Alexey Williams

“The Flesh of the Rose” by Alexey Williams

Submitted to Contest #192

The boys throw rocks at us, and one of the rocks hits me on the side of the head. They boys are leaning out of windows and hiding behind bus shelter advertisements. Adam says we should move to a new town, but we don't go to Rehoboth like he wants but to a place neither of us has been before. We book a room in a motel where you can pay by the week and the motel manager talks to you from behind bullet-proof glass, but people in town smile at us as we walk past. Adam says they’re only doing that because they don’t know who we are. Adam only has...

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“The English Lop” by Alexey Williams

Submitted to Contest #188

And among the ruins were the cages of the English lops. The house had burned, yet the lop cages had been spared as they sat in a shed some fifteen feet from the house. The lops made not a sound as I approached. They all appeared unharmed in their cages. I'd settled on setting them free as it was a terrible thing to be unfree, and they had earned their liberty as far as I was concerned. Their metal cage doors were opened, and I simply coaxed them out with a hand. The lops were so docile that in spite of all that had passed some of them didn't...

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“A Deer In A Man's Skin” by Alexey Williams

And after Jane was done making breakfast, she walked into the yard to take the clothes down from the line. She was angry. She'd forgotten to take the clothes down yesterday afternoon, and it had rained, so now she had a mess of wet clothes to figure out how to dry. We didn't have a clothes dryer. She threw the clothes in the sink and sat beside me at the kitchen table, but she didn't say anything for a time. Then Jane said: "I'm moving out." I explained to her that she couldn't move out because we were engaged and splitting the rent on the h...

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“No One Dare To Cherish” by Alexey Williams

Submitted to Contest #182

Shooting a horse is something a man should never do. But sometimes you're shooting at a person and the horse is in the way. The alarm in the house goes off after I've already broken in, and when I see the man outside running towards me, I shoot in his direction. I miss him and hit his horse instead. When I leave the county jail, the officer tells me I should consider making it up to the man whose horse I've maimed. I don't know how he expects me to make it up to him. I'm charged with breaking and entering, possession of an unregistered firea...

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“The Lord Hath Taken Away” by Alexey Williams

Submitted to Contest #180

The sound of the horse hooves clopping on the dead earth helped me forget the ranch. I followed the horses to the scrapyard where the animals weaved through the burnt-out husks of Nissan Maximas and Scania trucks. The horses trod more lightly in this constrained space. They neighed when they struck their shanks against the metal. They neighed when they were confused which way to turn to be free of the cars. I thought I'd follow the horses wherever they led as I had no place to be. They were wild horses.But before I knew it the horses had gal...

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“Schmallenberg” by Alexey Williams

Submitted to Contest #177

Then there was the sound of the rain slapping against the window. Mrs. Fischer was sitting on the edge of the bed in her bathrobe. I could see that she was speaking, but I couldn’t hear her so I told her that I was mostly deaf. My hearing was particularly bad in the morning. I read her lips. She said: “Don’t you have a hearing aid?” I did have a hearing aid, but it didn’t work well in the morning. There was a doleful silence, and I walked out of the room. It was her house. Her children were sitting in the kitchen when I walked in. They wer...

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