B. ANNA ABADORF

“… exceptionally perceptive in the construction of a didactic world tainted with rich echoes of self. A self that at one time fears its rootedness in the flesh and enticed by that same sensuous reality.”
- Roberta Pitman

FELIX D. CALHOUN

“Poverty, ignorance and cruelty join hands in these three dimensional sketches. Even with such fleshed out characters it is impossible to tell for sure who are the bad guys and who are the good. … perhaps they are only us.”
- Ruben Sparks

WALTER N. CHOLLIT

“Some people can recreate the music of youth – that time when life danced gleefully to both crime and punishment. His are those realities. Places and times when stop meant go, barriers were gates, and now lasted forever or was instantly over.
- R. I. Carver

AARON C. CLUTTERMAN

“His is a dramatic darkness, awash in the kind of heated, class and race passions that set the south aflame in the past and again blazes in the hearts of our great cities. His quick challenges… Continue reading →

He remembered the smokehouse outside his grandfather’s place. It stood next to the tool shed beside the little wagon barn. He and his cousin Cooter loved to play there best of all. His grandfather always yelled and swore if he caught them there, but that didn’t stop them. The hooks wired to the long poles made the whole place seem like a jungle gym. The smell of smoke and fat made him hungry. He liked that. Being hungry for something was being young – alive. He liked to remember that feeling even now.

Papa soon nailed a big cowbell to the smokehouse door. When they discovered ways to avoid clanging it when sneaking in, Papa wired little bells to all the hooks in the smokehouse. He and Cooter immediately found that the sound the bells made as they swung about the little shed made the adventure more irresistible. Of course Papa would always come running out and cuss them. Finally, he started cutting switches and whipping their naked little legs until patches of red welts… Continue reading →

She was always called Birdy. The nickname arose partly from her looks. But, it also was because of her nervous ways. She flitted. No other word came close.

Again this morning she was especially anxious. Every few minutes she looked through the screen of the back door. She looked past the old well to the kudzu that was slowly engulfing a tall stand of broom straw. The thick patch of straw ran to the edge of the cut made by the new road. The brand new road.

It was almost 7:15. The yellow bus would pass in a few minutes. As usual she walked quickly down to the well. She removed the faded chenille bathrobe. The early chill made her naked body shiver slightly. She crawled through the yellow straw to the bank of the road. She lay very still. Within minutes the bus rounded the curve out of the deep woods to the north and was soon just below her and gaining speed down the hill. She saw hazy silhouettes through the fogged windows.… Continue reading →

He got up and cut the TV off. Nothing to see. He went out back to check on the dog. Ol’ Scotty still wasn’t eating much. It had been a week now and he still just lay there. “You probly gone up ‘n die on me”, the man grumbled out loud.

He put some fresh water in the bowl and scratched Scotty’s ears roughly. No response. Looking down past the little garden out back he thought he saw a quick movement in the shadows at the far end. Squinting hard, he walked to the edge of the grass near the fence. The septic tank made the ground muddy at this end of the yard. He looked hard but could only see the spiked top of the wooden scarecrow at the end of the garden.

He walked back to the house. About time for wheel, he thought. He glanced quickly at Scotty, who had not yet moved from under the porch. “I guess that’ll teach you”, he said again. He let the screen door slam softly this time. The muddy tracks led back to the TV.

He had hunted here hundreds of times. These woods became his in grade school. He knew he would never leave them for long. The fading light added a quietness to the first chill of the coming winter. Now almost an after work ritual, these short hunting trips hardly ever yielded any game. Still, they served their purpose.

Since his mid-forties he had used only a bow and arrow for hunting. The silence of the kill was part of the reason why he no longer owned any firearms. Other things were involved. He knew that. You never ask those questions however.

A soft gray-brown movement stopped him forty feet from the opening to the small pasture. He eased loose an arrow and, in one motion, positioned it in the bow. His shoulder and arm muscles strained without a quiver as he drew the bow and string apart. The cold cord pressed into his lips as he sighted past the razor blades an arms length away. Once again he choked back a sob with the fluid release he had perfected over the years.

He never speculated on such things however.

He flipped the television on again. The cable box showed the time in big red numbers. Three-thirty-eight. He knew that there wasn’t anything to watch at this ungodly hour, but the noise and flickering images made him feel better. He thought about that for a minute. It was probably the sense that he wasn’t the only person up at this hour that he liked. Sure that was it. He didn’t like television. It was stupid and mind rotting. He would rather read, but hour after hour of reading wore him down. He had to take a rest from serious thinking. That’s why he flipped on the television again, he thought.

He noticed a pale gray light easing through the blinds. A televangelist flickered and crackled on the TV. The red letters showed 5:56. “Two hours of this crap!” he mumbled to himself as he flipped the remote button. The television snapped and fried to black.

He sat in the silence for a minute. He felt old and as gray as the light. He was stiff… Continue reading →

He knew his mother would be very angry. How could he have lost a single brand new loafer? His heart was still racing. He was still trying to think of what he could have done different. He knew that everyone on the bus was pointing and laughing. He couldn’t bring himself to look up from the floor and his feet. He reached down and picked at the black tar that coated the bottom of one white sock. He was so stupid. He pulled at his thick lips. The tar smeared his chin. So fat and stupid.

The bus would have left him if he had tried to go around back. What if he had missed the bus on his first day on his own? His breath came faster as he again saw himself standing with one shoe and one sock in tar and looking back at the black loafer stuck in the busy street. Again he tried to decide whether to get on the bus or go back for the shoe. Again he stepped onto… Continue reading →