Stories - FD Thornton

  Well, I assume I made my last run over to my daughter’s house to tend to the dogs and cats. They are leaving their holiday resort in the morning and heading home. I took out the trash, sprayed the furniture and the curtains with Febreze, and put the dogs and cats in the yard, fed and watered. Outside my apartment window, the neighborhood cat is toying with what looks like a big field mouse. I wish the cat would get the job done before the damn thing gets into an apartment. Other than that, the world's still a-turning as I work on my second cup of decaf. Of late, I have been having long conversations with a young (at least to me) person who is a recovering addict. At the moment, she has been struggling not so much with her addiction, but with life’s circumstances. Living alone in a motel room, abandoned by family, she has no money, nothing of value to pawn, and nowhere to go. I really feel for her and can sympathize with her situation, being that me and my family have been in ...

  With the taste of my two gummy vitamins fresh in my mouth, I notice how the temperature this morning is creeping up. So with a cup of decaf and a bottle of water I prepare my body for another hot and sunny spring day. My young buddy on the sidewalk waiting for his ride and the one lone cat hanging around his feet are my only entertainment as the morning sun casts its shadow on the 100 Building next door. I go through my normal itching and nose blowing in-between typing out nonsense until my point is made. But what is the point? Writing without any set goal or reason other than to hear myself think makes for a pretty dull morning sometimes. So as it is for today, as the young man catches his ride and it’s only me and the black and white cat lying on the lawn. With no purpose, no focus, and in a way no home. Another sip of decaf through the straw tells me there’s a story to tell in that. Of how we focus on things, and obsess about things we cannot control. Like other people’s att...

FD Thornton   With trembling hands and a flare for the dramatic, I take my meds. Looking out the window at the clouds that had descended to the treetops. I wait for the morning sun to erase the dew and give me my promised sunny sky. Sounds pretty dramatic, don’t it? Kinda lovely in the way the words form a picture you can almost see in your mind. As an observer of life I guess that’s what I’m suppose to do. Dream up words that paint descriptions in the imagination that only words can do. But today in a world of expanding visual media, we’ve all gotten a little lazy, with our words and our descriptions of the things we see. Settling instead for half-truths we take as Gospel. Never seeing how the other half lives. It’s sad in a way to see lazy writing, where arguments become insults and ignorance is praised instead of frowned upon. There’s much to be said for simple country living, but when you exchange simplicity for ignorance and spite. Well that’s another matter altogether. I ...