'13-Shot’ Frank

The Old West had its deadly gunslingers like 'Wild Bill' Hickok, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holliday. Then, there were poorer slingers like '13-Shot' Frank. Yes, Frank had lost 13 consecutive fights and had the bullets in him to prove it. Still, he limped on to his 31st birthday.

Doc Jenkins had pulled him through each time, unable to extract a single slug. He was called by Frank's landlord to the bedside.

"Can you keep him alive for a couple more rent payments?"

Was this the end? Doc Jenkins could handle wounds and fractures. But chronic lead poisoning was another matter.

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Dancing Hands

She talked with her hands. It was comical.

The more animated she became, the more her hands flapped and fluttered through the air.

We teased her, had her sit on her hands, which practically made her mute.

She’d laugh then and poke our ribs, call us stinkers, and her hands danced as she did.

I didn't make it back in time. I would have if I didn't stop.

The bill wasn’t even due.

I was stalling, but stalling what?

My return to her bedside? Her last breath, or both?

When I got there, her hands were at her sides, spent.

From Guest Contributor Linda Chandanais

That Day

He dreamt of one. Then another and another...until the sky wascrowded with them. Umbrellas. Pristine white. Open. Descending from uphigh. Why?

They were irrelevant in his daily life. Not so for his wife who neededdifferent umbrellas to complement her wardrobe.

Upon awakening he realized what triggered the scene he envisioned. Whyhe told his boss he wouldn’t be at work that day.

“Does this go with my sweater?” his wife asked, opening an umbrella byhis bedside.

The man quietly slid back under the covers.

No way was he going to move on Friday the 13th.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna, a former librarian, gathers tidbits from around theworld in her travels, strings them into delectable morsels of poetryand prose, and stores them in her gopher hole in the CanadianPrairies. She is open to sharing, upon request.

What Family?

When I sat at my one-hundred-year-old mother’s bedside, she told me I was adopted, that she couldn’t die without telling me. I’m seventy-three years old, what was the point when no family was left to answer my questions?

I did a DNA test, and thought--what have I done?

An e-mail appeared in my DNA account from Tom, who said he was a cousin. My parents were illiterate, poor and didn’t know they signed me away permanently.

Tom explained I was a victim of the Tennessee orphanage scandal, along with many victims.

I deleted my account and never looked back.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Mother

Around nine O’clock at night, mother returned from work. She was exhausted. She had been working all day. She had brought doughnuts with her for her son. She put the bag of doughnuts in the kitchen and went upstairs to see him. The door of his room was cracked open. She opened the door carefully not to wake him up. She saw him sleeping. He was looking like an angel while sleeping. She went inside and stood there near the bedside for a while looking at his son. She leaned down and kissed her son’s forehead and left the room.

From Guest Contributor Sergio Nicolas