Pages (PDF): 185
Publisher: The Long Story
Purchase includes: PDF

IN THIS ISSUE

“The Care and Feeding of Captive Bears”
by Lucy Simpson
From their recent home in Arizona, Zara, the narrator, and her sister Margaret are bringing Broke, an aged, infirm bear and the last survivor of their father’s  private zoo (and also the last link to their past and its tragic end) to an animal sanctuary in Chattanooga.

In William Davey’s “Twelve Horsemen” two thieves in WWII Paris plan to rob a bar until they see the proprietor is a double amputee. Instead they listen to him tell the story of his grandfather’s revenge on Prussian hussars during the Franco-Prussian War, all of which ironically calls into question standards of right and wrong.

Landon Houle, “Orphaned Things,” is the story of Raymond, the son of an atheist snake handler left behind with his grandmother, and Knee, a girl at school who is also fatherless. Raymond has little faith in Jesus but faith his father will return for him. Both long for their lost fathers.

In G.D. McFetridge’s “Little Man” the eponymous character, Little Man, is a deer that first came to the narrator’s mountain cabin as a fawn. A unique story in that except for the narrator there are no other human beings in it, and the antagonist is a mountain lion.

John Wheatcroft, “The Prisoner’s Brother”: Davis Thornton, the Episcopal priest in a Pennsylvania town, reacts angrily when, while having drinks with friends from the church, his wife Nita casually mentions that she’s volunteered to board a visitor to the state prison in town for the night. His reaction to this news is decidedly unchristian and the behavior of the  back country hick proves to be a real test of his Christian duty.

In Bruce Douglas Reeves’ “Maggie in Love” the narrator’s grown daughter Maggie and her son live with him after her husband disappeared, but when she takes up art for a career and becomes involved with a handsome, Ayn Rand spouting egoistical male model,  she completely falls under  his control,  eventually even moving to Mexico and leaving her father to raise her son.

The “Afterworld of Samuel Rossi” by Khan Ha is narrated  by a stillborn baby, but the story rings with truth and genuineness in every line as the narrator follows his father’s relationship with his Vietnamese language teacher.

Lee Oleson’s “Twenty-First Century City” has a protagonist, Stanley, who has never quite fit in, but when he comes up with the idea of renaming the city he wins a seat on the city council, only to get into trouble for his seeming support of the locked out workers at the local factory.

In Reneé Branum’s “The Lightning Left No Mark” Goose was always told that she was born when her mother was struck by lightning, but a neighboring older boy who has learning disabilities has a secret he’s not supposed to tell.

Poems by Jared Carter and Brian Backstrand round out the issue.