The Standard

"Don't get me started on politics."

May took a drag from her cigarette and rolled her eyes so only Sal, the bartender, could see.

"All them crooks in Washington robbing the money right out of our pockets. It's a travesty."

"If your Pappy was alive, he'd be at the front of the revolution."

"Damn straight he would be."

May and Stan started laughing. Bill didn't seem to mind. He just frowned at his empty cup of coffee.

"Let me get you a refill, Mr. Guthrie."

She returned with a steaming pot.

"What was I talking about again?"

"Tonight's baseball game."

Future Perfect

It had taken some time to bring the fixer-upper to a standard he could happily call home.

He was in the company of all who cursed the pope amid the loyalist festivities.

He dusted and buffed his bowler unto that classy matt gleam. His sash shone with the pride of centuries.

“Why not be ‘triumphalist’?”

There was no response. None needed.

He wore long johns and fleece under the treasured regalia.

"A dry day," he affirmed.

He practiced a few tunes on his fife and strode purposefully from his front door.

Alone he trod the permafrost-patterned ground of Devon Island.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

The Songbird

There's a songbird outside my house that knows the tune to every standard of the last fifty years. He drives me crazy.

He never stops singing, not while I'm at home anyway. How sexually frustrated does this bird have to be to tweet Paul Simon and Barry Manilow all day long? Visitors find him quaint and always want to take video, and then they make me watch their posts on YouTube. I'm thinking of shooting myself.

He says he'll keep at it until I do, because of how I shot his wife last winter. It's a decision I regret now.