Nature’s New Generation
The young lady delivers her first child but continues to have fits of cramps, and the doctor says, “I see something else.” He grips the forceps to extract the emerging object from the lady’s body. “Is it another baby?” she says. “What is it?” Perspiration coats her rosy face. But the confounded doctor doesn’t answer. He struggles with the emerging object. The young lady screams; she grips the hospital bed sheets. He pulls out the object — what on earth? It’s a square object covered in thick plastic, which the doctor has...
Read MoreWelcome to the North Country
After completing graduate school, my wife, Mikayla, and I, and Maryanne, our 2-year-old daughter, headed for a small town in the North Country where I started my teaching career. We rented a 12 x 60-foot mobile home, and our life in the North Country began. On the third morning, we were visited by the trailer park manager, Mr. Miller. “How do, folks? I come by t’ give y’ this list o’ park rules and tell y’ ’bout th’ roof and th’ heat tape.” He gave us a sheet of paper. “Them are th’ park rules. Y’ got t’ keep...
Read MoreLife in the Movies
I’ve been catching up on movies lately, and found myself thinking about how much simpler everyday life would be if it followed movie rules. For one thing, it would be more convenient: in the movies, everyone speaks English. It doesn’t matter what area or era, though with older settings like ancient Greece or Rome, speech is usually delivered — strangely enough — in a British accent. If it’s a question of British English speakers versus American English speakers, then the British-speaking person is invariably either a boor, or evil. And if someone speaks in a non-English language,...
Read MoreThe First I Heard of It
Most of the nine months I should’ve spent in the third grade I spent in bed. On the first Friday in September of that school year, my mother got me and my brother up like she always does. Then she said she was keeping me home today. She didn’t say why, and I stopped asking after the look she gave the second time. I didn’t want to push her into one of her whacking moods. She didn’t seem to have any problem with Louis going to school though. He was in fifth grade at Cooperstown Elementary. He and I polished off our Lucky Charms and bananas, like we usually would, but neither of...
Read MoreA Solitary Man
Louis Pickett had finally, after years of carefully saving his money, attained the status of home owner. The house was a small Cape Cod in a neighborhood changing demographics; Jewish and Italian ladies dying or leaving for nursing homes and middle-class blacks, Hispanics and single WASP women moving in. Louis’ house sat on a corner on a large lot backing up to woods. His first action after settling in was to erect bird houses on high poles. Possibly he could prevent the squirrels from reaching them, though he doubted this after watching an Animal Planet show on highly intelligent...
Read MoreSlug Boy
The rain tapped against the bathroom window as Abby showered, getting ready for work. She was soaping her legs when she noticed a dark mark, like a swipe from a brown magic marker, on the tile wall. That’s weird, she thought, how did that get there? She leaned in through the steam to get a closer look. “Oh crap,” she said to herself with a start. “There’s a baby slug in my shower.” For some reason having the slug in her shower while she was naked made her feel vulnerable, as if somehow it could get her because she was without her clothes. As if clothes could protect me from a...
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