Timothy’s neck and arms felt hot and scratchy as he pushed through the tall, brownish-green grass behind the outfield fences. Randy Parker had smacked a home run right over the fence and into the unkept fields beyond. He swung his mitt like a shield in front of him scaring up small insects and pieces of vegetation as he walked.

Timothy knew he would likely get in trouble. His mother had told him to be careful and not get burned. However, when his parents said he could go play ball at the park with his brother all caution had disappeared. The same way Randy’s home run ball apparently had. (more…)

“Mr. Hawking,” his physics teacher used to say on an almost daily basis, “yet again, your namesake would be ashamed of your performance in this class.”

Classmates would snicker. Steve would blush and scan the quiz paper for the humiliating red letter scratched across the top.

“Why are you so dumb, Hawking? Hey Hawking, you’re no Einstein!” echoed the schoolyards and yellow buses. (more…)

As I wandered back into the Hotel St. George, it was summer, and my mouth was still sticky from the wine tasting next door.  Pete, Pete, possibly the greatest human that had ever lived was there, in the doorway, holding his cart, his beads around his neck.

He did look a bit like a homeless person, but he was not.  He was so “not homeless” that it pissed me off when he was regarded as such.  He was old, weathered, educated, alive.  “Helooooo, Ryaaaaaan, how are you?, are you getting good maaarks in your school?”, he dragged every word out, each syllable passing through its own accent, French, Jamaican, English, erudite, academic, compelling.  This man could read the phone book to me and I would sit, glassy eyed and cross legged in front of him until the birds stopped singing. (more…)

The fog clung to the October air like a desperate lover. The horizon sucked the sun like quicksand, and the sky bled the sickly color of a hemorrhage. Frank saw movement by the bushes. He squeezed the trigger, and the shotgun’s recoil hammered against his shoulder. The blast shook the evening, startling a nest of starlings from the trees. From the rear of the cabin, Cyril’s Glock let out three shots in rapid succession. (more…)

Continued from Untitled part 2

I’m looking up, miles and miles away from anything.  Miles from the asphalt beneath me, miles from her teeth.  I’m looking down an extremely long soundproof tunnel.  The only thing I can hear is a heartbeat, some muffled noises…the sounds brain cells make when they die screaming. (more…)

I am not a smart man. I’m not stupid either. I never figured out how a BluRay disc could hold more information than a DVD. After all of the books I’ve read while in here you would think I would have come across something or other that would have explained that to me. It’s funny, I use to watch a lot of movies when I was on the outside and never understood how it was all made possible. All of that information packed onto a flat piece of plastic. I remember seeing all of these movies about guys in jail who had libraries to check books out of or at least carts that one of the old-timer screws would walk around with and hand out books. Thanks to the money my wife puts into my canteen account I’ve been able to buy books written by all the greats, even a few of the not so greats. (more…)