Furnished Art House For Sale
by Toby Wosk Costas
Mid-century ranch features long narrow hall ending at rustic wood-paneled addition, in back.
Family photographs in glass cases lining each side of hall track interesting people 1901 to 1999 (after which sliding the heavy doors of glass to add or subtract people became a burden).
Tidy bathroom, on your right. A Museum of Travels – Hawaii to Mexico. Carefully selected artifacts dot the walls, each dusty and long forgotten. Like the trips themselves.
Moving forward and to your right, enjoy the kitchen wall homage to the masterpieces of cherished children, alongside alleged framed Picasso prints, all viewed as equally valuable. (Note: When the giant white Frigidaire door slams, all pictures move, just a bit. Some discount will be considered).
Passing white venetian blinds over front windows (always shuttered), we see 5” x 12” collage of magazine cut-outs on the back of front door, lacquered 50 years ago at Harper Elementary. Surprisingly cool. Feel free to touch, carefully.
Side-staring portrait of one dearly departed, painted by another dearly departed, guards entry to the living room. Olive green carpeting, some footprint indents, throughout.
Giant Pollock-esque painting hangs over the couch. Perfect for visiting couples to rest their heads while having a highball.
Oversize coffee table art books highlight the low coffee table in front of the couch. Mosaic tiles atop form a faux-Mondrian design. Note: Table doubles as a useful footrest. Buyer can also peruse equally enjoyable coffee table fare: giant tan leatherette photo album, family name stenciled on top with dime store press-on letters, silver. Some consonants missing, but you get the point.
Metal walker waiting nearby. Also for sale.
Toby Wosk Costas is an attorney recommitting to her creative writing roots, after all creative aspirations were blasted away through the intense study of things like commercial paper in law school. Choosing that road rather than a five-year Ph.D program in English, to family dismay, led to its own major fulfillment. But now, she goes back, tries to reconnect to the high of short fiction writing of her own and reading the amazing sentences of fellow travelers.
I Got Undressed For This
by R.K. West
The doctor, broad-shouldered with spiky white hair, stands in the room where I perch on a tiny exam table while his young female assistant takes notes. This was once a pediatric clinic, never intended for so many adults; I suspect there is not enough air for all of us.
He asks questions, doubts me, asks again with different words, but my answers remain the same. He sighs when I say I’m exhausted; everyone he sees is exhausted.
He says, “Maybe you need more sleep.”
I say, “I sleep until I can sleep no more.”
At last, he looks at me.
R.K. West is a Canadian-America writer currently living in the Pacific Northwest. rkwest.com
An Idle Fellow
by Kate Chopin
Now and then, we publish vintage stories from historic authors. This was originally published in 1893.
I am tired. At the end of these years I am very tired. I have been studying in books the languages of the living and those we call dead. Early in the fresh morning I have studied in books, and throughout the day when the sun was shining; and at night when there were stars, I have lighted my oil-lamp and studied in books. Now my brain is weary and I want rest.
I shall sit here on the door-step beside my friend Paul. He is an idle fellow with folded hands. He laughs when I upbraid him, and bids me, with a motion, hold my peace. He is listening to a thrush’s song that comes from the blur of yonder apple-tree. He tells me the thrush is singing a complaint. She wants her mate that was with her last blossom-time and builded a nest with her. She will have no other mate. She will call for him till she hears the notes of her beloved-one’s song coming swiftly towards her across forest and field.
Paul is a strange fellow. He gazed idly at a billowy white cloud that rolls lazily over and over along the edge of the blue sky.
He turns away from me and the words with which I would instruct him, to drink deep the scent of the clover-field and the thick perfume from the rose-hedge.
We rise from the door-step and walk together down the gentle slope of the hill; past the apple-tree, and the rose-hedge; and along the border of the field where wheat is growing. We walk down to the foot of the gentle slope where women and men and children are living.
Paul is a strange fellow. He looks into the faces of people who pass us by. He tells me that in their eyes he reads the story of their souls. He knows men and women and the little children, and why they look this way and that way. He knows the reasons that turn them to and fro and cause them to go and come. I think I shall walk a space through the world with my friend Paul. He is very wise, he knows the language of God which I have not learned.
Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was an American author of short stories and novels, best known today for her 1899 novel The Awakening. Her works were often criticized as controversial or immoral, and she did not have financial success with her writing, but after her death she was recognized as a leading writer of her time.
Rope a Man Can Trust
by James C. Clar
The bell above the door jingled once, almost tentatively, as the man entered. “Can I help you, sir?” The shopkeeper asked as he looked up from his ledger. Dust drifted lazily in the wane afternoon light. The space was filled with shelves, the shelves laden with hooks, nets, lanterns; all the oddments required by the inhabitants of a small, lakefront village.
The visitor paused just inside, as though adjusting to something heavier than the relative dimness of the interior. His eyes, dark and brooding, moved across the shop until they settled on a coil of rope resting serpent-like among others in a corner.
“Is that good quality?” he asked as he pointed. His voice was low, controlled. At the same time, it carried a certain gravity that belied the mundane nature of the question.
The shopkeeper smiled, slipping easily into a practiced cheerfulness. “Of course. All the local fishermen shop here. They’d know, wouldn’t they?”
The man didn’t return the smile. He walked over and hefted the rope. His calloused fingers pressed into the fibers, testing them. They lingered as though searching for a certain quality or characteristic only he could fathom.
“Strong,” he eventually declared.
“The strongest I carry,” the shopkeeper replied with professional pride. “Won’t fray, won’t snap. It’s the kind of rope a man can trust.”
A flicker passed across the stranger’s face, something akin to doubt or, perhaps, regret. It vanished as quickly as it appeared.
“I’ll take it,” he said. His tone suggested resignation mixed with weariness.
“Excellent, choice,” the shopkeeper replied now with a satisfied smile that eclipsed his previous, more artificial one. It had been a slow day. He wasted no time gathering the rope and setting it on the counter. “That will be …”
Before the merchant could finish, the customer dropped a heavy leather pouch onto the scarred wooden counter-top with a thud. The sound echoed resoundingly, filling the small shop. A few coins spilled out in a bright cascade. Silver flared in the dim light as one rolled along the counter and stopped just as it reached the edge.
The bewildered shopkeeper looked into the man’s eyes. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant, uncertain. “Sir, this is far too much.”
“No matter,” the man said as he looked up. “Keep the change. I won’t be needing it.”
With that, the man placed the coiled rope over his arm and around his shoulder. He never gave the owner another glance as he turned to leave. The bell above the door jingled once again, more sharply this time, as he stepped out onto the dusty street. It seemed to the shopkeeper that the sound lingered far longer than it ought to have.
The retailer, amazed at his good fortune, looked down again at the pouch. Grasping it with what almost amounted to physical hunger, he loosened the cord all the way. The gleam from within reflected in his eyes.
“You won’t believe it, honey,” he called to the back of the shop as he scooped up a handful of the contents and let them spill lazily through his fingers as he counted. “Some damn fool just bought a length of rope for ….” he paused momentarily to finish. “Thirty pieces of silver!”
James C. Clar is a writer and retired teacher. In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, his work has most recently been published in Flash Digest, Bright Flash Literary Review, Freedom Fiction Journal, The Magazine of Literary Fantasy, After/Thought Literary Journal, 365-Tomorrows, Antipodean SF and Metastellar Magazine.
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