Arizona Zipper Anil G. Shitole Dr. Beaver, Obstetrician Betty Burp The Boring School Aurora Borealis Belsky Pupo Shytti Lotta Crap Mole Funeral Home Sir Edward Pinecoffin Cheatham & Steele, Bankers Buster Hymen Cashmere Tango Obedience Cardiac Arrest Silva Cherri Pancake Christ T. Seraphim Golden Pancake C. Matthews Dick Comfort & Satisfy Bottom Constant Agony Bump…
Continue reading →Smedley Drizzle Briquette Pinky Slim Flotsam Squanto Fester Plankton Stymie Succotash Gargle Dangerous Spit Strontium 90 Flagellum Vortac Saliva Flatulence Uvula Petunia Splatter Slurry Garland Mucous Twig Heaven Oink Dwindle Larry Petal Soft Scurrilous Bob Dank Po ins Bosco Spanky Briosche Purge Smirk Avagadro Giardia Coriolis Tarnish Murphy Uterus Valium Cashew Persephone Clunker Bunch Twinky…
Continue reading →In 1992, 1993 and 1994, I dated a woman named Kathy, who was a critical care nurse at an Oklahoma City hospital. Kathy suffered from various emotional difficulties, including depression. In February 1994, she killed herself at her home in Norman, Oklahoma. After her death, her parents were kind enough to give me a copy…
Continue reading →“I’d settle for someone without a lengthy criminal record.” ~Kathy, 1992 I met Kathy Godfrey in 1988. She was close to our married friends Michael and Thea (I’ve known Michael since seventh grade), who often joined Kathy for Medieval Fair events. Kathy and Thea shared a love of sewing costumes from antiquity. Kathy was a…
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“It was the sweetness of your skin It was the hope of all we might have been That filled me with the hope to wish Impossible things…” ~The Cure Pam and I dated very seriously for a very short time. We met when she worked as a reporter and columnist at my newspaper. It might…
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Bolt by Richard R. Barron I sat on a folding chair on my balcony, waiting. The black sky all around me was momentarily quiet. A few seconds before, a flash of lightning hit the ground to the south, tripping the breaker on my air conditioner, silencing it as well. I relaxed in the momentary lull. My camera pointed…
Continue reading →Shamrock by Richard R. Barron “Life is like a really expensive cut of beef that you’ve just overcooked.” At 9:30 p.m. Greg was just finishing his shift, and Shelly was about to start hers. He removed his grubby red polyester smock and tossed it in a ball on the floor under the cash register. As it…
Continue reading →Wild Horses by Richard R. Barron My tears fell in her hair, making little splashes. Once she told me she was 5’4″ tall, but in my arms, she felt smaller. We pulled away from each other and looked at each other through our tears. I smiled, and more tears came. This was goodbye. I thought…
Continue reading →In 1992, some co-worker friends and I created my second iteration of a writing club, a template I used again and again to try, often without success, to get creative minds together. In 1992, the group consisted of Pam Young (later Hudspeth), Frank Rodriguez, Melissa Price (later Davis) and me. I still have contact with…
Continue reading →I talked to X for about 20 minutes tonight. She says she’s moving to Dallas soon. She told me she’d write me “this week.” “One day you’ll move away,” I said, “and you’ll forget to send me your address, and we’ll lose touch for good.” “That can’t happen. I’ve got your address. I always let…
Continue reading →Ice by Richard R. Barron Also see: The Rain Comes Down Long underwear, hiking boots, a wool sweater, a big coat, a yellow rain jacket, and a black ball cap gave me the look of an all weather photographer. I toted a duck-taped, garbage-bag-wrapped 600mm lens as well. Feeling like the emblem of a working professional photographer, I stepped onto the…
Continue reading →Southbound 63 by Richard R. Barron Weary from eight hours on the road but excited to see her, I followed her up the stairs of her non-air-conditioned dorm room at the University of Missouri. Once in her third-floor room, baking in the lingering warmth of campus concrete, I looked out over campus. For a moment…
Continue reading →Written in the fall of 1981 and spring of 1982 when I was a freshman at Oklahoma University, this document is published here as an insight into my philosophy when I was 18. Key influences: Richard Bach, and tenth English teacher Gil Hernandez. Each individual is free to do anything. What could appeal to an…
Continue reading →The Signs Along the Road By Richard R. Barron An August rain fell on us as we drove nowhere for an hour or more, saying nothing. In the distance, lightning danced, decorating the horizon with the shadows of cool grey clouds. Thinking without words in my heart, I listened to the faint complaints of a…
Continue reading →Short Story: Agua Fria by Richard R. Barron Click. Whir. Click. The song started again. I was going to wear out this cassette tape. I sat there in the cold, listening to this same song again and again. As I did, I wrote and rewrote a script for it in my head. Script. Sure. It…
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The publication date of this entry is not an accident. September 5, 1978 was the first day I wrote in my journal. Originally an assignment for English II class in tenth grade made by a teacher named Gil Hernandez, I found, as an awkward teenager, that writing in my journal was one thing I could…
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