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I peeled a mess of potatoes the other night. I skinned five or six of them, and I realized that I’ve peeled so many in my lifetime that my hands can do it without much conscious direction from my brain. Peeling potatoes is good for thinking. I thought back and wondered how and when I learned to peel a potato, concluding that my father must have taught me. I can’t remember if he gave me direct lessons, or if I learned – as a learned so many things from him – just by watching. He must have chastised me at some point, for cutting too deeply into the potato and wasting some of it, because to this day I strive to cut as close to the skin as possible, and I always get pissed at myself if I cut t0o deep. So there I sat, peeling taters and thinking about my father, remembering back to all the times I watched him peel, shuck corn, or string beans. It’s all good work for thinking. I wonder if I think about the same things he thought about. Sometimes, the answer is certainly no, because I think about my work, all binary ones and zeroes, and Dad never had any understanding of such things. But other times I think about my girlfriend, my family, my future, or my past. I think about dreams I may never achieve and mistakes for which I may never atone. I make plans to ensure the people I love are safe and happy. In these times, I think my thoughts and my father’s are very close. I also wonder what he thought about when he looked up from his labors and saw a little blue-eyed boy watching him. What were his hopes and plans for me? Did he have any idea of who I would become, the victories I’d achieve, the atrocities I’d commit, the love I’d feel, the hearts I’d break, the creations I’d make, the destruction I’d cause? Did he know he was teaching me to be a man just by being himself and allowing me to watch? Did he know that, by teaching me to peel a potato, a piece of him would live in me for years after he was gone? I looked up from my pile of potato pills, but there was no little boy or girl watching me. Just a cat, and she couldn’t give less of a shit about potatoes. In case you hadn’t noticed, the website has had a makeover I’m not entirely thrilled with the rotating header images, but they’ll do for now. How do you like the changes? Thumbs up or thumbs down? This is a story about the decay of society, the spreading epidemic of white trash mentality, and the violent legacy bound in blood, passed from father to son. This story is noteworthy because, in general, Shannon cannot write short stories. Every time he tries, it ends up around 30,000 words. He wrote this with one goal in mind: to make it as short as possible. As of this writing, it is the shortest story he has written. This ghost story originated as a writing prompt in a creative writing class where students came up with settings and then swapped them. Shannon received “1940-45, Louisiana, an old cabin with broken down furniture.” It’s not a very scary story. It’s included here because he did a decent job with establishing the setting and mood. This is the beginning of a novelette Shannon wrote in the late nineties. This section was published in Confluence a few years ago. It is unclear if he will do anything more with the project. It’s too short to stand on it’s own and too long to be a short story, but Shannon has no desire to change the story in any fashion. An excerpt from a novelette Shannon wrote in the late nineties. This section was published in Confluence a few years ago. It is unclear if he will do anything more with the project. It’s too short to stand on it’s own and too long to be a short story, but Shannon has no desire to change the story in any fashion. Two short pieces that deal with life in the dark. The following is an excerpt from a science fiction novelette that Shannon wrote in 2005. He intends to return to it once he’s finished the Heretics Quest storyline. When this story was written, only Rangers wore black berets. That’s changed now. The Rangers wear tan berets now because the regular army decided all of them should wear black ones. This story has seeds of truth, but is more fiction than not, hence the “fiction” classification. Shannon will not clarify which portions are true, so don’t ask. This might be a story about Shannon’s vacation to the Greek island of Lesbos, but it probably isn’t. What happens when you combine a boring cave tour with Shannon and a big cup of Mt. Dew? Here are a few ways to entertain yourself the next time you find yourself at Walmart and losing the fight for your sanity. Shannon has personally tested all of these methods at some point in his life, so he can vouch for their therapeutic and medicinal effects. “The End of Innocence” has also been called “The End of Childhood.” Regardless of what you call it, most people find it humorous. This story won first place in the humor category of the 2006 WV Writers’ Competition and will be printed in an upcoming anthology, a “Best of” collection of the contest’s finest winners over the last ten years. |
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