the spacious and open corridor, loud colors and harsh lines intersecting into some kind of meaning, a sort completely foreign to Ralph’s non-worldly eyes.
“Tribal art from the Indians. Rumor has it this place was built right on top of their sacred grounds or some such malarkey.”
“Never saw nothing like it.”
Mr. Perkins paused in his steps and studied the one closest as Ralph absorbed the intricacies of patterns and tones so new to him. “Yes, every now and again, one of them shows up complaining we stole from them.” He sniffed and then said, “Come on now. Let’s get you sorted.”
Later, after the whirlwind of getting togged up, schooled on the rules and regs and every little thing that was about to consume his life, Ralph finally laid down on a top bunk where directed. Hands behind his head, he thought over life’s twists and turns. Struck hard by this apparent stroke of good fortune, he would be making the most of it.
Someone entered the room and plopped on the bottom bunk underneath, interrupting Ralph’s reveries. Then a tap on the frame came from below with the question, “What’s your name, pal?”
“Ralph.”
“Where you from?”
“Kansas City…thereabouts.”
“You don’t say? That’s me too.”
“Really?” Ralph lifted himself and propped on one elbow, the thin metal bottom squeaking as he looked over the edge. With just a slit of moonlight coming in, he got a glimpse of a boy with sandycolored hair and a pug nose gazing up.
The other boy, Lester, and Ralph traded verbal notes back and forth in the dark room trying to pin down mutual connections. They worked out they were both nineteen with Lester being some months younger.
After a bit of silence, Ralph asked, “What’s the work like here?”
“They work you hard. But can’t argue with meals and a bunk on the regular.”
“No, can’t argue that a bit.” As the conversation drifted off, Ralph felt buoyed by meeting a hometown fella, a connection.
#
A couple months into the season found Ralph worked to the bone, day in, day out. More than once, he thought about taking off down the mountain road; hitching a ride or just using his own two feet. But he stayed, hooked in tight by steady grub and a roof over his head, memories of hunger and cold too much of a deterrent.
At workday’s end, Ralph sat around the campfire, far and away from guests who required shielding from the riff-raff. He and Lester had become fast friends, both sturdy Kansas City stock; one, dark-haired, one, light. Some nights, they played cards; other nights, they sat staring at the fire’s mesmerizing effect, swapping war stories.
“What’re you gonna do after season ends, Lester?” Ralph asked one night.
“Dunno. Get back to KC, I guess. Might find work downtown at those jazz clubs.”
They went silent, back to gazing at the fire, until Ralph cut in, saying, “I kinda want to just stay here.”
“Can’t do that. Place closes down end of October.”
“I know that. But…”
“But?”
“Saw them walking around today with a fella.Witherspoon, they called him. Winter caretaker, I heard Clarence say.”
Lester shrugged and said, “And?”
“Stays here all winter. Whole place to himself. Dunno…got me thinking.”
“’Bout what?”
“’Bout not going back to riding the rails and all that nonsense. What if we just stay? Hide out from this Witherspoon? Sneak eats, smokes, booze and anything else we wanted?”
“You’re crazy, Ralph. You know that?”
“Ain’t that crazy. Big ol’ place with plenty of provisions. Reckon it’s far better than shanty towns and Hoovervilles. In May, we’d walk right in, already trained up, ready to work.”
Lester mulled it through, a calculated expression on his homely face. Finally, he spoke. “I mean…could we really?”
As the season waned down, the boys’ plan firmed up becoming less fantastical and more reality. Ralph quizzed local staff on winter at the Overlook: snowed-in solid from November to April, no way in or out. The winter caretaker, he was told, kept the place from going to ruin by warming up spaces with woodstoves and a back-up boiler to maintain pipes.At night, Ralph and Lester whis-
pered a mile a minute in their bunks about what they called “The Plan”.
In off hours, Ralph and Lester scoped out hidey holes, a number of them, strategically picking spots near sources of warmth the caretaker would be tending to. They then stocked the hidden places, squirreling away bedding, tin cans of food and canteens. The Plan was to move around as necessary to keep far away from the caretaker’s doings.
Time marched quickly to season’s end and the boss called in staff to arrange departures and final wages. When pressed about leave-takings, Ralph and Lester stood side by side, sharing a glance filled with silent shorthand. Ralph mumbled something about some back-country camping, Lester repeating the same. With raised eyebrows, Mr. Perkins said, “You city boys are too soft for that. But whatever.” He quickly moved on, their status of no concern to him.
Aday before closing, Witherspoon arrived and Mr. Perkins bustled him around, warbling on about “plumbing this” and “boiler that”. From the corners, Ralph secretly observed the caretaker, in clothing worn at the edges and dated, working his fingers back and forth through a crumpled and weathered brown fedora. His face was creased into more lines than not.
Overall, there was something off-putting about Witherspoon, something Ralph couldn’t stick a pin in. But he figured the man must be the type the job necessitated, the winter caretaker type. In
the flurry of activity to closing, there wasn’t much time for further musings about Witherspoon or anything else.
Then, just like that, everyone left. Except for one winter caretaker and two boys from Kansas City in hiding. #
In the first month of living secretly in the nooks and crevices of the Overlook, the boys’ routine revolved around keeping tabs on Witherspoon more than anything else. They communicated in whispers, always on the alert.
Ralph’s first impressions ofWitherspoon had not been far off the mark. The guy was a loon and not in any good sense. Witherspoon talked to himself pretty much all day long, nights too. That was okay because it gave plenty of advance warning of his whereabouts. He tended to make a slow and shuffling migration from one area to the next; some kind of methodical arrangement that must have made sense to him.
In the second month, things took a turn. In addition to the talking, Witherspoon started bellowing and yelling. Spied glimpses revealed his appearance as increasingly unkempt and disheveled along with an odor left in his wake, an unbathed one. Bathing was a struggle for the boys too but they managed to make do with sponge baths. They joked about it; Witherspoon, his smells and his ways.
The man’s erratic tendencies kept the boys on edge and, one night, Lester broke into Ralph’s sleep, tugging at him with an alarmed whisper, “Wake up! Wake up! You hear that?”
Ralph shook his head to clear the sleep and said, “Is he coming?”
“Those footsteps. Heavy footsteps,” Lester said in a soft voice.
Ralph listened hard for Witherspoon approaching. But he got silence back.
“What are you on about it, Lester? There ain’t no footsteps.”
Lester mumbled to himself and settled back down. Ralph laid back, pondering if Lester was just sleep talking or if the place—the lifestyle—was wearing on him. #
Days filled with nothingness passed by with boredom setting in hard. The boys had long run out of stories to swap and had played cards until the deck was in pieces. Their attentiveness began to slip especially as Witherspoon was so loud with his doings.
One day, Ralph sat idly nearby while Lester threw a forgotten leftover from a child guest, an old jack ball, back and forth against the wall of their current hiding spot, a utility room. The continuous thumping noise grated on Ralph’s last nerve. Distracted, he almost missed the sounds of Witherspoon encroaching.
In a deft motion, he grabbed Lester’s arm pulling him quick into a concealed recessed area that stemmed off the back corner. As
Witherspoon crashed into the room, the boys scurried deeper into the tight space as far as it went.
Witherspoon banged around with a pole, letting out heavy breathing and mumbled words. His movements knocked things over as if he was searching for something.
Eventually, the space turned quiet again. They stayed put awhile after the narrow escape from being caught out.
“Too close for comfort,” Ralph finally said.
Lester, jawing on some dried fruit from a stash deep in his pocket, didn’t answer.
“Lester. You hear me?”
“I hear you. What’d you want me to do about it?”
“We gotta be more careful. Especially if he’s gonna poke around everywhere looking for God knows what.”
Lester grunted, concentrating on his fruit.
“Could you make out what he was saying?”
“Indians.And the footsteps.”
“Huh? Footsteps?”
“Same as I hear.”
Ralph rolled his eyes at the other boy. “Come on now.You don’t wanna end up like him.”
Lester didn’t answer. Ralph felt a barb of something deep in his gut.
When sleep evaded them, the boys risked creeping into the grand hall at night. Witherspoon’s pig-like snores could be heard from Mr. Perkin’s office where he generally spent his time. They would pick around the bar area, helping themselves to a dwindling supply. Slinging back liquor and lounging over the bar counter’s broad slab of mahogany became their favored pastime, a panacea for the boredom. They could get away with it as long as they kept an ear out for Witherspoon’s clockwork nocturnal noises.
One night, they happened upon a stash of Kentucky’s finest bourbon, squirreled away—possibly a bartender’s private stash. Glee ensued at the find along with too many slugs. Lubricated by the liquor, their laughing jags got away from them.When the lights cut on, illuminating them in plain view, a wild-eyed Witherspoon stared, silent for a beat. Then he bellowed like a jungle animal, staggering towards them on the attack.
“Run!” Ralph yelled and the boys fled with Witherspoon in pursuit, his heavy boots thudding on the shiny, parquet floor. A circular chase ensued around the hallways until Witherspoon, so much older than the boys, lost some steam. It provided the edge needed as Ralph busted back into the hall and flung the front door wide open. He pointed to behind the lobby counter and he and Lester bent down, holding back from gasping air hoping the ploy would work.
Heavy breathing and pounding boots announced Witherspoon’s charge back into the hall. He stopped and then let out an “Aarrggggh”, plunging through the open doorway. Ralph sprang up,
Lester on his heels, and moved to the door, slamming hard and engaging the lock.
As Witherspoon banged at the door and then crashed his full body weight into it repeatedly, the boys held it with all their might. Witherspoon’s words were nonsensical but loud and monstroussounding. He wasn’t breaking through yet but…
“Let’s go!” Ralph said and they took off, racing down into the bowels of the Overlook to find refuge, escape the only thing in mind, into the tucked-away recessWitherspoon didn’t know about. They burrowed themselves deep and couldn’t hear any noise from above. Minutes ticked by as adrenaline faded and alcohol took over. Their vigilance loosened, they fell into slumber.
#
Ralph woke, immediately alarmed that he had slept. Lester lay next to him, emitting feathery, snuffling sounds. He pushed on him. “Lester, wake up. We gotta figger out what Witherspoon’s doing.”
“Huh?” Lester blinked bleary eyes and sat up in the tight space. “He’s gonna come after us again.”
“We gotta go see.”
They crawled out and moved into the corridor on tiptoes, stopping to listen every few feet. But there was no noise. Finally, in the main hall, they looked side to side, seeing and hearing nothing.
They looked at each other and Ralph whispered, “Let’s open the door.”
They struggled, finally opening it into a large crack. When they peered out though, they discovered the struggle wasn’t against the fierce winds and snow drifts. It was against pushing Witherspoon, crumpled into a fetal position heap at door’s edge.
They stared at each other in panic. What should they do? Help the man or run and hide? Ralph gulped. Then, his better part took over even though it meant ultimate trouble for him and Lester. He moved out through the door’s crack, frigid cold immediately filling his bones. “Mister? Mister? You alright?”
Witherspoon was completely still, eyes stuck wide-open. Ralph nudged him with a socked toe but got no response. He bent down to feel for a pulse onWitherspoon’s grime-coated neck, but…nothing.
Ralph stood up and wiped a hand over his face. He caught Lester’s glance of complete and utter horror through the door opening, mirroring his own emotions.
“Lester…I think…I think…he’s dead.”
“Oh god. Oh no. We killed him!” Lester yelled with anguish.
Ralph stared back down into the open eyes of a dead Witherspoon.
“Whadda we do?” Lester’s voice came out in a rasp in the deafening wind.
“Fling him off. Bury him later. Help me—grab one of his legs.” They bent down, each grabbing a leg. A heavy man, it took great exertions to drag him through snow drifts accumulated on the veranda.At the edge, Ralph said, “Heave-ho. One, two, three…”
Once released, snow-covered ground sucked up the body with hardly a muffle. They stared after it until the cold drove them back inside. Ralph went straightaway to grab the bourbon while Lester perched on a couch, blank in expression, almost dead-looking himself.
When the liquor streamed down Ralph’s throat, its fiery warmth filled cold spaces inside him. The vision of the dead caretaker stayed uppermost in his mind but was soon taken over by a dawning fear. They would have to keep the place tended now like Witherspoon had done…. or else.
He shook himself and, with a sense of urgency in his words, said, “We gotta step up. Keep this place going.”
Lester remained motionless, his face crumpled with the weight of all of it, unravelling before Ralph’s very eyes. Ralph marshalled his tone to sound stern. “Lester, do you hear me?”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Lester did an about-face, yelling, “Stop talking. Stop it! I gotta get out of here. Can’t be around a dead man. I can’t!!!”
“Look outside, fool.” Ralph cast his gaze over to the hall’s floorlength windows where falling snow obscured the view. “Nowhere to go.”
“Why’d I ever listen to you?” Lester said, his voice back to anguished, before running full-tilt out the main hall down a corridor, his pounding motions vibrating the floor underneath Ralph’s feet. Ralph grabbed the bottle and slugged some more, pacing back and
forth, well-worried over Lester. But the other boy would snap out of it…he had to.
When numbed enough, Ralph plopped down on one of the cushy, hall sofas. Something he had never done while working or since he had been in hiding. The comfort of it took his mind briefly off the problem of the dead man situated outside the Overlook.
He fell into a light slumber until jerked awake by Lester standing over him.
“How can you sleep?” Lester said, tone rattled.
Ralph put a hand over his face shielding himself from Lester’s tormented expression. He rose up to a seat shaking off residual sleep and alcohol. “Look. It’s how it is now. The man died.”
“We did this. We killed him!”
“Calm the hell down. He was old…things…happen. But now…”
“What?”
“Right now, I need your help or this place will fall down around us.” He added, “We can figger it out. If we don’t…they’ll find us frozen like ice blocks. Just like Witherspoon.”
It didn’t seem to register so he handed Lester the liquor bottle. “Take a shot or two for courage.”
Lester stared and then snatched it, guzzling greedily.
The next morning, Ralph approached the boiler room with trepidation, leery of the small behemoth in the Overlook’s bottommost recesses. But they needed what it provided. He culled through his
mind for images of Witherspoon turning dials and opening to let out steam.
He finally got the hang of it after a couple tries. He stood up from kneeling and rubbed his hands back and forth with a sense of accomplishment, a proud feeling.
Next, he headed to Mr. Perkin’s office where Witherspoon had spent most of the time. But Ralph drew to a halt at the threshold, stunned by walls filled with inked writings of all sorts. He went back to the memory of the resort in season with Mr. Perkins sitting in the office, the walls clean and bare.
Ralph moved closer to decipher the writings. Ramblings about the mark of the beast were side by side with Indian drawings, teepees and symbols. Some numbers and letters were meshed together in equations unlike any math he had ever seen.
A huge wall calendar sat amidst all of it, prominently tacked on one of the walls. Each day had been marked through with a red X. Ralph picked up a red copy pencil on the desk. He took up where Witherspoon left off as the writing tool made a sharp, dragging screech over the present day with an X.
Averting his eyes from the walls, he planted himself behind the desk, hands positioned behind his head, feet up. It was a bit of playacting, him as a captain of industry, the fella in charge, or, at the very least, overseer of the grandest resort of them all, the Overlook.
In the days that followed, Ralph became preoccupied and absorbed with all the responsibilities of the Overlook while Lester wandered around, lost in his own head, barely able to string two words together. Each boy gradually had little to do with the other except for eating meals where they had set up camp in the main hall. With Witherspoon gone, Ralph had dragged all their bedding and the like into the area, messing up the place pretty good, bundles haphazardly scattered all around.
With duties tended to by nightfall, Ralph would cobble together some grub from tin cans and diminishing pantry supplies. Too late, they had not considered it only being stocked up for one person all winter, not three-—now, two. But he’d make it work.
Lester would eventually shuffle in and Ralph placed bowls down, watching Lester pick at the scanty offerings, at least getting something in him. Like Ralph, Lester had to be feeling the constant gnawing hunger and a stomach like a hollow stump.
Ralph held onto hope that Lester could turn the corner, come back to his senses. In the meantime, he let Lester be and kept track of the passing days on the wall calendar, marking off each one.
One day, after finishing another paltry meal of yet more beans and salt pork, Ralph propped his feet up, lord of the manor style, and pored through Witherspoon’s journal discovered in the office.
It took his mind off Lester, sprawled on the couch opposite, leftover eats stuck in his whiskers and a rank odor coming off his person. Lester had stopped taking any interest in caring for himself, it seemed.
Ralph’s laugh started as a sputter and then he couldn’t hold back rolling with mirth.
Lester gazed blankly over. “What?”
“Oh,Witherspoon. Off his rocker, possessed even. Look at this.” He held up the page. “Here he says, ‘I hear heavy, heavy footsteps’.” Ralph let out another huge guffaw. “What a nut.”
“I hear them too,” Lester said softly. “What?”
“Every night. Don’t you?”
Ralph sat up straight. “No, Lester. I don’t. ‘Jes your imagination, you know. Witherspoon ain’t here no more. You need to get your head right.”
Lester looked down. “Yeah. Probably so.”
“And it wouldn’t hurt you to help out around here some.”
Lester stared over into Ralph’s eyes, a cold, unnerving stare. Then he stood abruptly and walked away.
Ralph gazed after his departing back, shaking his head. Lester was getting worse.
That night, as Ralph drifted off to sleep, he heard Lester coming back in, talking to himself, just like Witherspoon, as if a piece of the caretaker had stuck onto him. After Lester’s rustlings finished,
Ralph fell back to sleep until a heavy footfall cut sharply into his slumber. He sat up and said aloud, “What’s that?”
Lester didn’t stir. And just like that, the sounds stopped. Ralph gave himself a shake. Lester’s ways were rubbing off on him. He needed to stay right in his own head.
The next day, Ralph awoke to see snow squalls beating down hard outdoors; relentless, claustrophobic and all-encompassing. Lester was splayed out in deep sleep, one leg exposed and dangling off the couch. He didn’t budge as Ralph got up to start the work.
Tooling around in the lower regions kept Ralph well-occupied through the morning. Eventually, he stepped away, wiping greasy hands on his pants, and went back to the main hall. He felt the wind first and then saw the door standing open. He rushed over and looked out into the blustery snowstorm.
Ralph screamed out Lester’s name both inside and out the door for a long time. Eventually, he gave up: there was no sign of Lester. At all. He had the choice to head outside himself, to look for Lester—at his own peril. But he did not. Instead, he shut the door and leaned his back heavily against it.
Lester couldn’t do it anymore. Now, it was just him.
Ralph sat still and immobile throughout the afternoon, thrown off his game with Lester gone. Digging deep, he eventually rallied and stood back up. He had to keep going, one foot in front of the other. Lester didn’t need him anymore but… the Overlook did.
His first night alone, visions of Lester and Witherspoon tormented him, an endless loop. He couldn’t control it as much as he tried.Then he heard it—footsteps. How could that possibly be with no one there but him? He put hands over ears but the noise beat at him, consumed him.
But, the next morning, he sprang up as a dim winter sun trickled in and jarred him from whatever state he had been in. His imagination had gotten away from him, he told himself, as he resolutely marched forth to carry out the day’s tasks.
The following night, however, ramped up with more. Whispers enveloped Ralph, gathering strength louder and louder. A crystalclear voice cut through the breathy sounds, right into his ear. “Leave…. leave…follow the others…” Then the footsteps took up again, a crushing weight pressing on him from all corners. Ralph felt tangled in a strange battle with the Overlook as if it were a living, breathing organism with its own agenda, a dark one he couldn’t make sense of.
Ralph forced himself up in the mornings after what felt like warfare in the nights, struggling to keep his head right. He needed to stay strong, to keep himself—and the Overlook—going.
It was unclear what exactly was happening to him. Were the voices and whispers from the Indians? Or was it the Overlook vying for control over Ralph? Nights blurred the line between him and the Overlook and left him wondering: who was master in fact?
Ralph found himself rolling along in a vacuum, stretchy yet sticky time like how marshmallow fluff was as Xs filled up the calendar. Finally, on the last day, Ralph went into Mr. Perkins’ office and picked up the red copy pencil, now a stub. He stared down at his fingernails, grown long like talons, then screeched the pencil over the square marked 1 May.
He let out a heavy, weighted sigh followed by the deep cough he had for a while. His final day was here. He paused and questioned himself. Had he marked each day one by one? Was it really the end? It had to be. At least…he thought so. He looked again at the calendar weaving back and forth in his blurry vision, then blinked at what looked to be some blank, unmarked squares.
Finally, he trudged over to his station of sorts, his chosen couch. He sank down, feeling aged in his bones, even though he was still young yet. He ran his hand through hair spiraling long down his back, laced with traces of grey. His clothes, rags now, hung off his emaciated form. Nonetheless, he survived.
Listening for their approach from the distance, he waited, attuned to the slightest noise, creak or groan the Overlook released. Surely, this was the day that the private world he had dwelt in for so long would end, his duties complete.
After endless hours of stillness on the couch, daylight diminished and it was still just Ralph, alone at the Overlook. Just him…and the footsteps.
Mary Kendall is first a reader of books across genres and, second, a writer of fiction. She brings her background in history-related fields mixed with Celtic story-telling genes to her writing. Fueled by black coffee and a possible sprinkling of fairy dust, she finds inspiration in odd places, sometimes while kneading bread dough. Her published novels include The Spinster's Fortune, Campbell's Boy, Bottled Secrets of Rosewood and The Accidental Heiress. Her upcoming summer 2026 release is The Redux of Sam Murdoch. Additionally, she has short stories published in several magazines.
Author’s note: The Caretaker’s Lot is a historical fiction twist on The Shining, in keeping with the novel’s basics along with attention to historical details from the 1930s Depression Era. It sets up my young protagonist, Ralph, through a wild romp at the Overlook Hotel which takes an unfortunate turn.
Fighting With Sis
LaVern Spencer McCarthy
My twin sister, Nora, and I had been fighting with each other more and more. When we were smaller, it wasn’t bad even though sometimes our competition with each other to play with a particular toy such as a doll, ended with someone being hit on the head with it, usually me. Gradually, I became a punching bag when Nora became angry at something she thought I had done. Every time, I cried, our mother would appear and say, “Dora, let Nora have the toy. She has been sick lately and needs to be taken care of.”
Of course, Nora immediately grabbed the toy and stuck her tongue out at me when Mom left the room. My resentment had grown until I was bursting to get revenge, especially when Nora flirted with my new boyfriend, sticking her leg out with its multitude of black hairs. I kept mine shaved. I did not want to go around looking like a gorilla. My new boyfriend didn’t seem to notice her ugly leg. He started flirting back, and I had to watch while all this went on.
The shenanigans ended when I punched him in the face and gave him a black eye. Then Nora went into hysterics, pushing and scratching at me. I was forced to protect my eyes when she tried to gouge them out.
This time Mom made us stand in the corner and tell each other we were sorry. I wasn’t sorry, I was furious. How much longer could I continue to live with this twin-turned-maniac?
One day at the high school we attended, I was given a part in a play, and Nora was not. She glared at me as if I were the Devil himself.
“Why do you get all the good things, and I don’t?” she screeched.
I tried to remind her that she was chosen for a play the last time, but she cursed and spat at me right there in class! Our English teacher sent Nora to the principal’s office. I was sent also, as the teacher thought I was guilty too.
In the principal’s office, Nora immediately told him that I started the fight. He glared at me and said we had to go to detention after school for the next three days. Nora sulked and would not say one word to me for that period of time.
Mom asked Nora why she was so quiet, but Nora was silent with her also. Finally, Mom threatened to take Nora to a shrink. She started talking then. She hated the shrink. He was a batty, old pervert who needed a shrink himself. Mom thought he was hunkydory. She never knew he tried to seduce us and we had to fight him off.
One day at the high school cafeteria, Nora asked me for the salt, which was out of her reach. I handed it to her, but some prankster had loosened the cap, and the entire contents dumped onto her mashed potatoes. She immediately accused me of the prank. No matter how much I denied it, she grew more furious.
She hit me over the right eyebrow with the salt shaker and blood went everywhere. The students around us leapt from their chairs and went elsewhere. A bloody fight meant little to them. It happened almost every day at school.
I tried to mop up the blood with napkins while Nora smirked. When we got home from school, Mom never noticed the cut over my eye. She was watching her soap operas and eating chocolate. She barely glanced at us.
Tonight, I stabbed Nora to death with a kitchen knife. She begged and pleaded with me not to. I slit her throat. Her blood shot out several feet. I kept stabbing until I was sure she was dead. Now that the deed is done, I realize I will die too. I don’t know why we were born as conjoined twins anyway.
LaVern Spencer McCarthy, a Texas native, has published eight books of poetry and four books of short stories plus three journals. Her poems have been published in Visions International, Poetry Society of Texas Book of The Year, Open Skies Quarterly, National Federation of State Poetry Society's Encore, Austin Poetry Society's Austin's Best Poets, A Texas Garden of Verses as well as numerous state anthologies and newspaper columns. Her poem, October’s Agenda, was nominated for the Pushcart Award in 2023. She has won over five-hundred state awards and forty-one national awards
The Choir
Niles Reddick
I sat in the middle seat of the third row in the choir loft in the early service on Sundays until we moved to the pews down front for the sermon. About a year before, someone had heard me singing along with the radio when I pulled into the parking lot at church and had suggested I might consider becoming a member of the choir, singing only in the early service since the eleven o’clock service was a praise and worship one with a band, a shift in church music compared to my childhood.
Back then, the choir was stiff, wearing maroon robes, their voices the only thing moving to the imaginary cursive “L” the director drew over and over in the air.That choir also sang the hymns in the maroon hymnal, unless there was special music at Easter or Christmas. Sometimes, we could read the choir members’ faces and know whether they agreed or disagreed with what the minister said, heads bobbing like buoys in water or pursed lips if he mentioned tithing.
Today, there is an associate minister who leads our choir, but he doesn’t draw in the air, and there are no hymnals from which to
sing. Everyone sings from the music someone in a hidden booth types onto the big movie screens, spelling errors and all, and most of the songs aren’t hymns. The songs seem to be a hodge podge of feel good, praise and worship, and many people throw their hands up in the air, palms open, as if some unseen God is reaching out and touching them, like the phone company used to do in their slogan. Long gone are the maroon robes covering panty hose snags, worn shoes, or crooked ties below the shirt’s top button.
Now, women choir members might wear fancy flip flops flashing a rainbow of sparkly toenail colors to the crowd, or worse, to the cameras to support the mission for the shut-ins and sinners at home, and if their long shirts don’t cover it, viewers will catch glimpses of tights with paisley or checkered legs and thighs. No ties, no suits, no shiny angelic shoes can be found on men, for they have been transformed to jeans and shirts, some shirts hanging out, with tennis shoes or slip on loafers. The come as you are philosophy is alive and well and one in which draws in more of a crowd who never liked playing dress-up at stiff churches.
When I’m situated on my pew, three rows from the front, the lead singers come out for a special, all three of them formerly in local country singing groups that cut at least one CD at a recording studio downtown that costs them up front money and a percentage of sales. They were country star wannabes and thought their sounds matched Johnny and June, Dolly and Porter, or George and Tammy. All had dreams of the Ryman and Grand Old Opry in Nashville, but finally deferred those dreams after jobs, marriages, and children to singing for the Lord on Sundays. It was the same
for college professors who made it to the community college instead of the Ivies, bottlers or drivers for soft drink giants that never made it to headquarters, or reporters who never had articles picked up by theAssociated Press.
The singers didn’t wear in your face rhinestones all over their clothes, but their outfits and cowboy boots were a level up from come as you are with some glit and glimmer. They liked songs that allowed some show time, twisting slower than Chubby Checker and moving an octave up or down and holding it there, the notes quivering and sending more hands up to heaven from the audience. If they were particularly on it, the crowd might even clap, or the audience could hear amens from old deacons in the back who’d been yelling out for generations.
I used to be jealous of these lead singers because all I had to offer was a little blended harmony, and another choir member finally told me, “Honey, it ain’t like school. We’re all gifted in the eyes of the Lord.” It had been my wake-up call, my subtle shove into the aisle to rededicate my life. I think my voice is even better now. Maybe I’ll make it to Nashville after all.
Niles Reddick writes from the Appalachian Mountains and is author of a novel, four short fiction collections, and two novellas. His work has appeared in over thirty-five anthologies and six hundred pubs including The Saturday Evening Post, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bending Genres, Citron Review, Midway Journal, and Vestal Review. He is a ten-time Pushcart nominee, and he is a frequent reader at The Pat Conroy Center in South Carolina, the Global Flash Bomb in New York, and the Flash Fiction Forum in California.
Bluez at the Crossroads
Mike Turner
“What do you mean, ‘no’?!”
“Look, kid,” said Ol’ Scratch, “This is serious business. You know the rules. I can make you the greatest that’s ever been. But you got tobe real about it.”
“I’m here, ain’t I?” I said, “Crossroads at midnight, dark of the moon, ready to sign over my soulto play the blues. I’m talking lifetime commitment, Bub - afterlife, even.”
“That’s Beelzebub to you, kid. And yes, it’s a commitment - to the music, to the lifestyle, to thethe legend. Tome. But you got to want it bad, kid - and you got to mean it.”
…
I been drownin’in the blues my whole life. I was five years old when I first heard a bluesmanone summer night in the Delta. He used a glass medicine bottle slide to make his git-box cry andwail, while he moaned over top of it all. I was hooked.
One afternoon not long after, I pulled the binding wire out of Ma’s straw broom and strung it upbetween two nails on the side of our dog-trot shack. I stuck one of Pa’s empty beer bottles under the wire to tension the string, grabbed a chicken bone to pluck with and used the pocket knife Grandpa gave me for my birthday as a slide. Yeah, man! I was makin’music!
I got some real blues once Ma found out I ruined her broom. Pa added some black to my blueswith his belt that night, after Ma told him what I’d done.
One day as I was screeching on that string, I heard a quiet voice behind me.
“What you fussin’ with that diddley bow for, boy? You cain’t play worth spit.”
I turned around, and saw it was the same old blues player who’d first turned me on to the craft.
My heart sank, right into the dust of our side yard.
“You listen to me, boy,” he said, “You gots to find the proper instrument that you can make sing.That’ll be your ticket to the blues.”
I took down the diddley bow that very afternoon, and started searchin’for my instrument.Triedguitar, banjo, a ukulele in a store over in Cleveland. The piano up to the church. None was nobetter.
I’d almost give up when I found it. So simple, so sweet. And I set to learnin’ it, every day. Pa made me play out in the hog pens ‘cause Ma couldn’t stand the racket - but weren’t just that.
Mathought there was only two types of music, church music, and Satan’s blues.
“Boy, don’t you be playing that Devil’s music,” she’d holler at me, “Them blues’ll be the deathof you, you gonna burn in the fiery pit for playin’‘em! I’m praying you’ll be delivered, boy! I’mpraying…”
She’s prayin’. I’se playin’…
…
Of course I’d heard all the old stories, ‘bout selling your soul to play the blues. Go down to thecrossroads at midnight. Dark of the moon. Meet a stranger, ask him to play your instrument.
Once he give it back, it’d have his magic in it, and, BOOM, you’d be the best blues player everwas.
I made up my mind: the blues was in me, I had to get them out. I had found my instrument, and Iwas gonna hunt up ol’Lucifer and sign on the dotted line. Which brought me to talking with EvilIncarnate…
…
“I do mean it,” I said, as I stared intoAbaddon’s coal-black eyes. They say the eyes are a window to the soul-staring into Scratch’s eyes felt like falling down a bottomless well.
“I got all the time in the world, kid, but no time for games. No one serious about the blues, wouldask me for this.”
“Let me play for you,” I said, and I started in on one of Robert Johnson’s old standards, “DustMy Broom.”
“Oh, you think you funny, playing one of HIS tunes,” said Mephistopheles, “You just provingmy point. Robert was deadly serious when we made our deal, and we both kept our ends of the bargain. He got to play blues like no one before or since, and now he plays for me in Hell.”
I swung into Muddy Waters’“Hoochie Coochie Man.”
“Oh, McKinley,” said the Prince of Darkness, “Never could strike a deal with him.Though somesay that his taking up the electric guitar was as good as him turning to sin.”
I kept playing. Howlin’Wolf, B.B. King, Ma Rainey. Finally, out of breath, I took a break.
“You see, kid?” said Belial, “You clearly have the need, even have some raw talent. But it justdon’t sound like you’re serious, playing… THAT…”
I felt a hollowness inside me, like he’d sucked all the air out of my lungs, all the juices out of mygut.
“But…but… I TRIED, Mister Satan, Lord knows…”
“DO NOT drag HIM into this conversation!” thundered Satan, “HE is NOT a party to thesediscussions!”
“Sorry, sorry… I’ve tried, Mister Scratch. This is IT, and I wanna be the best. Don’t you want mysoul?”
“Kid, I got my standards. I took enough ribbing over that gold fiddle incident down in Georgia a few years back. The demons would run me out of Hades on a rail if I gave you what you want!”
“But what am I gonna do?” I sobbed.
“You’ll have to content yourself with Heaven and a harp, kid. I am NOT going to make you the world’s greatest blues kazoo player!”
With a flash of fire and brimstone, Satan was gone. …
But now I got it figured. I’m off tonight, back to the crossroads to re-negotiate, and this time, Ol’Scratch’ll have to agree.
Kazoo ain’t “real” enough for you, huh?
Well, Mr. Beast, just wait’ll you hear my rendition of Robert Johnson’s “Stones in My Passway”.
On the blues bagpipes…
An earlier version of this story was published under the title, “Blues At the Crossroads,” in the anthology, Stories & Poems In the Song of Life, published in 2022 by Sweetycat Press. All rights returned to the author.
Mike Turner was named 2025 Poet of the Year by the Alabama State Poetry Society; featured performing his original songs at the 2020 Monroeville Literary Festival. He has more than 550 poems published in over 130 international journals/anthologies, including Well Read Magazine. Mike’s poetry collection, Visions and Memories, was published in 2021 by Sweetycat Press.
Wooden Spoon
JenniferArreola
When you are not fed love from a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives. Lauren Eden.
Love never met me in a silver spoon it was given to me in wood with splinters and exhaustion seasoned in exasperation and pity, enough to avoid death and its cold but never warm, at best, tepid
The splinters would embed in my tongue, navigate down my throat and hibernate near the heart
by Jennifer Arreola
inches away from it, never really landing in my heartbeat who begs for the slightest touch or the prettiest lie
As I took the splinters away blood ran down my mouth the ancient red rivers festered free from the unknown chains, hurting my fingers, who bravely tried to save me let them, I begged let the blood inside, the cuts, the raw scars, the splinters, the hoarse voice, let them for I have never known love without the pain and I´ll never sing
Jennifer Arreola, literature major, University of Colima. Has published in local editorial houses such as Letras Negras with poetry and a short story in a governmental anthology. Her poetry often turns upon the sacred, yearning and the depth of the sadness a person can feel. A believer in the power of literature to keep us decently sane.
