MARTIAN CHRONICLES (1950)

THE LILY PAD, THE JAPANESE BRIDGE

THE CART: THE ROAD UNDER SNOW IN HONFLEUR

BIG JOE HAMMER DR0VE THIS CAR

                 ARCHIMEDES IN HIS WOODEN TUB, WORKING ON HIS FAMOUS PRINCIPLE

    Painting by Auguste Renoir, 1876

STEMS OF WHITE PEONIES AND PRUNING SHEARS

                                   BERTHE MORISOT

          VAMPIRE AND SKULL (Public Domain)

YOUNG BOY LEANING OVER BAKERY COUNTER

'

YOUNG GIRL BATHING:

Painting by Auguste Renoir (1890)

FLASHING MY SHORTS by Salvatore Buttaci

        "Cigarettes"  by Anna Cervova (Public Domain Photo)

                     THE IRONING LADIES (LES REPASSEUSES) 

How did the man become trapped inside a jar? Don't let the megaphone fool you. He can scream all he wants, but he will remain trapped, splashing in the briny depths. Something horrid this way comes...

You can't see it, but there's a silencer at the end of her pistol. 

THE BALCONY (LE BALCON) BY EDOUARD MANET (1869)

I’ve led you on and I am sorry. You came in good faith to discover precisely how to end another’s life and walk away untouched by the law.  In other words, you hoped this article would explain, step by step, how to exact justice without fear of reprisal.  Come on now!  In this technological age of advanced forensic science and DNA testing?  You’d be caught in a heartbeat.  

Would you consider another option? One that does not lead to the death sentence or life in prison?  How about writing a flash story about someone who gets away with murder?  In 1,000 words or less you can lay it all out: the weapon, the motive, the murderer, the victim.  

This ain’t gonna sit right with most of you out there, but I’m swearin’ it’s the truth. Every word of it. And I’m puttin’ the lingo down here ‘xactly like it happened. 

First off, I’m about as simple as God breathed life inta. Growed up in a little Texan town in Bandera County. Hill Country. Little town called Pipe Creek, population less ’n two hundred back in the 50’s an’ most of ’em my blood kin. I worked daddy’s farm, growin’ mostly pecans that with little rain an’ too much sunshine ended up worth less ‘n a hill of beans, but we Floyds kept a-plantin’, kept our achin’ backs an’ skin-raw hands to the plow. We was decent folk, believers in our Maker where every Sunday we sat in our family pews at the Little Rock Church. Like I said, simple. Far as smarts go I never passed the fourth grade ‘cept on a bicycle,  

If anyone were to ask you to pinpoint the precise moment of your epiphany, that statement you made to a large enough audience to assure your reputation as a thinker, perhaps not brilliant, but at least a notch or two above average, what would you say?

I can tell you what was on my lunch plate yesterday, but probably would say mash potatoes instead of carrots; however, I can most accurately recount to you, word for word, my almost brilliant observation in my college class of World History II forty-six years ago.