One Sentence, A Full Western

Standing on the corner of the counter of The Silver Dollar Saloon, the only saloon in coal mine village Raccoon’s Crest, whilst drinking his third glass of some nice Kentucky Corn since the gunfight, the outlaw bragged to all those who wanted to hear about his latest so called heroic deed: “The man who will put down Furious Frank isn’t born yet” for the very last time, as if he sensed that at that exact moment the mother of the last man he would ever lay eyes upon, was going into labor to give birth to a now fatherless child.

From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé Suys (°1968 - Ronse, Belgium) started writing whilst recovering from a sports injury. He writes his disturbing fiction generally barefooted and hatless.

Learning To Read

I lean into my chair holding the book by its bind, learning to read what I did not as a child, but now with gray in my stubble. Flipping through the pages, feeling the paper crease between my fingers, I fumble to link it all together.

I follow the words with a methodical dexterity of a trained scientist, and with repetition, I begin to sense the fruits of my labor, basking in the glow of my mother’s maiden language come alive.

The exercise ends with a whistle, as I close my cookbook and taste the pepperpot burn my overeager tongue.

From Guest Contributor Eric Persaud

Eric is an Indo-Guyanese American living in New York City. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation in Public Health and writing stuff in his free time.

Hannah

I'm in a hurry so this story needs to be fast, because in the twenty-three years I've worked as a city bus driver, I've never been late, not counting of course the day my wife went into labor, but this morning as I was leaving the station a little girl was standing in front of the bus--I figured she was probably ten years old, and that would have been how old...well you can't expect me to talk about that--forcing me to slam on the brakes and I was certain I'd run her over but when I hurried round to the front she was unharmed, though she was crying pretty hard and said that she was lost and needed my help so I followed her across the street to the city park, down a path I can't remember ever having seen before into a place that was dark with ancient trees and cold and I was starting to get worried but she said this was the way home and she couldn't get there by herself, so I took her by the hand and we walked together and even though she said she'd never been here before she was the one leading me through the darkness until we finally came to a warm, bright clearing where she stopped and said goodbye and I didn't want to leave but she said that I had to go back and drive the bus and finally she told me her name was Hannah and that's when I understood and today was the first day I've cried in ten years and now that I think about it I don't really mind if for once I'm late to work.

Here's another one sentence story. Enjoy!