The Way He Was – Novel Excerpt

I was staying the weekend at Sans Souci  to celebrate my recent graduation. I promised my parents that I would spend time with them and Graham said I should. He had been intending to go on a trip with Colin, so this gave him an opportunity. He needed a break as the intense study was getting to him, although he only had two more years left. We were already planning our future together. Tonight Frankie would be playing in the Harp Bar and I was sorry Graham would miss it, as he had never heard my brother perform.

Like Bowling a Strike

 Clare was twenty-three, living in central Oklahoma. It was a long way from home. She wanted to write a novel and get it published, but it felt late to accomplish that. Sometimes she thought she’d give anything to sit for an hour on that worn couch with the dented cushions in her tenth-grade classroom. Clare could still remember the smell of her English teacher’s hair, a mixture of peppermint and permanent marker.

Paired

People hold signs every day. Homeless. Anything helps. Or Hungry. Please give, Or lost job. Children to feed. A piece of me questions each one. I admit it - I generally keep driving. I roll up my window, place glass between me and the shattered world, and sit with my own shards. And I wonder if I’ve ever been a few steps away from standing in those shoes. It takes courage to ask for help. 

Toujours Frais

But he kept coming back. Nobody wanted to interact with him, and so when we saw him approach–either by car or by bike, he used both–somebody would prepare his coffee ahead of time. He developed a habit. Come in, pause, hover to the register, pickup his coffee, hand over some money, collect his change (I forget when he started to do this), sit for a bit, walk into the bathroom, come out 10-40 minutes later, walk down the road, come back six minutes later, finish his coffee, leave. Usually once a day, but sometimes twice. Usually afternoon, but sometimes morning, and a few times in the middle of the night. He missed a day or two, and we grew hopeful that he was gone for good. But he kept coming back.

Travel Poems

The gift shop near the room where the family of a dead son gathers offers crosses, prayer books, icons, beads and jar upon jar of dried herbs and flowers gathered by the monks from slopes that surround, petals of the past as brittle as the remnants of faith forged in ancient hillsides.