They had tailed Emerson and Gilley from Dr. Carter’s in New York, down to D.C. After that, they had to duck under the cover of a Miami airport newsstand to avoid them. Bought a Post and a magazine. A quick outfit change at a tourist shop next door, then hustled to the other side of the terminal. Booked a charter down to Rio via Havana.
I listened to the sounds of the night. A mockingbird called through the brush, far off, maybe halfway across the lake. The cool wind rustled the tops of the trees and they whispered together. The ker-klack sound of the horses going down the trail past the lake was almost hypnotizing.
Look, it's a John D. MacDonald book, you don't need me to recommend it to you. But just in case: go on, get a copy and read this damn book. The premise of The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything is fairly simple. There's a sort... Continue Reading →
Don't get me wrong: Blackbirds is wildly violent, wickedly chaotic, like those old wooden roller-coasters that rip you this way and that, make you call a chiropractor when you wobble off.
Toby Burnhouser was bigger than Brick, and he held my right arm down. Toby gritted his gums and breathed hard through his nose. He took his job as one of Jimmy’s henchmen a little too seriously. My right hand started to go numb as Burnhouser pushed down harder into the short-pile race-track play carpet.
As a young kid intrigued by spies, guns, and kissing pretty girls, I'd have been happy enough with all of this. But at about two minutes and fourteen seconds in, something dramatic happens.
I'm not much of a poet. When it comes to what I like with respect to poetry, well, I sort of know what I like and what I don't. I can also appreciate that poetry, when it's done well, is... Continue Reading →
I got caught up in this trying to do a flash fiction challenge. The challenge was pick a random image and write a 1,000 word story on it in a week. Mine was the castle you see in attached to this entry.
benjamin j kirby 