The Widow Next Door Every Saturday when the sun is out and it’s hotter than Hades Monica next door raises her garage door early in the morning and leaves it up long past noon as if Herm will walk out at any minute oily and greasy needing to clean up the way he used to every Saturday […]
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A New Etiquette “One stall for all” is a new scenario for Wilbur. Thanks to his wife, he knew in the past the right thing to do but now he doesn’t know what “one stall for all” calls for after he’s through: Is it toilet seat up or toilet seat down? Author Bio: Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has […]
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Everybody Don’t Have Somebody The man in the ER, sutured and bandaged, told the nurse there wasn’t anyone she could call to give him a lift home. He said he’d take a bus once he had a chance to check his wallet and see if he had any money. He didn’t have much to begin with, he said, and the […]
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Rhoda, I can’t say why Amanda was picked and not Tiffany for anchor of our Nightly News. I interviewed both because Mr. Smith wanted a woman’s opinion. I honestly don’t know. I made a recommendation and sent it to Mr. Jones who sent it to Mr. Smith who made the final decision. I found little difference between the two. A day […]
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I died from a rattlesnake bite and found myself in line with other zombies in front of a bank of elevators, the doors opening and closing as if by metronome. Every time a door opened a voice called the names of 12 zombies who boarded the elevator single file. As the doors closed, Led Zeppelin or Bing Crosby played in the background depending on whether the […]
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An hour a day, sometimes more, I chipped away with mallet and chisel on a block of marble I found in Carrara and shipped to New York on the deck of a trawler. I offered the marble to a famous sculptor who told me he works in granite only so I grabbed his beret and one of his smocks […]
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A Nuclear Childhood What if your parents had never met had never married had never yelled at each other and instead had wed someone they loved and lived peacefully all those years. That would have been their Eden but you shaking there now decades later wouldn’t be with us cursing the tremors of a […]
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Answering Machine My wife’s upset because I won’t answer the phone in the middle of the night even though the phone’s on my side of the bed. And I say that’s because after all these years we both know whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night, someone we know, maybe someone we love, has […]
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A tragedy happened to Willie and Millie after years of marriage. All their kids were doing well and had nice families of their own but tragedy struck one dawn before Willie had had his morning coffee. Millie was on her third cup and Willie said Millie looked at him the wrong way and Willie asked, “What’s that look all about, Millie, what did I do now?” […]
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Homer’s never owned a gun, thinks they should be banned along with bombs and missiles. Doesn’t need them in the river that flows between his mind and his emotions where every now and then he pushes someone in for some untoward remark. He points to the sky first, says that’s where heaven is and gives a push […]
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