In the morning I came downstairs and turned on the portable heater. The neighbor had her Advent lights on in the window, and I turned ours on too and then made the coffee. I lit a candle and a stick… Read More ›
humor
The White Duck
Image taken without permission from writer Ross Murray I’d never seen one like it before and my instinct was to feel sorry for it because the other ducks either shunned the white duck or lashed out at it with their… Read More ›
Fair play to you
I conditioned the air because it was clammy inside and we couldn’t open the windows. The ducks were still at the lake and in the morning everything looked ghostly with that mixture of fog and smoke. I slapped my chest… Read More ›
The intensely masculine act of grilling meat
I just felt detached from it all. A strange summertime with no parties, no hosting. Getting blasted in the backyard instead, staring at the sky, waiting for the first star.
Connected to the land like a severed hand
Summer ran down. The mosquitoes had no need for me, my blood was bad. They sat on me with their proboscises out but couldn’t get it in. But the flies! Flies all over me, mistaken me for dead, for excrement…. Read More ›
On Division Street
We didn’t move to the beach for that, we moved there to postpone growing up for one more summer.
The self-care hair problem
This week we all went nuts.
Filling holes
The firepit, my bloody toe. We slept with all the windows open and it felt like camping. Four years later and we finally moved that mound of soil to the vegetable garden. It takes a global pandemic for us to… Read More ›
“And now, release the giant hornets!”
It’s always something, some locust or beetle or “killer bees.”
Like a picture print by Currier and Ives
Dad retreats to the den while the chicken marinates, lights a stick of incense, and helps the dog get a bone out of the basket.
Bill Pearse 