I wake up from my nap to the sound of “clip clop, clip clop.” It’s my neighbor Bill’s horse, slowly pulling their wooden cart along the crumbling asphalt road in front of my house. Taking vegetables to market, probably.
I don’t really want to get up from my rocking chair on the porch. I’m seventy-two, and some days it seems like everything hurts. What I wouldn’t give to just drive to the drug store and buy a bottle of Advil. But no, those days are long gone. Like my car, which is now just a rusting skeleton half hidden in tall weeds in what used to be my driveway.
My god, the world has gone to hell in a bucket. And yeah, it’s my fault. Not that I did anything, it’s that I didn’t do what I should have when I had the chance.
I’m delighted to report that my short story, “Mr. Xing’s Science Class,” appeared as the lead story (actually, the only story) in this month’s Frivilous Comma sci-fi magazine. You can read it here: https://www.frivolouscomma.com/mr-xings-science-class/