The publisher of PANK asks all the authors to read their stories. I recorded myself reading How Was Your Afternoon, Dear? which was published in the Fall/Winter 2016 issue of PANK magazine online. To hear me read the story with my sound design and music, click here and click on the audio play button.
THE BOOK OF HESTER
EDITING AN UNCANONICAL TEXT
LADY HESTER PULTER: Brotherton MS Lt q32, Leeds UK
By Maureen E. Mulvihill, Princeton Research Forum, NJ
Writer, Guest Series, Old Books / New Editions (2016). Part II of III.
Hosted by Bruce McKinney’s Rare Book Hub, San Francisco
Series announcement, ILAB. Part I of Series, “Anne Killigrew”
Read the complete essay here.
Sculpted Porcelain Bowl: High fired twice, designed, built, and hand-painted by D. R. Harris. 12″W x 12″H. 2016
The angry man drove into the setting sun. He was tired and fought to keep his ‘69 Volkswagen squareback from skidding off the unplowed snow-covered road. He slapped the steering wheel mouthing a vulgarity when he lost control of the car. Why did he agree to drive his estranged wife from Chicago to her sister’s home in Los Angeles? Their marriage was over. Why this last chivalry?
According to his wife, there was a small county park where they could car-camp for the night off this side road. That wife was sick with the flu, sleeping in the back of the car. They had spent the first night in a similar park in Oklahoma. Now he was on a narrow back road looking for the park twenty miles off I-40, west of Albuquerque. He had been driving for twelve hours and had to piss.
To make extra money for her move to Los Angles, his wife took a job substitute teaching in a Chicago junior high school between Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations. She caught a virulent flu from her charges. Even though, as she claimed, she was being “extra careful” because she knew she was coming down with something, she lost her wallet with her driver’s license. She couldn’t help with the driving. But nothing could protect her from the approaching full moon in Ares. She was in for a spate of turbulent times. No amount of precaution could stop the power of the cosmos. What bull shit. She was an idiot. Astrology crap drove him crazy. It excused all sorts of nonsensical behavior. Now he could feel the flu coming on: scratchy throat, fever, headache, stomach cramps. He slammed the steering wheel with his palm and cursed his wife.