I didn’t plan on tumbling right back into another short story, but today really is my birthday. When my job was eliminated, it wasn’t on my birthday. Obviously, this is total fiction, and any similarity to actual events … you know the drill. The first observation of Clyde Barns on his birthday was that his …
Category: Fiction
The Charmed Life of Charles Dough
This is the story of a prominent family, Homecoming at Calliham University, and a series of events that bring the wealthy alums, their children, and a couple mischievous stoners into, uh, contention. 1. DIFFERENT GOALS Jonathan Elbert McCutcheon was a direct descendant of the founder of Calliham College, his great-great-great grandfather Estes Calliham, …
Sometimes Things Work Out
This is the final part of this serial short story, which doesn’t have an overall title yet, but I’ll come up with it when I post the whole tale in one take in a day or so. The first five episodes, in order, were “Different Goals,” “A Taste for Mischief,” “All Fall Down,” “A …
Nothing Witty About Regaining Wits
This is the fifth episode of my short story about culture shock on Homecoming Day at a private college in the South. The first four episodes were, in order, "Different Goals, "A Taste for Mischief," "All Fall Down," and "A Stroke of Smoke." “Well,” Charles Dough reported, “I finally got Christian to answer one of …
A Stroke of Smoke
Here’s the fourth episode of my latest short story. The first three, in order, were “Different Goals,” “A Taste for Mischief,” and “All Fall Down.” “Just in case you’re interested,” Charles Dough said over pizza at Leo’s New York Style, “this is the first time I’ve ever eaten pot brownies. Christian’s girlfriend went by some …
All Fall Down
Here’s the third episode in this tale, preceded first by “Different Goals” and then by “A Taste for Mischief.” I hope this gives you some amusement. Jonny McCutcheon at first enjoyed himself immensely when he, Marissa, and Trent made their way up to the Suite Level of Doug Tussle Stadium and proceeded to …
A Taste for Mischief
This is the second episode of a short story. The first was “Different Goals.” I hope you get a few laughs because that’s mainly the intention of this story. When Charles Dough and Christian Beliveau made their way back to their dormitory, named for Jonny McCutcheon’s uncle, it could have passed for summer school. It …
Different Goals
This short story is about a cultural conflict at a fictional college on Homecoming. Here’s the first episode. Jonathan Elbert McCutcheon was a direct descendant of the founder of Calliham College, his great-great-great grandfather Estes Calliham, who had also been a lieutenant governor and signed the Articles of Secession that briefly separated the South from …
The Zone of Indifference
His teammates were battling for their lives, and their school, and underdogs everywhere, and Joel Hartzinger was sitting on the bench, doing math. They got seven thousand students. We got just over a thousand if you count the grad school. Twenty five percent of ours play a sport. Most of them don’t win much. …
The Bright Lights Burn
SEVEN YEARS IF IT’S A DAY The walk down to the mailbox wasn’t far, but it was hilly. The right knee, operated on so long ago, was wearing out again, and there wasn’t a damn thing Riley Mansfield could do about it. He now understood what was meant by the term “trick knee.” One morning, …
Nightrider's Lament 