(CONTEMPORARY) Woods-Western-Mountain-Appalachian

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APRIL 2018

THE HARVESTER

AMANDA CRUM
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The old man walked along the border of his property, feeling the cold squish up through his boots like a rising damp. There was nothing here but scrub and fallen tree limbs, tangled together in a fractured web, but something about the edge of his land came as a comfort in the dying days of autumn. Here was a view of the last forty years of his life, breakback and hard-fought. If he stood at the edge of the barn and looked west, he could almost see the entirety of his parcel floating in waves, undulating rows of wheat stubble bowing to the sunset. He didn’t need photographs or old letters. Here was the seed of his memory, tucked deep down into the velvety soil.

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NOVEMBER 2017

CHARMED

BEN WHITE

​​Today would be the day.  Selection day.  No one believed him because they were all just a bunch of snakes casting forth their evil onto him without consideration of his ability.  But today; today would be the day.
 
When he was little, he had heard the footsteps in the woods, and a fear inched along his skin making him crawl into the thicket with his muscles tightened into a coil waiting silently for the booted crunching of leaves and sticks to pass.  He hated the feeling, while the teasing of the others made him want to slither away into his loneliness and disappear.
 
If only he could get the chance to face that fear again.  Then he would show everyone his courage.  The courage of old, told so many times in so many ways to reflect the culture of pride and natural fortitude. 
 
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