The chicken soup had been simmering for an hour. According to the instructions on the dog-eared index card he pulled from the recipe box it should have been done. When he lifted the lid and the steam swirled away, he inspected the pieces of soft vegetables, the gently bubbling broth colored with the starch thatContinue reading “Edward and the Old Women”
Author Archives: xyonkerschef
Fiction Notes from the Bloomington Archipelago; Part 4
The Parking Lot Attendant The director of the zoo sat at his executive style desk and worked on the zoo’s fund raiser dinner. As in years past, the seating arrangements for the tables had to be planned out – especially after the fiasco to name the new building that housed the coral reef exhibit. TheContinue reading “Fiction Notes from the Bloomington Archipelago; Part 4”
Fictional Notes from the Bloomington Archipelago; Part 3
The Parking Lot Attendant – Part 3 It was not long when the soft days of spring arrived, full of bird song and rainy wind, and passed like a dream as he sat in the booth, took cash and read paperbacks. In May he bought a brand-new car and stopped taking the long bus rideContinue reading “Fictional Notes from the Bloomington Archipelago; Part 3”
Fictional Notes from the Bloomington Archipelago; Part 2
The Parking Lot Attendant A week before Christmas he read that a winter storm was headed his way. Eight to ten inches of snow would fall before the clash of cold air from the north, and warm moist air from the south, would move out to wreak havoc in the east. The day before theContinue reading “Fictional Notes from the Bloomington Archipelago; Part 2”
Fictional Notes from the Bloomington Archipelago; Part 1
The Parking Lot Attendant On his eighteenth birthday he began working as the parking attendant for the city zoo. The lot was a city block of white gravel that bordered the ornate iron gate of the zoo’s front entrance. A white wooden booth stood at the front entrance of the lot. Inside the tiny structureContinue reading “Fictional Notes from the Bloomington Archipelago; Part 1”
Ancient Wisdom from the Archipelago
As you step through tomorrow’s front door.
Chef Greg’s Zuppa di Pesce
The seven island cities of the archipelago, and the vast stretches of barren fields between them, are dusted in fresh white snow. Outside my window I see a little rabbit in the fallowed garden patch. It has settled into a heap of leaves as it tries to keep warm. But I have not seen aContinue reading “Chef Greg’s Zuppa di Pesce”
Notes from the Peoria Archipelago
A few months ago, my wife and I went to Cape Girardeau, Missouri to visit our sons who are attending Southeast Missouri State University. Cape, as the locals call it, is a bustling river town of forty thousand or so. Like Peoria, the heart of the Archipelago, it was a trading post established by theContinue reading “Notes from the Peoria Archipelago”
Images from the Peoria Archipelago
Three Views of a Dream All the branches of art; painting, sculpture, music and writing, have a scientific side. They can be deconstructed into their constituent parts and with a fair degree of accuracy, distilled down into theories or formulas that describes the functioning of these parts in creating a coherent whole. Even in itsContinue reading “Images from the Peoria Archipelago”
Note from the Peoria Archipelago
Earlier in the week I was up before dawn preparing for an early day at work. As I sat at the dining room table, writing in my journal and sipping on a cup of coffee, the old houses up and down my street where still filled with the quituted of night. Nothing stirred under theContinue reading “Note from the Peoria Archipelago”
Prairie Beacon 