A Collection of Prose and Photography
Dwynn Murphy stepped into a candle-lit room and was instantly flooded with a mixture of emotions so acute in their dissimilarities that she nearly collapsed. The full brunt of her mission's purpose was finally weighing on her heart. From the corner of her eye she noticed the man, hands... Continue Reading →
I could get him down here with me. For that's what all pitiful people do, from the drunk, to the addict, to the miserably lonely. They tug and pull and drag those around them down into the pit where they reside. They beg and plead and lie and pretend until their prey is caught, until there is another in their dark room to share in the torture that is the bitter, empty, hollow captivity that they have erected about themselves. Escape is not attainable, but commiseration is.
"Yes, the great Elizabeth!" Dwynn said mockingly as she stood up. She then began striding about her sister with the composure and pomp of an empress, embracing an invisible scepter and waving to an imaginary crowd. "The more I see of the world," she decreed in a lofty tone, "the more I am dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters." She stepped backwards to the chair, faltering in her steps until she dramatically flopped into the seat where she had begun her melodramatic performance. "It is unaccountable!" she said breathing heavily with a forearm across her brow. "In every view...unaccountable!"
The audience collectively gaped in terror at the explosion of blood and bone. All but one of the onlookers scurried away like rodents, and pressed their backs to the farthest wall as Johns sauntered by, cleaning his crimson-stained hands with a handkerchief. At the end of the line of empty stools, one old man still sat quietly at the bar, smirking as he gazed blankly into his mug of beer.
Somewhere deep within the border of South Carolina there grows a terrible jungle. It is comprised primarily of a handful of wild, spirited, blades of grass and knee-high clumps of innocuous clover. But within this suburban amazon grows a nefarious weed. Surely of alien origins, the hideous vine stretches and writhes its way across a patch of earth no bigger than a dining room.
The setting sun lit the clouds a fiery pink and orange. The trees and taller London structures that comprised the city skyline were silhouetted black against the burning sky. The air was crisp and carried a fragrant scent, uncharacteristic for the smoky metropolis. This evening was truly one for the London annals - an evening worthy of remembrance.
My father didn't say a word as he switched from tool to tool to get just the right bend on a piece of metal. On his knees before the patio door, he snipped and clipped and crimped until the long strip of aluminum at last matched the profile of the wall. My father was meticulous in his craft. I stood beside him, equally silent, and handed him each new implement like a nurse aiding an ingenious surgeon.
It was a still morning in the heart of Geriatric Paradise, but my stomach was anything but peaceful as I pulled my aged station wagon up to the sidewalk of my inevitable end. The wheezing Buick came gratefully to a rest in front of the future home of its former owner. I shared the irony with the old red, wagon, but it wasn’t as amused as it should have been. Perhaps it knew how much of an asshole I really was. Perhaps it knew the real irony of that morning: that I should begrudgingly welcome one who had freely given to me.
The alley running between the grand townhouses was only dimly lit by a quarter moon rising in the east and the faint glow of a streetlamp on the other side of the row homes . The cobblestone throughway was littered with trash, dirty pools of scum water and the occasional rat; but such a scene was hardly a rarity for this young woman. She stumbled about slightly in the murk with a scrap of paper in her hand, squinting her eyes in an effort to distinguish any markings or familiarities in the buildings she meandered by.
B David Larson 