literature
Families and literature go hand in hand; fictional families to entertain, reflect and inspire.
The Darkened Room
Everything in Geode’s body told him to run, but his body wouldn’t comply. He’d only meant to consider, not to touch. What a disaster he’d wrought by not keeping his hands to himself. Aunt Petra, who’d raised him from the age of three, always told him that looking never involved hands, and that he wouldn’t get into trouble if he never touched things that weren’t his. But they were so interesting that it couldn’t be helped. And thus began his troubles.
By Steve Savage5 years ago in Families
Crossing Old Sandy
From the time we were old enough to catch crawdads in the nearby creek without getting pinched, my cousins and I were allowed to roam the farmlands nestled between the foothills of the Ozark mountains and the Arkansas River. We’d step out the door of Granny and Pa’s cozy rock-sided house accompanied by an eager pack of farm dogs, work our way through the barn, walk in one door and out the other at each of my aunts’ and uncles’ and great-grandparents homes who all lived “over yonder” or “down yonder” and then set off along the washboard dirt road that my family’s been settled along since the early 1800’s. Up the hill was Granny’s old schoolhouse, still furnished with broken pews and desks, a disheveled time capsule begging our imaginative spirits for dramatic recreations of academic life in the “olden days.”
By April Grist Rhodes5 years ago in Families
SHE WAS A NIGHT OWL
The box she laid in was pretty. She liked pretty things. It came with all the latest features. Silver brushed with light blue finish, light blue velvet interior, in a French Fold design. She was a Francophile, she taught herself French, she loved everything French. She had planned to travel there one day, to Paris. To see the Eiffel Tower, to twirl underneath this wrought-iron lattice was a constant image in her mind. She would buy pain Poilâne in the Latin Quarter on Rue du Cherche-Midi, a bottle of wine at La Cave, cheese at Laurent Dubois, then lay down her blanket on Pont Neuf and spend the day enjoying the splendor of the banks of the Seine.
By Rosemary West 5 years ago in Families
Bull’s Might, Owl’s Wisdom
With the unmistakable crunch of tire-disturbed dirt coming from outside, John knew his time was up. John winced as he placed a final bandage on a cut above his eyebrow. The reflection in his bathroom mirror showed each painfully fresh bruise. His body ached. But, after an empowering deep breath, John walked out picking up his wooden baseball bat on his way.
By Daniel German5 years ago in Families
The Burden of Sound
It doesn’t always feel like I love her. My finger picks at the stitching on the driver’s seat as I try not to think. I can’t seem to stop my thoughts from having more thoughts. Josie says it’s because I’m a Virgo. I say it’s because I want to take an ice bath so I don’t have to feel anything. Just cold and numb.
By August Broussard5 years ago in Families
A Night of Silence
Putting things into perspective was always so much easier from up here, hence why he liked coming here as often as he did. Away from the humdrum and endless bustle of the city below; a much welcome reprieve from the steady monotony that seemed to dictate his every waking moment. From up here, things didn’t seem so pressing -- so urgent, and he wasn’t expected at one place or another. Sitting here overlooking the sprawling metropolis below, he was able to finally take a step back and process the day’s events. A sense of calm washed over him, and he heard himself exhaling the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. Next came his shoulders. Ever so slowly, he felt his shoulders start their mechanical descent from their elevated positioning. How long had he been holding that tension? Bollocks if he knew, the better question being, when hadn’t he? He suppressed the urge to sigh. There he was going off on it again, the missus was right; he was going through a midlife crisis. Or was it an existential one? He couldn’t remember the exact phrasing she’d used during his most recent bout with melancholia, but the pairing of the words ‘existential’ and ‘crisis’ certainly rang truer than the feelings brought on simply by entering midlife. This time he did sigh. He really was becoming like his old man. The thought caught he completely off-guard. Momentarily taken aback, he felt his mood sour. His mind just had to go there, didn’t it? Even way up here on the ridge, he still couldn’t put enough distance between himself and his subconscious.
By Rachel Maurice 5 years ago in Families
To Love A Winged Thing
Fred had never known a person to love owls the way Alice did. He knew women sometimes seemed to pluck an arbitrary animal out of the pool of nondescript interests to serve as a placeholder for any actual personality, and he had always found it rather trite. But Alice loved owls, really loved them, loved birds of all kinds, actually. Alice had an owl as a pet growing up, a massive gray Boreal female, creatively christened Hoot. A peculiar choice in childhood companions, but foundational nonetheless. Pet was perhaps not an entirely apt description, as the owl was free to roam where it pleased, but Alice insisted that it had always returned to her eventually. Fred withheld his ironic remark when she had told him that particular anecdote, because Alice was so much the same; always flitting off to another time or place or even train of thought, leaving him behind. But she returned, every time, and that was what mattered, in the end. He thought he rather understood her thing about owls- there was some kind of careful pride in being the force that made the wild bend, in being shown that you were strong enough to overpower nature itself. Of course in the end, he learned he had been wrong about pretty much everything, but unfortunately, that epiphany is one we all must have before we can start to get anything right.
By Julia Jorgensen5 years ago in Families
