fiction

Ann Louise Edison, Hula Hooper

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

Ann Louise Edison was on the stage at the Whistlepunk Café with her hula hoop. Nobody had thought to limit open mic participants to those reading, reciting, singing, playing, or in some fashion making noise. 

I suppose it could be argued that Ann Louise was making noise. The rhythm of the shoop shoop of the BBs inside the hoop creates a beat when she abruptly changes direction.  Her hips circumnavigating the globe of her aura.  Ann Louise was an ecstatic performer if mostly silent. If nothing else, it was a dance.

Photo by David Le Clercq on Unsplash

Ann Marie gyrated and tossed her hair, those hips going round and round, first in one direction and then the other.  Periodically, she would shimmy the hoop from her hips to her ankles, stopping for a moment to concentrate on her knees.  Round and round the hoop went.  Halfway through her performance, someone offstage threw her another hula hoop.  Soon it was circumnavigating the world of her arms, her neck.  Ann Marie was blissed out, entranced, in union with the divine.  The rhythm of the BBs, the beat of the directional changes, the journey from her waist to her feet, her wrists to her shoulders, her shoulder to her neck.  Ann Marie was in motion while standing mostly still. She redoubled her effort and found strength in the kundalini of her spine.

Continue reading →

Stories I’ll Never Finish #1: The Right Reverend

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

The Right Reverend Edmund Williams Thorne had been banished from the pub for one year, three months, and six days.  He had done the math.  Sometimes he wondered if it had been long enough for him to set a tentative foot inside the Finch and Purple Iris which everyone just referred to as the pub. In fact, most people wouldn’t be able to dredge up its proper name if asked.

Photo by Amie Johnson on Unsplash

The request for him to leave came on a St. Stephen’s Day when he, the Right Reverend, had gotten deep into his cups and argued with the owner about a complicated and thorny Anglican church piece of doctrine.  This isn’t as unlikely as it seems because the pub owner had taught theology at Oxford for 20 years before abandoning the ivory tower for a working-class pub. 

Continue reading →

The Puppy

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

I stared at my beautiful, evil wife and realized the horror had only just begun. 

Sabrina was gorgeous, like her name, in that mid 1960s way — full-bodied, statuesque, thick glossy black hair and impossible blue eyes.  She was what the old folks called Black Irish — that mating of the Spaniards with the Irish during the Spanish Armada.   

I had been woefully unprepared for life with her, having married a scant two weeks after meeting.  I was besotted.  Another old-fashioned word, but it is the only one that will do. 

Photo by Barcs Tamás on Unsplash

Asleep, I had felt that uncomfortable sensation of being examined. I rolled over and she was glaring at me – knife in hand. 

Sabrina!  What the hell!  What are you doing? 

Continue reading →

Unclaimed Property

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

Perhaps you can imagine my surprise.  There I am sitting in the doctor’s office waiting to be called back for my annual exam.  There’s a newspaper on the coffee table and I’m flipping through it.  I haven’t held a newspaper in my hands in years.  They’re such dinosaurs now.  And I can see why.  There is nothing but wire stories that are thinly veiled advertisements for something I don’t want or need. 

Photo by Marcelo Cidrack on Unsplash

I flip the page and there’s a whole page of tiny print.  Legal ad of some sort.  I flip the page but quickly turn it back.  Was that my name? My old name? 

Sure enough.  Maureen D. Jackson and my address from ten years ago.   

Continue reading →