Fatal Fugazi
Of all the fascinating things I've experienced in my long life, I suppose I could’ve chosen to share any number of entertaining tales. But I’ve decided to share this one because it affected me the most. Its outcome still perplexes me. And before the details are forgotten and the story is lost or becomes compromised, I feel an urgent need to record the events while they remain fresh in my memory.
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What Do They Know?
...Who the hell gets writer’s-block trying to write a sequel to a thirty-page children’s book with no more than fifty words per page?
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A drunk, recently divorced hack with a penchant for adultery and self-destruction, that’s who. One who happens to be hungover and completely devoid of any ideas that might be considered suitable for children. I'm pretty sure most parents don’t want their kiddies reading about ‘Getting Lucky Lizard’, who dropped two grand he doesn't have on booze, drugs, and ladies over the last few days.
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Oats For Lucifer
His mother had died before he was old enough to form much of a reliable memory of her. She was kicked in the head by a horse she spooked early one winter morning while bringing it oats.
His father went looking for her when she hadn’t returned in a reasonable amount of time, and found her face-down in the yard. Somehow, she’d managed to crawl almost halfway back to the house.
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In all the years they knew each other, not once was the subject of churning butter ever discussed. Not once.
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After he died, she often thought about this. Sometimes she would sit alone on their favourite bench in the park, thinking about the things they used to enjoy the most as she drank cheap wine from the bottle. Thinking. Thinking and drinking. Alone in public. Ruing conversations about the art of crafting fine butter that never happened.
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