Jim Stitzel
Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of WordsExcerpts from Life
Getting the Snip
Ten days ago, I had a vasectomy. I took a day off from work to get it done because I knew I was going to need a few days of rest before going back to work. And it was the absolute easiest procedure. The whole thing took less than 30 minutes, and I was out of there....
My Ducks
My ducks are not in a row.They are scattered,And one is drunk off its ass.The disarray is not of my choosing.It imposed itself on my rowless ducks.But I have made no effortTo make sense of the chaos.The lie where they have fallen,And I am content to leave them...
The Return of Back Pain
It’s been a number of years now since I’ve dealt with any kind of significant back pain. Which is almost ironic considering that 1) I still have degenerative disc disease, and 2) I’m still carrying around more weight than I ought to be. But I’m not stupid about how I...
Fiction
Twenty-four Blackbirds and the Great Blue Heron
Twenty-four blackbirds perched on a fence, observing a great blue heron in the drainage ditch before them. The ditch itself had about six inches of water in it, remnants of the previous night’s storm. The heron wasn’t doing anything in particular besides just standing...
Elder
Isme Blackwell played her flashlight off the walls of the warehouse. It was empty except for the racks, which stood like steel skeletons shadowed in the darkness. The place was perfectly silent, making her sneakered footfalls uncomfortably loud to her ears. The air...
Come This Far
The engines were down. Again. The Maritime Law had been adrift in space for several hours now, the latest in a series of malfunctions to the ship. Aston was at his wit’s end trying to solve the problem. “Malcolm, what’s our current position?” he called out. The...