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She Doesn’t Know by Rumjhum Biswas

2012-01-16T17:34:00.000-08:00

Even her parents were dismayed when she was born. She heard about it too late to make amends; she had already begun to care by then. Her parents did what they could. Her siblings too were gracious. Though they did remind her every now and then of her superfluity. At school her teachers were patient; her classmates were no more or less nasty to her than they were to the injured and blinded by sunlight bat that had crept into their classroom. Her presence was more like the chalk dust that remains on your fingers after you’d written on the blackboard.

She grew up and married a dependable man. Her family was relieved. Her husband was hardly there beside her though, and never around to hear her side of the story or just be there for the sake of it.

Then the children came and grew up fast. They grew apart from her. Perhaps they thought that this mother-child relationship thing was too much of a load, this constant companionship that they had never asked for. But how could she know that these, her appendages that had broken away, would begin to speak in a foreign language the minute they’d learned to stand on their own two feet? She didn’t guess even when the facts drooled and stared at her in the face idiot fashion.

It was true. To be left alone by herself was a blessing she didn’t know she had. So she cursed her heart and left it to fend for itself. Her heart grew arms and legs and went wandering all by itself, and learnt many things her mind could barely comprehend. And then, like a flirtatious summer, her days were gone. Time had passed her by, walking around her as if she was a boulder in its path, pulling the years over its shoulder tenuously.

She’s grown old now, and become like a wire basket full of pots and pans. She’s got a grimace attached to her face; her lips are pulled back and her eyes bulge out. She seems to be at war with a wild creature inside her. I doubt she ever stops to think about the consequences. She is totally unaware that she is totally out of step. Her moves are clumsy. She is a clown grown too old to perform.

These days, she goes out for long walks with only her heart for company. And she holds the wild thing fast on a pair of leashes. She believes she can make new friends that way.

Pity she never learned what a blessing it is to be left alone, to be by herself, contented.

###

Rumjhum Biswas has been published in countries in all the five continents in both online and print journals and anthologies. One of her poems were long listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2006 and is also a finalist in the2010 Aesthetica Creative Arts Contest. She has won prizes in poetry contests in India.Her poem “March” was commended in the Writelinks’ Spring Fever Competition,2008. Her story -”Ahalya’s Valhalla” – was among Story South’s Million Writers’ notable stories of 2007. Her poem “Bones”has been nominated for a 2010 Pushcart by Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. She was a participating poet in the 2008Prakriti Foundation Poetry Festival in Chennai. She was a featured poet during the Poetry Slam organized jointly by the US Consul General, Chennai and The Prakriti Foundation in December 2009. In December 2010 she was a participating poet at the first Hyderabad Literary Festival organized by Osmania Universityand Muse India.She is one among ten Indian poets to feature in an exclusive forthcoming anthology edited by Jayant Mahapatra along with Yuyutsu RD Sharma. She blogs at:http://rumjhumkbiswas.wordpress.com/,http://polyphagous.wordpress.com And has a monthly column (Rumjhum’s Ruminations)at Flash Fiction Chronicles –http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/

House for Sale by George Eyre Masters

2012-01-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

It was October. The steel sign on the front lawn was blue and white and too damn big. Cutting the grass, I had to work around the sign and I didn’t mind banging it with my machine. The house watched me from all her windows. She knew and had been quiet about it. For the moment I tried to ignore her.

Glancing up, I thought for a moment that I saw my daughter in the dining room window. As I worked, she seemed to be following me from room to room.

Low on fuel the mower sputtered, coughed and kicked in again. I liked cutting grass. The world thinks you’re working. With the engine roaring, grass, weeds and sticks went flying. Humans stayed out of my way; tourists didn’t ask how to get to George Bush’s house.

Another nineteen feet and the engine died. The smell of gasoline pleased me as I filled the tank. It felt good in my shoulders and arms to push the machine, to drive with my legs as I worked up a slope. When I searched the kitchen windows, my daughter was gone.

I switched to a weed whacker and like a barber worked carefully around the hedge of sea roses. I trimmed between the smooth, heavy stones that surrounded the elm in the side yard. Ten years ago, my wife and daughter had chosen the stones from a rocky beach, and I carried them up to the car, two at a time.

The sun moved into late afternoon and I put the machines away. From the sidewalk I surveyed the crew cut lawn. For one more day it was my grass, still my house. I looked up at her Victorian peaks. Over a hundred years old, she was well built and graceful. Beautiful I thought.

I wanted to wrap my arms around the house and ask her forgiveness. I needed to thank her for all she was and had been– my dream come true.

“It’s not your fault,” I assured her. “I don’t want to let you go.” Words failed, my voice faltered. “You were fine. Far, far better than fine. In summer you kept us cool. Through the hard bitter winters you gave us shelter, warmth and peace. You protected us from ocean storms and driving rains. Yes, you were grand; you still are. I don’t know what I will do without you.”

With the sun going down, I sat on the front steps with a beer.

# # #

Before dawn I listened to the house breathe. From the pillows, came a trace of my ex-wife’s perfume. Outside in a big elm, crows and seagulls argued like drunks leaving a bar. Then they did.

Black to grey, the morning developed like a Polaroid.

The house was sold. The bedroom sighed, and the refrigerator kicked on. Across the street, a rip of orange burned above the trees. Enough light now to see a bedroom uncluttered by her things.

Making coffee, I went outside and sat. Like a beautiful woman passing by, the smell of autumn and ocean turned my head.

###

George Masters served with the Marine Corps in Vietnam and graduated from Georgetown University. In addition to being a freelance writer, he has worked as a commercial fisherman, construction worker, bartender and substitute teacher. His writing has been published in national magazines and newspapers including the Boston Globe, Harvard’s Charles River Review, Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle.

Christmas in the City by Julie Morgan King

2012-01-16T17:25:00.000-08:00

A medley of cathedral bells punctures late afternoon apathy and heads look up to find the source of the din. They’ll see nothing, no lonely hunchback hanging off a rope. Just a tall thin spire recently unveiled with predictable pomp and ceremony. A perfect match to its magnificent twin.

A crowd gathers in the square below; friends and relatives mostly, and a few stragglers waiting for something which feels a bit special. Blokes with shirt sleeves rolled up impatient for the holidays; groups of mums pushing bag-laden strollers and toddlers dancing in their very own fairy orbits, decked out in pink and expecting a party.

Disinterested swimmers saunter by on their way to the pool. The rain spits warm pellets and threatens to halt proceedings. It doesn’t seem to bother a swarm of screeching bats flapping around the fig trees in the shady reserve next door. Their nocturnal mission to hang off a comfy branch has started. An old man hoists a filthy swag over his shoulder and heads for a quiet spot under a concrete canopy away from the stares.

The sound guy peers skyward. We hold our breath: we want to finish the year here, a blink away from where we rehearse every Tuesday. An appalling space for singing that hall is, with its spongy asbestos-looking ceiling and splotchy timber floor, bruised from a century of wear and tear. Nothing much survives in the lean-to kitchen except a rusty one speed urn and piles of smelly tea towels. The toilet reeks of piss and bodily fumes leftover from the twelve-steppers who gather there just before us. But it’s downtown and central and it’s a bargain.

We get the nod and mount the glorious sandstone stairs, arranging ourselves in familiar four part harmony. We are teachers, lawyers, public servants. Some of us are jobless. There’s even a poet.

Tall ones in front? No, better put the new guys there: they need surround sound.

Eyes front! Smile!

We sneak a glance at Hyde Park where flocks of filthy airborne rats otherwise known as ibis raid the bins. Visitors photograph them while locals sneer. Straight ahead, nasty high rises which house students, whores and criminals. That end of town could do with a spruce.

The humidity and petrol fumes will flatten us, so eyebrows up and keep the water handy. Ignore the glitches and don’t wave at friends.

Some of us are so excited we giggle uncontrollably. For others it’s been a tough year and it will good when it’s all over.

The conductor raises her arms and smiles. Her enthusiasm is infectious. The crowd unfurls umbrellas as dark clouds swirl around.

We brush away the raindrops and let it rip; full-throttle belting with our mouths wide open, hoping the blowflies won’t find their way in.

The basses wobble, the tenors forget a crucial entry, the altos are all over the place and as usual the sops are deliciously overblown.

And the city gives thanks.

His Dark Flag by Axel Howerton

2012-01-16T17:23:00.000-08:00

His Dark Flag by Axel Howerton

There is a man who works in my office; he has a wooden leg.

It is not an ultra-realistic, scientifically designed and fully-articulated prosthetic. He has a one-and-a-half foot stump below his knee. A polished oak coffee-table leg stands surreptitious beneath his blood-red pantaloons, sparse and thin next to the high black boot and strong bearing of his remaining limb.

I come in early most days and hide behind my cubicle wall just to see him as he enters the floor.

At 6:00 A.M. I hear his card key as it buzzes through the door, awakening the sleeping electronic guardsmen that keep us safe from the outside world. Six on the dot, he is never early and he has never been late. Punctuality is a rare quirk in a man who sails by the tempers of the Seven Seas. He never disappoints.

His galleon appears, quiet and grim, skirting the desks and floating cubicle insta-walls. His ship knifes through the waters of still-empty halls, carrying with it a pea soup fog, and the faint odour of tuna fish and shrimp about to turn. The vessel slows fast and comes to rest directly across from the small kitchenette, with its gleaming steel sink and towering coffee dispenser. The anchor falls, and he wades ashore, a cold-gleaming cutlass in one gloved hand, a thermal mug in the other. He stalks with slow grace and a head held high in rebellious pride. With his tankard filled and his eyes brimming with thoughts of bosomy wenches and bountiful golden booty, he shambles back aboard and sails on, standing tall at the bow, strong and sure, fine velvet coat flapping away from the satin of his waistcoat. The wooden whale drifts slowly past the fax room and the copier, and turns left to disappear around a corner. His dark flag, its snarling skull and ominous cutlass, curls in the soft ocean breeze and disappears, swallowed up in the pre-dawn mist as a buoy tolls lonely amid the waves.

By 6:30 the fog has melted away, seeping out through cracks in the outer walls, and the carpets are dry and salt-free. As the first of our coworkers arrive, I emerge from my hiding place and see him – the Office Pirate – limping ever-so-slightly as he joins the morning banter by the laser printer. Adjusting the lapels of his charcoal grey suit and straightening his Brooks Brothers tie. He nods, like an old compatriot, to the old man pushing the breakfast trolley as he chuckles beneath his breath – breath still syrup-sweet with rum and dripping from sharpened teeth – and no one raises an eyebrow when he pays for his bagel with a tarnished gold doubloon.

Driving by Jill Chan

2012-01-16T17:21:00.001-08:00

Driving by Jill Chan

She didn’t know how to drive. She had tried to learn. Had lessons for months and months. Finally, she gave up. She thought, It’s beyond me. Plus, she had no sense of direction. When she went out, you were most likely to find her walking around in circles. Or playing with her sense of turning away, loosely condoning the future, the future of where and how people got there.

She had the uncanny ability to laugh at everything. Whatever you said, you were most likely to get a smile and a laugh. Her reactions were many but these were the most logical, the best honesty there was in the world, with her in it. Her laugh was worth many conversations put together. You could say a lot by agreeing with a laugh than by disagreeing with a smile.

In turn, she gave you nothing but a fierce demand. Even when you drove nowhere, she was there beside you, holding the map and turning it over and over, trying to find the place you were. If you were lucky, she’d find it after you arrived at the destination. She’d laugh again at her cautious inability. Sometimes, she’d shake her head slowly and find nothing in her ability to be silent but more silence.

She’d squeeze your arm with her thin, delicate fingers and everything would seem to dissolve into something like happiness or regard.

So many things eluded her: fear, assumptions, power. But she was not simple, far from it. She could see farther with her nearsightedness than you and your perfect vision. And in return, she asked for something more than you would find out.

Dependable in spite of it all. You would be lost and found with her. Enjoy the practice, the practicality of being where you most wanted but were afraid to know.

With her, you played no game but that which made you win without the benefit of a result. For each destination was a further road, a further middle toward an end. And you were always there at the start and in the middle of knowing her.

###

Jill Chan is a poet, fiction writer, and editor based in Auckland, New Zealand. Her poems and stories have been published in Enounce, MiPOesias, Blue Fifth Review, foam:e, Mascara Literary Review, Asia and Pacific Writers Network, Otoliths, Eclectica, Snorkel, Broadsheet, JAAM, Poetry New Zealand, Takahe, Deep South, Trout, Denver Syntax, The Tower Journal, Metazen, A-Minor, 52\250 A Year of Flash and other magazines. She is the author of The Art of It: Three Novellas (2011), and five books of poetry: On Love: a poem sequence (2011); Early Work: Poems 2000-2007 (2011); These Hands Are Not Ours (ESAW, 2009), winner of the Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize; Becoming Someone Who Isn’t (ESAW, 2007); and The Smell of Oranges (ESAW, 2003). She is one of the poets featured in the New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive. Official website: http://www.jill-chan.com

Ambassador by Peter Watts

2012-01-12T01:22:00.000-08:00

Ambassador
I've never sold a story to Analog. (Truth be told, I've never sold a story to any of the US magazines.) But this one, according to Analog editor Stanley Schmidt, "almost made it". It had a "powerful narrative drive" and "compelling theme". Sadly, ol' Stan also found the ending "ugly" and "simplistic"; in other words, just too damn futile (which, to those familiar with my work, is kind of a familiar refrain). I toyed with the idea of bringing in some clowns at the end, but I just couldn't get 'em to dance on cue.

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Ambassador – 12 pages (PDF)

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Home by Peter Watts

2012-01-12T01:06:00.000-08:00

This is a nifty little piece, albeit nothing new to those familiar with Starfish. It started life as a coda to that book, ultimately discarded except for a paragraph or two that ended up elsewhere in the plot. But it's a creepy enough tale in its own right, and stands on its own, and it might even make the point better than the
original "A Niche" did. (It certainly does so more efficiently; smaller cast, fewer words, less plot.) Ultimately it came out in On Spec in the summer of 1999, coinciding with Starfish's initial release

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Home – 9 pages (PDF)

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Simon of Space by Cheeseburger Brown

2012-01-06T22:17:00.000-08:00

Do you remember the first moment of your life?

I do, but then most people suffer from the inherent deficits of infancy when they are born, whereas I had the special indignity and privilege of being thirty-six years old at the time.

I admit that I did soil myself. In this respect I am on par with a lot of other people, though my insides were not stuffed with healthy black meconium but rather the still spicy remains of a sumptuous meal enjoyed shortly before the beginning of my life.

And to be entirely truthful the first first moment is hazy. I was lost in a world of synaesthetic fire, pawing out at the incoherent jangle of sudden perceptive barf that stabbed in at the amorphous horror that was quickly coalescing into my sense of self.

I was released into a blazing light, and then I fell down.

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Simon of Space – 295 pages, 1.85 MB (EPUB, HTML, PDF, Kindle, Printed Book) or 45 Chapters (eSerial / Webnovel – HTML)

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Star Dragon by Mike Brotherton

2012-01-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

‘Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction.’ – David Brin

‘Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure.’ – Locus Magazine

‘Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love.’ – Booklist starred review

‘Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton’s first novel.’ – Publishers Weekly

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Star Dragon – 395 pages, 1.54 MB (RTF, TEXT, PDF, HTML, Palm Doc)

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The Island

2012-01-06T22:05:00.000-08:00

The Island

by Peter Watts

We are the cave men. We are the Ancients, the Progenitors, the blue-collar steel monkeys. We spin your webs and build your magic gateways, thread each needle’s eye at sixty thousand kilometers a second. We never stop. We never even dare to slow down, lest the light of your coming turn us to plasma. All for you. All so you can step from star to star without dirtying your feet in these endless, empty wastes between.

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The Island – 104 pages (LRF, EPUB) or (eSerial / Webnovel – HTML)

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Unexpected Rain

2012-01-06T22:00:00.001-08:00

Unexpected Rain

by Jason LaPier

Jack Jackson – just ‘Jax’ to his friends, if he had any – finds his life turned upside-down when a small, domed neighborhood on the fourth planet orbiting Barnard’s Star loses life support on his watch. Just a lowly operator, Jax is accused of mass homicide, arrested, and faced with a mound of impossible evidence against him.

His only ally is Stanford Runstom, an officer of Modern Policing and Peacekeeping. Runstom is a detective at heart, passed over for promotion time and time again, just waiting for a chance to blow open a meaningful case and make something of his career and his life, even if it means risking everything.

Together, the two will try to exonerate Jax by finding the real killer, still at large and protected by layer upon layer of obscurity. They’ll face off against space gangs, greedy politicians, and corrupt cops along the road that takes them off the planet Jax has never left before in his life and into the depths of space.

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Unexpected Rain – 210 pages, 300 KB (EPUB, MOBI) – Requires subscription (Bottom of the page)

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Crisis in Zefra by karlds

2012-01-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

Major Foresight Project: Crisis in Zefra

In spring 2005, the Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts of National Defense Canada (that is to say, the army) hired me to write a dramatized future military scenario. The book-length work, Crisis in Zefra, was set in a mythical African city-state, about 20 years in the future, and concerned a group of Canadian peacekeepers who are trying to ready the city for its first democratic vote while fighting an insurgency. The project ran to 27,000 words and was published by the army as a bound paperback book.

If you'd like to read Crisis in Zefra, you can download it in PDF form.

Short Stories

2012-01-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

Short Stories

I'll be adding new stories here periodically. First of all, you can try my Aurora-award nominated short story "Hopscotch." The year this was nominated, another of my stories was also nominated: "The Toy Mill," which I wrote with David Nickle. "The Toy Mill" won the award; but I've always been fond of "Hopscotch." Here it is, in its entirety excerpted from my collection The Engine of Recall.

Hopscotch

Ventus by Karl Schroeder

2012-01-06T21:51:00.000-08:00

Ventus is a novel of information apocalypse set in the far future. For a thousand years the sovereign Winds have maintained the delicate ecological balance of the terraformed planet Ventus. Now an alien force threatens to wrest control of the terraforming system away from the Winds…

Jordan Mason, a young tradesman, is thrust into the midst of an ancient galactic conflict when he becomes the only human on Ventus who can locate the source of the alien threat. But will he side with the Winds, who have brutally suppressed technological development among the human colonists of Ventus? Or will he throw in his lot with an entity that may be planning to remake Ventus in its own, deathly image? Ventus incorporates ideas about nanotechnology, terraforming, and information theory in an epic tale of war, tragic love, betrayal and transcendence.

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Ventus – 782 pages, 5.77 MB (Online, EPUB, HTML, MOBI, PDF, MS Reader, FB Reader)

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Black As Snow by Jonathan Munn

2012-01-06T21:34:00.000-08:00

Juliet has just moved to the country. She doesn’t like her new school, she doesn’t like living on a stinking farm where it always rains. Then she starts seeing a pony, waiting outside at night in the rain. And she’s sure it’s waiting for her…

Before she knows it, she is called on for help by a trio of strange creatures who live in the woods nearby. And then the rabbits… Oh yes, the rabbits.

Fantasy, comedy, and more than a touch of spookiness in this strange tale where things quickly get Black as Snow.

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Black As Snow – 175 pages, 2.13 MB (PDF) – Download link at the middle column of the site.

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Eternia By Mike Susina

2012-01-06T21:31:00.000-08:00

Darrin Ruller has been a nobody geohound all his life. Adopted as a child, he has always looked up to his sister Mary. Now she has gone to the dangerous town across Eternia, to where an old general with plans of war are fresh on his mind. Is Mary truly in trouble, or is Darrin wasting his time?

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Eternia – 96 pages, 971 KB (PDF)

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Decay; or How My Neighbor Lost His Leg By Mike Susina

2012-01-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

Allan Fallow drives to Everton Central High School for work like he does every school day. With the news excited over a biological bacterial spill only a few miles north of Everton, he begins to wonder if the strange it meant anything. But after he and one of his students, Elise Blackwell, run into a pizza delivery boy who wants to take a nice bite out of Allan. the two discover the spilled bacteria is a little more than the common cold.

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Decay; or How My Neighbor Lost His Leg– 200 pages, (PDF)

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Gangs of Suburbia by Mike Susina

2012-01-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

Denise Suthers is your average fifteen year old gang leader. Interested? Good, because the subdivision is about to be torn apart in war.

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Gangs of Suburbia – 174 pages, 566 KB (PDF)

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Prophecy of Atlantis by Amanda Winters

2012-01-05T18:34:00.000-08:00

Queen Amanda has assumed her throne, and her first mission is to go to Atlantis and destroy it once and for all. Despite their differences, her sister, Katherine, goes with her. While there, they are to meet up with Pallid (from book 3) who will help them. When they arrive, they are pursued by the military from different countries on Earth. To hide from them, Amanda sends them all back to Atlantis’ past. And Pallid sees a way to save Atlantis before it sinks into the ocean. But will such a decision have serious repercussions for the Olympians, the Augurs, and the people on Earth?

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Prophecy of Atlantis (PDF)

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Retribution by Amanda Winters

2012-01-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

Three years after A Matter of Time, Ann is called to come to the aid of the Olympians who are the gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman Mythology. They are in danger of dying because someone stole their immortal power. The trek to find the missing stone takes Ann from a planet called Lone back to Earth. Except, this time she goes to a place long ago removed from the map: Atlantis. It is here she learns the origins of the Olympian gods, faces an old nemesis, and discovers just how much she is capable of doing as Queen. This is rated PG for violence.

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Retribution (pdf.)

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A Matter of Time by Amanda Winters

2012-01-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

Two years after Ann becomes Queen of Raz, William decides he wants her back, and he stumbles upon his chance when he receives an alien device that allows him to go six years into the past…with her. While he has his memories, she does not. She’s forgotten all about Raz and Hathor. She’s 17 again, and ready to meet William for the first time. But Hathor also travels into the past, by mistake, and he’s going to find her. Only, he can’t tell her who he is or about her future until she’s ready to hear it, so now he has to compete with the William of Ann’s past and this time William wants her. Meanwhile, Omin’s clone settles onto Earth in human disguise to establish an army who will eventually fight for him to take over as Leader on Pale. But first, the clone must kill Ann before she can become Queen of Raz.

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A Matter of Time (PDF)

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Into Her Own by Amanda Winters

2012-01-05T18:23:00.000-08:00

Rated PG (for violence).

This is a light-hearted fantasy about a regular 21-year-old woman from Earth who learns that she is going to be the Queen on a distant planet called Raz. Hathor is sent to bring her to her new home, but first she must survive attacks from the Palers who seek to kill her before she can assume the crown. She must also choose who will be her king: William or Hathor.

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Into Her Own – 231 pages, 1.09 MB (PDF)

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Bartleby by Herman Melville

2012-01-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

Download MP3

Our story this week is called "Bartleby." It was written by Herman Melville, one of America's best-known writers. Here is Shep O'Neal to tell you the story in Special English.

I am an old lawyer, and I have three men working for me. My business continued to grow and so I decided to get one more man to help write legal papers.

I have met a great many people in my days, but the man who answered my advertisement was the strangest person I have ever heard of or met.

He stood outside my office and waited for me to speak. He was a small man, quiet and dressed in a clean but old suit of clothes. I asked him his name. It was Bartleby.

At first Bartleby almost worked himself too hard writing the legal papers I gave him. He worked through the day by sunlight, and into the night by candlelight. I was happy with his work, but not happy with the way he worked. He was too quiet. But, he worked well…like a machine, never looking or speaking.

One day, I asked Bartleby to come to my office to study a legal paper with me. Without moving from his chair, Bartleby said: "I do not want to."

I sat for a short time, too surprised to move. Then I became excited.

"You do not want to. What do you mean, are you sick? I want you to help me with this paper."

"I do not want to."

His face was calm. His eyes showed no emotion. He was not angry. This is strange, I thought. What should I do? But, the telephone rang, and I forgot the problem for the time being.

A few days later, four long documents came into the office. They needed careful study, and I decided to give one document to each of my men. I called and all came to my office. But not Bartleby.

"Bartleby, quick, I am waiting."

He came, and stood in front of me for a moment. "I don't want to," he said then turned and went back to his desk.

I was so surprised, I could not move. There was something about Bartleby that froze me, yet, at the same time, made me feel sorry for him.

As time passed, I saw that Bartleby never went out to eat dinner. Indeed, he never went anywhere. At eleven o'clock each morning, one of the men would bring Bartleby some ginger cakes.

"Umm. He lives on them," I thought. "Poor fellow!" He is a little foolish at times, but he is useful to me.

"Bartleby," I said one afternoon. "Please go to the post office and bring my mail."

"I do not want to."

I walked back to my office too shocked to think. Let's see, the problem here is…one of my workers named Bartleby will not do some of the things I ask him to do. One important thing about him though, he is always in his office.

One Sunday I walked to my office to do some work. When I placed the key in the door, I couldn't open it. I stood a little surprised, then called, thinking someone might be inside. There was. Bartleby. He came from his office and told me he did not want to let me in.

The idea of Bartleby living in my law office had a strange effect on me. I slunk away much like a dog does when it has been shouted at…with its tail between its legs.

Was anything wrong? I did not for a moment believe Bartleby would keep a woman in my office. But for some time he must have eaten, dressed and slept there. How lonely and friendless Bartleby must be.

I decided to help him. The next morning I called him to my office.

"Bartleby, will you tell me anything about yourself?"

"I do not want to."

I sat down with him and said, "You do not have to tell me about your personal history, but when you finish writing that document…

"I have decided not to write anymore," he said. And left my office.

What was I to do? Bartleby would not work at all. Then why should he stay on his job? I decided to tell him to go. I gave him six days to leave the office and told him I would give him some extra money. If he would not work, he must leave.

On the sixth day, somewhat hopefully, I looked into the office Bartleby used. He was still there.

The next morning, I went to the office early. All was still. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Bartleby's voice came from inside. I stood as if hit by lightening. I walked the streets thinking. "Well, Bartleby, if you will not leave me, I shall leave you."

I paid some men to move all the office furniture to another place. Bartleby just stood there as the men took his chair away.

"Goodbye Bartleby, I am going. Goodbye and God be with you. Here take this money." I placed it in his hands. It dropped to the floor; and then, strange to say, I had difficulty leaving the person I wanted to leave me.

A few days later, a stranger visited me in my new office. "You are responsible for the man you left in your last office," he said. The owner of the building has given me a court order which says you must take him away. We tried to make him leave, but he returned and troubles the others there.

I went back to my old office and found Bartleby sitting on the empty floor.

"Bartleby, one of two things must happen. I will get you a different job, or you can go to work for some other lawyer."

He said he did not like either choice.

"Bartleby, will you come home with me and stay there until we decide what you will do?"

He answered softly, "No, I do not want to make any changes."

I answered nothing more. I fled. I rode around the city and visited places of historic interest, anything to get Bartleby off my mind.

When I entered my office later, I found a message for me. Bartleby had been taken to prison.

I found him there, and when he saw me he said: "I know you, and I have nothing to say to you."

"But I didn't put you here, Bartleby." I was deeply hurt. I told him I gave the prison guard money to buy him a good dinner.

"I do not want to eat today, he said. I never eat dinner."

Days passed, and I went to see Bartleby again. I was told he was sleeping in the prison yard outside.

Sleeping? The thin Bartleby was lying on the cold stones. I stooped to look at the small man lying on his side with his knees against his chest. I walked closer and looked down at him. His eyes were open. He seemed to be in a deep sleep.

"Won't he eat today, either, or does he live without eating?" the guard asked.

"Lives without eating," I answered…and closed his eyes.

"Uh…he is asleep isn't he?" the guard said.

"With kings and lawyers," I answered.

One little story came to me some days after Bartleby died. I learned he had worked for many years in the post office. He was in a special office that opened all the nation's letters that never reach the person they were written to. It is called the dead letter office. The letters are not written clearly, so the mailmen cannot read the addresses.

Well, poor Bartleby had to read the letters, to see if anyone's name was written clearly so they could be sent. Think of it. From one letter a wedding ring fell, the finger it was bought for perhaps lies rotting in the grave. Another letter has money to help someone long since dead. Letters filled with hope for those who died without hope.

Poor Bartleby! He himself had lost all hope. His job had killed something inside him.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

ANNOUNCER: You have heard an AMERICAN STORY called "Bartleby." It was written by Herman Melville. Your storyteller was Shep O'Neal. This is Shirley Griffith.

American Stories in VOA Special English
www.manythings.org/voa/stories

Bunnypocalypse Dead Reckoning by Kain s. Latrani

2012-01-03T22:30:00.000-08:00

Bunnypocalypse Dead Reckoning
by Kain s. Latrani

It was a day like any other. It began wish the sound of the alarm clock beeping, same as they all did, rousing Bunny from her sleep. The same every morning, She floundered for the snooze button a moment before dragging herself awake enough to shut it off. Like every day, She lay in bed for a few minutes,Staring at the ceiling,

Click on the link below to read this free ebook online:-

Bunnypocalypse Dead Reckoning

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The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

2011-12-29T19:08:00.000-08:00

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Our story today is called "The Cask of Amontillado." It was written by Edgar Allan Poe. Here is Larry West with the story.

(MUSIC)

Storyteller: Fortunato and I both were members of very old and important Italian families. We used to play together when we were children.

Fortunato was bigger, richer and more handsome than I was. And he enjoyed making me look like a fool. He hurt my feelings a thousand times during the years of my childhood. I never showed my anger, however. So, he thought we were good friends. But I promised myself that one day I would punish Fortunato for his insults to me.

Many years passed. Fortunato married a rich and beautiful woman who gave him sons. Deep in my heart I hated him, but I never said or did anything that showed him how I really felt. When I smiled at him, he thought it was because we were friends.

He did not know it was the thought of his death that made me smile.

Everyone in our town respected Fortunato. Some men were afraid of him because he was so rich and powerful. He had a weak spot, however. He thought he was an excellent judge of wine. I also was an expert on wine. I spent a lot of money buying rare and costly wines. I stored the wines in the dark rooms under my familys palace.

Our palace was one of the oldest buildings in the town. The Montresor family had lived in it for hundreds of years. We had buried our dead in the rooms under the palace. These tombs were quiet, dark places that no one but myself ever visited.

Late one evening during carnival season, I happened to meet Fortunato on the street. He was going home alone from a party. Fortunato was beautiful in his silk suit made of many colors: yellow, green, purple and red. On his head he wore an orange cap, covered with little silver bells. I could see he had been drinking too much wine. He threw his arms around me. He said he was glad to see me.

I said I was glad to see him, too because I had a little problem.

"What is it?" he asked, putting his large hand on my shoulder.

"My dear Fortunato," I said, "Im afraid I have been very stupid. The man who sells me wine said he had a rare barrel of Amontillado wine. I believed him and I bought it from him. But now, I am not so sure that the wine is really Amontillado."

"What!" he said, "A cask of Amontillado at this time of year. An entire barrel? Impossible!"

"Yes, I was very stupid. I paid the wine man the full price he wanted without asking you to taste the wine first. But I couldnt find you and I was afraid he would sell the cask of Amontillado to someone else. So I bought it."

"A cask of Amontillado!" Fortunato repeated. "Where is it?"

I pretended I didnt hear his question. Instead I told him I was going to visit our friend Lucresi. "He will be able to tell me if the wine is really Amontillado," I said.

Fortunato laughed in my face. "Lucresi cannot tell Amontillado from vinegar."

I smiled to myself and said "But some people say that he is as good a judge of wine as you are."

Fortunato grabbed my arm. "Take me to it," he said. "Ill taste the Amontillado for you."

"But my friend," I protested, "it is late. The wine is in my wine cellar, underneath the palace. Those rooms are very damp and cold and the walls drip with water."

"I dont care," he said. "I am the only person who can tell you if your wine man has cheated you. Lucresi cannot!"

Fortunato turned, and still holding me by the arm, pulled me down the street to my home. The building was empty. My servants were enjoying carnival. I knew they would be gone all night.

I took two large candles, lit them and gave one to Fortunato. I started down the dark, twisting stairway with Fortunato close behind me. At the bottom of the stairs, the damp air wrapped itself around our bodies.

"Where are we?" Fortunato asked. "I thought you said the cask of Amontillado was in your wine cellar."

"It is," I said. "The wine cellar is just beyond these tombs where the dead of my family are kept. Surely, you are not afraid of walking through the tombs.

He turned and looked into my eyes. "Tombs?" he said. He began to cough. The silver bells on his cap jingled.

"My poor friend," I said, "how long have you had that cough?"

"Its nothing," he said, but he couldnt stop coughing.

"Come," I said firmly, "we will go back upstairs. Your health is important.You are rich, respected, admired, and loved. You have a wife and children. Many people would miss you if you died. We will go back before you get seriously ill. I can go to Lucresi for help with the wine."

"No!" he cried. "This cough is nothing. It will not kill me. I wont die from a cough."

"That is true," I said, "but you must be careful." He took my arm and we began to walk through the cold, dark rooms. We went deeper and deeper into the cellar.

Finally, we arrived in a small room. Bones were pushed high against one wall. A doorway in another wall opened to an even smaller room, about one meter wide and two meters high. Its walls were solid rock.

"Here we are," I said. "I hid the cask of Amontillado in there." I pointed to the smaller room. Fortunato lifted his candle and stepped into the tiny room. I immediately followed him. He stood stupidly staring at two iron handcuffs chained to a wall of the tiny room. I grabbed his arms and locked them into the metal handcuffs. It took only a moment. He was too surprised to fight me.

I stepped outside the small room.

"Where is the Amontillado?" he cried.

"Ah yes," I said, "the cask of Amontillado." I leaned over and began pushing aside the pile of bones against the wall. Under the bones was a basket of stone blocks, some cement and a small shovel. I had hidden the materials there earlier. I began to fill the doorway of the tiny room with stones and cement.

By the time I laid the first row of stones Fortunato was no longer drunk. I heard him moaning inside the tiny room for ten minutes. Then there was a long silence.

I finished the second and third rows of stone blocks. As I began the fourth row, I heard Fortunato begin to shake the chains that held him to the wall. He was trying to pull them out of the granite wall.

I smiled to myself and stopped working so that I could better enjoy listening to the noise. After a few minutes, he stopped. I finished the fifth, the sixth and the seventh rows of stones. The wall I was building in the doorway was now almost up to my shoulders.

Suddenly, loud screams burst from the throat of the chained man. For a moment I worried. What if someone heard him? Then I placed my hand on the solid rock of the walls and felt safe. I looked into the tiny room, where he was still screaming. And I began to scream, too. My screams grew louder than his and he stopped.

It was now almost midnight. I finished the eighth, the ninth and the tenth rows. All that was left was a stone for the last hole in the wall. I was about to push it in when I heard a low laugh from behind the stones.

The laugh made the hair on my head stand up. Then Fortunato spoke, in a sad voice that no longer sounded like him.

He said, "Well, you have played a good joke on me. We will laugh about it soon over a glass of that Amontillado. But isnt it getting late. My wife and my friends will be waiting for us. Let us go."

"Yes," I replied, "let us go."

I waited for him to say something else. I heard only my own breathing. "Fortunato!" I called. No answer. I called again. "Fortunato!" Still no answer.

I hurried to put the last stone into the wall and put the cement around it. Then I pushed the pile of bones in front of the new wall I had built.

That was fifty years ago. For half a century now, no one has touched those bones. "May he rest in peace!"

Announcer: You have just heard the story "The Cask of Amontillado. " It was written by Edgar Allan Poe and adapted for Special English by Dona de Sanctis. Your storyteller was Larry West. For VOA Special English, this is Shep ONeal.

American Stories in VOA Special English
www.manythings.org/voa/stories