Mathilde Alanic: Shine! (part forty-one)

Mathilde Alanic Shine! (part forty-one)                         When she woke, a wan morning light was shining through her window’s upper glass. Her bleary eyes were attracted by a square of paper near the door, a notecard, its mauve hue standing out against the parquet. Curious, […]

Marjorie Bowen: The Sword Decides! (part nineteen)

Posted by ractrose on 29 Apr 2021 in Fiction, Novels

Marjorie Bowen The Sword Decides! (part nineteen)                   Now the knights themselves arrived. The Queen’s stand shimmered with coifs of tissue cloth, bright plaits of hair, and silk veils. First to enter was the Prince of Taranto on a white horse. The animal’s bronze and azure trappings […]

The Totem-Maker: Lore and Lessons (part six)

Posted by ractrose on 26 Apr 2021 in Fiction, Novels

The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine Lore and Lessons (part six)             They were faced with the problem of loyalties. How to secure them, when no persuasion could be breathed. The council’s reasons were strong, but secret; what they proposed wanted utter abandonment, utter embracing. All that the people knew and were […]

My Blog Week: April 18 to April 24

Posted by ractrose on 25 Apr 2021 in The Latest

All the Latest from Torsade!                             A Word on the Week   Comfort and Convenience           We don’t see how easily we internalize the idea that inequality can be deserved. Let’s imagine a totalitarian trend in our politics…not […]

Mathilde Alanic: Shine! (part forty)

Mathilde Alanic Shine! (part forty)                         “I’m trying to breathe life into him. My paleographer teaches me agricultural practices of the 18th century. You see where that leads me!” “But your task above all is to make the action alive, and gripping. Your building-blocks […]

The Ad Said (conclusion)

Short Stories The Ad Said (part two)               “No, they’ll have chairs at the station. We’ll have to move careful, soon as we get into town, see if we spot anything in the gutter.” “Yeah…I wish we had just a dollar, so we could get coffee and a snack […]

The Ad Said (part one)

Short Stories The Ad Said (part one)               The ad said: “Girls wanted. Good wages. Steady hours.” It said also: “Must pass physical exam.” “You’re crazy,” their mother said. Hester smacked Hermina’s arm. “Come on! Let’s go down to the corner.” The corner meant the drugstore, where they might […]

Snares: Fifth Allied Forces

Posted by ractrose on 21 Apr 2021 in Art, Poems

      The Folly Allied Forces         Snares   The woodland affords the falcon— Where hedgish undergrowth shoots in voluntary tangle augmented year by year from half-digestions spat or shat by avian lodgers, nesting a thicket permitted by the landowner (Said to be the blighted Rory Tebbs) to wax untrimmed Has […]

Marjorie Bowen: The Sword Decides! (part eighteen)

Posted by ractrose on 20 Apr 2021 in Fiction, Novels

Marjorie Bowen The Sword Decides! (part eighteen)                         Chapter VII The Queen Moves     Sancia di Renato, the Queen’s waiting-woman, held up a corner of the crimson canopy to shade her face from the sun. Her white dress glowed with a rosy reflection, […]

Yoharie: Plumbing (part two)

Yoharie: Plumbing (part two)

Posted by ractrose on 19 Apr 2021 in Fiction, Novels

Yoharie Plumbing (part two)             So, the IMAX jaunt…in a world of scant rewards, Hibbler could pat himself on the back for having figured it…had let him refine the list. He cased from his car, got hot, walked Beatty to a tree island and let him shit, saw (opportunely, when […]