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in succession. A crucifix hung on every classroom wall above the front whiteboards. In each, I stared above my classmates’ heads and pondered Jesus, the son of God. I looked at him, his hands and feet punctured by nails. Being the son of God didn’t do him any good. I got that. █
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maggie Nerz Iribarne is 52, living her writing dream in a yellow house in Syracuse, New York. She writes about teenagers, witches, the very old, bats, cats, priests/nuns, cleaning ladies, runaways, struggling teachers, and neighborhood ghosts, among many other things. She keeps a portfolio of her published work at https://www.
maggienerziribarne.com.
Photo credits: https://elements.envato.com/user/twenty20photos https://elements.envato.com/user/seventyfourimages
[Editor note: Maggie’s story was our Short Story Contest third place winner.]
Submit your stories HERE.
Story Starter Here is the start of what could be a wonderful short story. Finish it off and submit it to me. We’ll publish our first choice in the August issue. Submit directly to editor@BooksNPieces.com
AMERICAN AIR
Story Starter by WIlliam Gensburger
It was, he knew, to be his last breath. Already he was becoming pale, lips bluish, eyes glazing over, his body preparing for the final moment. And he could see himself in the reflection of the mirrored entry hall, crumpled on the floor like an unwanted toy tossed carelessly by an invisible child. His mind was racing, splinters of thoughts and feeling, some long forgotten or buried, now emerging for one last hurrah, forty-five years of accumulated debris that had never been properly sorted through. What to tell them? His children? His wife? His mother? Who was dead already he couldn’t say, no longer recalling the car accident of his thirty-fifth year that had wiped out his wife and daughter, leaving only one son. His mother had left him much farther back than that, a distressing blow to his psyche that had become complacent with stability and continuity. Enemies became friends as morality transformed into debauchery. Friends became strangers as familiarity led to contempt and disregard. He couldn’t say anymore whose wife he’d seduced. He remembered it was on a boat. Off the coast of Mexico. He did not recall owning a boat. He could not recall his own name. He remembered that the sex was good. The thoughts were like splinters of light that pricked at his mind and then subsided. A shower of light, a rain of needles, coated everything. The image in the mirror was blurred by it, losing resolution, detail. He thought: All that I was will be gone. Every hope and dream and disappointment will be wiped clean. Sunday school! Cramming God into places too tight to fit. Identity. Self-respect. Sovereignty. Nationality. What nationality? What piece allowed me to fit? Whose air did I breathe? All of his life he had longed for the answers. And only now did he realize them. One last laugh, gagging within the final exhale. He could hear the haunting sound of his breath escaping his body like the echo of a cold winter wind racing through the underground tunnels he had played in as a child. The light consumed him in a bio-electric dance of decay until he was not even aware of his own consciousness, his existence. It was all quite meaningless now.
Books ‘N Pieces Magazine — JULY 2022 — www.BooksNPieces.com
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