guystanton

Great Uncle Eltweed

guystanton Mar 16, 2012 06:45

When the call comes, it's never at a convenient time. In this instance, it was at 4 p.m. on a rainswept Saturday in late November. My great uncle, having lived to the improbable age of 102, had apparently finally worn down the staff at Brookside Willow Pavilions with his increasingly loud and incoherent and doleful jeremiads, and the Board of ( ... )

Pharaoh

guystanton Feb 11, 2012 16:54

The boy stood at the edge of the playground, his thumb worrying the corner of his mouth, the fingers of his other hand squeezed into the diamond-shaped hole of the chain link fence, his red hair tousled by the wind. Like that he stood for some time and then quite suddenly and for no discernible reason turned and ran, kicking up dirt clouds, like ( ... )

The Last Hike

guystanton Feb 03, 2012 17:40

God save us from girls who are into hiking, I used to say, until I met Janet. I resisted for a long time; I let her hike while I lounged on the couch; I gave her my old line about being an avid indoorsman...and she laughed it off, grabbed my hand, and dragged me in to the Massachusetts woods kicking, as they say, and screaming.

And who knew, but ( ... )

The Theories of Uncle Jeb

guystanton Sep 09, 2011 06:58

We used to sit with Uncle Jeb, Earl and I, and listen to him talk.

If you’d never seen a picture of a human skull, you could just gape at Jeb’s visage--the skin was as though painted on, and a poor job done of it to boot. His frame was so narrow and slight that clothes seemed to weigh it down. Though he’d shiver like the dickens in winter, he ( ... )

Sons of Ben 6, Part 1

guystanton Jun 19, 2011 07:08

I remember very clearly when my mother told me I was not adopted. The year was 1985. I was fifteen. I was standing in our yellow-green kitchen near the yellow refrigerator, staring at a painting of peaches and pears cradled in a wooden green bowl. "I am your mother," she said, plucking absently at her heroic perm. "Biological, and for real. ( ... )

The Sons of Ben. Number Three.

guystanton Jun 12, 2011 14:30

It always happened at the craggy precipice of sleep, so I never knew if it was a dream or a memory. I was swimming in brown water, terrified I might be swimming down...away from the surface. But then I would emerge, bellowing out breath, the water crumbling to dust around me, a flat steel sky with black-painted clouds above. I would crawl, then ( ... )

The Gathering in the Deep Wood, Part 3

guystanton Oct 23, 2010 09:10

I entered into a cramped area with a carpet piled with shoes of all varieties: oil-stained sneakers; bent high heels; flattened boat shoes; bedroom slippers; boots, some impossibly tall; slingbacks, clogs, and mules; sandals, birkenstocks, and flip-flops. To the pile I added my ancient bluchers. I opened a white, graffiti littered door and ( ... )

The Gathering in the Deep Wood Part 2

guystanton Sep 08, 2010 06:54

The Flyer

WXXT

in association with

Annelid Industries International

Presents

The Gathering in the Wood

The Slinkiest Nymphettes
Grotesqueries and Obscenities
Pizza and Pie

Featuring Original Music by the Notorious
EZEKIEL SHINEFACE QUARTET
and
DJ FESTERLY BOYLE

Follow the Lights

The WalkAt dusk I passed between the disused stone ( ... )

The Gathering in the Deep Wood, Part 1

guystanton Aug 21, 2010 06:10

I was on a stool at the counter of the Look Diner, moving my scrambled eggs around the plate in the coagulating pool of ketchup and staring at my gray coffee, when the man walked in carrying his brain in his cupped hands ( ... )

Leech

guystanton Jul 19, 2010 08:56

The most ghastly sound a man can hear is the sound of a voice in an empty house. That is what Todd Wessen heard on an early summer morning in his remote cottage on the edge of a tall wood in New Salem, Massachusetts. He woke before he knew what woke him, woke with a start and a chill that ran from his throat to his bowel and back again ( ... )

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