Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Tag: 42-word story
99 New: Dad’s Home from Work
After work, he jammed his uniform in the hamper, changed into shorts, and raced downstairs where he stood in front of the TV news just as the scene was changing and told his kids it was time to go shoot some hoops.
The Price
Twenty-five years isn’t long enough, it seems, for Sis’s frozen heart to thaw, for her to let go of the ancient stones in her worn shoes and walk barefoot in the ocean’s sweet waves, holding the hands of grandchildren she’s never met.
Star Wars in 42 Words
Boy gone wrong despite parents’ genes and best efforts, girl and guy careen around the universe, hundreds march in white plastic, planets explode, girl carries a massively big stick but gets what she wants by insisting, what is taken away is returned.
Cochlear Promise
We bore a hole in your head for the implant and then we attach a receiver that looks like you’re radioing Mars, then you’ll hear things you haven’t heard in years and it will drive you crazy and then you’ll be better.
Road Trip
If we went across the country, we could put the dogs in the truck and they could look at cars passing by and be themselves in the beautiful wind, leap out for deserts and mountains, and chase what they can’t ever catch.
Cryptic
It was the third time this week, a half sheet of yellow paper stuck under the driver’s side windshield wiper, the writing neat to start but wild and flared at the end, the message the same each day, look for it inside.
Sibling Secrets
“It’s not fair that I have to pay after taking care of him all those years.” “Life’s not fair. Isn’t that what he used to say?” “He was looking at you when he said it.” “Pay the people or they’ll tell everyone.”
Artifact
The wagon was so small, my mother assembled it on the kitchen table, holding the bolts in her mouth like stubby cigarettes, she built it to last but it’s gone, buried in the attic with the torn stuffed bear he called Billy.
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
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