Alan Caldwell is a retired veteran teacher, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and, most recently, a writer. In only two years, his work has been featured more than fifty times in literary journals and magazines. Two of his short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart prize. He spends most of his time at his […]
Get to know our Artist: Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by naeim a from Pixabay My Papa told me that coons were bad to have rabies, or hydeephobia, because they was always fighting over whatever they were eating and spreading it by biting each other. Papa said that it was in their spit. I told that to Ms. Schillinger when our class was talking
Ms. Schilinger by Alan Caldwell Read More »
The Heflin general store sold fine calico fabric, peppermint candy, oranges, and Barlow pocket knives. These goods would make a fine Christmas for Zachariah’s family. Dawn was just breaking. Heflin was a three hour mule ride from Macedonia, so Zacharia wanted to get started just after breakfast. Almost a year to the day earlier, Zachariah
December By Alan Caldwell Read More »
Jim Maun’s voice became softer, slowly, incrementally, imperceptibly at first as if he were turning away as he spoke. One wet afternoon in late March, Jim returned home from his office, and as he recounted his day to his wife, Sara, while she stirred the soup, she asked, “why are you whispering?” “I didn’t know
Softer by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay The last time I saw my uncle Anse before all this happened, he showed me a finger, not his finger mind you, but the severed finger of some poor bastard that owed him fifty dollars for some of his homegrown Alabama high test. I told him that I didn’t know
Anse By Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by andreas160578 from Pixabay Almost daily, after all the corn was all laid-by and left to fend for itself in the sweltering South Georgia sun, Hugh took his boy, his only boy, Earnest, fishing. Earnest didn’t love fishing like Hugh but he sure loved his Papa, though whenever he called him papa, Hugh would
The Angler by Alan Caldwell Read More »
PublicDomainImages by Pixabay A typical 12 gauge quail-load shotgun shell contains around, or slightly more than, 400 #8 tiny, lead, spheres or pellets. I know this cause I’ve cut them open and counted. Four hundred tiny pellets gives you four hundred chances to hit your bird. Many people, even frequent shooters, harbor a misunderstanding about
Whimper By Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by Alicja from Pixabay I have a story I want to show you. It won’t take too long to read, a few minutes at most. It’s a story about trains, coins, Coke bottles, firefighters and hidden treasures. It’s about a flourishing Snowball bush and floundering family. It’s about summer, boyhood, and loss. It’s about
Viburnum by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by Md Abu Musa from Pixabay Jela walked between the railroad tracks. He inhaled the amalgamated scent of the creosote and the chilled mid-December rain. He timed and measured his pace so as to avoid the shifting, and uneven gravel between the ties. The tracks traversed the dismal, decaying, industrial fringe of town and
Jela by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by Dann Aragrim from Pixabay I saw her walking her dog every morning, at, or near, the corner of Elm and Main; every morning, come snow, come rain, come heat, etcetera. She invariably wore dark blue factory pants and a light blue polo, a uniform of some kind. She looked like the manager of
Dog Walker by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by Brent Connelly from Pixabay Yeah, I have owned cars, trucks, ATVs, bicycles, boats. You name it. Hell, I even had a damn horse when I was a kid, at least my grandpa said it was my horse. I’ve never had an airplane but I’ve been on enough of them. Having said all that,
Walking by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by LaCasadeGoethe from Pixabay Ike knew the instant that he saw the face on the screen that it was his father’s, the strong chin, the black hair, greased and slicked back. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the news story, so he rewound it. The search party had found the basket of clothes
Markers by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by No-longer-here from Pixabay Ricky rode an XLCR across the great plains in 1978, a decade before cosplaying business men took to flying into Sturgis and waiting on their Fatboys to arrive by truck. The next year, he slid that bike into a utility pole to avoid a church bus driven by a Nebraska Methodist who
Pack n Play by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by Jackson David from Pixabay The father told the boy they would put the Christmas tree up Friday night. The father even retrieved the box with the disassembled plastic tree and the box with the lights and ornaments from the attic Thursday night before the boy’s bedtime. Sometimes they would ride to the Palms
Palms by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by Petra Tant from Pixabay The Woman wiped the blood from her thighs and sat on the folded feed-sack sheet to absorb the flow. She took the Child who had been inside her for about three months and held her in the palm of her hand; she was less than three inches long. The
Tomato Soup by Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by Trinh Nguyễn from Pixabay The Man shook the blue Ball Mason jar and watched the small clear bubbles form and then quickly dissipate. The Man knew that strong whiskey could never hold its bubbles and that weak men needed strong whiskey to hold. The bubbles never made the Man forget. Even when the
Bubbles By Alan Caldwell Read More »
Image by Martyn Cook from Pixabay The Girl used her index finger to strike the center key over and over again. The solitary note rang out through the empty country church. Every Sunday, while the bulk of the congregants lingered in the church yard, the Girl waited for just a few moments alone with that
Middle C by Alan Caldwell Read More »