A classic horror novel made even better. Literate, dark humor peppers this popular tale of 60s hippies that has been selling since first published in 1992. Greater depth and additional twists add to the fun in this new author’s edition as ill-fated friends making their way between two oceans create their own ocean of blood. Literate, dark humor peppers this popular tale of READ MORE…
Nan has had to leave her peaceful home above what used to be the Arctic Circle for something extraordinarily old-fashioned: a physical meeting with someone in, of all places, a city. If she doesn’t contract a fatal disease first, she might just choke to death on the Rococo holography currently choking Manhattan. And why hasn’t she heard anything from her best friend, Trix? Must READ MORE…
Thanks to stellar advances in longevity, Earth is overrun by Baby Boomers well into their hundreds. Social Security being the stuff of history books, subsequent generations must find some way to put all those Boomers to good use…challenging since few have minds that have survived along with their bodies.But the silver lining is that few can complain about what some of those uses READ MORE…
Gorgeous, and born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth, Veronica Hamilton has never had to interrupt her dreamy sentimentality to question her cultural snobbery or even whether or not that diagnosis of Asperger’s was accurate. But that was before her fabulously wealthy CEO husband framed her for the murders he committed. Now she’s fleeing across READ MORE…
Last month I posted master writer John Steinbeck’s Breakfast. It inspired me to write the following:
Oranges by Sue Hollister Barr
$6 a run. That was all I made as the lowest of the low: a foot messenger in NYC. Some days I only got one run, not enough to cover a meal as I waited all day in the messenger service’s waiting room. Especially if I had to take the subway to make the run’s deadline. Some days I waited all day and got no runs.
The walls of the company’s windowless waiting room were streaked with filth, intermittently lit by equally filthy fluorescent lights that rattled on and off as the subway rumbled below. Arriving before the mandatory 8 a.m. was essential for any hope of locating a less-broken chair. Our clothing was as drab as our surroundings. Our eyes were dead.
Money. If only I had more money I would be in heaven. But then the day came when I first smelled it.
Every day…at exactly 11 a.m. when, for whatever reasons, there were never any runs…an ancient man would slowly pull an orange from his pocket. He would turn it over in his worn hands, reverent as if it were a religious relic. Then he would slowly, ceremoniously, peel it, and that sweet scent of orange would fill the room. Every section he placed in his mouth was savored to the fullest.
25 cents an orange. That was all the grubby fruit stand out front charged me when I started buying oranges. And I was in heaven.
