Times Are Changing

 Business in Dodge had slowed. The gun toting outlaws disappeared from town. Killing stopped. Drunken brawls no longer caused damage to person, or property. The doctor sat on an old rocking chair on his front veranda his booted feet propped on the railing. Beside him on the floor he'd placed his black doctor's bag. Everywhere was quiet. No horses hitched outside the booze houses. Dogs hid beneath the verandas in the shade. Edgy. Sheriff Coleman walked along the street his spurs jiggled with every step. His gun hand rested on his hip above his holster ready to fire in the event of trouble. “Who are you...” Bomber Claymore spoke, from where he stood in the shadow of his funeral business. Sheriff Coleman grabbed his gun from his holster with the speed of light his finger on the trigger ready to fire. He spun on his heels. The gun pointed at the chest of Bomber Claymore before he quickly stepped to the side out of range of the barrel. “What the h...

Grandmother's attic was a mystery to me. I wanted to venture up those steep steps to reach the sky. But the stories I heard made my mind boggle. The place dark because there wasn't any light. Spiders lived in the attic. Their webs strung everywhere. The silken threads stuck to you like glue. Large monsters with long hairy legs. Red eyes. The monsters guarded the olden treasures hidden inside. On the night of the full moon was the worst time of all to enter the attic. The moonbeams lit up the room. Hungry spiders came out to play. Those stories kept me at bay. I'd sneak up the squeaky steps in the hope the sound didn't waken the huge spiders. I'd sit on the top step to look beneath the closed door. No spiders did I ever see. The smell coming from the room was awful. You can believe me. How anything lived in there puzzled me. With a handkerchief covering my nose, I slid on my bottom down the steps to escape outside to the ...

 “I feel your pain,” said a voice behind me. I looked around to see who had spoken. I had been standing there with my hands on my hips staring at the price of the different cuts of meat on display. “No, you don't,” I snapped, before I found the person who had spoken. An elderly ma slumped in a wheelchair stared at hunger at the meat. “I wasn't born in a wheelchair, Lassie. I had a life before disaster struck.” “Know the feeling. I feel like I've been kicked in the guts,” I turned toward the meat. “We spend hours out under the boiling sun to keep our stock healthy, and fed. And what do they give us. The dregs from the bottom of the teapot.” “You at least have a teapot. We had to boil the billy over an open fire under the sun, and stars. Swat flies from our food to put it into our mouth before they had time to blow it.” I sat on a stack of boxes of long life milk next to the wheelchair. “I'm Karen,” I said, holding my hand toward the man. “Clarey...