The 6S Social Network
What can YOU say in six sentences?
The Marshall and the Boy
It was the first food he’d seen in eight days and he ate it like he had something against it, like it had wronged him. They sat in the diner and the Marshall watched the boy maraud around the plate of chicken and corn and potatoes, shoes squealing against clean tile and the tinny stutter of porcelain against itself and occasionally the projectile laughter of a trucker creasing the lower din.
“They do anything to you, hurt you any way…uh…what is it…daño?”
“No, no le” said the boy, a small biscuit fugitive escaping the destruction going on in his mouth.
They finished with a couple slices of cherry pie and got into the car and drove out toward the swollen, jagged redness of the caprock and it occurred to him that the boy wouldn’t have told him if they had hurt him. On 180 in the morning, the sunbathed Guadalupes glowering down at the salt flats of the Delaware basin, the boy in the passenger seat like a stoic coal-haired prayer, he wondered if it wasn’t nigh on murder to take him back to Mexico.
Comment
-
Comment by Stephen Torelli on September 22, 2012 at 6:34pm -
What a great piece of writing, Jamie. And I concur, I want to read more!
-
Comment by Cita on September 22, 2012 at 11:03am -
So, you've been to my old stomping grounds. Or if you have not, you have captured the sense of place with uncanny expertise. I want the whole book.
-
Comment by Gita on September 22, 2012 at 10:28am -
This reads like an excerpt. If it is, and I hope it is, I want to read the whole page.
No, sorry, the whole manuscript.
You evoked protective feelings for the boy in just six sentences, which is amazing, but this felt a little bit squashed to fit into a six, or the second line did, and it would be nice to see it with the seams let out.
-
Comment by Mike Handley on September 22, 2012 at 9:32am -
Similes are the way to my heart. Truly. And your opener makes mine flutter.
-
Comment by Bill Floyd on September 20, 2012 at 7:46pm -
There's looming implications all around the borders of this one, like it dropped out of a larger story and coalesced into all that needed to be said.
-
Comment by Paul de Denus on September 20, 2012 at 7:33pm -
This is top-notch- love the first line- begs the question: what would you do? should do? great vignette Jamie
© 2013 Created by Robert McEvily.
Powered by
You need to be a member of The 6S Social Network to add comments!
Join The 6S Social Network