lunch with the Phillips family

lunch with the Phillips family

fiction
edward w pritchard

I had an appointment for lunch with the Phillips family. It was an enjoyable hour but, it ended abruptly.

Mr. Phillips was a host from the old school and I was treated very well as we dined. The daughter, a pretty dark eyed girl of about fourteen carried the food to us and was bewitchingly shy as she scurried back and forth from the Kitchen. We sat in the yard under a grape arbor and the son who was in training to learn the Father's duties at the business sat at the table with us men. From time to Time Mr. Phillips would coach the boy a little and once after we went back to the high stone walls I heard Mr. Phillips get a little stern with his son when he didn't think I could hear.

Of course I had to pay for my lunch and the service after and that was handled discretely by the wife. She brought my dessert in a timely manner and a small card contained a bill for the services provided by the Phillips family.

The Father and I spent a few minutes there at the table after lunch talking politics and philosophy and Mr. Phillips offered me a cigar that I declined. I might have made a little trouble by giving it to the son who was about eighteen..

Back at the Stone wall at the rear of the property I played my part perfectly as I walked ahead of the Father and son and pretended to examine some of the fittings between the stones; having once been in the construction business in my youth.

The son must have fired the rifle for the bullet was a little high as it struck me up on my shoulder blades rather than entering the heart from the back as planned. I didn't hear that shot as I fell but I distinctly heard the second shot probably fired by the Father to finish the job. After I died I heard the Father scolding the boy about missing his shot as they walked back up toward the grape arbor to help the wife prepare for their next appointment. It was interesting to hear the Father lecturing the boy on professionalism and the need for having pride in one's work.
end

Willie tucker's blues

willie tucker's blues

fiction
edward w pritchard

see 10 year sentence part one through finale

Class you will have a substitute tomorrow as I will be taking my daughter to the ear Doctor. I expect you all to be on your best behavior and portray a positive image of Seiberling Junior High. Read and enjoy Willie Tucker's blues on the worksheet and then write a short poem [at least 5 lines] yourself. Notice and feel how Mr. Tucker reacted to the isolation on the moons of Jupiter and how it effected his art.
Miss Donaldson

Ten year sentence
Willie Tucker

I didn't cheat so I was cheated
I didn't meet so I wasn't met
exposed to invisible forces
I lost my reason, driven irrational
I didn't think, trying to feel
I didn't understand, chased by dreams
I hid from my myself, then I died
alone, crushed by volcano's
nature's vindicator, volcano's and
nature ended abruptly my
Two and a half years of a ten year sentence
on Jupiter's inconsequential moons.
Remnants of me pulverized into dust
properly mixed with Europa's primordial debris
shot into orbit around Jupiter
conscious, but no longer moribund
I circle the planet and long to decay my orbit
and drift toward earth
and fertilize the rain forests and lotus ponds
and briefly re-bloom as a red and yellow water lily.