She arrived at the shores of her last chance, after what local papers would one day describe as ‘the unknowing victim of a deep sea and dead run’.
The pier was lonely at Dock 19, her child, who she would never see again, lay lifeless somewhere back in Ireland as wretched memories misted New York Harbor.
(Photo: Edward Roads)
Written by Edward Roads
With eyes closed and a slightly slumped lean, Gia’s furrowed hands became a simple brace on the kin marble of her second floor kitchen counter.
She thought of her late father, his devotion to that blasted quarry, and his strange fondness for a rosebush, that seemed to bloom every damn year on their parched Italian countryside.
Photo: Edward Roads
Written by Edward Roads
She never listened to anyone, including her till death do us part dear friend Romo, who packed his 77 brown Nova and left for the sweet air confines of Northern Maine to escape her gripping disease.
It had been one time too many, something she wouldn’t understand, no matter how many times he told her, until she helplessly woke the following morning.
Photo: Edward Roads
Written by Edward Roads
Ignorance and obdurate indifference are just a couple of the pungent ingredients that mix together in this simmering crock of inconsiderate stew.
Are we not better than this?
Photo: Edward Roads
Written by Edward Roads
During the battering storm, Anna and Sadie were playing, truthfully tossing, a 99 cent Wal-Mart ball back and forth on a small splotch of saturated lawn in front of their parents coastal home.
A quarter of a mile beyond the splash zone, an old wood-stapled pub opened on time with a below average drummer setting up his cymbals on a small smoke-beaten stage.
Photo: Michael Roads
Written by Edward Roads
In this night’s nightmare, buffalos were roaming and the sky was glowing and the upside down made every unfortunate sunrise sideways.
The cramped room, which none of us wanted, was hot and without atmosphere, and that made the lack of water even more intolerable than the last sip of last night’s cheap whiskey.
Photo: Edward Roads
Written by Edward Roads
Everlong friends, sipping rectory found tea at bible study on Tuesday night, reminding her that peacefulness is driven by an inner majesty that blocks the pain.
In the end, cold Bristol snow flurries gave way to an alert 87 year old that had seen a thing or two, maybe three; wanting to shake hands with anyone who had the compunction to see her as something more than a small dot on an equally small map.
Photo by Edward Roads
Written by Edward Roads
Tommy spent most of that frigid afternoon running from an obese, cigar gnawing arrogance that was $30,000 light from a day’s till of blood and muscle.
After a slippery northward drive from a lightly frozen Revere Beach, Tommy pulled into an unused gas station to park his prized possession and grab the stolen contents of it’s massive trunk.
(Photo: Edward Roads)
Written by Edward Roads
(Continued from Mytwosentences 168)
The walk toward the cab was slow, actually umbrella in the wind discombobulated, but Preston pressed on with eyes wide.
The clomp of his backward progress seemed similar to that of Frankenstein’s monster in a cool movie he watched only yesterday…then he saw the thing that would change his life.
Written by Edward Roads
(Continued from Mytwosentences 167)
After looking up at a rolling quilt of a sky, he immediately took off toward the annoying and unexplained sounds of his new backyard.
As Preston ran upon the matted and long dead grass of his side lawn, he caught something unsettling out of the corner of his eye… the taxi that dropped him off was just sitting there.
Written by Edward Roads
(Continued from Mytwosentences 162)
Preston moved mummy-like, shock was turning his already sketchy palate to a slightly chewy dust, toward the vacant spot where unmet Mick wasn’t.
As he knelt near the lush green of his missing next door neighbor’s perfectly manicured lawn, another sound, what was this three or four now, boomed from his yet unseen backyard.
Written by Edward Roads
Their corner of the neighborhood had a palpable pulse and seemed to breathe life into the early morning, even before lines formed to join the bulging sea of bakery chatter, endless cups of fresh coffee and delicious warm pastry.
The simple charms of community, once on daily display, had given way to fingerprints and faceless face smudges, nothing more than glass tombstones in an unforgiving domain gravid with interloping greed.
(Photo: Edward Roads)
Written by Edward Roads
Over the years she grew to be the doyen of the Tuesday night crochet crew, which helps explain the homegrown red roses that were promptly placed at the old wood fence when two prom kids failed to navigate the corner last June.
As three generations of family were en route to celebrate her ninety years, a worn but aware Mrs. Rothschild looked out a spotless kitchen window and lost breath at the new chain link fence that overnight had become a horrifying cliche.
(Photo: Edward Roads)
Written by Edward Roads
Upon taking her trembling hand at the tracks, his smitten eyes grew dear, breath momentarily hugged from a heartbeat skipped and summer tanned pores fashioned exquisite runnels of exhale.
After he offered a subtle lamp of assurance, they moved in tandem across the rails and simultaneously found safety on the other side.
(Photo: Edward Roads)
Written by Edward Roads
The one thing he repeatedly told her, way back in their not so splended when, was to never overplay her hand, regardless of where it was dealt.
Fresh out of an unsettling six year stint at Greengrove max, she took a couple of unpositive steps forward, slung a faded denim knapsack over her left shoulder and for the first time in more than a bit, began again.
(Photo: Edward Roads)
Written by Edward Roads
Mytwosentences 