mostly nonfiction and bakersfield news | July 21st, 2009
Surreal
By H.R. McGonigal
The murky noon sky pours up towards an invisible drain, upside down. All the senses are mixed together. There is a buzzing, stinging sound to the gray as it radiates and hovers. The bright overcast creates afterimage dark auras around the trees and multiple parallel lines like window blinds made of faint light. [...]
Small Town Airport
By H.R. McGonigal
At the Monterey Airport, a busy, short woman with a loud voice and two blond children gets out of a white, GMC Yukon. She pays the valet to park her car. Before they pull up, there is only silence. There is only me smoking and the half-dead baggage attendant who slumps next to [...]
Land Of The Rugged
By H.R. McGonigal
In Portland, land of the rugged as the plane is lowering through the clouds, descending, landing, a migraine comes on. I can’t get to my meds as they are in the overhead compartment. I have to wait until we land and all the eager, hurried passengers file out. In the airport, children [...]
In Transit
By H.R. McGonigal
Sit on the sidewalk long enough and you get a feel of the place, a rhythm of the neighborhood, the pulse, the timing, who comes and goes, what happens. For instance, there’s a guy wearing long shorts that come past his knees, who paces back and forth outside the smoke shop. Only you [...]
