Platero And I: Smoke-Dry

There is El Boncalo, Platero. It is too late now to turn around without insulting him.

Look, that eternal hand-rolled cigarette is dangling from his lower lip again. It just smells awful.

Whenever I see him, I think of the time when I was a young man and thought I could impress the girls coming out of the sewing workshop in Calle de la Escula by lighting a cigarette with an American lighter, just like a movie star.

What a fool I was back then, Platero.

Frankly, I don't miss smoking, much like some other things aging makes superfluous.

Apparently.

From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted.

No More Grant Wood

Francis stared gawping at the bleak picture of a white house on a twilight prairie for at least a couple of minutes before breathing. Hattie linked arms with him and pressed close.

“Well, what do you think?”

Francis sighed a wordless soliloquy.

“Isn’t it wonderful? Look at the shading, the perspective, the detail.”

“I just finished that wallpapering.”

“Soot from the aromatic candles and sewing chalk.”

Francis frowned.

“All dangerous hobby stuff is locked away. Candles...top shelf.”

Francis confirmed the press was locked and tight against the wall before addressing his two-year old son.

“Grant, you’re one creepy-ass kid.”

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

The Sewing Box

Mrs. Livingston's sewing box was home to all manner of assortments. Strings and thimbles and yarns filled the various trays until they overflowed from one level and started cluttering the next.

But Mrs. Livingston's sewing box also lodged certain invasive residents who had nothing to do with sewing. A fairy family lived among the buttons and spools, hiding not only from Mrs. Livingston, but also from their enemies of the realm.

Fairy hunters know that sewing boxes are the first place to look for renegades. Unfortunately for Mrs. Livingston, she died during the scuffle, killed by her own knitting needles.