His eyes, grey and wet like the belly of a fish, rolled back and forth in their place with every other breath he took. Once in a while he’d shake his head and let out a ‘wheeeeww’. A long kind of exhausted sigh that seemed to say this is the awfullest sort of work I’ve
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Ezra believed in God. He just didn’t believe in Brother Eugene Ledbedder. And it was Preacher Ledbedder who showed up every single Sunday morning to stomp and sweat around an old wood pulpit. Who threw open-palmed hands up into the air and pointed fingers at his congregation whenever he said words like eternal and damnation
Cousin Bedford tried to kill himself today. My grandfather says it best. “That Bedford is the most bone idle person alive”. My grandmother clucks and shakes her head real pitiful like and says she reckons it’s brain damage caused by a shovel and he can’t help it. “You know what the Bible says. The Bible
I didn’t look at her when I said it. When I said “Elsie’s baby done died.” Because there weren’t no point in it. She couldn’t look back. “Elsie’s baby?” “Yep.” “Elsie’s baby done died you say?” “I say.” What I should have said was nothing. ‘Cause sometimes nothing is all anybody wants to hear. “You
Eunice and Aubrey had been sisters all their lives. That they felt the need to mention this as often as they did – or at all – was a matter of some curiosity for most of the people who knew them. Neither had ever married, though there was a time back in ’72 when Aubrey
Because that’s what death is. Where the sun don’t shine. An un-illuminated image that creeps up and cuts the ties that bind us in one cold, sharp swing. ——— I’m not a morbid person. It’s mortality that fascinates me. Life is what it is because it’s fleeting. Temporary. Transient. It wouldn’t be half as poignant
So that’s the thing. No one told me I was dead. Just like no one told Red and no one told Sarah and no one told the Man from Manchester who died beneath a baler. I just knew. Worse still, I knew what we were and how we came to be that way before most
Silas somethin-or-other was his name. But they called him Poor Boy. I forget why. Ever’body was poor back then so him not having no money wouldn’t been the reason. Anyway, they say it was Poor Boy what done it. That he just walked in one day and yoked her up side the head with his
Edward Darling decided five years ago that he didn’t want to be anymore. Life was meaningless; God, a trick of the mind; and that soul he made such fuss about, nothing but empty space. And if it was all just empty space, which he now knew it was, and squashed up organs, which any doctor
It’s a very British thing to do. Queue. They say it’s their national past time. I reckon they’re right. I reckon it has a lot to do with the NHS and that pervasive politeness they’re all decked out in. The kind that holds firm until it outs itself in the form of sarcasm. Extreme. I
I may as well begin with the latest bit of drama. Cousin Bedford tried to kill himself today. It’s no surprise really. That he tried it, or that no one in the family took notice. Because that’s the thing about Cousin Bedford. No one really cares. It’s his fault. He’s been stoned for eighteen years
