Tall in the tree stand and still alone, Marvin took the bullets out of the gun, thinking first of all that if he shot himself, he would never get the revenge of being as happy and healthy as Frank currently was, (although this odd kind of getting even wasn’t realistic or even much of a reason to stay alive, he knew), and then he thought of shooting Frank, but it would be like breaking a mirror; Frank would never be destroyed, he would only become millions more tiny reflections for…

A Nosferatu here in the Combat Zone, and did I not have a faint, stirring inkling of who it might be...and meanwhile, the lights as we crossed the threshhold--surreal...

Like the gold-inlaid teeth of the six-foot TV who held court with her sisters under the street lamp that lit up the corner of HoStro and Vine, which served as the gateway to all the lesser-lit dungeons and dens that stretched out for blocks to the north and the west.

The TVs posed there in…

At seven he ran simple errands for the neighborhood fellas and watched them roll dice, play cards, and take bets on sports and numbers. And as he got older he listened to the things they did like twist arms and break legs. At eighteen he delivered messages spoken in dialect because the phones were tapped and within a year he became sharp as a razor's edge. At twenty three he got married and the fellas paid for everything, honeymoon included, letting…

When I turned the final page of Pynchon's novel, I literally hugged the giant thing to my chest, with tears in my eyes.  This book is about America, and Europe, and Africa; history and friendship; stars; lines of great consequence carved precisely upon the earth; grief and laughter and invention; the fading of old orders and the establishment of new ones.  It featured a clock that kept perfect time; a lovesick robot duck; a talking dog; George Washington and Ben Franklin; flights among the…

The image that lingered longest in Marvin’s mind as he clutched at the gun was the one of Frank’s face, contorted with tears, the heat and sweat rising from his chest like a cloud, saying he could not go on with Marvin any longer, for he was certain they would soon be caught and the number of people who would be wounded would be too great.

Frank said he could not live with the guilt, which seemed strangely sudden given the length of their relationship and how little guilt was ever…

I'm gonna get all deep and philosophical in this the fourth year of the oak tree saga (click on links to go back and catch up if you must).  I think because I've always been a philosophical fucker (not an easy phrase to say when you've had a few gin and tonics...!).…

Perhaps he should have perished at sea, but he died with a gun in his hand, not in some cowboy shoot out or some corner of a foreign field, but shooting at rats in his back garden, a past-time of sorts,with hour glass grey petrol refinery chimneys, his place of work for more than 40 years, towering over and looking down on the small man, collapsing into a heap from an aneurysm.

His body…

The ones who fish from out there are typically loners; old gaunt men with stretched faces, squat women wearing raincoats irrespective of the actual weather.  If they're not mumbling to themselves, you kind of wish they were.  You can feel the wood planks moving beneath your feet, maximum exposure to the currents below and the winds above, a pitiful joust into the Elemental.  Facing out to the sea, you ask yourself all kinds of questions.  Scanning back to the land, the lights in the windows…

We got to the Emerald City at midnight--no, wait, high noon, no wait--

I'd lost my watch on some other world, and man, the lights were bright in this town, neon erasing the sky as it were, and the place was sort of like Vegas on steroids or something.

Big city, bright lights, and all kinds of ghosties putting on floorshows; alternative energy--the kind that got sloughed straight to Limbo, remember?--sure had some kinks to go with the skittles, I'll tell…

Salvor smoked the yellow crystals from the glass pipe blessed by the grey-man’s gift, the humming wand made of impossibly blue metal. Thirty seconds later, reality shifted and his consciousness began to blend with the geometric patterns manifesting in the space between spaces. He saw what he thought was a being of pure energy and then for a fraction of a second he wasn’t anymore, and when he came to, reality had normalized itself but he was lying face down on a forest floor. He was rescued…

Elizabeth did not really retire as was stated earlier in this tale, but for appearance's sake, that is what she and Marvin told everyone.  She became disabled due to extreme bipolar disorder (as if no one knew), and her taking over of all the household duties which Marvin at one time resented was a manifestation of her mania which was, at least then, not under very good control.  In college she was highly strung and prone to periods of deep sadness which Marvin found tender and sensitive. …

Etta stood in the center of her living room, feet planted slightly apart for balance, and surveyed all of it. The assisted living apartment where she was about to move was a quarter of the size of this house where she and Herman had raised a family and grown old.

One out of every four possessions,  she thought, I only get to keep…

One thing, in Limbo we never slept once, and I don't know why, except maybe to note that physical laws were more a suggestion than anything else, sort of like speed-limit postings for getaway drivers or something.

Night came when it damn well wanted to come, sometimes blipping by like a dog on the run and other times staying like unwanted guests, through the summer and into forever.

Night or day, dawn, dusk, high noon, the wee hours, it was all the same, thank you, to us; for…

“No one wants a puny little banana like you,” said the fat, ripe, perfectly round tomato bully, “which is why the human broke you off the bunch she bought today.” 

“Face it, you’re a loser, a sickly, ugly yellow little waste of potassium,” the tomato continued, then laughed wickedly as the small banana cringed and wished it would stop.

It was night at the closed Beckwith’s Family Grocery Store and as was customary for the past week, the tomato bully was insulting and demeaning…

Living out my lease in a now almost-abandoned home didn't sound so bad two days ago. Two days ago, when the weather was still nice, and my roommate was still around, staying put was easy and rational.

Now the thunderclouds are brewing, and my imagination is too.

The high temperatures whittle away at my desire for security, until every window is open to the storm's cooler air. Suspicious sounds are blocked by my fan's gentle roar. 

But my…

The little old rusty  trailer has a brand new pale green compact car size AC unit  furiously working in the Carolina heat to keep.... no one cool within its empty shell.

One of several guns fire in volley ejecting brass with load spent, mere empty shells.

A small triangular wooden box waits unfilled at home, just a empty shell. 

A sky blue box is sheltered by cloth from the Southern sun within lies my fathers body,soul fled, an empty shell.

After taps I return…

1. “How is Jay or has he already committed suicide?”

2. “I hear that ten billion cells die a day so my feeling is that all ten billion must be from John’s brain.”

3. “It’s just money, not real life.”

4. “You should have told me there was a chance you wouldn’t get through your defense; I wouldn’t have ordered a cake.”

5. “Hi, I’m Jane, or Ann, or Susan…whatever.”

6. “If you were creative yourself, you’d understand.”

All these were written in a notebook over the last…

When I finally told Mom my secret, about the thing (the only thing!) that made my arms and legs go and my brain think and my dreams dream, she couldn't have been more proud. Father wasn't so keen on it, but he figured it was all part of "doing our part", like my scrap drives and the hours I spent in Ms. Emma's garden pulling weeds. Father eventually acquiesced to my demand (and I really did demand to join the Civil Air Patrol.) To his credit, he never belted my backside for showing him my…

The world, any world, and Limbo no less, serves as a mirror of sorts.

I saw that L'amea now held me in different regard: before, she'd been my mentor, schooling me in the things Nosferatu must know to survive, and she held the reins and kept me from losing myself  and my life in young fools' terrain, the one that's littered with bones of angels who tread there.

She shaped me, you see, with loving care and attention, and with a proprietor's pride of…

Jack prayed for rain because his orchard was drying. He knew modern methods were available but he just didn’t believe in it. Eventually, half of his apple crop dried up, yet he was able to sell the other half. And when Jack received his earnings he only paid half his rent and began to eat half his meals and filled his tank half way. When he visited his girl he would stay half a day and at church he prayed for half the mass and to this day some call…