A barber’s life in 3 yellow pages
“I actually thought I’d die with the shears in my hands.” The old man stands behind his barber chair — his podium for an audience of one. He looks at [...]
Read More →“I actually thought I’d die with the shears in my hands.” The old man stands behind his barber chair — his podium for an audience of one. He looks at [...]
Read More →The rain is gentle in Dublin, Ireland, unlike the hard rain in Iowa this spring. The rain washes down the old slate roofs, flowing into gutters and spilling into private [...]
Read More →The mud-brown leaves, pressed flat and brittle by winter snow, swirl around on my blue tarp looking for a way to escape the mulch pile. A gust blows from the [...]
Read More →Sometimes it seems like the only thing you can win is the short end of the stick. Why is that? Did you break a mirror, walk under a ladder, step [...]
Read More →“The test is in the pneumatic tube,” the pharmacy tech’s crackly robotic voice says over the speaker. Great. But which pneumatic tube? With all the other tubes and pipes and [...]
Read More →The two young girls shared nearly everything. No surprise. The Great Depression guaranteed a certain equality even though the girls were four years apart in age. “So you shared your [...]
Read More →It began when she was 14 years old. Secret voices. Shameful desires. Unholy thoughts of suicide and mayhem. This went on for 26 years until she had enough of the [...]
Read More →And Sister Marla Smith’s eyes light up. Trust me. Holding her thin hand and rubbing her thin back, I sit quietly beside her wheelchair. She smiles, and I swear a [...]
Read More →My wife and I have major parts of our bodies that have never seen the light of day. The endless white sand beaches of southern Portugal are baked in bright [...]
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