Casey's Just Sayin'

I know I've posted this story before, but I'm sure many of you haven't read it. After my little quip about golf vs. lawn care I thought it deserved another go. The old man didn't hear his wife when she opened the front door, barely handling the two bags of groceries in her arms as she dipped inside and kicked the door shut, scuttling to the kitchen. She never let the clerks use plastic bags at the store because the straps cut into her hands. He didn't notice her as she put away the soup cans, milk carton, chicken breasts, eggs, rice and the rest. Even though he sat less than five feet from her at the kitchen table, his attention was fully drawn out the small kitchen window. “George!” she finally yelled, which came out as a harsh screech like a child's cough. He didn't turn but grumbled and batted at the back of his head as if a fly were buzzing about. “You're being rude.” “Lady, you need to shut your trap,” he grumbled, still looking out the window. “I ...

I love the science fiction work of Peter F. Hamilton, Robert Charles Wilson, Neal Stephenson and Orson Scott Card... many others. But I think what I love about them is how they put the human condition in the extraordinary world. I was reading this one I wrote a few years back and I think it succeeds in settling love down easy in another place and time. Tell me what you think. Dawn broke suddenly across the dry, barren expanse, the mild, rolling hills like giant goose flesh on the arm of the Earth. A structure sat atop one of the unexceptional hills, seen easily from nearly a mile as a speck, not because of its size, for it was small, but because it was the only variance for a thousand miles. At five hundred yards, the home’s slanted roof defined its blackness against the brilliant whiteness of the mid-morning sky. At two hundred yards, a ring of greenery appeared like a wreath around the home and the building’s gray walls revealed darkened windows and a great silver door. A rou...

Hi! I haven't posted in a bit, but the good news is that is mostly because I'm working on my novel. I have a sort of double-dare going with @SarahReede that we each write at least 750 words on our books each day. It's been fun and so far I'm on schedule. But I thought I'd pop over here and share with you a piece of Flash Fiction I wrote recently. If you're interested I'm tweeting my word count at the end of each day. And if we're not following each other yet, I'm at caseyfreeland there as well as on Facebook. And now... on with the story... When he woke, she stood over him, the white room congregating in a halo around her shoulder-length, golden hair. She held his frail hand gently and smiled into his rheumy eyes. “Good morning,” she said, her voice a thin gauze of comfort laid across his raised, convalescent bed. “Already?” he coughed back at her, his own voice breaking the spell she had cast. But her smile didn’t deteriorate and even her...

If you ever come to Redding, this is a safe bet for great food and atmosphere. My love - sitting across from me in a cozy booth at Market Street Steakhouse last night for our fifteenth anniversary - hands me a small, folded piece of paper and says, "I'm not a poet." She is a poet She's a poet in everything she does As she feels life so deeply around her, as she takes it all in and then returns it to the universe, through her voice, through her smile, through her amazing and fearless capacity for love, she creates poetry She is a poet She wrote four life-long poems Brilliant, unique beats, brave kind loving and strong of mind these four write themselves more and more, which makes her sad She is a poet She writes lines across my heart every day hieroglyphic calligraphic the deepest drum the sweetest string a symphony of words and tune a screaming whispered rune So, anyway, there we were, sitting in this romantic daze, drinking dirty martinis and eating some fabulous foo...