by Eric Le Roy
‘The Past is another country. They do things differently there.”
H.P. Hartley. The Go Between
Content 18+ A once famous but now mostly forgotten American poet named Marianne Moore once defined poetry as “Putting real toads in imaginary gardens.” I have never heard it said better, and I think that she meant identifying and extracting something palpable from the mist of the human spirit, transferring … Read the rest
Prayer
By Eric Le Roy
Content 18+ For years, the sight of watching other people in the act of praying has made me uncomfortable. I really don’t understand why, unless somehow or other it brings to the boil some latent sense of my own guilt. Like, maybe I should be doing it too but am too proud. Or maybe it’s just that the only congregations I like are big crowds at … Read the rest
My Time Travel Fantasy
by Eric Le Roy
Content 13+ As all my friends are aware, I am planning to make a 3000 years-into-the-future journey to Mars next week in my state-of-the-art time machine. Most of them are concerned about my welfare, but I am cautiously optimistic. Moreover, I have been obsessed with embarking on such an epic odyssey for a long time, and it cannot be put off any longer.
Nevertheless, there are … Read the rest
The Question of Mass Shootings
by Eric Le Roy (in collaboration with Anthony, Chinese student)
Content 18+ Recently a disillusioned teenager strolled into an elementary school and mowed down dozens of young children, making the incident the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012. Apart from giving adolescents yet another reason not to go outside the home to get their education, the shootings cast the public eye back towards the fact that many gun-toting … Read the rest
The Circus Is In Town
By Eric Le Roy
Content 18+ As time goes by, I get more nervous. And fatalistic. I confess to suspecting that some of it is just my age. 73 as of 8 May 2022. I measure my future in terms of every new sunrise experienced, and this is good because it encourages a sharp focus on matters at hand.
But it also breeds fear, and for now I am not … Read the rest
A Cup of Old Sherry
Content 18+
Having quit the village and moved back into Varna City, I can no longer take my dogs down into the nature-blessed but garbage-strewn fields. Nor can I invite them into the garden because now there is no garden. So when aging Casper has diarrhea sometimes in the middle of the night, I just have to get dressed and go out with him. We live in a big apartment, … Read the rest
The Road That Was Taken
Content 16+
Once when I was stuck in Palatka, Florida, a truly smelly north Florida backwater featuring an all-pervading, nostril-putrefying paper mill, I took an English class from one George Kennedy, who hailed from Chicago. He was Head of the Department at St. Johns Junior College back in the very early 1970’s.
George, unlike the other professors – even those from up north who seemed to fit in well with … Read the rest
