“Is this it?” she asks, smiling, eyes shining, hand reaching toward him, a lifeline. Again, she didn’t answer him. . “. There was a man who didn’t wear a mask. I asked him if he had any other questions, but he was already fairly at-ease with the whole situation. I sleep over at Makai’s because his apartment complex is closer to Cordova. “Not really,” he says, prodding the campfire with a stick. For the first time today, Marge felt her lips turn upward into a smile. Realizing I was alone, I decided the voice was either in my head, or else it was emanating from the ground and sky all at once. The table was one of the few things she made sure had traveled with them on their coach from Manassas instead of with the other furniture. The guy looks sideways at his two friends, gives them a wink. Sorry.” And I really was sorry. It has always been like this with them, he thinks, her child-like enthusiasm urging him to go with her, to run the errands or take the walk or drive to the farm to pick peaches on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We’re getting out.”, The boy tilts his head. Joel parked the car in the deep shade on Strawberry Street. “I’ll call and set up an appointment, I promise,” Joel spoke into the phone, “first thing next week.” He stood the phone back in its cradle and stepped back outside. The afternoon of Mr. Jones’ suicide, Lola’s older brother Kyle, an oafish outfielder for his High School’s baseball team, expected the family to attend his second game of the season. I waited, relieved that his tears had finally stopped. I’ll be blind. He jerks up on the man’s twisted arm for emphasis. Work of any genre is welcome. Honest. But she’s laughing, as is Chrissie, so he keeps tugging with all his might. I have a daughter of my own, and I remember when she was that age. What are you doing there?”. I stop and look up from the page. I feel as if I have no core. Font was important, Jeff solemnly reminded himself. It was perfect. He stares at her in shock—in wonderment—in recognition that his world has been invaded and that the overwhelming stasis, the stagnant pool of his being, is now undammed. “And I told you that you need to spend time here with your grandfather.”, “Well, he wants you to be here, so you’re staying.”, “What’s the point? There were three companies on the floor where she worked, and only one of them had pictures of its staff. But I am really here; right here’s where I always am.”, “But how did you get here? This problem often happens with new characters. . Our goal is to find the best whiskeys that you can get your hands on for an affordable price. Freed of body armor, dressed in his favorite Levis, the ones with the seat and thighs worn soft, he knows he should be more at ease, like all these smiling faces in the boisterous crowd, unaware of anything but whirling machines, painted clowns, and tents with all their games of chance. The girl stretches her arms out as Brendan passes her over, then she tries to settle on her mother’s hip. I found something that I think might belong to you. I beat an instrument because the fabric on my cheeksreflects every breath,two layers of polypropyleneall I need to protect me.as my feet scrape the pavementmy eyes inspect the … The next day, I got up for the laptop opening like every morning since I had woken up, and Foil was gone. Didn’t think they’d look lived-in, didn’t expect the rainbow blanket hanging off the back of the bright white sofa. “Wait!” The woman shouts. He was nearly bouncing with excitement. Brendan leads his family along the edge of the swirling cacophony, trying to keep the crowd to one side. Without warning, and just when things seemed to be perfect, Peter left. I cast my eyes around me, searching for a source. “You be awright, son. “You can believe that. A widow who could bear no sons was no good to a successful wholesaler like Wilmer, but he’d married her anyway. “Never saw him,” Joel said to himself, “that’d be him, I’m guessing.”. He had not kept count of how many elevator rides they’d shared since then, not out of any self-respect to avoid becoming obsessive, but because it was too depressing to think about how much he looked forward to them. Suddenly, her eyes fluttered open, radiant with the breath of new life. This isn’t funny!” I screamed to the corners of my entire world. Absent for almost half her life, he’s a stranger to her still. “That means they are aware of their own thinking,” she continued, the pace of her speech quickening with both excitement and the chagrin of having it unmatched. Bottom Shelf Whiskeys You Need To Try. Returning Gina unmasked was almost as bad as not returning her at all. In that small creature I saw myself. Bottom Shelf Whiskey December 3, 2019 March 3, 2020. Another person passed by, and another, and another. “And you let me in when you started that game of yours and lay waste to thousands.”. Joel reflected momentarily that when he looked straight on, he actually couldn’t see her, at least not precisely. “As the boy will tell you, we don’t have any food. Please attach submissions via e-mail to bottomshelfwhiskey14@gmail.com. They can, you know. to adopt modern ways. Chrissie opens wide and bites into the pink confection, getting as much on her cheeks as in her mouth. The next day, bright and early and right on schedule, the laptop opened. What the heck. The truth is that many bourbon and whisky lovers have been taken in with the age and price of a particular liquor. Cars with solar flare paint, buildings with razor blade corners, trees and grass and bushes with radioactive leaves. A crater in process. “When I first went away and came back, I stayed right around my old house, that white one there, two down from yours. When I’se alive, I never learnt to read—even free colored children weren’t allowed no school. The second impact cracks the side of his head. That year, he entertained the gang with his own story of the latest trip to London and the ticket-baggage fiasco during his return flight. The boy stares, unsure of what to say. “I don’t know. His dirty skin is stained with dark splatter marks and wraps over his ribs like canvas on tentpoles. Once again, I was silenced by his strange opinion. It’s right across the street from that corner where Sherman Ave turns into it. It’s dark. If you know which plot it is, you can predict the ending. He’s promised time and again that once he makes rank and catches up on bills, he’s going to buy her the real thing, a string of pearls the size of marbles, something to make the other wives in their housing quad drool. So I concoct stories, wield words. They’re at the beach and they’re all smiling—, “Um, Leto?” Makai whispers. I turned to the one the author named Peter, who was still sobbing. “Not long.”, “You lost track,” the boy erupts. Liz ignored them both as she talked hurriedly into her cell: “Look, I get it, but I already told you, I don’t have a—oh, are you sure? Roger stared out the sliding glass door at the Sprite box debris Lola had simply left in the sandbox, vaguely registering that she was watching a band of cowboys kidnap a woman on the screen in front of them, but not that this meant he should change the channel again. No groans, no moans, no fugitive yelps or yips escaped on accident. Twisted in his bedding on the old cheapo carpet he swore to vacuum weekly, brain a-flood with craving, Jeff disturbed himself with focusing too much on one of those odd, involuntary and inexplicably localized muscle twitches the body just has, this time somewhere vaguely left of center of his left asscheek. She noticed little details about the room that she’d long since stopped paying attention to, like the old board games on the top shelf, or the random Mr. Cutty Sark Prohibition Edition. She supposed the table would have to go, too. The woman stands, backing away from the fire. Dr. Rubin’s office called this morning to let me know they hadn’t heard from you yet. The man grunts. When she nods and runs off, he turns and does the same. And your mother’s quite a babe, says a man from the half-circle that had gathered to watch Brendan’s shooting display. Last Christmas, there almost hadn’t been a tree. Change has come on stealthy cat’s feet, the smell of clean mud alongside it. Had she already called and asked about the fox? “They did it and I ran.”. This guy the author called Peter was about to have the biggest identity crisis. She carries my meaning, My intentions, Away Even the look of her! On the afternoon they go to find the tree, she insists on bringing the dog. I deadhead the flowers, clear out old brown blossoms on the azaleas, brush the gumballs from the big sweetgums— like your two there— to the gutter, so no one will slip.”, “So, wait, do I have this right, you don’t live here anymore, but you do come and secretly garden at my house?”, “Oh, not just your house, all these houses, on this block and the next. Jeff grinned, sort of. Foil was a projection of the author’s friend, who the Peter character, among others, was based on. who wrote and wrote and wrote. She repeated the words so many times in the course of that long week that they came from her lips on their own. Foil had a real-life counterpart. Maybe he should just get some chocolate, the nice kind with the smoky nightclub backlighting in the picture. freedom is different If the … The campus would approve, but keep an aslant eye constantly transfixed on him, primed at full cock, crosshairs hungry for future transgression. A loud clunk. And helping her decorate, just that once, it wasn’t so awful. The chill of the water shocks my feet at first and gradually becomes a slight icy ache in my skin. She tried to feel a little heroic that maybe the alcohol she was spritzing on yet another shopping cart would spare some child with leukemia from contracting pneumonia and dying, but it didn’t work. Shut lips, not unlike a ganache-layered cake, got him through life’s riots and made the paper thin walls of experience seem pointless which meant there was doubly no point in talking about it. “Sometime, my hand’ll sweep right through somethin’, dog’s collar or tree branch. Just as he reaches out to pull Brendan away, another hand yanks back on the neck hole of his Mötley Crüe tee shirt, momentarily choking him. Since its inception over 25 years ago, it has been the premier source for information, education, and entertainment for whisky enthusiasts. “We’re getting out of this,” says the man, adding sticks to the fire. I want to be past the canyon, watching the shadows grow on another patch of dust; asleep in the cool, dark cave that seems so far away just now. Opening your eyes here is like bathing in a dust storm. Just the gleeful riff of laughter Like a nail or a handle, Don’t slam that door, Tom I hate running; it was not a pleasure or an escape. I would never leave my grandpa alone if he was really dying.” He looked at me like he wanted me to tell him that he was talking nonsense. There are hundreds of children here but none fit the description. Marge cut through the living room, momentarily contemplating turning on the news before opting to let the remote acquire just a little more dust tonight instead. What really needs to be, Jeff’s brain offered in a voice occupying some weird no-man’s land between 2nd and 3rd person, a kind of dictatorial plasma, is some recontextualizing. But it drops like a guillotine blade, breaking the man’s thumbs backwards as it falls. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.” Knowing may be awful, but it’s better than living in a lie. “Or an ocean.”, The woman turns toward him. Foil got so close to me, I felt his breath on my face. And it makes my blood sing, turns it into a five-octave powerhouse. Other times, she turns me into a princess brandishing a mighty sword against a dragon. Now he wished he had asked Mr. Jones what specifically inspired the nickname. As my essence slithers under my skin, Joel parked the car in the deep shade on Strawberry Street. “Customer Service might have been right about you, though. Like yeah, we’ll be in high school next year or whatever, but we still missed a huge part of what makes our last middle school year bomb.”. It was so long ago.”, “Maybe she’ll get a kick out of hearing how you singlehandedly saved our family from days of sheer doom and gloom! From his utter indifference, Marge strongly suspected he knew of this policy. Person. Reminiscing of hookah smoke, She could make him especially proud by coming up with an answer first. Weeks of social distancing, panicked toilet-paper-hoarders, and covering other employees’ shifts had worn her thin. And where did she learn You look that way, he says, pointing back toward the teacups. Anderson— Chabon— Franzen— Pynchon. Bratty kids. “Loyalty is my strong suit,” she’d told him early on, laughing. He shook his head no. At this height, the firelight turns his bony chest amber. I felt like the tiny, malnourished strip of the universe that God had given me was falling apart, losing itself. It hurts to see all the better lives that you didn’t get, the off-limit ones, strung out in front of you. Not hard to spot; you’ll see them. “Why are you going to tell her that?”, “No,” the woman insists, adjusting her posture so that one foot is underneath her, ball down. You’re going to have to go somewhere else.”. On the bed her history textbook lay open to a page with a photograph of Abraham Lincoln, regarding her through a window of printed lessons about his presidency. “You killed him.”, She looks down at the man—at his opened mouth, lips stuck with dust and blood—at his wide eyes that look white in the shadow her body casts—and shuts her eyes. I initially chalked it up to inexperience, but I grew to suspect that it was just his genuine outlook. I already feel sorry for my excavators because they knew not of the cold sweet grapes I tasted or the thrill of dancing under moonlight with my lady. His eyes stay low, veiled in dark. She wasn’t anywhere in plain sight, and he wound up being grateful for this when, after looking around aimlessly for a few moments, a secretary asked if she could help him. Recontextualize, my dear, foppish Jeff. That had been a good year for finding trees, he thought. With nothing but four eggshell walls. He thought the author was generous for letting him try out the many, many characters, which was absolutely insane. I reach my hand over to his face and lift one of his eyelids with my finger. And he did. I kept telling myself to let it go; I was a creation of her imagination and nothing more. Everyone else was going. I don’t even know who you are.” She struggled to hide the trembling in her voice. She nods, and the carnie pulls down the black-and-white animal, passing it to Chrissie with delicate care, as if it were fine china and not stuffed with wadding. They ride the teacups, Brendan pulling hard on the center ring to spin them faster, Sophia yelling, Stop, stop, I’m going to throw up. “Yes,” Joel answered, “how did you know?”, “Seen you lookin’ edgewise. Newspapers, radio stations, and social media hailed those in Marge’s position as heroes. And the teenager who dropped his gum right onto the floor. My shelves are bursting with those He winced at the cacophony that was unleashed as the clatter echoed off the blank walls. “I went to the aquarium today,” she said. Lola did not know which one of her father’s addicts slit his wrists that day. Most likely watching one of us. More. Maybe all the rejection beat me down “We’re really gonna be the only ones not going to Lion Country with everybody else? A whole day. Lifting Chrissie onto the countertop, he asks, What do you think, Honey, you want the Panda? Just one. Right now. Most nefarious!” Jeff Sr. cloudy-brained. Schools of minnows gather around my toes. That’s just the character the author wrote for you.”, A light flashed behind his eyes as a new idea flew into his head. “That’s done with.” Then she pauses, seeming to reflect on what she just said. PaperCity Magazine – Arlington’s New Biscuit Bar Opens — and the North Texas Biscuit Mega Expansion is Only Beginning . They there are— looking down on me— The killer is the monster, and Sherlock and Watson have to overcome by stopping him. His body and all its interconnected nerves say vigilance is required. He’s going to be gone soon anyway.”, Mary hung her head. She chose the left, and as she stepped over, she accidentally brushed up against him. To the left, the toddler happily scribbled with no regards for the outline of a giraffe on the paper. But with every single thing we take from those houses, the vases, the china, the glasses, it feels like we’re chipping away at worlds with no room for us. “No, no, I don’t think so,” she said. It was like he had been erased. They were kneeling side-by-side, pinching back the mums one last time, when the phone rang inside. Now I compulsively check the internet Just put your feet right up here, and scoot your bottom down to the end of the table. A loud snap pierces the silence, colliding with nothing—a missile in empty space. The orange fire glints from his eyes, and he turns to face the boy. He was always way too naïve about the struggle of this existence. I remember.”, Tall flames oscillate in brief flickers, snapping up like whips and disappearing at the crack. Jesseniah wasn’t hard to draw out either. The boy watches him disappear. Better for her sore body to shower and don soft pajamas than to nod off on the couch as yet more footage showed barren streets and deserted shopping malls while repetitive charts announced the latest numbers. I pay for shit with it. The whole time Jeff’s father is squinting like he, Jeff, imagines his father imagines a sage squints. And there are only two Burger Kings in town, and the other one is in the mall, which hasn’t been open lately. And, anyway, a new story would come along soon; they always do. Whisky Advocate magazine is America’s leading spirits publication. The man looks up from the coals and shrugs. Welcome to The Bottom Shelf. In a way, it was everything. That was early days, when he ignored the speed limit just to get to her faster. Disgust didn’t even begin to describe what it made him feel, this Edy’s sponsored terrorism of the soul. field hollers on plantations. And me? For the next few days, I struggled with this concept. Roger was known to poke fun at his brother for liking the vapid and pretentious sport. “Where do you think you are going?” Mary asked Peter when she stopped him in the dim hallway of the hospital. glass reflecting an atmosphere of Mother’s a secret royal, a spy battling Communists. Jen had taken pictures, and served some sort of chili soup with tortilla chips and beer. Four years and hundreds of thousands of lives lost was just too much, and the very thought of it churned her guts and made her hands tremble. And from the start, he knew she’d stay. He had resigned himself to staring at the backs of heads he didn’t know, but right before the door closed, she stepped inside. “No, that’s not their habitat,” says the man. One day and sixty dollars later, we’re riding around in a safari jeep, watching a grown giraffe and its baby walk across the green. It’s like fog, but heavy—the fire makes a bubble in it. Scared a becomin’ blind?” Joel knew he was, afraid of the dark, afraid of the loss of freedom. If the phone’s through a speaker or on its own, neither version plays. And, since he couldn’t just stand by while she worked, he found himself tending the flower beds he’d never even taken much notice of in his own yard. I stare at the back of Makai’s neck while we walk, where one of his braids curls up against his nape and makes its own little galaxy. It had been a year and a half since the last phone call, either from Mackenzie to her mother or vice versa. It is up to me to hunt, something I have never minded until today. But by the time he had made his decision, the elevator was already moving again. The critics would nod. On the other hand, while there’s no way to accurately predict how fast the condition will progress, the form of degeneration you are exhibiting is unfortunately known for its rapid onset. Even a fool could tell you that. And if so, did it mean anything? She was almost lost in the hydrangea and the early evening twilight. He looked at me with his pain-filled eyes and replied, “You know how I am doing. The moment had passed. The cat found solace somewhere else What that told him about the afterlife should’ve been interesting (to Jeff, that is) but not this time. Just like the kill zone in an ambush. He went outside. The second most popular bottom-shelf liquor is blended whiskey. Diana’ll look after you, if you let her. children that march to youthful beats. “How badly do you wanna go to Lion Country?”. Buffalo Trace Straight Bourbon Whiskey . Though posing for a portrait, he looked like he was standing around at a graveside service, gloomy and austere. The toddler was desperately trying to untie his face mask and turning red in frustration. Lighten’ up, buddy, he says. Knowing the ending kind of, by definition, ends the suspense. We might get through the gates, but there’s always a patrol car rolling around.”, “Hmm Hardwood, then? Person. but my feet come to a halt,while my mind runs wild.finding a place to restunderneath the soft shadowcast by branches intertwined.stuck in the middle of a moment. As long as I still get my hash browns!”. Panic rose in her throat, “I’m not going anywhere with you, sir. sickly, neon jade showcase With introductions from Diana, he made the acquaintance of some of his other new neighbors. Many works later “Hey,” she said. “A mental health day,” he told his secretary. The air is still filled with rings and buzzers from the arcade and beyond that the grinding of amusement rides and the screams of their passengers, but the crowd is quiet here, nothing emanating from this spot except for Sophia’s frantic calls. Sometimes they were as simple as scenes imagined and smirked at of Jeff groping for the soup ladle to literally excavate lurid green hunks of Mint Chocolate Chip out of its pint-sized packaging and into his fanged mouth, or of Jeff, smeared with berry-juice, traditional Great Plains headdress on yet askew, machete raised and dripping Death by Chocolate, eyes a-bulge with creamlust unredeemable; these were not all unwelcome. Painter’s masks, deflated latex digits, the weekly new addition to the corner’s panhandlers— the torrent is multiplying, the curve bulges. After all these long days and nights of feeling alone even when I am not, there is a way. But not everything is located on the perimeter; not the carousel, not the bumper cars, not the flying chairs. Well, it was plain brick when I was . And sometimes folks losing their sight can catch sight of us. I’m sure she’ll have somewhere safe to keep you until she can give you back to your owner.” Marge was about to set Gina down next to her purse when she thought better of it. “I think that I am Foil, then.”, That wasn’t the answer I expected. I feel faux, And if Liz is there, I’ll drop you off. He said his thanks and goodbyes and set off for home. “Kyli! Nevertheless, there was a pulse, however feathery, of extraordinary violence beating in the walls of Jeff’s thoughts of ice cream. “Stop it,” snaps the man, glaring. Phil watched her go, following her until the last second, when the doors finally closed to send him up to eight hours of monotony. The hot water scalds my hands, but I’ll do anything to keep from going back there. We played Tic-Tac-Toe in the dirt. I could see how eagerly he maneuvered around the crumbling ruins the author had conjured into our world. She had delivered the baby of this now highly influential medical advisor in the time of pandemic; she had been the one accused of attempting, albeit, unknowingly, to essentially murder this woman, and her darling child, with shamelessly sourced blood, when in fact the story was all “marmalade in the fry”, as a really unfortunate looking and strange relative of Jeff’s used to say, and at really inappropiate moments. The air shimmers above my head, sizzles on my skin and draws the moisture out for creatures to feast on. I feel jagged, The shack was wooden with a corrugated tin roof. No answer. But never people. When Lola bent down closer to read a clue or two, she discovered her father was not answering them at all. Angelina trotted into the room, announcing her presence with a harsh squeal, livid for a snack. There is no fear to share or consume, Chrissie! Really, really badly. You let me in when you buried that loaf of bread so your hens would lay plenty. Wilmer had believed her when she told him that it was a favorite piece and she simply wanted to see that it arrived at Appomattox without damage. I’m going to arrange for you to meet with a specialist next week, Dr. Rubin, an eye surgeon at the medical college. We’re so nervous we go with the first upscale house we see. The boy fidgets with a stray piece of bark. So before too much time had passed, he threw out a simple, “That’s okay.” She nodded and turned back to face the doors. “Careful, kid!” she protested, but stopped as she noticed a peculiar bulge in the white trash bag. “I’m like a bulldog with a bone, so you’d better be sure you want me ’cause you’ll never get rid of me.”. “No, that can’t be right. That night Lola woke from her sleep around 1:30 am with snarls rising from her belly. “Who’s out there?”. Those family-friendly attractions are clustered in the center, which shares space with food trolleys and gift shops, everything else funneling target customers into the confined area. Brendan looks over his shoulder at Sophia, who is hugging herself and shaking. . Then to Jeff and Jen’s where the long-needled soft pine had curved over way beyond the low ceiling in their apartment. A cannonball fell down the kitchen chimney to let everyone at the McLean plantation know that no one was safe. “I’ve had plenty. The doctor exhaled a bit too loudly into the silent room and scribbled on his chart. I see King’s Creek across the street, and I watch a big Mercedes drive through the gates. Or how about his neighbors’ ritual fuck-fight-fuck routine and how sad and jealous it made him, or how he had never wanted so badly to be ultra-elderly in his entire life as he does right now in this historical global moment just so he can say, ‘I’m ancient.
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