WRITER with flash BLOG

We get back into the house after a windy, rainy trip to the store. They knock me aside trying to get in. He's got the groceries and I've got the mail. Zippy is in first place.

Zippy Win! By tail wag! He settles into the big green chair by the fire place.

SPOUSE looks at him, and says, "OK, you can be co-Daddy for ten minutes."

I swear to you that dog smiled. Then of course came the petting and the snuggling. Two butts in the Daddy Chair.

Why is this so much like having a kid? Because he is one, sort of, to me.

I'm still laughing.

Tushi-bushi didn't say much but he sure as heck is earnest. I'm glad he didn't see Soylent Green. He'd sure have the answer to the Social Security dilemma.

Flash fiction:

The train tracks, overgrown with weeds and littered with cans and bottles, runs through the middle of town. No civic body can decide what to do with the land. A developer wants a mall, but the Green candidate wants a park. A woman still hangs out her sheets on the days the wind blows. She's there today. Hanging white sheets with clothes pins, one after the other. She's crying slowly and silently. She misses someone. Someone she loves. Someone that has been gone for too long. She always misses him. After all, he grew in her heart when he grew under her heart. She hears a car door slam. But she doesn't look. Not worth it, she thinks, shaking out a pillow case. The back door slams shut from the wind. She turns. It's her soldier son home at last. She still cries but she's got him in her arms again. Just like before. They both hold tight.

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REVIEW by noted author Cleveland Gibson
Mama tried to raise a lady

Right from the start I related to the high antics RD wrote about. In her book she has captured a way of storytelling which raised more than a smile to my lips. Plenty of funny scenes. Read and see. How on earth can this have happened, but then she was a kid at the time. Sometimes I feel sorry for the ’noodle’ brother who tried to act smart. Well, maybe he succeeds sometimes but I guess not when RD is around.
When a wise guy appears, a person who knows better, she spins out her own solution. Many a time may I say. And RD kept everybody guessing from the edge of their seats.
I pity the grandfather, the policeman. Well, he knows the law but with RD things change and a new family law gets introduced with rewards, mistakes and always entertainment. On a personal side I remember my childhood and lots of things I got up to. Scary things I did. But RD showed us what a little girl running around, adoring the animals with a great mother and father, a 'noodle' brother can do wearing a pink dress. Look for the snake. And Uncle Joe who said nobody could match her imagination.
It is a well-written book, full of interest across all age groups and great when you don’t know what to give as a present. One day I’ll talk to the author to find out about the nostalgia thing. That’s what made the book . And maybe find out if we the readers can look forward to more Mama stories.


Cleveland W. Gibson
autor of
MOONDUST click to cover to buy

New Year New look so come back and visit me.
A little flash to catch your interest:

The Last Experiment
By
RD Larson

Overall, the last experimental surgery had gone well, Jared thought as he washed his hands, carefully singing the ‘Happy Birthday Song’ two times. As a boy, he had never thought much about dirt or germs. It had impressed him when he heard the Health Director say that washing the hands during the length of singing the song twice assured the most effective way of removing germs from the skin of his hands.


Since graduation, he became more involved in the family business. “Dressing the dead for God,” his father called it. Jared only took the parts that his father or the grieving family members wouldn’t see. Toes mostly. Sometimes a bit of flesh off the buttocks or a slice along the back of the upper arm.

Jared knew God didn’t care if they were complete or not. God only wanted their immutable souls and did not mind his little experiments. All done for good.

Sometimes when tried grafting the toe or flesh to one of his pigs, there would be a horrible infection. He learned to be more careful: to wear latex gloves and to wash.

He went into dinner. Mom had come home from her garden meeting. There were pork chops, spinach, and baked potatoes. When his father drove home from the parlor, they had a quiet meal and sat around watching television. Finally, at nine o’clock, Jared said he was going up to bed.

His mother nodded, patting his arm to say good night as she watched the TV woman chose the handsomest contestant. His father snored guiltless over his adventure book.

They had quit coming upstairs. Good thing, Jared thought. He went into the room he’d turned into a miniature laboratory. The caged pig wasn’t more than a few weeks old. Still the pig dung smelled. He kept the windows open summer and winter. With disinfectant, he cleaned the crate and moved the drugged pig on to a clean bed of newspapers. Jared took its temperature and gave it a shot of antibiotic and a shot of anti-rejection serum.

He felt he was close. The last experiment this afternoon had filled him with such joy and pleasure. Jared felt proud and gifted. Here he was, a simple man, curing a dreaded condition with only his brain and his computer. Knowledge about anything could be found on the Internet. Materials ordered and delivered

When all was ready, he unwound the gauze from around the piglet’s stomach. Then the soft gauze patch that covered the magic and perhaps -- this time -- the miracle. He wiped his glasses and removed the final patch.

Beneath, two living toes and a patch of black skin glowed with life. The human parts thrived on the piglet’s silky skin.

Soon he would patch his own scarred and burned face. He’d found the key at last. Tears of joy streamed down his face as he smiled at what he had called his “re-invention.”

Political slash: Tushi Bushi made goo-goo eyes at the German PM today. I saw it for myself on TV. He did NOT complement her on her intelligence or negotiating resourcefulness. Bit sexist, I thought. But what do I know?

Fiction flash: I have been seriously working on new "Friends" -- you know the Erle & Stumpy stories. And Carl if you are out there, yes, I wrote another one just for you. I'm learning a lot. It's a much more complicated book than anything else I have written.

Doggie splash: Zippy went with Daddy out to the woods to visit his "spot" but the big flash light made dog shadows against the trees. Off with a bark, Zip goes. He's got arthritis and is taking medicine for it. He looks like a puppy still. Don't you think he does?












�© RD Larson 2005
May not be used without permission of the author.

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I had a black Lab when I was a teen. His name was Candy, like licorice. He liked bacon best of anything and since I didn't he was my receiver even though he was a darn good retriever too. Of course, sometimes he went to get unwanted things. Items that he hadn't been sent to retrieve. Like when my mother had one of her hen parties -- they played Canasta, Candy thought they were making too much noise. So he brought Mama dead mouse. The ladies packed up and took off. One time when I was at school I looked out the window and Candy was sitting out there with my social studies book. Another time he took my dad's slippers and hid them in my bed. I had been sleepwalking and he was tired of going after me. Candy lived to be a wise old dog. Old enough for me to be married and have a little girl.

So aren't they the cutest?

Hept-ra runs afoul of the Vizier Akhet, and her loyalty will take her to the depths of a pyramid: R D Larson, The Pharaoh’s Official, part 1; conclusion.

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue179/pharaohs_official1.html


This has gotten great reviews.

It is the tomb makers, the draftsmen, the craftsmen and the sculptors who built my tomb. I gave them beer and bread. I made them to take an oath that they were satisfied. – These are words from Kay, the priest of Khufu written at the entrance of his tomb.

Friends had whispered their fears about her husband. Was it the truth or only rumor? Hept-ra squeezed her hands together. What could she do? Mket was her husband; she had to save him. If the rumors were true, then Akhet would destroy her husband if he could. Would the old Vizier, grandson of the Pharaoh, listen to his complaints about the Recording Scribe?

Slowly, she went up the stairs to the sleeping porch on top of the mud brick house. Her husband stood gazing off over other houses of the workers. The Great Pyramid stood above them all. She could tell Mket had not slept on his bed pallet.

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