Author Archives: sputterpub

Self-Medication

Self-medication is the course for me to lever out of this reverse plateau of dismal mood, abysmal density, of slogging in an attitude so low or lonely I don’t even know what’s worse: a dearth of all excitement, silent, skewed; … Continue reading →

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Resolved (2 of 2)

“I’m sick,” Hannah says by way of explaining her presence and her appearance, “and I’m supposed to be reading board resolutions.” Buck doesn’t hear her correctly. That’s because one of the local walkers is passing by, and that has started … Continue reading →

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Resolved (1 of 2)

Hannah is an anti-historian. That started when she couldn’t master history in school; she who aced elementary and junior high classes without doing any homework couldn’t pull a B on a history quiz. She read and reread fiction at the … Continue reading →

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Rehab

I know some folks who want to rehabilitate the swastika. That’s what they say and I love them, so I believe it. Frankly, I think their goal is more futile than attempting to stop the evolution of language or the … Continue reading →

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The Gardener’s 48th Birthday

With purple mint the gardener conversed, while students had an Easter break from school. He dug a hole on March the 31st and called himself an aging April fool. He stuck bromeliads in rotting wood and traced the snaking irrigation … Continue reading →

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Prologue

We talk to babies with a curling tongue and rounded lips; we teach them fairy tales, corral them in a chorus when they’re young and try for something every parent fails to get: the power to control their taste. Asserting … Continue reading →

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Monica Says (3 of 3)

At first she was irritated. Then irked. She tried to modulate her negativity, but Monica grew waspish. Simon responded with anxiety and tripled his efforts to please her. He began guessing at what she desired and conforming his own choices … Continue reading →

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Monica Says (2 of 3)

She didn’t complain about her loneliness, then or later. Monica knew it would be like bitching about the obligations of wealth; she wasn’t going to get sympathy and she wouldn’t feel admirable. But she noticed. For a few years she … Continue reading →

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Monica Says (1 of 3)

She realized three months after she married him that she probably shouldn’t have. It started to be obvious to Monica then, how damaged she was after the breakup with Charlie, what a relief it had been to be light-hearted with … Continue reading →

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A Little Muteness

I lost my voice. I left it on the plane last week or in a hotel meeting room three levels underground. The weekend rain orated hail on windows, thunder’s boom — while I resolved to silence stayed within. I wrapped … Continue reading →

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