Hmmm, let try something new. How about this. Look around where you are right now and choose something to write about. Just don’t write about Christmas yet, okay? Hold back for now, just like the retailers do. That’s right. You get to choose your own topic. All entries must be between 100 words minimum and…
Bamboo Shoots breeze
A Very Rough Draft of Jim Harstad’s Memoir, ON HE RODE — Chapter Forty-Two
“Here you go, sweetheart, and plenty more where that came from.” Mardi curtsies as she hands me the chilled longneck. “And would the ‘here’ you reference mean here in Bryan as a place to seek ultimate solace, comfort, and wisdom or as a marker for where you stand in your life’s journey?” “Both. And more.”…
Bamboo Shoots Submission for Year of the Ox -- October Contest
A Makiki Condo
advertises a view of the graveyard, a selling point for believers in kismet– a divine hand reaching from the far side of a life lived. At night, glass doors open to the view from a fourteenth floor lanai, invite images from a spectral dream– ominous music playing in and out like breath. Something emerges from…
Bamboo Shoots Submission for Year of the Ox -- October Contest
The Nightmarchers Before Halloween
“‘Kay, Esteban, you on break.” As Esteban stepped away from his position, he lifted his chin in acknowledgment. With a barely suppressed sigh, he pulled off the latex monster hands he had been waving at patrons of the haunted house. Once past the curtains, he mingled with the exiting patrons. Esteban walked past the other…
Bamboo Shoots Submission for Year of the Ox -- October Contest
Vanguard
In that unique quiet of morning / The appointed hour draws nigh / And from every direction / They shuffle forward in droves / Expressions masked / Inscrutable / Manning their gleaming conveyances / They fall in / At their marks / Equidistant / In regimented formation / Resigned to their fate / Steeled by…
Bamboo Shoots Submission for Year of the Ox -- October Contest
The Last Treat
“Choo you kind of old to make trick or treat?” She was, and asking the question was stating the obvious. What Mrs. Kanemura did best. But Mrs. Kanemura was the reason Kelly was out walking the uphill, sidewalkless streets of East Mānoa. An eighth grade Gulliver among first grade Lilliputians. You could barely call what…
Bamboo Shoots Submission for Year of the Ox -- October Contest
Adventures In Pupukea (500 words)
We rode that old MGB with the top down, the wind and sunshine on our faces. We took that road right after Three Tables and before Foodland up to Pupukea Heiau. Michael maneuvered the MG along the bumpy dirt road. To the right, Waimea Bay glittered as waves caught the sunshine. Trade winds played with…
Bamboo Shoots Submission for Year of the Ox -- October Contest
A Ghosting Story
Her veined hand shakes as she grips the wooden bannister. The faint knocking at the door has awakened her again, and she is on the staircase now, headed down, step by slow step, knowing what’s coming. Age makes each unsteady tread deliberate, and in this cautious movement she sees herself, naked, descending the staircase, leaving…
Bamboo Shoots breeze
A Very Rough Draft of Jim Harstad’s Memoir, ON HE RODE — Chapter Forty-One
Mardi’s mom’s name is Rose. A long-standing family tradition has her dad selecting one yellow bloom from the bush he cultivates near the swimming pool and presenting it to her each morning. “A rose for my Rose,” he says. I don’t know what she replies, never having witnessed the ritual. Maybe it doesn’t happen every…
Bamboo Shoots Submission for Year of the Ox -- October Contest
Terror behind grin
Jack-o’-lantern’s grin Yellow flame, bewitching glow Igniting terror