The Fireman

by Joe Hill

Harper whistled three bars of “My Favorite Things,” pretending to think it over. She was prone to whistling bits from 1960s movie musicals and had secret fantasies of being joined in song by helpful blue jays and cheeky robins.

a row of steel pipes the kids could bang on to make musical gongs (privately Harper referred to these last as the Xylophone of the Damned).

They don’t know if you can catch it from people before they’re visibly marked up.” “That’s right. They don’t know. They don’t know shit. Whoever they are. If anyone really understood how transmission works, we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we,

where brass cartridges glittered dully amid dead leaves.

Should be collecting brass to relooad.

Have you seen Nick? Did he come in for dinner?” Norma Heald gave her a glazed, dull, unfriendly look. “Haven’t seen him. Why don’t you go outside and yell for him?” “He’s deaf,” Harper said. “Don’t let that stop you,” Norma said.

He thought altruism was worthless if it brought you happiness—that it wasn’t really altruism at all—without seeing that it was all right to feel good about making other people feel good.

It’s easy to dismiss religion as bloody, cruel, and tribal. I’ve done it myself. But it isn’t religion that’s wired that way—it’s man himself. At bottom every faith is a form of instruction in common decency. Different textbooks in the same class. Don’t they all teach that to do for others feels better than to do for yourself? That someone else’s happiness need not mean less happiness for you?

That’s what I dislike most about our plan. It’s an outline. Life doesn’t work by outline. If I were writing this scene, I wouldn’t even bother describing our plan, not in any detail.

Bushmasters.

Because Bushmasters is the social equivalent of evil ... in the shallow minds that aren't will to find out how really mediocre they are by comparison with better, more available weapons in the hands of good, faithful, law-abiding citizens. Lazy writing at best. Political at worst. Tell the story.

The Spring Training boy was back: the Red Sox were having an exhibition game against the Shakespeare All-Stars. Romeo was up to bat. He struck out, broke his bat over his knee, swallowed poison, and died on home plate. Juliet ran over from the on-deck circle, wept for a few moments, then stabbed herself through the heart with the shaft of his Louisville Slugger. The pitcher, Tom Gordon, waited with his hand on his hip while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern dragged the bodies off the field.

He grinned and signed back to her: “Look at all the lights! It’s like where Santa lives! It’s like we walked all the way to Christmasland!” Harper signed, “I think you mean the North Pole,” but Nick wasn’t paying attention anymore,