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Excerpt from What He Said Tuesday, October 5 At my desk, I flip open my teacher’s manual—thank God it has all the answers—to last night’s set of problems to remind myself of the correct responses to the odd numbers 1-9. I lift the manual off my desk and glance back and forth from the page to my students. We’re only fifteen minutes into the period and some heads are already down on their desktops. Others work feverishly to finish their homework, and the rest simply peer surreptitiously at their phones. Today, most are decked out in shirts w...
Weekly Contest #102
This is what happened This is not a true story, but some parts really happened. When I was nine, I bothered my brother Freddie and his two teenager buddies while they listened to a Bill Haley and the Comets record in the basement. I jumped up and down like a monkey in front of them until Freddie punched me in the stomach to get me to leave them alone. He was seven years older, a guard on the varsity football team, all hyped up on Pepsi and potato chips, and he didn’t hold back. He hit me so hard I fell backwards and whacked my back on the ...
Weekly Contest #100
Max Kraner had already changed his table at Chilli’s once. Who wants to sit by the kitchen with all the servers going in and out? Plates and glasses clanking. No, he wanted their table to be perfect: some dim lighting and a female server because he knew he couldn’t compete with those thin-waisted, blond guys who always seemed to work in restaurants like this. Next to him, a family ate meatloaf and chicken strips. The two children kept talking about Disney World and fireworks. Starla would arrive soon. What if she looked poorly on his table ...
Weekly Contest #97
Chapter 1 What if . . . I pause for five seconds to let the anticipation build – a trick Dad taught me last year when he learned I registered for this Civil Discourse class in the Civics Division. My classmates, my fellow Proficients, I suspect, are peering at their pads wherever they are inside B TECH Academy this Thursday. They’re watching my calm face on their screens and waiting to hear the dramatic conclusion to my speech titled “Protests Then, Protest Now, Protest Because.” On the table screen in front of me, their avatars are solem...
Waiting The window was open just enough to let in the cool night air. The crisp rush of air held Kevin there by the glass, cooling his warm skin and enabling him to study his shadowy reflection. He wondered if all husbands looked like this, whether all men shared that perplexed expression that labeled them as married. Kevin exhaled. His breath misted in front of his face on the window, and for a brief moment he couldn’t see outside, which panicked him. In quick desperation he used his palm to rub the fog off the glass, and a wave of relief ...
This Sunday morning, my Honey Nut Cheerios tastes awesome. Our living room chair is super comfortable. I’m doing what Dad did last week. I’m alone. I’m staring out the front window at the snow, the empty street, a frozen cornfield. My body is totally relaxed. My mind, however, is a wreck. Mostly because I got pinned again last night by Jeremy Yankton, almost like it was my first wrestling match. Like I hadn’t learned anything since I started almost two months ago. Coach Mac didn’t say anything, but his face twitched so much I could tell he...
Brad Gointer: CIA Intern I read the credit card-sized advertisement on the back page of the TV Guide: “Are you looking for an exciting and challenging internship? Consider interning with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).” The ad showed a well-dressed, dark-haired girl smiling at the camera. She looked like Mark Wahlberg’s girlfriend in the Ted movie, and we all know Wahlberg can have any woman he wants, so I took the dare and applied. Maybe the CIA would send me to another country, and I could finally get out of my mom’s house. Of c...
Weekly Contest #93
Waiting for the Deeze The Deeze was late. In fact, Sonny knew the Deeze was missing. Not call-the-police missing, but missing nonetheless, maybe wandering lost on the streets of Columbus or passed out in an Ohio State dormitory or punched out in the yard of a frat house for taking a beer from their cooler. Sonny was officially worried – so much so that he stood on the porch and, like watching a tennis match, he kept turning his head left and right in hopes he’d eventually see the Deeze ambling safely down the street toward the house. The ...
Weekly Contest #91
Excerpt from the novel Missing On a Friday in the first week of April I sit on a hard, plastic chair in the school library in front of a computer. I tell myself I’m going to type my article for the Chronicle, the school newspaper. I have to meet Mr. Angelo’s deadline – a piece describing the venues where we should have our senior prom. But my fingers aren’t on the keyboard, and I’m not staring at a blank page. Instead, I’m staring at links to stories about people who have gone missing, trying to decide which one to read first. The school ...
Weekly Contest #85
Athens, the oldest capital of the modern world, was a city of rectangular, gray-white buildings, all of them slammed against each like the lockers we had at Tremont High, except these buildings seemed to be constructed haphazardly, as if it was an anything-goes type of architecture. People crowded the streets, going in and out of the shops and avoiding the Volkswagens, Toyotas, and Volvos that honked and battled each other at every intersection. But what really struck me was the lack of wind in the city, like the air was resting because Zeus...
Weekly Contest #79
This could be true “Every true story ends in death.” [Ernest Hemingway] My dad was different. As a kid, I’d been in my friends’ homes. I’d talked to their moms and dads. Their dads wore polo shirts and shorts and baseball caps. They vacationed in places that had boats. They always came back with t-shirts with palm trees drawn on them. I’d mentally place myself into their family pictures on their bookshelves – I’m smiling along with them, one arm frozen in mid-wave. Instead, I lived with Freddie, Mom, and Dad in a house alone on a cul-de-s...
Weekly Contest #61
This could be true [a short story by Keith Manos] I figured Angela would be at our high school reunion because she was one of the popular girls twenty years ago at Gahanna High School. Of course, she would show up. Me? I wasn’t popular. I wasn’t anything. Twenty years ago, they called me “four eyes” because I wore glasses. Jim Brown didn’t wear glasses. Neither did Mick Jagger. Nor Captain James T. Kirk. Plus, most girls didn’t think boys who wore glasses were good looking. I wore my glasses at home but not in school. I didn’t care that...
Weekly Contest #54
This could be true [a short story by Keith Manos] This is not a true story, but some parts really happened. Let’s say that I lived on a fifty-acre farm in Kansas, miles and miles away from any neighbors. My best friend was our dog Chestnut, a Labrador who licked my cheek when I petted him and barked whenever he heard a truck engine. But Chestnut went missing when I was eleven. My older brother Freddie heard me sniffling that night in our bedroom as we went to sleep and explained that aliens had abducted Chestnut, that I shouldn’t worry. ...
Weekly Contest #53
Keith Manos E-mail: coachkm@sbcglobal.net Website: www.keithmanos.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/keith.manos Waiting for Sheila Kevin stood by the open window, hoping for cool air to splash his warm skin on this scorching day, but all he got was his shadowy reflection in the glass. He wondered if all husbands shared that perplexed expression that labeled them as married. Kevin exhaled through the screen, and he noticed three vultures circling in the distance. What’s dying? he thought. Why haven’t they swooped in yet? Wait, where’s Sh...
Weekly Contest #49
Keith Manos E-mail: coachkm@sbcglobal.net Website: www.keithmanos.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/keith.manos Waiting The crisp rush of air held Kevin by the open window, cooling his warm skin and enabling him to study his shadowy reflection. He wondered if all husbands shared that perplexed expression that labeled them as married. Kevin exhaled. His breath misted in front of his face on the window, and for a brief moment he couldn’t see outside. In quick desperation he used his palm to rub the fog off the glass, and a wave of relief ...
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