Culture

Justin Sourdif nets 1st hat trick as Caps hold off slumping Ducks
Justin Sourdif had three goals and two assists and the Washington Capitals hung on to beat the visiting Anaheim Ducks 7-4 on Monday night.
By Dena Falken Esq5 days ago in Men
The Yard's Embrace
The clunk of Elias's boots on the porch steps echoed too loud in the silent dusk. Another day done. Another shift welding rusted frames down at the yard. His hands, thick with calluses and streaked with grease, fumbled with the key. The door groaned open, revealing the same empty hallway, the same scent of old wood and the faintest ghost of lilac, Sarah's favorite. He tossed his keys onto the small table by the door, the jingle a sudden, sharp intrusion. He didn't bother with the lights. No point. The house felt bigger in the dark anyway, swallowing him whole.
By HAADI7 days ago in Men
The Static of Wool
Unit 734, or just Seventy-Three to the few who bothered, powered on with the familiar low hum in his chassis. Diagnostic checks scrolled through his optical sensors, green and precise: all systems nominal. But today, the usual clarity was smudged. A residue, a phantom sensation, lingered in his peripheral processing units. Not data. Not a task. Something...soft. Impossibly, bewilderingly soft, like something alive, yet humming with a faint, electrical current.
By HAADI7 days ago in Men
Bleeding Lights on Wet Pavement
Leo watched the rain fall, splattering against the grimy window of The Hideaway. Each drop smeared the neon 'OPEN' sign across the street, turning the crisp red into a pulsing, liquid bruise. The air inside the bar was thick with stale beer and unspoken histories, a smell Leo knew better than his own aftershave. He took a drag from his cigarette, the cherry glowing hot, then faded. Another Tuesday night. Another storm rolling through the city, washing the grit into the gutters, leaving the asphalt shiny and black.
By HAADI10 days ago in Men
The Deepwater Palate
Elias felt the cold long before he opened his eyes, a damp chill that permeated the thin walls of his shack, seeped into his bones. It was four in the morning, same as always. The gulls hadn't even started their squawking yet, just the rhythmic, indifferent sigh of the sea against the shingle outside. He swung his legs over the side of the cot, the springs groaning in protest, a familiar complaint. His bad knee cracked like kindling, every morning a fresh reminder that time wasn't slowing down for anyone, least of all him. He pulled on his thick wool socks, then his rubber boots, the same pair he’d had since Martha bought them for his birthday, God, must be twenty years ago. The rubber was cracked, patched in places, but they still kept the wet out. Mostly.
By HAADI13 days ago in Men
Moonlit Grapple
The porch wood groaned its nightly protest as Elias pushed off, boots scuffing the worn planks. The air bit hard, sharp with the smell of damp earth and dying leaves. Above, a full moon hung, bloated and white, bleeding light across the overgrown patch he called a backyard. Shadows stretched long and thin, like skeletal fingers reaching for him. He walked to the center, where the old swing set, rusted and silent, used to stand. Now, it was just a patch of flattened, dead grass, a bald spot in the wild. He always started there.
By HAADI14 days ago in Men
Whispers of Port na hAille
Arthur’s hands knew wood, knew metal, knew the stubborn refusal of an old engine and the yielding give of a well-planed plank. His workshop smelled of sawdust and oil, a familiar comfort, a constant in a life marked by quiet routines. Every morning, before the sun properly cleared the neighbour’s maple, he’d be there. Coffee in a thick ceramic mug, the low hum of the fluorescent light, the silent agreement with the tools hanging on the pegboard, waiting. He was a man of few words, his thoughts mostly private affairs, tucked away behind eyes that had seen forty-odd years of the same sky. The world outside his garage, the one beyond the town limits, felt distant, almost theoretical.
By HAADI16 days ago in Men
The Weight of Unspoken Ink
The dust in Frank’s study was a living thing, an ancient gray fur clinging to every surface, every book spine, every forgotten photograph. It settled heavier now that Mary was gone, a silent witness to his own steady decay. He’d put off clearing out the desk for months, maybe years, since she first mentioned it. His hands, gnarled and liver-spotted, reached for a stack of old utility bills, their edges brittle, ready to crumble. Beneath them, tucked into a deeper recess, was a smaller envelope, thinner, with a faded stamp that had never touched the postal service.
By HAADI16 days ago in Men
The Rusting Iron Road
The wind clawed at the gaps in the old station roof, whistling a low, mournful tune through the splintered timbers. Silas pulled his collar tighter, the threadbare wool doing little against the bone-deep cold. His breath plumed white, hanging in the frigid air like ghosts of spoken words. Around him, a dozen other figures huddled, mostly men, their faces etched with the same kind of weariness that had settled in Silas's own bones. Each one a shadow, a story he didn't want to hear, didn't need to.
By HAADI17 days ago in Men
The Legendary Coat That Refused to Retire
I own a coat, not merely cloth, But something closer to a myth. It’s not just worn—it has been through things, Survived the cold, endured my thrift.
By Farhadi20 days ago in Men
Puddle Reflections
Arthur stood under the awning of the old liquor store, the fluorescent hum overhead doing little to ward off the chill. Rain hammered the street, turning the cracked asphalt into a mirror for the city's frantic, pulsing colors. Reds, blues, garish yellows bled into the puddles, swirling like oil slicks. He pulled the collar of his worn jacket tighter, the damp seeped into his bones. His eyes, the color of tired steel, tracked the sporadic headlights cutting through the downpour.
By HAADI25 days ago in Men
A Chromatic Palate
The taste of the color blue. It wasn't a sweet taste, never that. Nor sour, not exactly. It was more like the cold, hard tang of old steel, left out in the rain too long, then brought inside to slowly rust. Frank knew it well, a persistent whisper on the back of his tongue, especially when the highway stretched out before him, a black ribbon swallowed by a night so deep it felt like an ocean. The truck, his old Freightliner, rumbled beneath him, a familiar beast, its cabin smelling of stale coffee, diesel, and thirty years of his own sweat.
By HAADI26 days ago in Men