Archive for the ‘Non-fiction’ Category

27
Jul

Loft in the Clouds

   Posted by: Ben

It was around ten o clock in the morning when Ms. Foghino – my third, fourth, and fifth grade everything teacher – shouted in her powerful voice with the elegant rasp, “FOURTH GRADE MATH!” I looked sheepishly around my small desk for a hiding place. A trap door under the carpet or a wormhole to another dimension would have done just fine. Unfortunately there was no trap door, and I had left the key to the wormhole in my other pants. I sadly accepted my fate that I would have to bear the hardships and tribulations of fourth grade math – a class that I was neither interested in nor prepared for.

It was a classroom, yes, though a far cry from the ones I occupied in Catholic school during the years prior. Inspired by the one room schoolhouses of antiquity, this one was built in the local style – a double wide trailer complete with a window mounted air conditioner that never worked. It seemed cavernously large to me at the time, but then again, everything seems huge when you’re ten. Read the rest of this entry »

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2
Jun

Summer Camp Pirates

   Posted by: Ben

QUICK!

Pick up the fishing rods, and stifle the laugh.

Hold it in.

Hold it…

Oh my God, I can’t stop giggling.

I’ll…I’ll just pretend like I’m coughing and try to muffle it in my jacket.

(What kind of fisherman wears an army jacket anyways?)

My stomach is doing somersaults as it wrestles with the laugh.

SHHHHH! There’s no way they believe that’s a cough.

I can’t even exhale without snickering. I have to hold my breath.

Crap, I think I’m going to pass out.

My head feels like a hot air balloon.

Either the laugh escapes in its full glory soon or my head explodes.

Okay, they’ve gone back inside to sleep.

Deep breaths. Let the laugh out a little at a time.

Set the poles down and load up another water balloon in the slingshot.

Careful not to rock the boat.

Take aim.

Steady.

Steady…

WHACK!

Poles back up!

We’re just a couple of innocent fisherman appreciating the summer night.

Just a couple guys enjoying that cool, humid breeze that smells a bit like turtles.

Nope, no pirates here.

No debauchery afloat.

Don’t laugh. Don’t you dare laugh. Fishing isn’t funny remember?

Watch them scatter from their cabin like ants from a hill.

That one there looks as confused as my dog does when I throw his ball behind the couch.

Do they think their hut got hit by a meteor shower?

“Probably just a raccoon.”

Lights are off again.

Load up another…

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