Austin Briggs's Blog, page 39
December 8, 2012
A Journey of Secret Discoveries
It was finally the last day of school. Students helped pack my car with the remaining items I decided to keep. I didn’t look back. In fact, a sense of calm overcame me. As I drove, it felt like I wasn’t leaving, but driving to something. I just didn’t know what it might be.
A Journey of Secret Discoveries is a post from: Adventure and Learning
Five Steps Toward Freedom
“Yelling at you is like hitting a cowering dog,” he snarled. After two years of verbal abuse the woman snapped. She glanced at her boss. He was just a man. What if she exposed him? She cautiously activated her phone’s recorder. Let him hang himself. She’d fight back and this was just step one.
Five Steps Toward Freedom is a post from: Adventure and Learning
On the Grill
Our families come together once again, hamburgers, kids running in the grass. She glances up and gives me that smile.
Her husband doesn’t know I tell myself, as my wife wraps her arms around me from behind, she whispers, “I love the way you smell after making love to her.”
Antonio Angelo.
On the Grill is a post from: Adventure and Learning
Is the circus in town?
The window is open. He can see her, smell her. His makeup is smeared, the clown suit dirty and stained. Don’t ask with what. The sharp, dirty butchers’ knife is his secret. He giggles, a jagged painful sound. Soon it will be hers as well.
Richard Lawrence.
Is the circus in town? is a post from: Adventure and Learning
My Sister Jenny
“The baby we lost” was how Mama explained Jenny all those years. An infant lost in childbirth? She never said, too choked up to speak of her. Then after Mama passed away at 96, we found in her closet, in a small box tied with ribbon, last photos of smiling Jenny at four years old.
My Sister Jenny is a post from: Adventure and Learning
A Mere Fortuity
He: “Don’t come to me, my friend… A metamorphose occurred. I read a scroll of runes, and one of invocations subsequently served unexpected trick…”
Friend: “What does it mean to be so faceless? What for the awful sticky magma?”
Visitor: “What for the plaintive moans of compliant?”
Voice: “He wished to be a great magician.”
A Mere Fortuity is a post from: Adventure and Learning
Family Secret
His shouts, her cries penetrate the walls.
Soon he will come for me. I dread steps near my door. I back away to a corner, shaking. My stomach knots. The door opens.
My fingers tighten around steel but another shot splits the silence.
He falls. Mother’s face appears, satisfied. I push my gun away, relieved.
Family Secret is a post from: Adventure and Learning
At the Corner of Third and Broadway
He spied her as squatted in a doorway
wielding a bit of canvas to keep the rain at bay.
She stared unseeing, eyes unfocused.
He wondered if she looked into the past.
He too looked back, seeing her as she was–
Clad in white satin,
Hair spread across his pillow,
Sweet voice murmuring his name.
At the Corner of Third and Broadway is a post from: Adventure and Learning
December 5, 2012
The Evil Among Them
The news was tragic: the girl had killed herself.
They talked about it in the hallways, between classes.
“All because of those rumors,” some said.
“But if they weren’t true, then why?” others countered.
Amidst the gossip and speculation, he giggled. In his pocket, he stroked her locket.
They’ll never know. It’ll be our secret.
The Evil Among Them is a post from: Adventure and Learning
Truly Orphaned
My tether to the world has been severed.
Mom is gone.
Just an accident the school counselor informed me.
Mom was 36. It has always been just her and me.
My floating off into the ether is arrested by a realization. Mom promised to reveal the details about my father on my 18th birthday.
Tomorrow.
A. Partridge.
Truly Orphaned is a post from: Adventure and Learning
