haiku 122
squawking —
chicken struggles
in dog’s mouth
Fiction: Blinding Light
The storm had taken out a power substation and Max and more than 1,500 others were without electricity. The summer afternoon darkened quickly and the storm was upon Max’s home.
Having nothing else to do, Max sat and watched the storm through the bay window. He saw the lightning briefly illuminate the cloud-dimmed windows in long and short bursts.
“It looks like an old signal lamp,” he said to his old dog, Freda. “Just like I used back in the Navy. I wonder what this storm is trying to tell me.”
Fiction: Rearview Mirror
Lewis had worked out a simple plan: Load the old propane tank on the ton truck. Back over the gas pump by the old barn. The truck’s hot tailpipe and some fortunate sparks ignite both the gasoline storage tank and the fume-filled propane tank. Half the farm goes up in a massive explosion.
It should be a quick death, he figured, and best of all it would look like an accident; the insurance company would pay off.
Lorna would be at work at the diner, and Sarah would be in school. They wouldn’t get hurt, and they wouldn’t be around to see it happen. He’d sent them both off that morning with smiles and hugs and kisses, so there would be no reason to suspect he’d taken his own life. And they’d have a last happy memory of him.
OT: FDA Warns No Bones for Dogs
The Food and Drug Administration today issued a consumer update warning dog owners not to give their canine friends bones. The list of possible complications is long and unpleasant. Read the FDA’s warning here, and dispose of the bones where the dog can’t get at them.
haiku 109
cornfields grow
purple with henbit —
first ticks on the dog
haiku 108
woodpecker
snatches a snack
from the dog’s dish
haiku 103
watching the dog
watching the possum
playing possum
haiku 101
foggy night—
dog rolls around
in the snow
haiku 95
arctic weather —
warm milk
for the dog
Fiction: Tally
Natalie watched and then made another hash mark on the whiteboard. It went next to three others that were gradually making up the next set of five. The board was nearly half full of such bright green marks, each about an inch and a half tall, as uniform in size as freehand could make them.
She was very careful about that. It mattered. Each mark was a compromise she and Mason had agreed upon. Too big and not enough marks would fit on the board; too small, and too many marks would fit. She had practiced with the marker until she could neatly fill the board with one hundred marks, in tallies of fives.
She looked over at Mason and watched. Then she made the five-bar gate to signify the fifth attempt of that set.
“That’s fifty,” she said, more distinctly than was absolutely necessary.
Mason frowned and nodded. Then he made himself smile as he got back in his chair.
“That was a good morning’s workout,” he claimed. “Lunch, a little rest, and we’ll be ready for the blue pen this afternoon.”
Natalie also forced a smile and nodded at him.
Mason looked at the German shepherd sitting by the door; the dog was leashed, and the hand loop was hooked over the doorknob. That kept Schultz from running to his master’s side during the counting process.
“Ready to go out, Schultz?” Mason asked. The dog’s face brightened, and Mason rolled his wheelchair around the soft mats he had fallen on fifty times that morning. He took hold of the leash and opened the door. Schultz, mindful of his master’s needs, slowly led Mason through the doorway and outside.
Natalie walked around the mats and closed the door behind them. She told herself not to sigh but did so anyway.
Fifty times Mason had fallen this morning. And it was almost a given he would fall fifty times this afternoon as she filled the rest of the whiteboard with blue marks. Then he would stop for the day.
They had begun to work it out just before he left the hospital.
“Mason, it would be a miracle if you ever walked again. How many times are you willing to fall in one day to try for that miracle?”
“I’m willing to fall a thousand times a day to make that first step on my own.”
“I’m not willing to watch you fall a thousand times a day,” she had told him.
They had compromised on one hundred.
Just fifty to go, in the middle of the afternoon, and they could both call it a day.
NEKWE
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