Category: Prose

Short prose

Sully Award

HeyLookAWriterFellow has announced the First Annual Sully Award for Excellence in Writerishness on March 21st.  I saw the announcement of the award on Jane Dougherty’s blog.  To enter you have to announce the Sully Award in your blog (which I am doing now) and you have to enter a piece of prose under 200 words in the comment section of his blog (which I plan to do shortly).

Check it out.  You might like it.

Here’s my entry, written long ago.  It is three chapters from an imaginary book that I dream of calling Georgette’s Songs.

 

Chapter M: At the Roqetscienski’s Backyard Party

“What’s Robert telling those kids, Martha?”

By the swing set, they could hear Robert’s voice rise, “…and then there was a BIG BANG!”

“Oh. He’s telling them his version of the creation of the universe.”

When the kids settled, he leaned in toward them and whispered, “And God said, ‘Oops.'”

 

Chapter M + 1: Another Way the Universe Might Have Started

Kathy’s six-year-old Billy sat by her. She whispered, “What was that crazy Dr. Roqetscientski telling you by the swing set?”

Billy shook his head and giggled.

“You can tell me.”

Billy refused.

“Whisper it in my ear.”

Billy spoke into her ear, “He said God pooped out the universe.”

 

Chapter M + 2: Still Another Way the Universe Might Have Started

“Robert Roqetscienski told your son that God pooped out the universe.”

“No! Even Robert’s not that stupid. Billy probably misunderstood.”

“You need to talk to your son.” Kathy told her husband.

“Hell, I don’t know how it started.”

Before bed, Billy’s father reasoned, “It might have been only a fart.”

Aurora

I don’t know what Fred was looking at, but the Aurora Borealis shining over the path was holding my attention one evening as we sat on the porch of my cabin. I pointed Fred’s head in the direction of the lights. He didn’t seem interested. He was to get his own dog house, a fancy one, since I had spare lumber. He would also get the required chain to make sure he didn’t chase my neighbor’s sheep when he grew up. I would eventually learn that Fred had as much interest in those sheep as he did in the aurora, but my neighbor’s purebred puppy, Princess, still too young to breed, was on his mind.

How do I know she was on his mind? Well, I don’t, and I would like to think he was still too young to be thinking about her, but he wasn’t interested in the aurora. He wasn’t interested in those sheep and she was barking in the distance. Civilized people normally introduce their dogs while walking through some nice park, but with my neighbor worrying about his sheep and what Fred might do to Princess, we never introduced them. “You should have that dog neutered,” he once advised. He was right, but I package my mistakes in boxes of reason and wrap them with brightly colored righteousness expecting only joy. I thought to myself that I wouldn’t want someone doing that to me, but I did, eventually, build that dog house and chain Fred. Thinking back on that peaceful evening with the aurora dancing in the sky, I suspect Fred knew everything he needed to know about Princess and she was, at least for the moment, glad I wasn’t going to neuter him.

FLUFFY WHITE FROSTING
CLINGING WET TO LEAFLESS TREES
BERRIES STILL BRIGHT RED

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday. 
Photo: "Covering" by the author
Hear the author read this haibun on SoundCloud.

 

The Path To My Home

I am only inclined to tell this story, before I can no longer speak, because no one I have been rash enough to tell it to so far believes it. Right now, I’ll restrict myself to what is believable and that is simply that a puppy followed my neighbor pushing his way up the long path through the wild grass and tall red osiers that were not beaten down by my narrow, daily footsteps. He looked like a friendly dog although I cannot remember why I agreed to take him in.

His name was Fred. I let him sleep inside my cabin containing a hand pump for water, kerosene lamps for light and a wood stove on the edge of central Maine’s vast forest lands. On his first day Fred tore open the sealed food bag and stuffed himself with dog food until his stomach bloated. When he saw me refill his bowl he knew this was home. Eventually, Fred would earn the title of “bad dog”. I forgave him. I hope he forgave me. However, that gets into the unbelievable part that I’ve promised myself I must tell, but which I cannot tell, just yet, because I am trying to make it clear how cute he looked walking innocently through that tall grass.

WATER FLOWS DOWNHILL
FILLING STREAMS FROM MAPLE GROVES
AUTUMN LOSES WARMTH

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday.  
Photo: "Orderly Entanglement" by the author.
Hear the author read this haibun on SoundCloud.