The Half-Pound Piece of Toast
an excerpt from:
The Imaginary Girlfriend: A Memoir
by John Irving
My time at the academy was marked by two important transitions in Exeter wrestling under Coach Seabrooke. First, the wrestling room was moved from the basement of the old gymnasium to the upper reaches of the indoor track, which was called “the cage.” The new room, high in the rafters, was exceedingly warm; from the hard-packed dirt of the track below us, and from the wooden track that circumscribed the upper level, came the steady pounding of the runners. Once our wrestling practice was underway, we wrestlers never heard the runners. The wrestling room was closed off from the wooden track by a heavy sliding door. Before and after practice, the door was open; during practice, the door was closed.
The other wrestling-related change that marked my time at Exeter was the mats themselves. I began wrestling on horsehair mats, which were covered with a filmy, flexible plastic; as a preventive measure against mat burns, this plastic sheeting was modestly effective, but—like the sheet on a bed—it loosened with activity. The loose folds were a cause of ankle injuries; also, the shock-absorbing abilities of those old horsehair mats were nonexistent in comparison to the comfort of the new mats that arrived at Exeter in time to be installed in the new wrestling room.
The new mats were smooth on the surface, with no cover. When the mats were warm, you could drop an egg from knee height and the egg wouldn’t break. (Whenever someone tried this and the egg broke, we said that the mat wasn’t warm enough.) On a cold gym floor, the texture of the mat would radically change. Later, I kept a wrestling mat in my unheated Vermont barn; in midwinter the mat was as hard as a floor. (read the rest of this story)
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The Life and Diet of Jim Worms
by David S. Warren
The Peckerwood village dogs always were waiting
for dried-worm treats twenty minutes before
Jim appeared at their gate to announce himself:
“Hallo the House,
Here be Jim Worms Freedman
DeBeeman Washington,
here to dig worms”.
Jim’s hands and face were brown and veined like oak leaves in fall; and he was over six feet tall … which made him seem like a friendly tree when he stooped to talk with a common five- foot yeoman of those days.
In every season and all weather Jim wore several layers of oil-stained sail cloth sewed with leather cord, and a tri-corner hat that he removed only in greeting, when crawling through hollow trees to gather honey, or as a pillow wherever he lay himself down at night.
Everywhere that Jim went on his rounds he carried a long duffle bag across his back, swinging from one hand, or perfectly balanced and stiff as a log atop his padded hat. (go to the rest of the story)
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BLOOD ON THE
DINING ROOM FLOOR
An excerpt from the novel in progress
Self-Portrait in a Hat
by Rhian Ellis
People were shrieking and not only the ladies, I wish to point out. Gertrude was the first to move.
She stepped over the wreckage, lifting her skirt out of the pool of wine and food, and knelt down next to the man. She put her fingers on his neck, then put her ear close to his mouth. "Miss Stein has been to medical school," I heard someone say, although that was only somewhat true. Everyone watched as she shut the man's eyes with a quick movement and stood up again.
"Yes, I'm afraid he's dead.
I suppose he was a cat burglar. Very unfortunate." There was an uncomfortable chuckle. Of course! A cat burglar! Who else would be up on the roof so late in the evening? But then Helen started screaming.
"Oh, my God! My God!" She put her hands over her mouth as if to stop herself from screaming, her eyes wide and horrified.
"It's Mosier!" she cried. "It's Mosier!"
Her screaming went on and on.
(read the rest of the story)
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It’s all my brother Greg’s fault
Food Issue